Serenity Now

Thursday, September 22, 2011

How to Save Money on Groceries

Welcome to Day 4 of Family Friendly Food Week! Today's guest post is all about how to save money on groceries. But first a reminder to stop by the week-long party and link up! We're sharing all kinds of recipes, tips on meal planning, couponing strategies, snack ideas, and more. If you link up a post and link back to me within your post(s) you'll earn an automatic entry in this week's Giveaway from Planner Perfect! Be sure to check it out--you can enter to win an eBook on Organization.

Today, I'd like to welcome Ann Marie from white house, black shutters. I can't wait to read her tips and tricks for saving money on food, and eating healthier at the same time!
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Hi, Serenity Now readers! I’m so excited (and flattered, really) that Amanda has asked me to guest post during Family Friendly Food Week! My name is Ann Marie and I blog over at white house, black shutters.

I’m a mom of two, and will have three children under age three in January! My blog covers a whole mess of topics: home décor, green living, cooking, DIY, repurposing, garage sailing, vintage decorating, enjoying a simple life, but it all really centers around one thing:

Like most of you, things are tight and we’re looking to cut costs anywhere we can. Some months are harder than others. Some months I can go thrifting and buy fabric, other months that money has to go towards food and diapers and I have to use only what I have on hand.

If you don’t have money, you can’t spend it. Plain and simple. You cut out the fun shopping trips, cable, new shoes, Starbucks, new fabric, that Craigslist steal, and all that, buuuuut…

When Amanda posed a question on her facebook page,

I commented that we try to stay under $200 a month and shop mostly at Trader Joe’s and Aldi. When I started to think about it, it’s probably closer to $200-300. I don’t have a set budget. Some months I spend more than others, but there are a handful of tips that I use to keep the grocery bill low:

If I had to condense this post into one tip, that would be it!

These include fruits, veggies, beans, oats, potatoes, bread, rice, noodles, yogurt, milk, eggs, cheese, meat, fish, butter, oil, spices, condiments.

Even if you are shopping organic for some of these items, you'll find that sticking to the basics will save you money overall. Try to shop mostly in the perimeter of the grocery store; it's where the majority of these pantry and fridge staples are found.

Isn’t meat expensive?! Oh my gosh! Sometimes I want to cry walking through the meat section.

We buy meat only when it’s on sale. I usually try to spend under $4 for a meal’s worth of meat; which for our family, is about one pound. If the price is more than that, I don’t buy it or I’ll stretch it for more than one meal. A whole chicken will give us enough for two meals, a roast will give us leftovers for lunch, and adding a can of black beans to a pound of ground beef stretches it in a delicious way!

If you have a deep freezer look into buying a portion of a cow, pig, or chickens. Since you are buying in bulk, the price per pound is cheaper than the store. Fall is usually the time to do this, you can check out localharvest.org to find a source near you.

What?! When I heard this, it almost seemed silly. Why!? Boneless/skinless is so EASY! And I hate eating chicken off the bone (unless it’s fried).

Well, not only is the regular bone-in chicken way cheaper, it tastes better too. The bone and everything else will give you a better flavor than any pre-packaged piece of chicken ever could.

I still do use boneless, skinless breasts, but I don’t use them all the time. If I do use them, I buy them frozen, without breading, and in bulk to save money.

I love meat probably more than your husband does, but sometimes a meal will taste just as good without meat. Plan a night or two a week where you have a meal without meat or fish to save money.

Italian meals, casseroles, soups, appetizers as dinner, one-pot meals, and big salads are good for this. Use plenty of spices and add eggs, beans, cheese, and/or hearty veggies and you won’t notice the difference!

This is where it gets tricky! If you really want to save money on meals, start cooking almost everything from scratch. It sounds like a daunting task, but only takes a few extra hours a week longer. I started doing this when I realized that the MSG (monosodium glutamate) and HFCS (high fructose corn syrup) in most processed foods were triggering my nasty migraines. Once I cut out those ingredients, I felt better, and I found myself making most everything homemade because those ingredients are in practically everything.

