This Week on the Dining Table

It's the "Happy Doggie" Edition.......

 I had enough pancake batter Sunday morning for 1 more piece.  Everyone was full so instead of throwing out the batter(I don't save it because day old batter is crap)I made Daughter's dog(the granddog)a pancake complete with butter and lite syrup.

The pup "wolfed" it down. ;-)
Then I sent Daughter(who was at work)a photo of her pancake being eaten by her puppy.
Yes, I am evil like that.........

Moving on......

Onward to the meal planning!

Here's what was planned last week--

1. Sunday--Spaghetti w/Meatballs & Sausage, Salad or Zucchini Casserole Leftovers

2. Monday--Fajitas(using up Leftovers)

3. Tuesday--Mushroom and Onion Pork Roast with Carrots, Au Gratin Potatoes(leftover)

4. Wednesday--Crab Cakes, Fries, Cole Slaw, Broccoli

5. Thursday--Tacos

6. Friday--Homemade Pizza or Leftovers

7. Saturday--Leftovers

And this is what actually happened--

1. Sunday--Spaghetti w/Meatballs & Sausage, Salad or Zucchini Casserole Leftovers

2. Monday--Various Leftovers

3. Tuesday--Mushroom and Onion Pork Roast with Carrots, Au Gratin Potatoes(leftover)

4. Wednesday--Taco Salads and/or Tacos

5. Thursday--Fried Flounder, French Fries, Cole Slaw, Broccoli

6. Friday--homemade Pizza(1 pepperoni, 1 veggies)

7. Saturday--Leftovers(I had a big Greek Salad)

7 meals cooked at home, 2 of them nights of leftovers and 0 night of Take-Out.

We felt like fish instead of crab so the crustacean meal moves to this week.

As for the grocery spending.....3 trips to Weis and 2 trips to the Shursave grocery store brought my weekly spending to $143.70 and my September food spending total to $504.50 with 11 days to go in the month.

Yes I am waaaaay over this month but the meat deals have been incredible in September.  The goal now is to stay under $600.  Man, I hate the sound of that.  Either way I can afford to spend what I spend and am not putting any purchases on credit cards I can't pay off each month so it's all good. 8-)

Leftovers going into this week........manicotti, pork roast and veggies, spaghetti w/meatballs and sausage, taco filling, cole slaw, broccoli, pizza.  Unfortunately it's just a bite or 1 serving of each of these so it won't go far as a meal.

Here is this week's "food plan".

1. Sunday--Beef Bourguinon, Mashed Potatoes
2. Monday--Turkey, Stuffing and Gravy, Asparagus
3. Tuesday--Paprika Chicken with Peppers and Onions, Noodles
4. Wednesday--Tuna Noodle Casserole, Fried Green Tomatoes
5. Thursday--Leftovers
6. Friday--Crab cakes, Cole Slaw, Fries, Summer Squash
7. Saturday--Leftovers

This week will see 7 new meals cooked and 0 nights of Take-Out and 2 nights of Leftovers.

What I need to buy for this menu? Not a thing.

What is getting fixed and served at your house this week?

Was last week's plan successful, did you go off plan or did you not even plan what was going to be eaten last week?

Any great deals on food at your stores this week?


Sluggy

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like A Lot of Relish.....

Last Friday I decided that it was time for Pepper Relish Making Weekend.

So on Friday I drove out to the Farm Stand at Berger's Farm to see if the Red Bell Peppers were harvested yet.
The prices this year were way higher than usual at the farm, probably due to the lack of rain we've experienced here in the second half of Summer.  The late Summer crops have been lackluster at best.

They weren't selling the 'colored' peppers in bulk like in previous years but at .75¢ per pepper.  Ouch.
Only the green peppers were being sold at cheaper bulk prices.  While some of the green peppers in that bin were partially turning red there weren't enough of those to entice me to buy those peppers in bulk.

They did have a basket of "seconds" however.  These were molted red/green peppers who were "long in the tooth" and/or misshapen.  Still flavorful but just wrinkled and if served in a dish wouldn't be aesthetically pleasing but if I was going to chop them up anyway for relish it really didn't matter.

That large basket of seconds was only $4 so I bought that along with 5 "pretty" peppers for $3.75 for all 5.  Add in a peck of onions for $8 and I spent $16.25 on produce at Berger's farm.(I also bought 2 jalapenos for .25¢ each but not for using in the relish.)

Driving home, about 2 miles down from the Farm Stand I saw a white water barrel with a pepper and an arrow pointing up a house's driveway along the road, so I turned in.  Back behind this old house was a field of crops and a "Pick Your Own" business.
They had many varieties of peppers(from bell to jalapeno to cubanelle to banana to some Italian type I can't remember what it's called), as well as eggplant.
So on the hottest day in some time in these parts, and wearing a dress and not-so appropriate footwear for this sort of thing, I ended up lugging a large produce sack out into the fields to pick my own peppers at .50¢ a lb!

