DIY? Obsession?

I've noticed this obsession lately with a Do-It-Yourself mentality. Further referred to as DIY. I think it's great that people want to be self reliant and even "crafty" or whatever you would like to call it. I do however think it has come to an obsessive level. Pinterest certainly doesn't help. I'm a fan of the site just as much as the next person. I do think it has it's downsides though. Why in the world to people obsessively "pin" things they will never use or "do" with the thought of, "I could do that". Or more self righteously, "Whatever, I could SOOO do that! And for pennies! Why would I pay for THAT?!"

I'm going to introduce a counter argument here, for what it's worth. Just because you can, could, thought, you could do something yourself, doesn't mean you should! Honestly, sometimes the things we comment about being able to do ourselves is just plain rude. Since this is technically a food related a blog I'll give you my first example.

I feed my daughter food that I make myself. But let's think about that. I buy the food from a grocery store, who bought it from a farm. Okay, so I prepare her food myself. So WHAT if someone else buys the jars of food from the grocery store? Just because they could puree their own baby food, doesn't mean they want to, and doesn't mean they should!

Next example. I am ever trying to figure out the best way to run my photography business. A big question that goes along with that is how much to charge. I can't tell you how much commentary I receive on my pricing. Negative I might add. I think sometimes the DIY mentality is anything other than "free" is highway robbery. Just because you maybe could spend years (like I have) learning to use your camera, invest money on high quality equipment, spend money on a college education, create and pay maintenance fees on a website, and the list goes on, doesn't mean you SHOULD. Why not pay someone else to do this? Why do we insist on being good at what someone else is good at? Why do we think that someone should not make a living off something they are talented at?

The final moment of clarity came for me last night. I have been obsessing about these skirts. Long story short, small business owner with an indie clothing label. From what I gathered, she has been in business for maybe a year or two? On her blog, people were leaving comments about her clothes such as, "wow, love your skirts, but they are way to expensive for me!"Several people left comments of that nature. People. This isn't some big corporate label you are making these comments to. This is one woman trying to pursue her dream. It's just a rude thing to say. Why should she give them away? How much is her dream worth to you? How much would your dream be worth? I can only make guesses about the overhead costs involved with creating such things. Manufacturing costs, shipping, and wow. It would be so greedy of her to actually turn a profit on something she is talented at. Good for her for being savvy enough to charge what she deserves. The nail in the coffin was when I pinned the skirt on Pinterest and saw the other pins from her site. Basically a lot of the comments indicated they were going to try and make the skirt themselves, copy her. First of all, I would be willing to wager that you never make that skirt pinterest-er. Second of all, just because yes, you could buy a sewing machine, learn to use it, buy the fabric, the zipper, the buttons, etc. doesn't mean you should. Plus, you do know that the reason most clothes in our country are dirt cheap is because they are made overseas and people are paid a $1 or $2 an hour. I think this woman is worth far more than that. I want people to support my small business, so I supported her today and bought a skirt.

I try to do things myself, too. Please keep in mind, just because you could technically do something "yourself" doesn't mean you should, or should want to. Break free people!

I'm back!

Where did I go? Well, I've been posting in my head almost everyday. That doesn't count? :)

When we last left off I was ranting about hating Whole Foods and complaining about my kid interrupting my cooking time. So here is where the last month has taken me...

BUDGET? 

Did I stay on budget during the month of March? Yes!! I actually saved money. Keeping exact track of my receipts got a little tricky at the end of the month. As a sidebar, my husband (who is an accountant, remember?) built us a budget that downloads transactions from our bank account and then it auto sorts itself into categories (it's a smart spreadsheet). My problem is the stores that have it all. When I go to Target or Costco for instance, I frequently buy things that are not grocery related, but they get put into the grocery category, making it look like I went over budget, I didn't! The injustice of it all. Leave me a comment if you have a good solution for this problem.  

Where am I shopping? 

After drinking my hate-orade and turning my nose up at Whole Foods on my last post, I had some lovely people leave some comments on Facebook. They have been around the block with this organic thing and had some tips. In regards to my complaint that Whole Foods mixed its organic and non-organic produce together, she suggested that I try Vitamin Cottage. Vitamin Cottage's produce section is exclusively organic, and priced affordably. I resisted at first because the location is slightly out of my way. But only out of my way because all the stores I go to are five minutes from my house. I think this is where people on Twitter put a hash tag and say #firstworldproblems. I don't really get Twitter. But sure, there you go. First world problem, driving more that five minutes to the store. 

