Show us your shopping trip
 

(We had a thread like this once before, and I did my due diligence trying to find it, but I failed.)

With the threat of another ice storm coming in tonight, I stocked up for a few more days than usual today at the store. Then, I got a fan-fucking-tastic deal on strawberries, so I just wanted to share the glory of my haul.

Below is everything I bought this afternoon. Grand total $131.63.

The organic strawberries were on sale, $2 per pint. Normally in the winter they are $6 per pint. They're not even close to expiration, I have no freaking clue why they were priced that way, but I bought all that they had left.

What are those red things to the left of the spices? They look like radishes?

radishes?

Maybe. That's a lot of radishes.

Are they radishes?

Yes, radishes. I slice them thin and dehydrate in the oven until they're radish chips.

How am I ever going to adjust to living in America when I marry Sarge?
It's all so foreign.
Arugula :lol:

What a wonderful idea though, Clod.
Not the arugula, the photo.
I'd love to replicate but I shop five days a week, and only buy what I can carry home. Because of course I work in a supermarket. So it would look like I'm starving myself or living unhealthily if I took a photo of just one shop.

The one thing I will comment on (apart from the arugula, which has really tickled my fancy) is that we could never eat that many strawberries before they went off. And the 'rents love them some berries.

Also, it's just one spice (black pepper,) and one vitamin supplement (Biotin.)

It will be a slight challenge for us, admittedly. But I eat strawberries at least once a day, sometimes twice, and the kids would eat them at every meal if I let them. Mr. Clod is also planning to puree some for a strawberry-cocoa-butter experiment, and whatever we're left with as we get down to the deadline can be frozen, since the kids are just as happy to eat fruit straight out of the freezer.

The pack that says 'Driscoll's'...are those raspberries?

I like that table/chair set.

ETA: Also, Ms. Fobble, could you tell us a bit more about the radish chips? I'm intrigued.

I'm currently soaking blueberries in Crème de Cassis. Yes I know, blueberries/ blackcurrants. They're all berries.
Sadly, the Kilner jar I'm using has a faulty seal, so I can't invert it. I worry about the berries at the top.
It's for dessert for when "the girls" come round on 28 February (Mum's friends).
She's going to serve them in meringue nests with cream.

She has so much faith in me that she's bought tinned cherries. Just in case.
Given that tinned cherries remind me of nothing so much as blood clots, I'm thinking of buying a new Kilner jar...

A strawberry-cocoa-butter experiment sounds right up my alley.

Yes, raspberries for making raspberry vinaigrette dressing. I prefer frozen as they're usually cheaper, but they were out, and we can't be allowed to run out of salad dressing (or salad, hence the arugula.)

We love the table too. We got it after wandering into a furniture store's going-out-of-business sale on a whim. It's meant for 4, but we routinely cram 6 people around it because we don't want to replace it.

To make the radish chips, you just slice very thinly, toss in a bowl with a fair amount of olive oil, spread out on 1-2 pans lined with foil, and sprinkle heavily with salt. Then put in the oven at 170 (the lowest temp most ovens will go to) for 6-8 hours, stirring them around every couple of hours. When you start, they will be piled all on top of each other, but by the time they're done they'll be shriveled to smaller than a dime. "Chips" is kind of a misnomer, they're more chewy than crunchy. But the kids like them.

It's a weird thing. You melt the cocoa butter, blend in honey and a couple other minor ingredients, then let it cool and solidify while continuing to blend it periodically so the honey doesn't separate out before it's trapped in the hard cocoa butter. He tried it once over Christmas, and it kind of worked out okay. He thinks he can make a better batch now, given what he learned the first time around.

Now we're ready for the storm. We had stocked up for the week on Sunday, but needed lots of snacks if we'll be cooped up inside for two days.
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/02/12/ne6ehugy.jpg

http://cellar.org/2014/fridge1.jpg
that stuff is ground beef I just made for a pasta sauce later. ^

http://cellar.org/2014/fridge2.jpg
need moar budder

http://cellar.org/2014/fridge3.jpg
I always get the 3 pack of romaine lettuce and only use 1. Then they go bad. This time I froze them so I can throw them out later. Tragic waste

That's almost as much milk as in our refrigerator.

15" snow tomorrow night. Gotta put in milk.

And what do you do with all your spare time? :smack:

We're doing better on that than we used to, but there is a worm bin in the basement if things go badly. Might be fun for you if you want to make a soil amendment.

We knew she was busy but...

I get the mixed spring greens salad in a bag, and then one day I noticed this huge tub of the same mix over at the end of the cooler for only about 30% more, but containing 3 times the weight of salad.