Invest in good knives and maybe a food processor to save time. Cut all of your veggies at once and freeze them to save time the day of a meal, maybe even cook meals ahead of time or make double and freeze meals.

It shouldn’t be cheaper to make a box of rice-a-roni than it is for fresh fruits and veggies, but sadly, this is the case. I’d love to buy everything organic, sometimes I can afford it but most times I can’t. You’ll find that fruits and veggies are cheaper when in season, buy a lot of them on sale, cut them up yourself and freeze them for another day. When frozen foods like broccoli or corn are on sale, I stock up. If I’m not getting tomatoes out of my garden, I use canned.

Fall is a great time to buy fruits and vegetables in season! Go apple picking, go to a pumpkin patch, pick up a few extra squash everytime you go to the store and use them throughout the winter. Last year I used only squash and edible pumpkins in my fall decor and once it was time to switch to Christmas decorations, we ate them!

Find a place to pick your own fruits and veggies here!

Last year the bunnies attacked our garden, so this year we got serious and built a big garden.
And we’ve been saving money! It is hard work, but it’s a great family bonding experience. My 2 year old, Lily, gets just as excited to go to the garden as she does to go to the park.

And it’s not too late for you to start your garden! September is the perfect time for planting fall crops such as kale, broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, garlic, and more. These plants prefer the cold weather and actually taste better if you plant them during this time of year rather than in the spring.

Plant some seeds in an empty spot in your landscaping, clear out your summer annuals, skip a mum and plant something you can eat. Don’t have a spot? Find a pot, rubbermaid container, whatever, and PLANT SOMETHING!!!! You have a spot, I can promise you that.

My favorite sources for seeds (cheap and quick shipping!) include:
Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds and The D. Landreth Seed Company. I know it’s not “grocery shopping” but I think it’s related.

I said “try,” because it’s hard. It’s SO hard. Maybe it’s harder for me than it is for you. I swear Starbucks and all those other places have a whistle that only I can hear. Salted Caramel Mocha? What the crap?! That sounds amazing...But forking over $4.55 for a grande (not including tax) every day really adds up, that's over $30 a week!

When you’re thinking of grocery shopping as a numbers game, it’s a bit harder to justify how much you really are paying for that meal or treat. You could make that $15 plate of Chicken Alfredo from Olive Garden for $3, or that $4 coffee drink for pennies.

Not only will you be saving money, but you’ll be eating better. I still stop here or there (It’s hard not to), but now we go out to eat only a handful of times a year. If you’re going out, check to see if you can find a local place with a coupon, or a restaurant.com gift certificate and try a new place!

Whew! I'm hoping you're still reading. As you can probably tell, this is a topic that I really feel passionate about! Healthy eating is really important to me, and it's hard to budget when it comes to something that impacts your life SO much. Challenge yourself to think of thrifty grocery shopping as a game, cooking from scratch as a new adventure, and the task will be a lot easier to take on!

If you get a chance, come visit white house, black shutters, we’d love to see you! Thanks so much, Amanda, for inviting me over!
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Big thanks to Ann Marie for taking the time to put all of this together! I know I learned a lot today...it's time to start perusing the meat section at the grocery and look for sales.

Please do stop by the link party and share a few posts of your own. I'll be featuring some of the posts along with a few other resources tomorrow to open up this weekend's Weekend Bloggy Reading party.

I hope you'll come back tomorrow to link up YOUR best post of the week to Weekend Bloggy Reading. Recipes, crafts, home decor, book reviews, funny stories, you name it. Come prepared to showcase your blog and find some great weekend reads.

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Guilt Free Pineapple Upside Down Cupcakes

Welcome to Day 3 of Family Friendly Food Week! Today, a sweet, smart, and witty friend of mine has a fantastic, guilt-free dessert recipe to share.

Have you linked up a post to the Family Friendly Food link party yet? Any recipe, kitchen/pantry tip, meal plan or snack idea, couponing strategy, etc. is welcome. Don't miss the Meal Tips and Perfect Planner Giveaway from Tuesday...Jenny is offering a copy of her eBook to help one reader get organized!

