Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Non-taco dip; grocery savings

February 13, 2013

The kiddos both packed sandwiches for lunch today. I had some leftover beef ragu before I headed out for errands and grocery shopping.

My pre-challenge weekly average at the commissary was $175. Today I spent $18.06 on toiletries and cleaners. This is including one bottle of cleaner for the dishwasher that costed over $4. This is the third week in a row that I have tried different cleaners to get rid of what I'm assuming is lime or calcium buildup. Hopefully this one does the trick. I spent $102.98 on food. This is including $12.38 for the cub scout pot luck tomorrow. I had a few ingredients already at home and I based my dishes off of that. I spent $0 on impulses. Wohoo!! I spent $7.98 on gossip magazines. It does the challenge good when the check out lanes closest to me do not have all four of the magazines that I like. Ha. So today I went with three. After adding in their surcharge and taking out my coupons, I spent $128.14 out of pocket. This is a savings of $46.86. The kids did awesome packing their lunches this week with mostly leftovers or sandwiches. They saved $16! Their best week yet. We "splurged" this past Saturday and spent $13.50 on restaurant food to take home. My pre-challenge weekly restaurant average was $80 so this is still a $66.50 savings. My total savings for this week is $129.36. This brings my grand total savings to $2,134.72 in 119 days!!

I gave in and bought a food processor today (yay for tax returns!). I was so excited to try out my 12 cup processor. I decided to make a dip. I used one can of pink beans and three heaping spoonfuls of sour cream. I added in some taco seasoning (finally using up the last of that packet I opened and have used about four times). This was our base. Next, I wanted to try a new ingredient I found today. Flaxseeds. Supposedly they are super healthy. I thought I would grind them up and add them to the dip. They really didn't grind up. I'm thinking maybe it is because they are so small. My daughter sampled some and liked them and kept coming back to snack on them. I figured, hey, if she likes them then I may as well still add them to the dip. I sprinkled some flaxseeds on top of the bean mixture. What else can I do in the food processor? I chopped some onions. I shredded some lettuce. Ugh. That seemed kind of wet and mushy so I just hand chopped some instead. I added some spinach (shhh don't tell the kids). I wanted to play with my processor more so I thought maybe a shredded carrot would be ok in the dip. Then finished it off with some tomato and mexican cheese. My son said it was amazing. My daughter said we should make our taco dip like this from now on. Wow. Yay for trying new healthy stuff. I never would have thought we would become a bean loving, flaxseed eating family. But here we are!

I didn't feel like making dinner after cleaning up my mess. I pulled out an assortment of leftovers and we had a little buffet. Beef ragu, cauliflower, broccoli, and the kids added on some random items from the freezer too. My daughter had a few pizza rolls with her leftovers. My son had a cinnamon waffle with his leftovers.

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