I lasted about half an hour at this and ended up with 14 lbs. of peppers in lovely colors of deep red, to orange to pale yellow.

The 14 lbs. for $7 total is in the red bag, the onions are in the middle, the $4 in seconds to the onions right in the photo and the pretty red/orange peppers are on the right.  2 jalapenos in the front.

Total spent on peppers and onions for relish making was $22.75.

I had enough peppers and tomatoes in the garden once I picked those for a double batch of relish.
Go me.
Cost of green tomatoes?
Free.

I spent some time Friday evening after dinner prepping peppers(coring, deseeding and slicing).

On Saturday morning bright and early the earnest work began after I set up the food processor.

Back in the old days, before I had a processor I use to hand chop all the veggies for this relish.
It took forever to do a batch that way, most of an entire day just to chop it all for a regular batch.
A double batch would have taken at least 1.5 days alone.

Now I get the chopping done in a fraction of the time, but I also do hand chop a portion of the veggies still since it makes the relish look so much nicer in the jar.

Here is the big bucket the veggies all go into with salt to soak for an hour before draining.

The rest of the supplies-vinegar, sugar, celery and mustard seeds ready to boil down into the 'sauce'.....

I had to utilize both of my large 8 quart stockpots, I had so much relish cooking!

Then the canning pot had to set to boil as I washed out canning jars, lids and rings.

Got the jars all ready(thanks to Hubs), filled and ready to go into the canning pot.  I had to process in 4 batches I had so many jars because the canner only holds 7 jars at a time.

By the end of the evening I was wiped out, my hand was sore from all that knife work, and the kitchen was a wreck but I had 16 pints and 5 quarts of relish done(plus about another pint it the fridge of "the pot dregs" to use first).  I usually make small jars of relish(for gift giving)but I couldn't find many small jars.  I suppose I've been giving the last batch I made 2 years ago away as gifts so I don't get the jars back, thus no small jars left in my supply. 8-)

And I spent most of the next day, Sunday, with my feet up, doing nothing.  I am just too old and worn out anymore to do a marathon of relish making and canning alone.

Plus I have about 8 lbs. of peppers left that I didn't use in the fridge, waiting on me to slice up to put into the freezer to use in meals this Winter.

I find I don't enjoy this sort of work much anymore in my dotage.  Maybe if I had help I wouldn't mind it so much.
This may be the last batch I make so it will have to last a good long while.

Sluggy

Decluttering Porn.....Cleaning the Shed

Sorry for being MIA on Friday.  I was out running errands for over 4 hours.
Crazy!
I usually like to spread them out a bit more but the day was lovely and I figured I'd get them finished in one fell swoop.  Here is my Friday post a bit late--

We've gotten a lot done this month so far at Chez Sluggy.

Years ago we started with 3 major decluttering areas in our home--the garage, the basement and the shed.
The garage got tackled years ago(though it does need a redo every couple of years but the major chore was done long ago)and we took on the basement earlier this year.
The last major chore has been on my hit list for years now! and I finally guilted/nagged Hubs into getting on it......Cleaning Out the Shed!!!

Here is a shot of the disaster I call this shed after Hubs had removed quite a bit of already--a wheel barrow, 2 large garbage cans(that hold kindling and firewood), 2 camp chairs, a lawnmower and tarps, many MANY tarps, as well as a few metal poles that had various pool cleaning attachments strapped to them.

Now remember that earlier in the Summer, before Daughter and the BF came to live with us, I had entered this shed from hell and removed a few big items I could disentangle from the mass of garbage contained within--2 bikes, as well as a few bicycle helmets and other "destined for the trash" items.

So after a few hours of work on both our parts, here is the pile of garbage we removed......

 Lots and lots of large white pool chemical buckets(most were empty), those metal poles, a pool cover, various pool pump parts you can't really see in this shot, as well as a pile of old empty cardboard boxes in various stages of decay/rot.
The pool chemicals that were left were handed off to the next door neighbor who still has a pool.

Here is a shot of the first load of garbage ready to take to the street for pick-up on the next Tuesday when our garbage disposal company guys make their appearance.
We have since disposed of two more large loads on subsequent Tuesdays.


Shots of items that were Salvation Army worthy........

Sports balls, camping equipment(we hadn't been "real" camping since College Boy was 4), a tent, and a plastic bin.

Four baseball bats.  We counted 8 bike helmets(all different sizes)and 4 broken plastic snowboards too which went into the trash.