Please help me welcome my friend Meri--she has a drool-worthy recipe and some good tips to share with us. Be sure to read her footnotes--funny and informative!
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Hi everyone! My name is Meri and I write a teeny tiny little blog called two (parents five (kids) 365 (days). I mostly talk about my kiddos over there, but I tend to wear a lot of hats in my daily life in addition to that of mom: wife, chef (in the loosest sense of the word!), chauffeur, knitter, crafter, DIY-er, teacher, MOPS Field Leader, and fledgling runner, so I sometimes write about that stuff too.

I am really excited to be guest posting here at Serenity Now! I have a tasty recipe to share with you, but first I want to share a little bit about my personal journey with weight loss and living a healthier lifestyle.

In May of this year, I decided that I had had enough with being overweight. I wasn't (and am still not) "just a little chubby", I was clinically obese (having a BMI of more than 30). All of my reasons were -are- totally superficial:

I want to rock skinny jeans instead of endure them.

I want knee high boots to fit around my calves.

I want to shop in the regular size section and not the plus section.

I want to knit myself a sweater and not have to buy enough yarn to cover a small pony.¹

Having had 5 babies in 9 years, I got ~~pretty~~ very lazy. I didn't watch what I ate, and with pregnancy hormones raging, decided that it was ok to eat half a dozen Krispy Kremes at one time. In between babies, I was always on the run, so I ate whatever came to me easily, and usually that meant from a clown or a king and occasionally from a cute girl with red braids and freckles.²

I wish I could say that there is some medical reason for my extra weight. Not that I think that people who have gained weight due to medical conditions or medication have it easy--but at least it would be a "good" reason, ya know? I also don't have an unusual relationship with food: I am not an emotional eater, I don't eat to hide past pain or anything of the sort.

I just like food.

And when I find something I like, I tend to eat a.lot. of it.

I have had some small successes in the past with programs like First Place and Weight Watchers, which are both essentially calorie counting. My problem was, I would get pregnant again or I would decide that losing 20 pounds was enough, and give up. Plus, I have a problem with things like diet food and fake sugar (which Weight Watchers relies on heavily to replace the sweet things that you eat everyday). I knew that if I were to try this weight loss thing again, it would have to be in a way that I could sustain for the long term.

And, it has worked. I have lost 50 pounds since I made the decision in May to shed the weight.

You wanna know my secret?

It's amazing.

Life changing, really.

Eat Less. Move More. Make Smarter Choices. Leave Guilt Behind.

I eat things that I love³, just smaller portions. I do try to eat as lean as possible. For example, we drink 1% milk rather than 2%, I try to choose 2% cheeses (don't get fat free⁴. Something ain't right with cheese that doesn't melt) and if I can substitute a lean choice with a full fat choice in a recipe, then I do. But if I want a cupcake, then I have a cupcake.

And I don't feel like I have to starve myself for a day or run a marathon to make up for it.

Because if I didn't allow myself to have that cupcake, I would dwell on that cupcake. It would invade my thoughts all day long. I would think about it at every meal. I would stalk cupcake recipes on the internet. I would start seeing cupcakes everywhere I went.

I would become a slave to the cupcake, and then, when really all I wanted was a little treat, I would instead eat a whole tray of cupcakes. The thing is, we shouldn't be slaves to food. It should taste good, it should be good for you, it can even be occasionally decadent.

But it shouldn't rule your life.

Which brings me to our recipe (see what I did there?)...

{with Pineapple Cream Cheese Frosting}

Inspired by Gina from Skinnytaste's Pina Colada Cupcakes, I tweaked her recipe and came up with these. They taste decadent, but in comparison to other Pineapple Upside Down Cupcakes⁵-with NO frosting, by the way- they are a nice, skinny treat at right under 170 calories each!

Cast of tasty characters for both cupcakes and frosting: Yellow cake mix, crushed pineapple, maraschino cherries, 1/3 less fat Philadelphia cream cheese, powdered sugar and vanilla.