Vitamin Cottage rocks. For several reasons. First, it's a well organized store and it's really small. Love that. Their prices are pretty comparable so far to what I have seen other places (if not cheaper). I started feeding my almost 7 month old daughter solids about 4 weeks ago and I am only feeding her organic produce. I got the Baby Brezza baby food maker-thingy as a gift and have been making her food myself. I actually really love making her food. Ummm, and I eat it sometimes because it's yummy! I knew that if I really wanted to pursue feeding her organic food, I needed to make it myself to stay on budget. I really don't feel like a slave to the kitchen either. I make really big batches and freeze the food in ice cube trays. It lasts for quite awhile. I wasn't able to breastfeed her as long as I would have liked. I think part of my sense of satisfaction comes from being able to take an active role in what she eats again. Makes me all warm and fuzzy. No idea why. By the way, the baby food maker is great, but I think the same thing can be accomplished with a food processor. It's really not hard to do. 

So to sum up Vitamin Cottage, I am buying my produce there, also occasionally at Sprouts, Target, Safeway, or King Soopers. I found some organic cheese and yogurt that was on sale, too. I went to Target last week directly after going to VC and it was $3 more there for the same yogurt (the big ones). I try to do pantry items at Walmart/Target.

What have I been cooking/buying? 

I started out thinking that I would only buy things on the Dirty Dozen list, but I really dove in after the first week. I bought things like butter, eggs (uhhh organic eggs taste weird to me, by the way), lots of produce, and meat here and there. The sticker shock is a little painful on organic meats/poultry. I bought a two pack of whole organic chickens from Costco. My husband loved it! He said the chicken tasted so much better. I boiled the leftover chicken bones/chicken for soup the next day and it made one awesome broth. I have never had my base come out such a pretty color and flavor before. I can't remember how much I paid for the chickens but I want to say it was around $20. The other chicken is still in the freezer. I figure if I can get two meals out of one chicken it's about $5 a meal for my protein. Not too bad when I break it down that way. 

I came across this pin on Pinterest a couple days ago. I was trying really hard to get inspired to try new recipes again. I got a little burned out trying to cook masterpieces every night. This slow cooker recipe seemed like just the right lead in. I made this for dinner tonight and I was IN LOVE. There are so many recipes of this type floating around, I generally disregard them. This one was to die for. I also love this chick's blog. Anyone who can lose 135lbs and eat good food is high on my list of people to emulate. I made everything ahead of time (prepped the lettuce, cheese, green onions). Once the baby was in bed all I had to do was shred the chicken and I was in business. I picked up one pound of organic chicken thighs at King Soopers today for $6. Chicken thighs work really well in slow cooker recipes from my experience because the fat has time to dissolve out, and it makes it much tastier. 

Anyway. I have about a months worth of blog postings floating around in my head. I will stop throwing up information. More next time! Please leave me a comment on Facebook or here on the blog if you have any tips/tricks for me! I love all the advice!

Oh, and here is some interesting info:

Frequently Asked Questions  About Produce and Pesticides

It made me feel better about eating non-organic produce. 

Be Careful Of Grocery Store Tricks!

Alright, friends. I discovered on my grocery trip last week that you need to be careful when trying to make organic produce purchases. I will give my opinion on a few stores. Read on for my quest to get an organic red pepper and a spinach leaf bunch. These two items were definitely on the dirty dozen list so I didn't want to bend on this purchase. 

Sprouts: I started at Sprouts last week. Their produce was a little "wilty" and ugly. I have heard organic isn't always as pretty (since they don't use chemicals). I understand if it's not visually AS appealing, but I'm still not going to buy ugly looking produce. The spinach was too ugly for purchase and the red peppers were packaged like meat in a package of two. This drives me crazy when stores do this. In the end, I would have paid for two peppers, but I only needed one. Sprouts got an "F" for the day. 

