Grocery Shopping with less than 40.00.

I'm feeling a little down this week. Nothing that won't be
fixed in a couple days and some good medication. Not me. My
youngest. Thought he was over his last humdinger of an ear
infection only to get him to the hospital last night and
find out that it was worse than before. Poor little man.
So.....after a couple rough night's sleep, I'm ready for a
comforting meal and a good night's sleep.

I digress.

I don't know if any of you live close to a Grocery Outlet.
I pray like heck you do. If it wasn't for them, I swear, I
would have gone broke buying groceries for my family AGES ago.
I hear Aldi is pretty close. I've never been to one, so
I can't swear on my firstborn. From what I've seen from the
receipt's of my friends, they're at least kissin' cousins.
(If you're in Washington, I've found that Tacoma
Boys is a good place to shop for good priced produce.
They especially rungreat sales during the summer.)

I had to get a week's worth of produce today, with a couple
extra's thrown in for lunches. I had some produce already
here that will work with what I bought,
I just needed to round it out.

For those of you who like reciepts, this is what I got today:
(2) 16 oz. packages fresh mushrooms
(4) 16 packages sharp cheddar
Large package roma tomatoes
(4) Small bags organic baby carrots
(4) Bags salad mix (with the cabbage, not lettuce)
(2) Boxes Wheatable Nut Crackers
Container sour cream
Milk
#3 Dole bananas
(4) Cans mandarin oranges
Red potatoes
Really nice big container of green grapes
Bag frozen chicken tenders
Couple big cukes
Bag of apples (just your basic apple, for applesauce)

Now. Dosen't look like a lot. But four big bags for around
thirty bucks is pretty sweet. And with the chicken tenders
in there, too.....those can be pretty pricey. Sometimes, I'll
get spinach there, too but I had a couple bags from an
excellent sale this week. You have to admit that at your
local grocery store, unless you're shopping from a circular,
you ain't getting $30 worth of groceries no way, no how.
I would much rather buy my produce from a local stand but
this week just wasn't possible. (Isn't it great buying all
that fresh fruit from an open stand? There's nothing
like it.)

Couple secrets for you. If you live close to a discount store,
sometimes you can get really great deals by signing up for an
e-mail list. Grocery Outlet is great because they'll do printable
coupons on reciepts, they'll have a drawing a couple times a
month to win what you save and you can even sometimes find
a coupon or two in your blue envelope with.....we'll.....most
of the coupons that you completely disregard and recycle.
(Come on. You know I'm right. I've done it in the past.) I've
found that Grocery Outlet even has a Facebook page! They'll
offer tips on how to extend your food bill, work on revamping
your leftovers and what the deal of the week is. The great
thing about Grocery Outlet is they've even started carrying
organic brands for about half the normal price is. If you
don't want to commit, just go in. Look around. See
what they have to offer. There's no charge for window shopping.

And there's something I have to tell you that I'm a little
ashamed to admit. I usedto be a brand name junkie. Anything
that was store brand would have never made it into my cart
before kids. Now, I can say that most of the time the store
brand is just as good as the name brand counterpart. I'll
happily grab a store brand over any name brand item hands down.
And it costs about half what the name brand does! Try to lower
your standards and embrace the person inside who misses
the white boxes with the black lettering!

I'm really tired, so I'm probably leaving some things out.

I'm sure you'll remind me later.

Tonight's dinner is Hamburger Stroganoff. This will use some
of the mushrooms I bought today, some of the sour cream and
I'll serve it over mashed potatoes. You can
make a very simple mushroom soup base from scratch:
(http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Homemade-Cream-Style-Soup-Mix/Detail.aspx< )
which is super cheap to make or you can use Cream of soup.
Or, you can just skip the middle man and just saute your
mushrooms in EVOO/butter and just salt/pepper and add a
little cream. Whichever is best for you. I tend to cook
the mushrooms in a seperate pan, then add it to the browned
hamburger and then add the milk, 1/3 c. lowfat sour cream,
little worchestershire sauce and sometimes, a little beef broth
if I'm low on milk. Almost all the ingredients (ground beef
aside, which I bought at Walmart last week and froze until
needed) were bought at Grocery Outlet. Served over mashed
potatoes with steamed broccoli or a side green salad is
really comfort at it's best for me. And it always seems to
make just enough for lunch the next day. Super cheap, and
really freaking tasty. For all you vegan's out there, there
is a portobello mushroom stroganoff
(http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Portobello-Mushroom-Stroganoff/Detail.aspx< )
that is to freaking die for and it uses vegetable broth.
And I know that they make vegan sour cream, too! (And you
also can get portobello mushrooms at Grocery Outlet!
They even sell big containers for about four bucks at Costco.)

And honestly, just because you bought your regular
groceries at somewhere a little cheaper, does it make it
any less tasty?

So, did that help any?