Arg!!! Grease Stains

My daughter has a purple t-shirt that is nothing special really, it wasn't even expensive. 

It is a basic, solid colored, dark purple shirt. 

I like this shirt because it is simple and no-frill and it looks cute on her.

It is one of those great basics to have on hand. 

As you can tell I am quite fond of this shirt :)

Now imagine how I felt when I pulled it off the drying rack, 

after the last time it was washed, and it looked like this!!

I have NO IDEA what in the world my child did or spilled on this to make it look like this!

AFTER being washed!

Feeding our family of 5 for a month for less than $185!

So I know we are well into February by now, but I still want to take a look back at January and how my food/household spending challenge worked out.

I set myself a goal of not spending more than $1/person/day on food and $1/day on other household items. This worked out to 

($1 x 5 people x 31 days) + $1 x 31 days = $186 total for the month.
**take a look at the very end if you would like some perspective on how much this is**

My original post about my belt tightening is here, and I point out that this budget includes all food, toiletries, cleaning supplies, paper goods and diapers.

I tallied up all my receipts and I came to a grand total of $184.93!! YAY! 
($25.14 on household and $159.79 on food)

Food Challenge Recap

Like I already mentioned, the first part of my food challenge came to an end a week ago. Now that I have recovered from a couple of days of intensive cooking and prepping for the rest of the month and a weekend filled with organization projects and a birthday party I am ready to recap how it went. I am going to show you what my fridge looked like after the fact. (I forgot to take a picture of the freezer and now it is packed with meals and groceries so I will not worry about that).

I am still trying to figure out this picture taking and editing thing, so please be patient with me on that. Take a look at the after pictures, this is what was left in my fridge and pantry once I had cooked my way through it :) If you want to compare you can look at the before pictures.

Planning, planning and more planning....it is time for some serious belt-tightening in January!

The last couple of days I have been planning, shopping for and preparing food for this month. I did one large shopping trip yesterday that more or less will be it for this month. (At least that is the plan!) There were only a couple of things left on our list and those I picked up today and now I am going to try to make it through the month without stepping foot in any store much. 

The food challenge I was doing inspired me to really plan this months meals and groceries, down to the smallest detail. As a result, I have set a very tight budget for us for the month. At the end of the month I will let you know what that budget was and how it panned out. Was I successful? What did I buy/what did we eat? and so forth. 

Jan 5th - The first phase of the challenge has come to an end

Even though we still technically have food left in the fridge, freezer and pantry I have decided to wrap up the challenge for this time.
I finally headed to the grocery last night and I will post about that later, but for now here are the details about the day yesterday:

Breakfast:
- oatmeal waffles (new batch made with flaxseed instead of egg)
- sun butter
- almond butter
- home-canned pear

Ra Ta Da! Ratatouille!

I wrote this post a while back and just realized that I never published it. As I re-read it I realized it very much fit in with the food challenge I have been doing lately....take what you have and make it work!

* * *

I really like ratatouille…and though the movie is cute, I was in this case referring to the word and my version of the dish.

In case French cooking is not your biggest strength I have included the definition according to my “Food Lover’s Companion” (which by the way is one of my most favorite books):

Jan 4th - Meals prepared ahead of time is the way to go!

Today was a relatively "easy" food day because all our meals were in the fridge, more or less ready to just heat and serve. I have vowed to myself many a time to cook in bulk, freeze meals and be better prepared. And I will try again :) New year, new chance!

I would like to note that my husband was not there for neither breakfast nor lunch today, which made those meals stretch a bit further. 

Also, even though today's meals seem entirely devoid of vegetables I will note that the besides the soup being a veggie soup the meatballs have both mushrooms and carrots in them already. But do not worry, of course I will not keep our vegetable intake this low forever, but for now I am convinced we will be A-OK :) 

Jan 3rd - Still Cookin'

3rd day of the food clear-out challenge......our meals are definitely taking on some character but we are not starving :P 

As I am preparing meals and all 5 of us are eating I am amazed at the amount of food we still have. I am thinking I might stretch it past Monday.....we will see, as there is a limit to the amount of beans we can eat in a row.

Breakfast: 

- Oatmeal Waffles that were pre-made and in the fridge

- Sunbutter

- boiled apple

Jan 2nd - Baking away

I continued my food challenge today and made another small dent in the pantry and fridge. 

Here are the items I made and what ingredients I used today:

Breakfast: 

- Oatmeal

     *oats

     *milk

     *butter

Lunch:

- "Pizza"

     *homemade dough using 1 pack of yeast, sea salt, all purpose flour and oil from the pantry

     *the sauce was half the jar of potato/cauliflower soup

     *the meatballs cut up were the topping

     *half of the piece of Parmesan cheese shredded on top

January 2015 - Starting with a clean slate

A new year has begun and this year, rather than starting with a long list of resolutions, I want to start with a clean slate and see where it takes me.

Today it took me into my fridge, freezer and pantry. 

I needed to take a closer look at what I have on hand in the food department as this new year starts, and I also want to truly challenge myself to stretch what I have to the fullest. Looking at the list it might seem like I have a lot of food, and there is, but some quantities are very small. 

The challenge now is to try to use up a lot of this food over the next couple of days and then I will post an updated list and some new pictures. Take a look below for today's details!

Lentil Soup Kit for the freezer

A while back I posted a recipe for lentil soup in the slow cooker. Today I once again made a batch of this, but I also made several "kits" and put them in the freezer. I usually just make a gigantic portion of the actual soup and freeze it, but now my freezer is full so this worked out better. 

Lentil Soup Kit

Chop, in small dice:

- 1-2 large carrots

- 2 medium stalks celery

- 1/4 - 1/2 medium onion

- 2 slices bacon

Lentil Soup in the slow cooker

This is a great dinner; it is easy, it is cheap and it is good! In fact, both my girls claim this is their favorite soup! The recipe is based on the one you find on the bag of lentils.

Lentil Soup in the slow cooker

1 lb lentils, rinsed and sorted

8 cups warm water (you can use broth but water works great)

1-2 large carrots, chopped in small dice

2 medium stalks celery, chopped in small dice