Whole Foods: I'm not going to lie. I LOVED going to Whole Foods the previous week. It's just a pretty place, and I felt like there was a better variety. BEWARE. First, I searched for the organic spinach bunch. Here is a clear problem I see with Whole Foods: they do not separate their organic section like all other stores do, their produce section is mixed with organic and non-organic. The spinach clearly didn't say that it was organic on it, and I had to ask employee if it was. He claimed it was. I asked him to double check for me. First employee grabbed second employee who confessed they did not have any organic spinach bunches, they only had it in the pre-packaged bins that week, their supplier didn't have any. Okay, aren't you supposed to be WHOLE FOODS? Known for good selection on organic? Whatever. I went over to get my red pepper. I was shocked. They were charging $3.99 a pound for NON-ORGANIC peppers. I checked my receipt from the previous trip, it was the same price. I also noticed that it said "ORG" next to my organic purchases. Little did I realize, I did not purchase an organic pepper the week before. I looked around the whole produce section. No organic peppers to be found. Now I was really irritated. I had to go to a third grocery store. Annoying. Whole Foods also gets an "F" for trying to deceive me. There is actually quite a bit of non-organic produce in their store. Again, beware. 

Safeway: My third store of the day. I was starting to rethink this organic stuff. I like Safeway and Sprouts better in some ways because their organic produce is segregated from regular produce. I was able to get my spinach bunch and my red pepper (organic). YAY! I must say, I just used this red pepper the other night. It had a really bright red color, and it tasted really good, too. Another interesting discovery, there were some organic grape tomatoes that were cheaper than the non-organic. Sometimes the price jump is minimal between organic/regular. Maybe if it's on the dirty dozen list you should just see what the price gap is for the week? Maybe it really won't be that much more to buy it organic. 

I wasn't crazy about my recipes from last week, or the time it took to make them. With a demanding baby, I bit off more than I could chew and I'm a little exhausted with this project and cooking dinner. Hence, no blog updates. If I get around to it I will update the post with my receipts and a total. I've been stretching my meals pretty good, so I still have not made my third grocery trip. 

Week in Review

Over all, I was pretty happy about how week one went. I was excited to cook, I was excited to eat, and excited for the challenge when shopping, AND I stayed on target for my weekly budget.

Wednesday didn't go so well. It took me forever to get the day going the right direction. I finally got the baby loaded up and was headed to the store. I got to Walmart, and didn't have my wallet. I picked up my bag to get out of the car, and it felt lighter than normal. Yep, no wallet! Grr. Can I tell you this is the third time this has happened to me since September? I remember the first time distinctly because I was very pregnant, and again, it was a great effort for me to go to the store in the first place (let alone have to go twice). This never happened to me until I had a baby/was pregnant. I really am losing my mind. I always thought moms who claimed "mommy brain" were milking it. Long story short, I could have saved more money by going to Walmart, but I went to Target instead (since it's only a couple miles from my house). After my Target trip I had all the food we needed for the rest of the week. On Saturday I had my husband swing by Costco to pick up some milk. We have been buying our milk there for a few years. I love their Kirkland Signature brand organic milk. The price is $8.99 for three half gallons. I'm not sure why, but the expiration dates are at least a month out. It's an easy thing to keep stocked in the fridge. Depending on what we're eating, I can stretch the three half gallons two weeks if I'm lucky. He also decided that he wanted more frozen berries for our morning smoothies. Ya, not organic. It's a process...

Total spent for Week 1 $89.92! 


Wednesday night we made the pasta dish. It was good. It wasn't amazing, though. I added garlic to give it some more flavor. It was a fairly easy meal to have around. After making the meal, I realized I bought wayyyy too many tomatoes. The tomatoes were fairly expensive. I will need to be more careful about how many I buy. I ended up making pico de gallo (tomato, shallot/onion, cilantro) as a snack with the left over cilantro from Tuesday dinner and the extra Shallot from Thursday dinner. At least they didn't go to waste. I think I would plan to make this meal again, but maybe find a more exciting version. My food doesn't look as colorful because I had a red pepper instead of a yellow pepper like the recipe picture.

