Market Report - April 12

I missed last week's posting, but rather than playing catch up I'm just going to go on with life.

$39
2 yellow honeydew
9 oranges
6 medium heads broccoli
3 red onions
9 lemons
10 limes
14 tangerines
6 yellow grapefruit
2 lbs globe grapes
2 lbs black seedless grapes
2 lbs jalapeno peppers
6 mango
Green grapes

Staying on track to spend $300 this month too.  It can be more of a challenge when I don't spend the time to plan a bit.  Not a lot.  I'm not a planner, but sometimes even I have to give in and write things down.  The biggest challenge I face right now is my teenager wanting stuff that's not in the plan and complaining that she's "hungry" when she had the opportunity to eat dinner.  She also doesn't want to fix anything herself right now - a bit of a princess period going on.  What she means when she says she's hungry is "fix me something because I didn't like the last thing you fixed"  It doesnt' happen.  She's the youngest of 4 and I quit being sympathetic years ago.

Another challenge that's just starting is keeping up with meals on the weekends. We have a job that requires us to be out of the house a lot and it can be difficult to plan sometimes.  I'm determined to get better at it.  A new cooler is probably going to be needed since during the hot part of the summer anything we take with us will spoil.

I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

Recovery Lunch

On the way to the market the big kid wanted breakfast so we did a very bad thing.  We stopped at Taco Bell for "food"

Not calories well spent!  Bleah.  Not doing that again.  This giant lunch had only half the calories and 8x the taste of the awful thing I got at TB

I'm not opposed to eating out when $$ budget and Calorie budget allow - but I need to make much better choices.  I fell gross after my meal this morning.    Eating a nice salad did perk me up a bit.  Coffee didn't hurt either!  The white stuff on the salad plate is feta and on the fruit plate it's goat cheese.  I've been subbing feta for dressing.  I can go overboard with dressing and I find the feta accompanies the taste of the food instead of covering it up.  Sometimes I do still have dressing, but only about 10% of the time anymore.  With the goat cheese - I just have an obsession with goat cheese.  :-)  I ended up eating it on my salad instead of with my fruit but it would have been good with either.

All that shopping I do at the market put to use.  I had 2 of the mandarins, 1/4 cup of grapes, 1/2 cup of blueberries, my last tomato from last week, some onion, bell pepper, cucumber and spinach.  The cheeses and spinach came from the grocery store.  Everything else was from the market.  Well, not the coffee.  That is from Barefoot Coffee Roasters in CA.  Tasty stuff and this is my last cup.  It was a good bag of beans.

Market Report - March 7, 2014

It's hard to believe that one week ago it was snowing.  Today is bright and happy and sunny.  Picked up the big kid and headed off to the market.  Spent $44.  I need less from the grocery store this week, so the $4 isn't going over budget.


And I got cactus!  I love cactus.

My $44 bought

1 lb green beans

8 large apples

4 head garlic

some free grapes (I like free stuff)

28 mandarin oranges

4 cactus paddles

3 packages blueberries.  Really really really tasty blueberries!!

4 packages strawberries

3 pears

2 cucumber

1 bag tangerines

6 naval oranges

12 lemons

10 limes

10 plums

1 head cauliflower

2 small head purple cabbage

Nobody in my house ever lacks vitamin c!  Between the peppers and citrus fruits we have an abundance of C in our diet. 

The cactus is going to be used in omelettes tomorrow and then in a soup.  If you're not a fan of the feel of okra you might not like cactus.  I'm from a southern family so I don't mind slipperiness of okra or cactus.  Just part of the foods I consider normal.  My grandmother used to fry up okra and I may give fried cactus a try.  By necessity I am gluten free so I'll have to find a good batter that's GF.  When I do I'll post the results and recipe (if it's tasty) on www.kruelwich.com

We were good on peppers this week so I was free to splurge on extra strawberries and blueberries.  What we don't get eaten will go into the freezer before they spoil.  I don't see many of them making it to the freezer.

The $300 - Market Report

This week at the market I spent $36 and this is what i got

1 bottle of orange blossom water

1 bottle of rose water

1 bag of grapefruit

2 bags of tangerines

6 mangoes

2 boxes of bananas - about 48 bananas.  The browner ones on top were f ree.  I'm going to make banana bread with them sometime this week.

12 lemons

5 nectarines

4 yellow squash

1 eggplant

4 giant baking carrots

3 cucumbers

1/2 lb ginger root

3 smaller head broccoli which I forgot to put in the photo

This is my last market visit for the month.  I didn't buy any peppers this week because we still have some to use up.   I spent the pepper money on rose water and orange blossom water.  I have a couple of recipes that call for that.  I used the orange blossom water yesterday and it's interesting.  Takes a second to get the soapy scent out of my mind.  It does NOT taste like soap, but so much of the food experience is scent and it reminds me of some fragranced soap.  I have read that rose water can do the same.  Looking forward to trying it though.  Both were VERY expensive on amazon, but very cheap at the Mediterranean market at the City Market.