So now we buy the tub, and the greens are packed in it so tightly that you can make two salads for the entire family and the greens left in the tub expand to fill the space and make it look like the tub is still full. And it is! We have big salads every night for around 5-6 days, and I sometimes put a handful of greens on my sandwich for liunch, and still we end up throwing out the last dregs of the tub because they go bad. But I don't feel bad because you get so many more meals out of the tub for less overall cost.

I also recently read the nutrition label of my favorite salad dressing, a creamy ceasar, and now we make our own balsamic vinaigrette. Seriously, it's remarkable how incredibly bad that creamy ceasar dressing is for you.

It's all part of my attempt to eat more healthy food and exercise more. We're having a big salad with every dinner now, and if I'm still hungry after eating dinner, instead of loading up on seconds of the pasta or whatever, I serve myself up a huge pile of salad.

As someone who's obsessively read labels for years, I have to say I'm not surprised about your Creamy Caesar decision.
Until I was in my early 20s I believed I was making healthy salad choices when I ate out. There were probably less calories and fat in the cheese laden pizza I was having as a main meal than in my side salad :lol:

Mum's big issue at the moment is sugar.
She's horrified at how much she's been consuming whilst eating low calorie and low fat options. Read the labels, Ma.
When I caved in and went back to McDonalds after months and months of only eating home-prepared food I nearly gagged at how sweet the burger bun and ketchup were.
I say nearly. I got over it.
It's still a rarity for me now though. Shame, I used to enjoy my little payday treat.

The worst thing about that is the Weightwatcher's own brand stuff (and others of its ilk). People buy it because it's already set up with the points system. But most of it is actually more fattening than the stuff it replaces, and laden with sugars of all sorts.

Pshaw. Radish chips and vinaigrette is a slow day. You guys have to remember, I don't have a (paying) job except for maybe 5 hours a month of voicework. The kids are at school for 7 hours every day. That's when I cook. The other morning I made 4 pounds of lamb meatballs*, a batch of barbecue sauce, a batch of cranberry sauce, 4 pounds of boiled onion quarters, a dozen muffins, and roasted 3 pounds of veggies for smoothies**. All before lunch. I have a double oven and four burners on the stove, it's not as hard as it sounds.

*this happens about every 10 days, which is why you see 4 more pounds of ground lamb in my picture.
**this happens every day, it takes almost no time at all.

Yes, I love the salad tubs! The arugula I bought is the standard "small" tub, and the large tubs at our store are twice as big for the same price. (Except they don't have arugula in that size, only spinach and various mixed greens.) We always end up throwing away part of the big tubs too, but how can you not buy them, when you get 100% more for free?

I assume you already had bread at home, right? Or do you eat the lunchmeat and cheese in some other configuration?


Tony, your single egg on the shelf makes me cringe with danger. How can it not fall?

Oh yeah. Lots of bread at home. A couple loaves in the freezer and a couple on deck in the pantry. We go through 4 loaves a week, and get both a wheat bread and a rye/pumpernickel swirl.

Edit: That was lamb in your picture? I figured it wasn't beef, but the color looked a bit like ground pork.

S'ok, it's hard-boilt.

I still have a failed septic system. I make a soil amendment every time I flush.

Clod, are you taking classes? For some reason, I'm thinking that you're getting your nursing degree.

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Oh yeah, I guess I never mentioned it here... I stopped after it became obvious that I do not have the personality for it after all. Too many parents seek my advice and then refuse to take it. And then come back and ask for advice again, because they want their kids to be like my kids, and then they ignore my advice again. It was frustrating the crap out of me, and I wasn't sure I could face that as a living. I mentioned my doubts to our own nurse practitioner, and he basically said, "Yeah, if I'd known when I started this how many of my patients would tell me it's just too hard... I never would have gone into it." So I wrapped up that semester of prerequisites I was taking, and never applied for the program.

:lol2: I was thinking the same thing, "Loose egg! Loose egg!"

I would kill for my fridge to be that uncluttered. I bet there is literally 50 bottles/jars of various condiments, and prolly a dozen different jars of the same kind of damnable pickle in my fridge.

Maybe send down a worm chaser!

From top to bottom and left to right, more or less:

5 lb smoked mild cheddar
2 gal lowfat milk (fun fact, one gallon gone 24 hr later)
24 can lemon lime soda
5 lb elliot bay fogcutter roast coffee beans
#10 hershey's syrup (?? 6 lbs ish?. I know the can is dented. someone has to take the dented can, right? this time it was me.)
1 loaf dave's fancy bread (for french toast this weekend)
(cat litter box to the right of bread is empty, just photobombing me)
1 can ro-tel tomatoes/peppers (for chicken taquitos)
4 lb frozen boneless skinless chicken thighs (chicken taquitos)
18 eggs
1 can black beans
1 can chipotle peppers (chicken taquitos, plus anything else I get a smoked pepper hankerin' for)
4 lb chunky peanut butter
1 can refried beans (chicken taquitos)
1 can enchilada sauce (chicken taquitos)
1 bottle tiger sauce (SonofV's favorite, an impulse buy)
1 bottle chipotle tabasco sauce (now, please give me credit here, I **didn't** buy the 64 oz bottle, though it's slightly cheaper per unit)
2 lb lemon cookies
2 lb corn tortillas (chicken taquitos)

grand total, $129.23 (interestingly, only $0.54 tax... I wonder what was taxable...? ah. I checked. the soda pop)

Attachment 46812

Just did a close as possible equivalent shop on tesco website - (substituting commonly available British equivalents where the item listed would be considered exotic and therefore more expensive) and using own brand where cheaper.