Thursday night we had the shrimp salad. I was really excited to make this recipe because it had tarragon in it. Since I've never cooked with tarragon, I felt all fancy using it. I'm not sure if this is an accurate way to describe tarragon, but the flavor reminded me of black licorice. In my opinion, it overpowered the whole meal. I think the other parts of the recipe were really great, but I will likely find a similar recipe with a different dressing. We still ate it, but we were not in love with it. The grapefruit was good, surprisingly.

Friday night was the roast chicken. My roast chicken skills are iffy. My favorite way to cook it is in the crock pot. Some say the meat ends up being too "wet" but I like wet over dry and chewy any day. I tried cooking the chicken according to recommendations, and it turned out okay, but with some evasive maneuvers to save it. I originally put the potatoes and and butternut squash in a large casserole dish around the chicken. It was really full and covered the chicken too much. Now that I've made the recipe, I think it would have been better if I had put the potatoes and squash in a separate baking dish and cooked the chicken by itself. At the end of the cooking time, because the potatoes covered the thighs, the chicken wasn't done. I had to remove the veggies and cook the chicken another twenty minutes by itself. I LOVED the butternut squash and red potato combination. I will definitely make this one again! I think it needed a third side dish. Either a salad or green vegetable. No picture. But just imagine it looked as good as it does here.

(Picture above borrowed from here).

Saturday night we went out to eat at Lark Burger. Their truffle fries are ammmaazzzingg for all you Denver locals. Sunday, I changed plans around a bit and was planning to use the roast chicken to make chicken soup since I already had carrots and celery around from the week prior (organic, by the way). We got invited to go have dinner with a friend, so I will push this meal to Monday.

http://www.larkburger.com/videos/photos/food-2

For lunch this week we had left overs from some of the meals (most of these recipes are for four people), had sandwiches with bread from the bread machine (that's why I bought turkey from Target), and macaroni and cheese. Ya, I know. But I like it okay? Leave the macaroni alone. Breakfast was smoothies, cereal, and eggs.

Monday we had chicken soup, today we had a throw together Thai Curry. I used some frozen chicken, and other pantry items to make it. It was topped off with some left over cilantro from last week. Verrryy yummy. Here is the recipe plus I threw in a scoop of peanut butter.

I will post the new menu tomorrow (hopefully). The weather has been amazing the last few days and I have not been interested in grocery shopping. I'm reverting back to digging through my pantry to put together random stuff for dinner. I digress...

Somethings Gotta Change! ...or someone.

Want to compare grocery notes? I'm always curious what others are doing with their food budgets. See my new attempt below: 

I'm a food wasting, refuse to make a list, seat of my pants, grocery shopper. Since I refuse to make a list and hate meal planning, I've convinced myself that I can just go to the grocery store and it will "come to me". Ya...right. I think my husband knows the truth (that I stink at it). He tries to gently insist that we plan out the meals for the week and make a list. I resist, resist, resist, RESIST. Sometimes we have a list. Sometimes we plan the meals for the week. But, I don't always stick to the meal plan, because I don't feel like making what was on the plan. I'm actually pretty decent at saving money on groceries. Most of my recipes are pretty good, with minimal ingredients, along with another secret. I buy things that will get used for several different dishes. Example Night One: Roast chicken, potatoes, and veggies. Night Two: Chicken soup, boil roast chicken from night before, onion, celery, carrots, potatoes. I don't use chicken broth because my skills are just that good! Night Three: Turkey Vegetable Soup, ground turkey, onion, celery, carrots, can of tomato soup, and a can of diced tomatoes. REALLY good. See my point? I'm not completely worthless, just not organized on a consistent basis. 

On a bad week I go to the store and start grabbing things. I'm resourceful enough to create random dinners from what I end up with from the grocery store. However, there is food I bring home that never gets eaten or used before it goes bad. Did I also mention I'm very picky about the taste and quality of my food? Example: I was at the store last week and bought two avocados. I had no plan for them, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. Since I don't always have a list with me, I'm not sure how much to buy of something,so I grab multiples when I could get by with less. Example: today I had a list and I wrote down "garlic". Now, I hate to not have enough, so my instinct was to buy two garlic, and normally I would have. 