Mix up the cake mix and one can of pineapple (undrained):

Drop a cherry into each liner and pour batter on top, filling each cup about 2/3 full. It should fill about 24 cupcake liners:

Bake according to the directions on your cake mix packaging. Keep an eye on them though, and test with a toothpick. There's nothing worse than an over (or under) cooked cuppy!

When they are done, let them cool and start making the frosting:

Mix the softened cream cheese with the well drained second can of pineapple:

Then add in 1/4 c. powdered sugar and beat on high until well mixed. It isn't going to look like thick, traditional frosting. It will be soft. Frosting is supposed to be a topping, not a dessert unto itself.

At this point, if I am not taking these as a treat to a gathering of some sort, I will freeze some of the cupcakes with no frosting and then take them out when I have a hankering for something sweet.⁶ (Without frosting, they are around 98 calories each.) You can also make the frosting and keep it in the fridge so you can frost them as you are ready to eat them. I have found it will last a couple of weeks if kept stored in a tightly lidded container and refrigerated.

Don't frost the cupcakes until they are completely cool. Otherwise that frosting will just melt and slide right off. Keep everything refrigerated until ready to serve.

Then, enjoy!

Without guilt.

Recipe:

Cupcakes

1 boxed yellow cake mix

1 20 oz. can crushed pineapple, undrained

24 maraschino cherries

Frosting:

8 oz. 1/3 Less Fat Philadelphia Cream Cheese

1 20 oz. can crushed pineapple, drained as much as humanly possible

1/4 c. powdered sugar

1/2 tsp.vanilla

Directions for Cupcakes:

Follow directions on box for preheating your oven. Combine cake mix and undrained pineapple until well mixed. Drop one maraschino cherry into the bottom of each empty cupcake liner, then add batter until liner is about 2/3 full. Bake following the directions on the back of the box for cupcakes.

Directions for Frosting:

Combine cream cheese, thoroughly drained pineapple and powdered sugar until well blended. Frost completely cooled cupcakes.

Footnotes:

1.Not only is this embarrassing, but it's expensive! I am a yarn snob.

2. That'd be McDonalds, Burger King and Wendy's, natch.

3. I do track my calories at www.myfitnesspal.com just to keep myself in a reasonable calorie range everyday. If I go a little over though, I don't sweat it.

4. Also, eat real butter. Not sticks of it at one sitting, but a little butter here and there makes you happy.

5. One recipe I found on Google was over 600 calories for one cupcake with NO frosting. Ouch. No other conventional recipe was less than 250. There might be one out there, but I couldn't find it.

6. If you think that you will just not be able to resist them, find a friend or a nice neighbor and make their day. They'll never know they are "skinny" *wink*

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Thank you so much, Meri, for being willing to share a recipe with us today! T is a pineapple fiend--I know he will love these! I need to have you over for coffee sometime very soon to get some more insider tips. You have inspired me, and I really mean that!

Come back tomorrow for some tips on saving money and feeding your family healthy food at the same time!

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Family-Friendly Meal Tips & Planner Perfect Giveaway!

I'm so pleased to bring you some family-friendly meal tips and a GIVEAWAY from a special guest poster today! Have you added a post to this week's Family Friendly Food Week link-up? Any recipes, kitchen/pantry tips, meal planning or couponing ideas are welcome. If you add a link back to me within your post(s), I will give you an extra entry in this week's Giveaway!

Please help me welcome Jenny from Planner Perfect.
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I'm excited to share some of my family-friendly meals and tips, with you. Thank you, Amanda!

Hi, my name is Jenny, author of the Planner Perfect and Planner Perfect Meals blogs. Planner Perfect offers great tips, an eBook on getting organized, and how to stay that way with the ultimate planner: Planner Perfect. My eBook is chock-full of how women can stay organized and become masters at managing their homes; today one of you can enter to win Planner Perfect's eBook! Stay tuned for the details on how you can win!

Feeding our families well, simply, and on a budget is on every mama's mind. I am a mama of seven hungry children and four of them are boys! Just when I've finished washing the counter-tops and greasy stove-top after a big, wonderful dinner, one of my teenage sons is already pouring himself a bowl of cereal. Unreal! They can eat me out of house-and-home if I'm not prepared! I have no options but to be organized when it comes to feeding my family, keeping costs down, and all without compromising on the quality.

