I know that because Heather sent me the coolest excel program. It shows weeks, day,hours, minutes, seconds....graphs and such....pretty colors. Very fun.Cy had to be at work early this a.m. I set the rest of the kids down and asked them what they wanted for a menu this week.
Shake & Bake Chicken
Pizza
Chicken Divan
Stir Fry/Quesadillas (sp)
Encore Presentation
Grill - steaks and burgers
We've had three of those meals in the past two weeks. I'm going to have to talk to them about variety. :::snort:::
Arielle, Nolan, Stacia and I headed out to run a couple of errands. Oops....no car seat in the Honda. I had the Honda because it needs gas and Josiah was at work. We had to leave Stacia and headed out again. The Honda wouldn't turn over. :::snort:::
Ready for the irony. I KNEW I should ride 10 miles today on my bike. I got tired and decided to stop at 7.2. Well...I was expected at the library and HEB so I HAD to go get the van. I rode my bike to the mall. Total distance of both rides? 10.2 miles. :::snort::: I've done really well with discipline this week. I decided that until I could get the internal thing going again it was time to pull out the Thin Within tools and use them. I thought about joining Weight Watchers but realized that since I KNOW what to do it really is a matter of doing it and counting points and logging them isn't much different than the Thin Within tools....I began logging food, noting hunger levels, checking when I exercise (TW goal is to move your body at least 30 minutes every day), checking off the principles and keeping track of water. I think it's been a good week. Of course, NOW, all my local friends think I'm pregnant because I'm forever running to the bathroom. Three times at dinner the other night. :::snort:::
Back home with the van I discovered that Stacia had fallen asleep. Arielle, Nolan and I headed out. I picked up TWO books "Dark Tort" and "Cherry Cheesecake Murder". I'm not sure which I'll read first.
Pizza
Chicken Divan
Stir Fry/Quesadillas (sp)
Encore Presentation
Grill - steaks and burgers
We've had three of those meals in the past two weeks. I'm going to have to talk to them about variety. :::snort:::
Arielle, Nolan, Stacia and I headed out to run a couple of errands. Oops....no car seat in the Honda. I had the Honda because it needs gas and Josiah was at work. We had to leave Stacia and headed out again. The Honda wouldn't turn over. :::snort:::
Ready for the irony. I KNEW I should ride 10 miles today on my bike. I got tired and decided to stop at 7.2. Well...I was expected at the library and HEB so I HAD to go get the van. I rode my bike to the mall. Total distance of both rides? 10.2 miles. :::snort::: I've done really well with discipline this week. I decided that until I could get the internal thing going again it was time to pull out the Thin Within tools and use them. I thought about joining Weight Watchers but realized that since I KNOW what to do it really is a matter of doing it and counting points and logging them isn't much different than the Thin Within tools....I began logging food, noting hunger levels, checking when I exercise (TW goal is to move your body at least 30 minutes every day), checking off the principles and keeping track of water. I think it's been a good week. Of course, NOW, all my local friends think I'm pregnant because I'm forever running to the bathroom. Three times at dinner the other night. :::snort:::
Back home with the van I discovered that Stacia had fallen asleep. Arielle, Nolan and I headed out. I picked up TWO books "Dark Tort" and "Cherry Cheesecake Murder". I'm not sure which I'll read first.
Our next stop was HEB to buy the few groceries I needed for this week. Oh man...someone had opened a package of air freshener and when I went to look at it the glass perfume part fell out the bottom....it smelled. I picked up chunks of glass while Nolan ran for an employee. The point of sharing this is that I've smelled like rose air freshener all day. LOL The photo of Nolan with the van full of produce cases won't load. Ah Well. A friend and I have been buying cases of produce at HEB and splitting them. The manager gives us a 25% discount. I came home to divide produce and put it away. Ewww....we ended up with a case of nectarines that were 2/3 molded. I called him and he said to salvage what I could and come in for a new case....so I went BACK to HEB. :::snort:::
I put my "bulk cooking" background to work today. I'm very excited. I cut up a head of romaine, red leaf, green leaf, lots of SPINACH, and about 1/4 head of red cabbage. I mixed it all up, added some grated carrots and stuffed two bags of "bagged salad greens" - no more frogs for ME. :::snort::: I'm a list person so I MUST share the rest of our chopping, grating and such. Our - because Jamin joined me and we had a great couple of hours talking and slicing and dicing...and neither of us cut a thumb! I was GLAD we didn't have the food processor today. I coveted the time to work beside Jamin. We grated another quart bag of carrots for salads and stir fry, we chopped a gal bag of broccoli for Chicken Divan, we chopped a quart of broccoli for stir fry and another quart for salad, we chopped a quart bag of cauliflower for stir fry and salads, we chopped up another big bag of carrots for roasted veggies and snacking, we sliced up a red pepper for salads and pizza (I wrapped them in paper towels before putting in the bag), and finally we chopped up a bag of green onions for stir fry and salad. WHEW! I am EXCITED. I'll be able to easily and quickly assemble the veggies needed for meals this week. Salad is a breeze. I was able to make a huge, wonderful salad in 39 seconds. Jamin timed me. ::snort:: So yes, I spent most my day playing with veggies. Hard to believe spending time cooking could excite me...An added bonus is that the produce fits so nicely into the crisper now....because space is at a premium. I have potatoes and carrots in my closet...well you don't need to know any more. LOL
Stacia loves grocery day!