I'm also a new mother to a 5 month old baby. I stumbled upon some information about pesticides and chemicals and their effect on an infant's body. Obviously, I'm not made of money, but I have pondered how I could A) talk my husband into believing we needed more money in the budget for my latest tangent or B) figure out how to feed her organic food with the money already allocated to food. Did I mention my husband is an accountant? No fudging the numbers in this family. 

I started considering my grocery shopping habits. A plan started to emerge. Since I end up throwing away food I don't use, it's possible that I could save money by only buying what's on my list. From the savings, it's possible that I could afford more organic purchases. 

To begin my transition to organic, I'm starting with the "dirty dozen". Twelve produce items that are highest in pesticides and chemicals. If it's not on this list, I'm buying it "regular" for now. 

Celery

Peaches

Strawberries

Apples

Blueberries

Nectarines

Sweet bell peppers

Spinach, kale and collard greens

Cherries

Potatoes

Imported grapes

Lettuce

The Second part of my plan is meal planning. I'm really tired of my own recipes and we're also trying to lose weight. I think I could help eliminate the problem of deviating from my meal plan if I was actually excited about what we were eating. I surfed the web and pinned all the recipes I wanted to use for ONE week to Pinterest. Another qualification was that it be a "light recipe". I pinned my recipes from Cooking Light I took some tips from HERE on meal planning and budgeting. I did an inventory of what we already had on hand and made my shopping list. I took note of the produce items I wanted to buy organic. 

Today I started my organic produce shopping at Whole Foods. I have a friend who feeds her family an entirely organic diet. She said she finds she saves the most money here. I was passing by on the way home and decided this is where I would start. I only bought organic dirty dozen items on my list. My bill came to $20.35 

Next, I went to Sprouts. It's known for rock bottom prices on produce. I bought the rest of my produce here along with a few others items I needed. There are a few things on my list that I didn't have a chance to buy. My lovely child, who skipped most of her naps today, had enough shopping for one day. Total at Sprouts: $19.52 

Shopping Total Day 1: $39.87

Here is what was on my list: 

Produce: 

Red Bell Pepper (organic) 

10 Roma Tomatoes (I bought this Organic. Fail one, not on dirty 12!! But I swear I heard somewhere that tomatoes are high in pesticides?!) 

1 Zucchini (Also bought organic, again not on any list, but since I eat the skin I figured it was a good idea) 

2 Avocados

1 cilantro bunch (organic) 

garlic

red potatoes (organic)

1 butternut squash

1 grapefruit

Fresh Tarragon (organic)

Romaine Lettuce (organic) 

Labeled on my list as "Other Stuff" (I'm nothing if not specific!) 

Bacon

1 pound precooked shrimp

Corn tortillas 

(see below for stuff that I didn't get a chance to buy) 

Here is what I made Today, Seviche Style Shrimp and Avocado Tacos. I forgot to put limes on my list, but luckily I had some stuff from concentrate. Luckily it didn't ruin the dish. We both LOVED it! Delicious. Ummm, keeping it real. My husband and I both really love food. In theory we would have saved calories if we had eaten what is defined as a portion. ...well, my friends. This meal is supposed to serve six people. It served two, with a little bit of leftovers. Don't judge. Rome wasn't built in a day. 

 

Here is the "plan" for the week. Follow my progress to see if I fail miserably. Caveat: I may not go in any particular order. My goal is a $400 grocery shopping budget for the month, or roughly $100 per week. This may change as my baby starts eating solids. Don't hold me to that number!! :) 

Shrimp, Avocado, and Grapefruit Salad 

Roast Chicken with Potatoes and Butternut Squash

Tortellini with Fresh Vegetables

Roast (family recipe)

White Bean Soup with Bacon and Spinach (It's from a box and you add the spinach and bacon. I decided I would need some easy meals, too. I'm cheating a little this week. Monday is gone, I cooked the Seviche Style Shrimp and Avocado Tacos tonight. I'm only going until Sunday) 

This week I still need to buy the following: 

12 ounces of raw shrimp

Frozen Tortellini

1 whole chicken 

If you're wondering what about lunch? Breakfast? All the other stuff people have in their house? Don't worry. I'm not being shady. We're just good on that stuff right now. More disclosure to come. I'm sure I will fall on my face. Stay tuned. I'm also going to shop at different stores to figure out where organic produce has the best price.