And came to $171.56

Cool, Dana! If you get bored, would you do one for my shopping trip too? I want to know if groceries are more expensive across the board, or if produce vs. dry goods makes a difference (my guess is produce will be even higher.)

I am very surprised. Given that the cost of eating out is so much cheaper in the States, I just always assumed shopping was too.

Then again, prices change, as do exchange rates.
I know food costs are much higher in Australia now comparatively. My Uncle's wife made a big fuss about how much shopping cost when they were last over here (16? 18? years ago) but Mum found things much more expensive in Aus when she went just the other year. I think meat might have been cheaper. And being on the coast, seafood was better and more varied.

But it's nice to hear an alternative to the general attitude of "rip-off Britain" which permeates our media.

I'd be happy to Clod, but I'll need some guidance on quantities.

I had to multibuy on a lot of stuff with that last one, because we just don't get packs and jars that big unless we go to a wholesale store.

Sure, it was:

16 Larabars
1 bunch of organic kale
3.6 lbs organic red grapes
2 lbs organic radishes
3 organic tomatoes (not 3 lbs, just three)
4 lbs organic granny smith apples
12 oz. package pre-cut organic broccoli shreds
5 oz. box organic arugula
6 organic bananas
1/2 pint organic raspberries
5 lbs organic strawberries
14 oz. bag gluten-free pretzels
4 lbs ground lamb meat
2.5 lb boneless pork loin roast
1 lb "London Broil" beef steak
50 muffin paper cups
60 capsules Biotin
McCormick Organic Coarse Black Pepper

Why do you chose lamb instead of other ground meats? I haven't priced it out recently, but I thought lamb was about twice the price of beef or turkey or chicken or pork. Is it a flavor thing, or is it better in some other way?

It's a variety thing. Minifobette can't do chicken or turkey, and both kids hate fish. So to keep her from just eating beef and pork all the time, she has to dip into the more exotic meats like lamb and duck. The ground lamb is cheaper than the real cuts of lamb, so I go that route as often as possible.

Do they hate all fish? How bout tuna steaks?

I know we've discussed it on the Cellar before, but lamb being exotic makes me chuckle.
Have some minced lamb in the freezer right now, bought on discount from work, and half a leg for Mum's girls' night in (which may not even happen now)
And chops which she bought.

I'm not a fan of lamb in general, but minced lamb makes lovely burgers.

Yep, definitely all kinds of fish filets and steaks. Minifobette likes calamari a lot, but Minifob doesn't. (Which is not enough for us to avoid it, I do make it sometimes, but it's a pain coating all those little pieces with coconut and frying them.) Meanwhile, he's sort of okay with shrimp, but she says it tastes extremely spicy even when there's zero seasoning on it, so we suspect she may have an allergy.

This is what happens when you go shopping when you're hungover. You end up with a bunch of weird shit. Most of it, I have plans for, though. Don't know how the falafel got in there, though

Y'all buy cheese in BIG portions!

Wish more of our Deli customers did, we might hit sales targets then, and get more staff.

I say that, but in truth I love the niche market we've cornered in town, where OAPs can come buy 100g of cheese (3.5 oz) and have a chat with someone who listens and smiles.
We just need more of them. Many many more. Then I wouldn't have to cover four counters at a time and see customers as an obstruction to the rigorous cleaning schedule.

Shhhh, I didn't say that.
But it's a sad truth. Make someone who is passionate about Deli cover Bakery and Meat & Fish while still having to do two hours cleaning in a three hour shift and something has to give.

To big myself up, my Thursday customers haven't even noticed. One ex-military gent in particular will ask for me if I'm not there. And he wouldn't even look me in the eye when the store first opened. He likes what he knows, and he knows me behind the counter.

And I even have two Bakery customers, much as I hate it.
One chap is in just after 07.00 and wants pain rustica, which I never have ready on time, rolls being the last thing I bake, but this week I baked five as soon as I got in. He wanted eight. Tcha I'll know next week.