This awesome wooden red wagon was also uncovered in the very back.  It hasn't seen the light of day since we moved here 16 years ago,  I didn't even know we had that. lolz

Hubs went back in this morning to clean out the shelves on the left side of the shed.  He came out with two more items to donate to Sallie's.......

 A Coleman lantern...

And a self-contained camp stove kitchen kit.

And here is the somewhat emptied and majorly decluttered result.......

I am so happy to be able to check this off our list!

Sluggy

The Grocery Trifecta & a Rite-Aid UPDATE

Stacking discounts is a great way to pay way less than retail on groceries/HBA/paper goods.

First, wait to buy items when they go on sale, and optimally when they go to the lowest price in the stores 6 week pricing cycle.   Keep a price book to know what/when the lowest sale price of the cycle happens.

Secondly, find a coupons if there is one, and if there are virtual Qs(Savingstar Qs)and/or store Qs stack one of those with a "real" Q for double the coupon savings.

Thirdly, look for cash rebate offers on the item you bought and apply for those.

On the Bush's Bean Deal I did last week, I got the sale price(may not have been the lowest which would have been better), had 1 Q to use(more Qs would have been better if available)and applied for 2 cash rebates(one for buying $X worth of product and one for buying certain varieties x 2).

Sale price, coupons and rebates......that's the grocery trifecta.  8-)

Weis(PMITA)Markets puts out a Weis Coupon Book a few/couple times a year.
They just released this one.........

It has a mixed of Qs for Weis brands as well as National brands of items.  These Qs are all Weis Qs so they can be stacked with a Manufacturer's Q.  Add in the sale price over something going that week for regular retail and you have a Grocery Trifecta.

Case in point, I got almost free Snapple single serve bottles of tea for free.
These Snapple "Straight Up" teas are regularly $1.49 retail but currently selling for $1 each at Weis.

There is a $1/3 Snapple bottles Q in the Weis Q book.......

There are hangtag Qs available at some Weis stores.......

So I bought 4 bottles=$4.00
Used 2 hangtagQs(which automatically ring up $1.49 off each)=$2.98
And I paired this Q with a Weis QBook Q at $1/3 Snapple=$1.00

$4.00-$2.98=$1.02-$1.00=$.02 OOP for 4 bottles.

When I spy these Weis QBooks at the registers I snag as many as I can over the course of the few weeks they are available.  With all my trips recently I've got 10 Q Books so far.
The Qs don't expire until Jan 25th of 2017.

*UPDATE*
On those 2 Rite-Aid trips I did earlier this week, seems I had 2 $1 cash rebate offers on Saving Star for items I purchased-$1 off Centrum and $1 off Advil.
So I will get back $2 cash between them.

This new information makes my first transaction a $3.94 moneymaker and my second transaction costing me .15¢ OOP(well in Plenti points).
I just hate when deals turn out even more awesome-r than you thought they would.  ;-)

Sluggy

The Money Just Keeps Rolling In....As In *Eye Rolls*

Yes, I am being snarky in my title.

The mail last week brought in the usual crop of "junk".
You know, all those pieces of advertising trying to separate you from your money.

I usually open even the junk mail because one never knows, do one?

Anyway, I opened this odd duck......

A survey from the Veteran's Administration and a $1 bill tucked inside.
If I returned the questionnaire and someone from our household was picked to do their survey that person would receive $20 for sending that in.

Unfortunately nobody living here will get to do that survey as nobody here is at least 59 years old, but I got a free George Washington just for opening that junk mail. 8-)

Then a letter arrived from my DME(durable medical equipment) supplier......

It stated that during a review of my account that an over payment was discovered and they had cut me a check for that amount and enclosed said refund.

Here is the over payment I got back..........

Ok, a close-up on the amount.....

Really?!?
WTF?

Ok, I pay this company money EVERY MONTH.  Seems to me it would have been most cost effective to just credit my account so I'd owe .01¢ less next month?

They probably spent at least a five hundred times that amount just paying wages for someone to take care of this, and for postage, paper and ink and the electricity to run the equipment to do this job.
Add up all these over payments they refund over the course of each year and no wonder medical costs are through the roof!
Honestly, where is common sense?

So I am rolling in dough now......I'll try not to spend this $1.01 in one place. Hahaha

I also picked up a freebie(not counting all that Rite-Aid stuff I bought Monday)at Weis(PMITA)Markets.
Awhile back the Catalina machine at the register spit out a Q for a free Gatorade Fuel/Energy Bar and I finally hunted down where this item was in the store and redeemed it......

This will be going into the Xmas stash, specifically into the BF's stocking.  He can use the calories as he does a physically demanding job.

On a roll,

Sluggy