ALDI Shopping and a $50 meal plan for two

Before I jump right into this post let me be straight with you. I love grocery shopping. I mean, I would even go so far as to say I adore grocery shopping. It’s sort of like an obsession. For those of you who know my Mother, you know that I did not get this trait from her. (Hi, Mom! Love you!) I can’t even explain why, really…but I do know that this adoration began way back in my “Junior Achievement” class in Junior High School. Junior Achievement was, in a word, fabulous. I don’t think it was an official course or anything – it may have been an elective – but basically it was a class where they taught us useful things like how to write a check and balance a checkbook, how to create and adhere to a household budget…things you actually use in life. Which is more than I can say about Algebra. Just saying.

Anyway, my favorite part about the class was when we were given a grocery budget and needed to create a shopping list and a meal plan and stay under budget. Maybe that’s also where I learned to love searching for a good deal. Please don’t misunderstand me, I do not subscribe to the extreme couponing mentality or the stocking up on things when they are on crazy sale mentality. I could spend an entire blog post going into great detail on why I don’t do that (and think it’s a terrible idea), but I won’t. For some people, that works; but for me, not so much. I do, however, enjoy finding the best deals on food. I’m fortunate enough to live in an area with several grocery store options, so for the first few months after we moved I did some price comparison shopping to see which grocery stores had the best prices on which items. And because all the stores are within the same relative distance to my house, if I plan my shopping list correctly I can get my groceries at two or three different stores without driving out of my way or spending extra money on gas. Again, I know this method doesn’t work for everybody, and that’s fine. I’m just explaining what works for me.

And just when I thought my grocery shopping couldn’t get any better…an ALDI opened up ridiculously close to my house. Hallelujah! I love ALDI. (And no, they are not sponsoring this post in any way.) Granted, because my husband and I shy away from eating gluten, grains, or processed foods we don’t buy as much from ALDI as we could, but their produce prices can be pretty spectacular. And as part of their grand opening we got a coupon in the mail for ten dollars of a forty dollar purchase, so I couldn’t pass that up!

ALDI is great for several reasons. Aside from the fact that it’s a German based company and I heart anything German, they can sell most of their inventory for ridiculously low prices. They do this a number of ways: instead of using regular metal store shelves, all ALDI stock is shipped in stackable packaging – so instead of stacking items on the shelves one by one, all an ALDI employee has to do is open the box and stack in on top of the one below it – brilliant! ALDI also saves time at the cash register – cashiers don’t bag items as they ring them up – they stack them back in your cart and the customer can either cart the whole thing out to their car, or bag their items afterwards at a designated location past the registers. (Word of advice, though – ALDI does charge a nominal fee for bags, so it’s a good idea to bring your own. I always have a stash of reusable bags from WholeFoods and Wegmans in my trunk.)

Another thing I like is that ALDI advertises different produce and meat specials each week. Surprisingly enough, their meat special isn’t always the best deal in our area (or it might be the cheapest, but it’s something that the husband and I don’t eat), but this past week they advertised boneless, skinless chicken breasts for $1.89 per pound, which is an awesome deal.

Here’s what I came home with for the week ahead:

5.5lbs chicken: 9.73

Ground beef patties (12): 9.99

Cauliflower 2.89

Bell Peppers (3) 2.99

Cucumbers 2@.44 = .88

Celery .79

Roma Tomatoes 1.49

Grape Tomatoes 1.99

Butter Lettuce mix 2@1.99 = 3.98

Romaine Hearts 1.99

Sweet Potatoes (3lb bag) 1.29

Plantains 3@.35 = 1.05

Butternut Squash 1.49

Guacamole 2.99

Pitted Black Olives .99

Jalapeno Slices 1.49

Roasted Garlic Salsa 1.89

All of this came to a grand total of $48.51, but after my coupon I ended up spending $39.72 (with tax included).

I already had some items had home that I was planning on incorporating to my weekly food plan, but I priced them at ALDI as well, just to see how much my meal plan would have cost in total.

Eggs 2doz@1.69 = 3.38

Uncured Bacon 4.29

Bananas .69

Strawberries 1.39

Adding the aforementioned items, my total grocery bill would have been $49.47…done, and done! So, what will we be eating this week? Let’s take a look!