Also the chap who wants organic wholemeal bread. And always before 08.00 (I barely get bakery set up by 09.45 when I'm scheduled to leave, and that's with someone else doing Patisserie for me). I promised him I would have at least two loaves for him this week just gone. I put out three - baked before I even started the croissants and tostades for the Cafe, and they were gone when I came back from one of many trips to the freezer. I hope it was him. Didn't get to give him a "did you get good service today" card though. I've not had a single positive comment since I started. But then I never give out cards. It just seems really weaselly to me, like the only reason I make an effort is to score points.

Sorry. I've just rambled on and on now.
It was supermarket related though...

That's awesome that you have regulars and have their stuff ready in advance.

Thanks hon, I need to remember that sometimes.

Haven't been able to tot up Clod's shop as yet. T'internet is being a bit ridiculous and dropping every few mins. Supermarket homeshopping site doesn't like it. I get a few products in then the page goes to 'cannot show website' blah blah.

Anyways:

Here's my latest shop. It's just a basic provisions top-up shop. I already had meat, fish and veg in the freezer, plus rice, pasta and beans etc in the cupboard.

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3733/1...4406c6f48f.jpg

From the top, working left to right (more or less):

Whole milk 4 pints (2.272l) £1.39
'Basics' range Tomato Ketchup 460g £0.30
McCains 'Homefries' frozen chunky chips (fries) 1kg £1.20
'Basics' Fruit & Fibre cereal 500g £1.19
'Basics' Cornflakes 500g £0.35
2x Bananas £0.28
Sainsbury's own Green Tea x 20 bags £0.90
2x 'Basics' Instant Coffee Granules 200g (x100g per sachet) £1.10
Sainsburys own frozen Hash Browns 700g £1.00
'Basics' Strawberry Jam 454g £0.30
'Basics' Milk Chocolate 100g £0.33
White sugar 1kg £0.90
'Basics' Strawberry Dessert sachet (just add milk!) £0.18
Sainsburys own Butterscotch Dessert sachet (just add milk!) £0.35
'Basics' Peach Slices in light syrup 411g £0.35
'Basics' Broken Mandarin Segments in light syrup 312g £0.26
'Basics' Bourbon Cream biscuits 200g £0.35
'Basics' Shortbread Fingers 160g £0.50
'Basics' Butter (salted) 250g. £1.20

Total cost: £12.43 = $20.69


The chocolate, biscuits and dessert sachets are my attempt to stave off chocolate bars and sweeties from the cornershop (expensive!). I'm trying to ration how much I eat of them each day - I've been a bit over the top just lately with my sugar addiction and it is costly as hell and terrible for my skin and overall health. So, couple of biscuits and a few squares of chocolate is what I'm allowing myself.

The dessert sachets will probably live in the cupboard for months and will no doubt come into their own one stoned nigth when the munchies hit - at which point a 17p dessert will be better than going and spending a couple of quid on munchies from the shop!

I sweated blood over this. I'm not great at maths at the best of times. *

I worked it out from prices at the supermarket I work in, because it has the best organic selection in the town I live in. It's not the cheapest by any means, but would be your best bet for your shop.
Where I had to source elsewhere/ cannot compute, I have noted it.

£125.35 or $208.33

Soft fruit is completely out of season here, so it has to be flown in; you will not get any deal on it unless you are buying on the expiry date. Calculating pints of fruit had me tearing my hair out, but I think I found a reasonable comparison. What a difference in price though.

* ETA - I've converted Imperial to metric and calculated the prices from there.
In some cases it would not be possible to buy in these exact quantities; soft fruit is only ever available pre-packed for example, except on Pick Your Own farms.

Remember my stupid sale on strawberries, though. Had I paid normal price for the strawberries, it would have been another $20 on top of what I paid, or $151.63. Still though, being closer to the equator does have obvious perks in the produce department.

Oh yeah. Flying your raspberries in from Chile makes a difference in price!

I've mentioned food air-miles before, it's another reason why I try to eat in season.
But then the seasons of the year influence my appetite and were probably learned in childhood. So Winter vegetables are what I crave right now; potatoes, leeks, onions, cabbage, root vegetables. Heavy suet dishes and preserved fruit.

With Spring will come greens, with Summer the salads and gorgeous soft fruit. I'd rather have 100g of English cherries than 1kg of foreign ones - they're near on tasteless in comparison because of the time it takes to get them on the shelves.

I'm not being holier-than-thou. My Winter tastes include garlic, ginger, vanilla, sultanas and many spices. And they're not grown on the local allotment :o
Ditto the Christmas citrus fruits, and that famous British panacea, a nice cup of tea.

But I do envy you the smell of good strawberries in February.

Dani I have a few of those desserts in the cupboard too...
Actually bought to add to large cakes; they were a real discovery - made them rise so much more and kept them moist. Never used.
I must make them up to gobble down before Mum realises they're out of date. As if things like that can ever really go out of date ;)