So Garth and I were eating too much take-out so we gave ourselves the challenge to not order take-out for the rest of July. And just a little side note, take-out for Garth and I is not fast food. We almost never get fast food unless we are on vacation. I'm sorry, I felt like I had to defend that. Our faves are sushi, thai, and Med take-out. We eat healthy take-out! But I digress.
The whole challenge lasted a week and we caved. I know you're thinking, "But what about all that food you bought at Costco!" But here is the problem with Costco, you spend a lot of money and you get a few products that last months. There is only so much veggie burger, turkey hot dog, and spinach pasta a girl can eat. And sure, we won't need to stock up on toilet paper, cheese or eggs anytime soon. We did last a whole week without ordering take-out and that was pretty huge for us!
And if I could justify? Sunday was our 3 year anni of being together, we HAD to celebrate! And last night? Well, I have been sick with this horrid cold and I just HAD to have Panera french onion soup!
We failed this challenge. BUT we are not quitters! We're going to Walmart this weekend and we'll stock up on staple ingredients so we can cook a wider range of foods. And if you have any suggestions as to what a staple kitchen item is I could really use your help, thanks!=)
- Lindsey
- I love God. My husband makes me laugh a lot. I could eat sushi everyday. I have been to Israel. I hate the rain in my shoes. I enjoy reading theology. I love Broadway musicals. I hate florescent lights. I like dressing up. I love weddings. I hate cake. I enjoy planning events. I adore Hawaii. I wish I could sing. I hope bell bottoms never go out of style. I am not a city girl. I love hanging out with my husband. I can kick your butt at Connect Four. I love bike riding. I should have been born in a state with an ocean. I'm following THE Rabbi. I like to clean. I love to laugh. I rather read than cook. I want to love God with my life.
53 comments:
ummm apparently every wife needs flour & brown sugar :)
My staple grocery items are: eggs, milk, bread, cheese, tuna, and fresh veggies/fruit. (And ice cream, haha :)
Good luck with the challenge!
I always keep frozen chicken breasts on hand. You can make anything with chicken. Also pasta and sauce.
It's the dinner that gets me too. I can make an incredible omelet that can serve as a dinner but that doesn't satisfy my hubby too often. Mostly we have them for brunch but the cool thing is you can stuff them with anything - and top it off with salsa. Yummmm....now I want one.
BUT - a staple? Chicken breasts. So whenever they are on sale, I stock up. Oh...and if you buy romaine lettuce and chop it up and put it in tupperware it lasts over a week and you can throw together a chicken salad in a jiffy. Grilled chicken, corn, drained chili beans, cheese, and some ranch dressing (I add a little chili powder and salsa to the dressing for a Southwest flavor) and maybe a handfull of crushed fritos (just a few for crunch) and VOILA - dinner! There ya go. My two cents. :-)
Even though you didn't make it a whole month a week is better than nothing! Good job. You get a thumbs up from me!
i think its funny you only lasted a week! once you get into a grove of cooking and trying out new things - you will enjoy cooking together instead of getting takeout! plus its way cheaper! good luck.
My staples are bread, cheese, bananas, cucumber and tomatoes. Those are things you will always find in my house.
I do not own flour & brown sugar so don't learn from Jen's cookie issues ;)
no biggy if you failed. You are making an effort and that's really all that matters. At least your failures are healthy enough. Mine is normally Chicken Express or Whataburger. NOT HEALTHY (and I love it!)
I love walmart. I am heading there tomm to stock up! =D and a week is goood because its a start!
I'm a big fan of black beans and onions -- you can use them with rice or you can make fajitas/quesadillas, etc etc. :) Onions are also great in omelets! :)
I always keep frozen chicken breasts & a pound of ground beef (the 90/10 kind) on hand for a quick meal of grilled chicken, tacos, spaghetti, fajitas, etc.
One week is still an accomplishment--we just try to limit our dining out to one night on the weekends.
We buy a lot of lean ground beef for tacos, different casseroles, and such. Then of course chicken breast, fresh fruit & veggies, then bread, lunch meat, frozen steamer veggies... Oh, and some frozen lasagna and such for those days where you don't feel like cooking! Hope that helps! And kudos to yall for not eating fast food - that's something hubs and I do way too often!
If you guys are into eating healthy, which it looks like you are, you could eat Salmon. It's really good for you and there are a lot of different ways to fix it! We eat a lot of fish and chicken breasts.
pasta
fruits (for dessert!)
chicken breasts
eggs
cheese
We like take out too.
I usually keep eggs, bread, sliced cheese, mini-tortellini, canned tuna, mayo, bags of frozen/mixed veggies, milk, flour and sugar.
