October Cooking Day Part #2

So, this morning after Grandma Valerie arrived to play with Emma, Sydney and I headed to the grocery store to purchase the items for my November menu. We spent about an hour and a half going through each section of the grocery store and making our choices. She was a trooper too, she was wide awake and alert in the beginning and fell asleep about half way through while I was finding the different kinds of canned beans that I needed for various chilies and other entrees. While there my cart got fuller, and fuller, and heavier with every step! Once I got to the checkout stand I was surprised by the total! $195.00 while this still feels like A LOT of money to be spending on one grocery shopping trip I have to remind myself that it is for the entire month with the exception of 2-3 trips to the store for milk, eggs, fruits and veggies. All in all I think our grocery bill for November will total only about $300.00 which is at least $200.00 savings if not more compared to when we cook as we go through out the month. Generally speaking a few times a week in the past we end up eating out and that gets expensive! However, last month with our freezer full of meals ready to eat we only went out a couple of times, all of which were social occasions and not the "I'm too tired to cook" occasions ;-)

As you can see from my photos: in the first I purchased a ton of dry goods including a variety of canned beans, tomatoes (diced, sauce, paste, with chilies etc.), sugar, flour, pecans, walnuts, bread crumbs, noodles, noodles, rice etc. I'll let you look at the picture!

In the second you can see our packed refridgerator the night before my cooking day, and before I had done any prep! Items here that will be used up tomorrow include: ground turkey, a pork roast, spinach, pork loins, chicken breasts, pilsbury bisquits and crosaints, a variety of shredded cheese, eggs, milk, apples, napa cabbage, celery, carrots, imitation crab meat, etc.

With barely any room left in the fridge, I scurried off to work where my students and I celebrated the upcoming holiday weekend with a Jack'o Lantern paper art project, healthy snacks that they brought in to share with one another and a few Halloween stories! After school was out I rushed home to help get the girls ready to go trick or treating on Linfield's Campus. Emma looked adorable as a Princess Ballerina Giraffe, and Sydney slept soundly in a reindeer costume :)

Once we arrived home after a delicious dinner out, thank you grandpa Dan! Dad put Emma to bed and I sat down and watched my DVR'd Project Runway season finale while I waited for Sydney to go to sleep for the night.

I spent the next few hours cleaning the kitchen. Cooking up some of the meat for tomorrow. Chopping up some vegetables, including 7 onions (oww my eyes!) and then cleaning up again.

I am now ready for tomorrow to begin! I'm hoping to beat my time from last month which was 8 hours. I hope that with the prep I began tonight I will be one step ahead and shave a bit off of my time from last month!

Good night!