She'd already mooched a nectarine and carrot but was determined to find the apples...she did.Arielle got a call to go over to Ashely's house. I asked Jared to ride his bike over with her. I thought they would enjoy the bit of independence. Unfortunately, Jared's bike chain messed up and he had to carry his bike all the way back home. This simply wasn't the day for us with "transportation".
This evening the ones who were home watched *Nicholas and Alexandra*. I missed the end when I had to go pick up Josiah. I know how it ended but I may try to watch it anyway. I did get several calls during the three hour movie. This was a netflix movie for school.
I got a letter in the mail from the rehab spot asking me to call as soon as possible to discuss Nolan's treatment...wonder why they couldn't call me. LOL
That's about it for the day.
13 comments:
Wow! You've been busy, and happily busy is great. Sounds like a wonderfully productive day!
LOL I usually allow something on the menu as many times as they'll eat it. BELIEVE me, they'll get tired of it and order something different after a while.lol You'll notice that what once was a meal that they would completely finish off, will have leftovers and then you know that they are ready.lol
Your salad drawer looks great! Please let me know if any goes bad or if it lasts like this for the whole week. I would love to have my veggies prepared but I'm always afraid of waste.
Lisa
Your reason for not doing WW is the same reason I don't resign up. I already "have" all of the materials, I already KNOW what to do. I just need to do it!
Looks like you got a LOT done today in the produce prep area!
Cynthia
Wow! You did a lot of prepping. I just recently started buying a huge of ground beef. When I get home I divide it into 1 pound portions and then I go ahead and brown it. I stick it in a freezer bag so it lies flat -and throw it in the freezer. This is great when you have a recipe that calls for ground beef. I just get it out the freezer and add it in. I love the time it saves!
Lisa - last time I made up to gal bags of salad greens and they lasted fine. I'm not sure about the other but will let you know...it's easier to take a chance when you have 25# of carrots in your closet. LOL
Emily - I do the same with chicken when it's on sale....cook it up and debone it and it's ready to use....
What a lot of chopping/shredding! I love all the colors in your crisper drawer.
Deb
LOL I can only imagine! That's a lot of produce sitting in your closet.lol
Debbie....I really, really began to think about buying that shredder/slicer attachment for the Bosch but the hours talking with Jamin were PRECIOUS (don't think he'll read the comments so I can use a girly word :::snort:::).
Lisa - veggies in the closet is a GREAT reminder to "eat veggies".
:::snort::: Mike moved out and I replaced him with potatoes and carrots. I crack myself up.
De'Etta--how often do you buy the produce (by the case) from HEB? Is this in addition to your produce co-op? How did you arrange the discount with the grocery store? Did you approach the manager? I wonder if other stores offer this type of thing. I can't ever keep our family (of a mere 7) in fresh fruits and veggies. Of course, I don't know how you have time to do your bulk cooking, lead Bible studies, school your children, ride your bike, etc. I guess it's because Stacia keeps you from getting any sleep. Ha!!
Kathy in WA
Kathy, yes you are right. The solution to your lack of time is another baby. That way you'll be up in the middle of the night and after feeding a baby it so quiet and perfect for Bible Study. You'll be sure not to sleep in when she wakes you up in the a.m. and will be so determined to get up BEFORE her that your internal clock will wake you up at 4:30. LOL Try my solution and see what you think. It seems to be working well for Lisa and can only get better once that little one actually arrives! :::snort:::
Seriously....Our produce co-op had to close. Heather was amazing...she allowed us all to say exactly what we wanted....but this meant that at times there weren't enough to make the case min for the truck to deliver. In other words if everyone says "I want 2 clumps of broccoli" and we need everyone to take 4 to make the case; we can't get the case. This did work as long as there were large families buying lots of produce and cases. I've never been in a produce co-op with as many options as we had. It was wonderful. But, one large family that usually bought 10 cases a time, moved. Another moved. I determined that I couldn't do the sorting etc during school time and had to back out. Another one decided to stop. They weren't able to make minimum cases without the large families ordering...is what Heather's email said. {sigh} It made me sad but then Heather let me know that she was sort of relieved not to have the work right now.