Eggs can always be used to make Brinner (breakfast for dinner) or omelets.
I make a great tuna salad with the tortellini, mixed veggies & canned tuna.
This made me LOL so hard!!! I'm SOOOO bad at cooking!!!
The only staple I know of is chicken, tortilla shells, chips and salsa!!! HAHA
It was an anniversary and you were sick...it totally doesn't count as a FAIL.
You'll always find milk, bread, eggs, and cheese in my house. Good go-to items for me are pesto, pasta, ground turkey (turkey burgers), frozen veggies, and chicken (quesadillas). As you begin to cook more at home, you'll have staples too. I think it's a learned behavior- luckily. :)
Once you start cooking you will love it! I love cooking and I'm sad that I don't get to do it too much now that Future Mr is working nights. Definitely get bread, cheese, eggs, chicken breasts, pasta, rice, pasta sauce, fruits, veggies, milk, cereal, salad and you gotta throw some snack foods in there too :-) Good Luck!
Atleast you lasted a week, me and Big Man would probably only last a couple days
Dont be so hard on yourself, We eat out too much as well. I would subscribe to one of the cooking blogs and get some yummy ideas. Also check out Menu plan mondays!
I keep a variety of fresh veggies on hand but my staples are red and green bell peppers, onions, and shredded mozzarella cheese.
Here's an easy recipe for you to use sometime it's called biscuit topped casserole. the Mr. and I use it when we're trying to eat out of our pantry.
we use ground turkey but you can substitute ground beef.
1 lb of ground turkey
1 bag of frozen mixed veggies
1 can of spaghetti sauce or you can get tomatoe sauce and add your own spices to make your own sauce
1 medium onion chopped
1 can of biscuits I use pilsbury flaky layers
1 cup of shredded mozzarella cheese
in a medium sauce pan brown ground turkey until it's no longer pink
add sauce and stir to mix add in chopped onion
cook mixed vegetables in microwave with a tsp of butter and I always use 1/4 of a bouillion cube for flavor add mixed vegetables to meat and sauce mixture
transfer mixture to pie dish open biscuits and arrange over the top of meat and veggie mixture melt a table spoon of butter and brush over the top of the biscuits sprinkle with mozzarella cheese, bake at 350 for 18-21 minutes or until biscuits are golden brown.
I got this recipe from Taste of Home's cooking for 2 website It's pretty tasty and you can tweak it multiple ways instead of turkey and spaghetti sauce use chicken and alfredo sauce change up the veggies, use puff pastry dough instead of biscuits. There are lots of ways you can use this with whatever is in your pantry.
Good luck!!
Whole wheat flour, baking powder, baking soda, brown sugar, oatmeal, corn starch... gosh, you got me thinking. I'll have to do a post on this on my cooking blog :)
You can do it!!
You two are JUST like us. We gave ourselves a limit of 2x/month out to dinner and 4x/month Starbucks. Epic Fail. EPIC EPIC FAIL. Try again in August, we will!
My staples are frozen veggies, perdue perfect portion chicken breasts, family pack of ground beef and ground turkey, red sauce for pasta, romaine lettuce (you can get 3 hearts/pack at WalMart I think...it's been awhile but I think you can!), lentils, canned black and kidney beans, salad dressing, taco seasonings, bread, shredded cheese, creamer, milk, and cereal. Those are things I buy weekly and always have!
good luck! I always have some onions, peppers and other veggies cut up and frozen for easy adding to dishes. lots of flavor without much prep.
mmmm.. i love the panera french onion soup!! oh well, i agree you did good to go a week! me and stu are big eat-outers, so i know that one week really is an accomplishment :-) remember - baby steps haha
ps. can't remember if i left a comment for you or not, but i changed my url to: dontworrylover.blogspot.com
You did good at a week! You cannot expect to go cold turkey! Ha!
Get some different spices - there are millions out there! That can make one kind of meat taste like a different meal every night!
It really depends on what you guys want to cook...staples for us are cheese, eggs, milk, flour and bread. I've started buying frozen veggies because I don't like all of them and my hubby can't eat an entire can by himself. We make big dinners and use the left overs for lunch the next day.
A week is at least a step in the right direction! I definitely know what you mean about needing variety! =)
Walmart really is the best place to buy groceries.. When we decide to make the extra effort and drive 15 more minutes to get to one we save SO much more money! (I'm actually just going to read what everyone else is suggesting)
what about making a meal plan and buying only the ingredients you need?
You deserve take out for your anniversary!!! WE have the same problem so I am no help at all
I have an award for you
you def deserve the night out for your annie!!! I see nothing wrong with eating out every now and again anyway! We ususally eat at home during the week...and eat out on weekends - maybe try that??
