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Posts tagged groceries

MOM’s Organic Market

Jun20
2012 5 Comments Written by Linda

We have a store nearby called MOM’s Organic Market, MOM for short.  It was a small store with a tiny parking lot, and they didn’t carry everything I needed, so if I shopped there I would also have to shop somewhere else.  But this month they moved to a larger location and now it is a fantastic place to shop.

moms organic market

What I like about it is that ALL of their produce is organic.  So I can buy everything, and if something isn’t available, it is because it isn’t organic.  At Whole Foods they carry organic and “conventional” produce and it is all mixed together which makes it hard to find things.  But at MOM’s I can just wander through the produce department picking out what looks good and I don’t have to check the label to see if it is organic.  Easy!

And they have some products that Whole Foods doesn’t carry.  Two of them I have been looking for, Wildwood Garlic Aioli, and Daiya cheese in the block.

     daiya cheese block 2

Here is what the cheese looks like out of the packaging:

 

daiya cheese block 1

Looks like fake cheese, doesn’t it?  Kind of like a white version of Velveeta, which isn’t cheese either.

I sliced some to put on my veggie burger, and it melts nicely:

 

veggie burger daiya cheese 3veggie burger daiya cheese 2

Then I put it on a bun with the Wildwood Garlic Aioli.

veggie burger daiya cheese 1

I have to say, this was pretty darn good.  The flavor of the cheese is “jack style”, so it has a nice taste, and it is salty.  Maybe too salty.  It kind of tastes like cheese, but if you have never had cheese, or not in a long time, you would think it is cheese.

The Garlic Aioli was delicious!  I will be putting this on everything.

I also got these cookies at MOM’s:

uncle eddies cookies 1

uncle eddies cookies 2

uncle eddies cookies 3

So good!  These are soft and chewy cookies in the oatmeal chocolate chip flavor, which is my personal favorite type of cookie.  I don’t know who Uncle Eddie is, but his cookies are divine!

Scorecard:

  • Daiya block cheese                     75
  • Wildwood Garlic Aioli                95
  • Uncle Eddie’s cookies              100

MOM’s also has a lunch counter with salads and sandwiches.  I got a black bean burger, and I have to say it was about the worst veggie burger I have ever had.  It had the consistency of dog food and tasted like mashed sweet potatoes, which is what it probably was.  What a disappointment.  Even the pretzels were awful.

Stuff like this gives vegan food a bad name.

moms burger 1

moms burger 2

Scorecard:

  • MOM’s black bean burger           0
  • MOM’s pretzels                             10

Sorry MOM.  I love your groceries, your lunch counter, not so much.

Posted in Food - Tagged ,

Weekend Musings

Apr17
2012 15 Comments Written by Linda

We’ve been having wonderful spring mornings, and I love to sit out on the deck with my coffee and do my school work, or just look out at the green grass.  My lilac bush is blooming, and my parsley, which I planted last year, is growing like a weed.  I had no idea that it would last through the winter.

 

A new store opened nearby, and I took a field trip there on Saturday afternoon.

Look at these amazing strawberries:

strawberries 2 apr 12

Which I made into a strawberry chocolate smoothie:

strawberry choc smoothie apr 12

I found these bags of freeze dried fruit:

crispy pineapple

Kind of fluffy and sweet.  The whole bag had 35 calories and contained one ingredient – pineapple.  This would be good for travel.

crispy pineapple 2

They sell these dried green beans in the bulk department – these are really good:

crispy green beans

I’m embarrassed to say that I have no idea what food costs in a grocery store.  If I see something that looks good, I buy it.  My reasoning is that if it is healthy, and I eat it and don’t waste it, it is worth whatever it costs.  Sometimes I do notice prices, when they are high, like a jar of almond butter for $12.00 or a pound of cherries for $8.00.  I do have my limits, but in general I don’t look at the prices.

Those organic strawberries cost $3.98, the pineapple bag was $1.50, and the dried green beans were $12.99 per pound, and the amount I got cost $3.50.  There are a lot of dried green beans in a pound.

Looking at my receipt I see I spent $8.99 on stir fry vegetables.  The package weighed 1.5 pounds, and there was no waste because the veggies were already cut up.  I got two meals out of that.  Organic bananas seem cheap – 69 cents per pound.  A little package of organic raspberries was $5.99.  One tomato, locally grown and weighing .68 pound, cost $1.35. 

I should really look at these receipts more often so that I can see what the cost of food is.  I don’t know – how do these prices sound to you?

Posted in Food - Tagged ,

My Grocery Budget

Feb29
2012 4 Comments Written by Linda

Well, I don’t really have a budget.  But I was curious to see how much I spend on groceries so I printed out some Quicken reports.  There has definitely been a change in my shopping habits and purchases since the cancer diagnosis, and since switching to the plant based diet.

Most of my money goes here:

Here are some figures for my purchases at Whole Foods:

  • January 2012:  $283
  • December 2011:  $465  (Princess Lemon was home for winter break)
  • November 2011:  $313
  • October 2011:  $98  (I wasn’t feeling well this month)
  • September 2011:  $281
  • August 2011:  $404  (Just started the vegan diet, so I got carried away)

I also shop at these places:

And very rarely because I hate this place:

Here are my figures for these places combined:

  • January 2012:  $118
  • December 2011:  $400  (Princess Lemon was home for winter break)
  • November 2011:  $224
  • October 2011:  $292
  • September 2011:  $114
  • August 2011:  $278

Keep in mind that I buy some expensive items at Whole Foods – supplements, protein powders, flax seed, etc.   I buy 90% organic, and I also try to buy as local as possible, which many times is not possible, like for bananas, or in the winter mostly everything.  I buy minimal amounts of processed foods, mainly almond milk, tofu, crackers and occasionally cookies, pretzels, vegan cheese, canned tomatoes and beans, condiments, and pasta.  And I don’t buy meat, chicken, fish, eggs or dairy.

I go to the store often so that I can always have fresh produce, and therefore I eat it before it spoils so there is little waste.  I visit Whole Foods 4 – 5 times per month and the other stores 4 – 6 times per month.  I do try to do a menu plan, loosely anyway, so that I know what to buy, but my grocery list is about the same all the time.

These figures are just what I spend on my own food, not anything for my family, except in December when Princess Lemon was home and was grocery shopping a lot.  Mr. Lemon and Prince Lemon do their own thing.

According to a USDA report from 2009, a woman my age spends between $181 and $269 per month on groceries depending on whether they are thrifty or liberal.  I am obviously beyond liberal.  It seems that my grocery budget is quite large, but I love my food, I love to try new recipes, I love to cook, and I love to have lots of stuff in the freezer for days when I have no time to cook.

Pre-vegan I was spending about $400 per month on non Whole Foods grocery stores, and about $200 per month at Whole Foods.  Those figures include all of the chicken, fish, dairy and eggs that I don’t eat anymore.  I have to say $600 per month is a lot!  So by cutting out the animal products I am definitely spending less at the grocery store.

The next reports I’ll be looking at are for dining out.  I don’t eat out much, but I’m curious to see what those reports look like.

Posted in Food - Tagged , ,

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