I have three important tips up my sleeve that every mama must do in order to keep organized in the kitchen and I have some tried-and-true family-friendly, recipes, too, I'm excited to share with you:

1. A Baking Day.

Incorporate one day each week for a baking day and create some baked goods from scratch. I love to bake muffins, waffles, cookies, breads, and pizza crusts, making some for the week and then enough extra to freeze. This creates great foods for the week for your family, the bread is wonderful for lunches and compliments your dinner meals, and freezing the extras creates homemade meals you can pull-out in a snap on a busy day.

Get inspired by your favorite magazines, foodie blogs, and the season, and plan-out each week what you'll bake on your baking day and get it on your grocery list so you can make sure that you'll have your ingredients needed on hand.

This also saves money. Planning a baking day each week means I don't need to buy the processed cookies in the store, a hundred boxes of cereal and 5 gallons of milk, store-bought pizza crust, or Bisquick for breakfast.

Another great tip for saving time when preparing pancakes and waffles is to mix your dry ingredients together of your favorite pancake recipe in a plastic container, labeled with the wet ingredients left to add. Easy and fast to prepare on a quick morning before school or before a morning Saturday soccer game. When it comes to waffles, I quadruple the batch so I can serve them that morning and to freeze them for an easy, nourishing breakfast to pop in the toaster any day of the week.

Add some quick scrambled eggs with any of these baked goods and you've got an easy, wonderful breakfast!

Pizza crust is great to prepare on your baking day and can be kept dormant in your fridge in a bowl, covered in plastic wrap until ready to prepare on the quick!

Baking each week keeps you organized, saves you money, and keeps you in control of the ingredients in your family's meals. And the best part is when my children run over to the oven as I'm pulling out my homemade bread; begging for me to cut them a hot slice with butter and honey. Believe me, you'll be their hero!

2. Plan Your Menu.

Planning your menu ahead of time is a necessity if you want to save time and money.

Plan a day each week to be your grocery day. I love Mondays, so I spend a little time on my menu the day before and write out the days of the week with what I'd like to make for dinner each night with careful consideration of what the happenings are each evening with my family. (I also list out some breakfast menu plans and lunch.)

Soccer games and kids' schedules usually seem to interfere with dinner-time. With menu planning, you won't have to be relying on fast-food joints to feed your family anymore. Be prepared, plan quick meals on those fast nights (use some of your freezer goods to help) and you will be organized and feeding them well!

I like to also write a baking day list on my grocery list. This way I know what I'll need for my baking day as well and to remember what I'll be baking. I also keep this baking day log in my planner; this keeps me organized.

Remember to be inspired by the seasons...fall is the perfect time for baking-up some apple muffins or pumpkin spice bars. Let the season inspire you in your cooking and baking!

3. Adjusting recipes.

With so many different tastes to consider, I'd go mad trying to please them all. But my goal is to make every meal something they want to eat. With some small adjustments to your children's plates, everyone is a winner!

I love creating wonderful menus throughout the week, and boy do I love feeding my husband. He loves the smells wafting through the kitchen when he comes home from work and this just keeps the great food coming.

One of the tips I use is when making a meal I know my children may not enjoy--I just alter their plates. If I'm making a wild mushroom rice, I make an extra cup of plain rice and in my children's rice, melt some cheese or just butter, salt and pepper. And making at least one common food that we all can agree upon on the plate, even if it's the homemade dinner roll, I'm a happy mom and they're happy, too!

I hope my tips have inspired you! Here are some of my favorite, family-friendly, recipes:

Just click on the links for the printable recipes

These pizza bites are shaped into a muffin tin, and topped with my family's favorite toppings. They are a kid-hit sensation and big kids like them, too!

The most amazing cookies in the world...you must make some of these and the rest, if don't get gobbled up, can be frozen in a Ziplock bag for another time.

Bread Sticks...The great thing about bread sticks is that they can accompany almost any meal and be a hit. These are fast, and easy with no rise time! Your family will love these bread sticks.