Girl, I know you can do it... good luck :) :)
drew and i eat out quite often! I love to cook, but sometimes i just dont want too haha
A month or so ago we discovered that we were spending over $500 a month on eating out/ordering in and have now squashed it down to one date night a week where we allow ourselves to eat a meal out.
In our house the staples are:
Ground Beef
Chicken Breasts
Olive Oil
Corn on the cob
Asparagus (Most types of veggies actually)
Baking Potatos
Milk
Eggs
Whole Wheat Pasta
Hope this helps!
Fresh produce are always on my grocery list.
Goofy kids cereals like Coco Puffs and Trix are always on my hubs.
just to warn you, the time traveler's wife has some graphic language...but if you can get through it, the book itself is wonderful!
That's ok. Husby and I eat out once a week. It gives us a chance to have date night :)
here's a post of what' sin my kitchen -- http://joyinmykitchen.blogspot.com/2009/07/stocked-kitchen.html
We are really trying to break the eating out habit too and it is hard to do. I feel like I need to prepare in advance for the week, shop for all of the ingredients and then it would work.
We try to keep frozen chicken breasts on hand, milk, eggs, cheese and pasta/sauce.
I think a week is great! We have one meal out a week, but buying at Costco is hard with the bulk food items. We make sure to stock up on chicken breasts when on sale, and keep rice, cereal and black beans in the pantry always. I am a big fan of cereal for dinner (or dessert)!
Don't forget the wine and chocolate! Def. staples! :)
Yes, frozen chicken breasts!
I saw one of the otjer lovely lady bloggers already say this...but yes! Chicken Breasts!
We always have them on hand :)
And a huge bag of frozen mixed veggies..fresh is not that easy to use sometimes...
pasta, chicken, canned soup, frozen pasta dinners...and of course the basics! fruits veggies milk bread cheese, etc.. at least your take out doesn't seem to be too bad for ya!
hehe... no worries.
It took us a while to really have our staples figured out. You'll get there. I think it's different for every household.
Brown and White rice, white and brown sugar, unbleached whole wheat flour, baking soda, baking powder, cornstarch, lots of cans of diced tomatoes and beans, whole wheat pasta, good spaghetti sauce (I love Newman's Own Sockarooni), and obviously milk, eggs, a good quality block of Parmiaganno-Reggiano to last you forever and a day, Carapelli olive oil (it's the best), balsamic vinegar, white and apple cider vinegar... can you tell I have a well stocked kitchen? But seriously, I can whip up anything with a few fruits/veggies and meats. I freeze chicken breasts and individual servings of pot roast for easy dinners, too. Oh.. and for spices, try Penzeys,com - way awesome spices cheaper than even Wal-Mart.
Frozen chicken and vegetables are staples around our house. Fish as well.
That would be a tough challenge! And I agree with Costco stuff - you can only cook the same thing so many times before you grow tired of it. And then you still have half a box left of food!!
chicken stock, rice and chicken. You can make lots of different things with that if you vary the spices.
I'm with you. We eat the same 5 things over and over again! It does get old!!
But check out Kraft.com. They have a healthy recipes section and that might give you more of an idea on what to buy.
We try this lovely little challenge all the time. Our longest streak is 3 days. 3 freakin' days. Whatevs. I give up!
Well I think I am #52 I came over to visit from Snow White and I enjoyed all the comments and suggestions. Here's mine...
If you don't drink much milk you can get canned evaporated milk. Mix with equal parts water. You can use in recipes.
Also I get ground meat or turkey, eggs, cheese fresh veggies. Someone mention salmon and I thought of canned also crab meat. Salmon or crab cakes are simple mix with some cracker crumbs or bread crumbs and and egg. Goes great with a salad and soup. That's another suggestion we love soups. Do you have a crock pot. Some people make recipes that required lots of prep. but there are simple ones too. One of my favorite kitchen blogs besides snow white is diaryofstayhomemom.blogspot go there then click on her food blog. Also pioneerwoman.com I think you can google it she has lots of recipes and she is hilarious. One last thing. I like to cook on the weekend. Right now I grill 4-5 meats. In the winter I will cook up ground beef with onions for tacos, spaghetti or casseroles. Also roast a chicken for use in a couple of other dishes. And you almost have a week done!
Good luck. I'll check back to see how your doing.
Blessings,
Sherry
I know you can do it, eating take out is my weakness too. I do cook a lot and have tons of fab healthy recipes it is just for lunch I mostly eat out.
I bring my lunch to work and vow to eat it nice and low calorie meal but I hear Panera Bread or Thunder Cloud Subs calling my name!
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