Most will give you a discount if you talk to the produce manager about ordering cases. The commissaries I've talked to give 10%. Now that I think of it, the commissary in AK would give NOTHING and their produce was terrible anyway. I wasnt' able to find a cheap produce outlet in AK but then that is a unique situation. LOL Many produce managers will give 20%. This is the first time I've seen 25%. When I picked up on Saturday he even gave us better than that. He threw in things like a case of grapes....it's very convenient because you can call and pick up your stuff in a couple of hours. He hand picks many of our cases and so we can get very green bananas and yellow bananas in the same case. A benefit. :::snort:::
Produce managers have a product that will go bad if not sold. This causes their department and the store to loose money. They WANT/NEED to sell it. For this reason - many are willing to discount so that they are guaranteed it sells. They do have to make sure they don't loose money so it's a balancing game for them. We don't get 25% off the sale items.
It's really hard to tell you how often we do this. It hasn't been in a LONG time and we have been OUT of produce for a couple of weeks. We do it when we both need things...I'd say at least every two weeks. We mostly can split fruit but are trying to do one veggie each time too. This time we got two kinds of potatoes, carrots and through a miscommunication romaine lettuce.....The two of us really can't split cases like tomatoes, lettuce etc. I think this would work well with 3 or 4 families who eat a lot of produce (family size isn't really the issue..produce consumption is). What we are doing now is sort of the middle-of-the-road in terms of choice. It's give and take and you get more or less of some things...but more choices than when I ran a co-op. Then you gave me a share price and I bought staples and whatever was on sale when I went to the produce terminal. You got an equal share and that was that. It worked well for those who had large families or ate a lot of produce and weren't incredibly picky....these other options allow picky produce consumers or small families to benefit as well. The drawback of allowing all the wonderful choices that Heather did - you won't always make cases and you dont' have the freedom to say "we're buying this and everyone is getting 4" because they dont pay a set amount but an amount for what they ordered. Also it was a TON of work for Heather...you couldn't have given me enough free produce to do all the work she did for the co-op. LOL Doing it that way with everyone having different items also meant that sorting was more difficult and took more time and required us all to be there to sort.
So....if I'm ever where there isn't a produce option and I have no friends to split cases with I would do another co-op like my old one or maybe just buy what I could from a local store while I looked for a few other families to join and split.....
Did that answer your questions? I bet you could find a produce manager in your area to give you some sort of discount for cases. Explain what you are doing and they most ofte will jump in.
I know that when I ordered from the produce terminal Cynthia set a co-op up in MT that I THINK ordered through their local grocery store...she could maybe give you more info on that.
De'Etta--thank you so much for the detailed response. I appreciate you taking the time to write all of that information out for me. Just a few more questions (sorry to bother you). Do you call the grocery store when you are interesting in buying a case and then ask for particular things or do you only get what they have 'ready to sell?' Could one family do this or does it need to be something you split? I guess I have no idea how much a "case" is or how much it would cost. Thanks again! I love how you feed your family as healthy as possible. You are a wonderful encouragement to the rest of us. :)
Kathy in WA
** Do you call the grocery store when you are interested in buying a case and then ask for particular things or do you only get what they have 'ready to sell?' **
Each produce manager may do this differently...here we call and tell him what we want. He tells us what price he can sell to us for. He also tells us if they are good or if there are fresher ones coming in etc. We can buy most things by the case...except watermelons. LOL
**Could one family do this or does it need to be something you split?**
One family can do it - as far as working with the store. How much produce do you eat...that would be the kicker. Aren't you on that really, healthy food plan? Do you eat a lot of produce? You may find you can get some staples in cases if nothing else (apples, oranges, potatoes, onions, carrots)
**I guess I have no idea how much a "case" is or how much it would cost.**
From our recent trip this is what I can remember: grapes (8 bags), carrots (25#), apples (50 or so), broccoli (18), lettuce (18), nectarines (58),
**I love how you feed your family as healthy as possible.**
Ah Kathy, around here I'm known as the junk food queen of co-op. :::Snort::: I did my research to find the healthiest chocolate, chip, cracker and soda on the market. Many who order from the co-op I organize won't even eat things like that. But I try. I take those snacks to those places where I know that my children will be offered lots of things that I'd rather they not eat or in Zander's case he can't eat. I think I'm making progress at church. We'll see. Sunday is a potluck. I think they finally get that it isn't o.k. to sneak Zander food and that it isn't o.k. to say "Ah c'mon mom a little bit of coolaide won't hurt him"..... I sure wish it woudln't. LOL
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