Breakfast wraps...I love flour tortillas because of their versatility. This wrap was made with some baby tater tots and scrambled eggs. My kids love this!

Quick glazed doughnuts and doughnut balls...your children will go nuts and you can make this in under 30 minutes.

Multi-grain bread that can be made into muffins, too. Delicious!

Pesto Italian Sausage and Chicken Pizza: Your children will even love this pizza. But, to adjust the recipe if need be, I always have some of my favorite tomato pizza sauce on hand with pepperoni and mozzarella (just in case).

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Thank you, Jenny, for sharing with us! You can find all these printable recipes and more on Jenny's blog, Planner Perfect Meals. Jenny is a homeschooling mom of seven children, wife to self-employed lawn and landscaper/hunter, and she loves to inspire women to get organized. Jenny created Planner Perfect, The Complete Home Management System; the only planner a woman will ever need.

Visit her over at www.plannerperfect.com and www.plannerperfectmeals.com

Time for the Giveaway!

Jenny is giving a FREE copy of her eBook to one of you!

Tips on home management: party planning, keeping a clean home, and utilizing your strengths and talents...just to name a few things. Jenny and I thought that this would be a great prize for Serenity Now readers!

Here's how you can enter to win (Please leave a separate comment for each entry!):

1. Leave me a comment telling me your #1 meal planning tip or challenge.

For Extra Entries-

2. Leave Jenny a comment on her blog and then be sure to let me know here!

3. Tweet the following (copy and paste): Win a Planner Perfect Organizing eBook during Family Friendly Food Week via @SerenityNowGirl! http://bit.ly/pgIvBj

4. Facebook this Giveaway with a link to this post.

5. Link up to the Family Friendly Food link party and include a link back to me within your post(s) for an extra, automatic entry.

*Giveaway is open to US residents only, please. Open until 10 pm (ET) on Friday, September 23rd.

Good luck!

Monday, September 19, 2011

Family Friendly Food Week:: Link Up!

Welcome to Day 1 of Family Friendly Food Week! This week, we'll be sharing great recipes (of all kinds!), kitchen and/or pantry tips, meal plans, and ideas to save money on groceries. We've got a link party today, a Giveaway on Tuesday, and some fab guest posts lined up.

By now you guys know that this is not a food blog. I love to share simple, delicious recipes with you...but coming up with new menu ideas for my family is tricky for me...not to mention meal planning and knowing the best ways to save on grocery shopping. My husband works a lot, long hours; and planning meals around his schedule along with cooking for the kids can be difficult. Sometimes I struggle with motivation--so I was hoping we could help each other out this week!

Fall is a busy time of year for all of us--work, back to school, volunteer opportunities, activities, and holidays. Now is the perfect time for us to get together and pass some great ideas around. "Family" means different things to different people, so don't feel like you can't join in if you don't have kids. I'd love to see recipes/ideas for all kinds of families!

Now, let's get to the party!

Here are the rules for this party. Please read them before you add a post.
1. Please be sure that your post is relevant to this party theme:
recipes (any kind!), kitchen/pantry tips, meal plans, snack ideas, how to save on groceries, etc. No shops or advertisements.

2. Link back to me within your post(s)!
Boggers who include a link back to me within their post(s) will also earn an extra entry in tomorrow's Giveaway from Planner Perfect. You'll find the code for the party button below if you'd prefer to use that instead of a text link. Blog party traffic should be reciprocal. I will not Feature your link if I don't see a link back to my blog within your post. I'll be hosting your link here on my blog from here to eternity. A nice trade would be for you to direct your readers specifically to this post.

3. Visit a few of the other links.
Good blog parties promote participation through mingling.

Here's the code for my button. Feel free to use a text link instead, if you prefer:

This party and the Giveaway will remain open until Friday night at 10 pm (ET). My weekly Weekend Bloggy Reading party will open at 8 am (ET) on Friday morning as usual, and I'll be Featuring links from Family Friendly Food Week then. If you'd like to have your post Featured, please be sure that your post includes a link back to me.

Happy Cooking!