Monday:

Breakfast: scrambled eggs, bacon, fruit

Lunch: salad with grilled chicken

Dinner: CrockPot Mexican Chicken over plantains with guacamole, black olives, jalapenos

Tuesday:

Breakfast: scrambled eggs and baked sweet potato

Lunch: leftover crockpot chicken

Dinner: BYO burgers and sweet potato hash

Wednesday:

Breakfast: scrambled eggs and fruit

Lunch: burgers over salad

Dinner: grilled chicken and cauliflower rice

Thursday:

Breakfast: scrambled eggs, sweet potato hash

Lunch: stuffed baked sweet potatoes (with leftover Mexican chicken)

Dinner: BYO burgers with grilled romaine and butternut squash

Friday:

Breakfast: hamburger patty with fried egg and guacamole

Lunch: leftover burgers, squash, romaine

Dinner: LEFTOVERS

Saturday:

Brunch: fried eggs, sweet potato hash, bacon, fruit

Dinner: Hamburger Patties with cauliflower rice

It’s certainly not the most exciting of menus; but I was fortunate enough to marry a man who is: 1) not a picky eater; 2) follows the same rules of food as I do; and 3) doesn’t mind leftovers. Since we don’t eat (or at least, we try not to eat) gluten, grains, legumes, dairy, sugars, and processed foods (INSERT HYPERLINK: See: Whole30), our meals typically consist of some variation of protein and veggies, and leftovers are a lifesaver for us. Plus, when you have a one hour commute to and from work every day, trying to make time to cook a healthy dinner every night can be a daunting task and typically ends in a restaurant or with take-out.

Another way to combat this is to spend a few hours on Saturday or Sunday doing your weekly food prep. For example, after I came home with my ALDI haul, I turned on the 90’s radio station on Pandora and spend a couple of hours doing this:

– I took half the chicken breasts and tossed them in the crockpot with a jar of roasted salsa for Mexican CrockPot Chicken (recipe coming soon!)

– Brined and grilled the other half to slice up into strips

– Baked two sweet potatoes, used the rest to make sweet potato hash (I used frozen spinach instead of kale)

– Sliced Raw veggies (celery, cucumber, pepper)

– Hardboiled a half dozen eggs for snacks

– made a pot of cauliflower rice

– Grilled all twelve hamburger patties for meals and snacks

It’s as easy as that! A couple of hours worth of work saves me so much time during the week, when I can come home from work and simply pull out the pre-cooked ingredients for dinner. Voila!

Sunday Food Prep

Welcome to another edition of Sunday Food Prep! As I’ve mentioned previously I like to spend a couple hours on Saturday or Sunday afternoon to prepare a ton of food – usually in the form of protein – for the Husband and I to have on hand for the upcoming week. Before we got married I would use my weekends to sit down and prepare my weekly menu and shopping list so that every evening after work I knew exactly what I would be making for dinner and what I’d be taking to work for breakfast and lunch. Now that we are both working full time (usually with conflicting schedules) and because my commute is double what it was before we moved, I’ve found that creating a weekly menu and cooking a somewhat elaborate dinner each night isn’t manageable anymore. (And it usually ends up with take-out or dinner at a restaurant because we either don’t feel like cooking or don’t know what to cook.) It’s much easier for us to have pre-cooked protein options on hand to use as a base for a meal, filling in the blanks with whatever vegetables we have on hand. I do still come up with a suggested meal plan – generally a list of meals we can create with whatever meat we have – so I can buy vegetables I know we’ll use, but it’s definitely not as in depth or organized as it used to be. And that’s OK with us.

So here’s what I came up with for the upcoming week:

Hard Boiled Eggs: Every week, without fail, we boil hard boiled eggs. It’s perfect for breakfasts, snacks, or a quick post-workout protein hit.

Hamburger Patties: Also one of my Husband’s favorites – I kept these simple and combined ground beef, onion, and some spicy Montreal steak seasoning before forming the beef into patties and tossing them on a hot grill.

Brined Chicken Breasts: I’m so glad the weekend was nice enough to grill, because grilled chicken tastes so much better than baked, in my opinion. I seasoned two breasts with a spicy cajun seasoning blend and left one plain.

Seasoned Ground Beef: I kept this simple as well and browned some ground beef with onion, garlic salt, parsley and cracked pepper. We’ll use this any number of ways – on eggs, on sautéed vegetables or salads; stuffed into a sweet potato or acorn squash…it’s super easy and extremely versatile.

Baked Sweet Potatoes: Since we had the grill on for the hamburgers and chicken, Kevin wrapped two sweet potatoes in foil and threw them on the grill as well. Good to have on hand for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

Roast Chicken with Mirepoix (carrots, celery and onion): I planned in advance to make an oven-roast chicken for Sunday dinner so we’ll have extra chicken and vegetables to use throughout the week as well. Plus I plan on using the remains of the chicken to make bone broth – recipe coming soon!

Chipotle Aioli: Otherwise known as homemade mayonnaise with some chipotle powder mixed in – I use this as a topping for build-your-own-burgers, a dipping sauce for sweet potato fries or roasted asparagus, or added to egg or chicken salad for a quick lunch at work.

 And that’s that! After only a couple hours of work I now have enough variety to create an entire week’s worth of meals for the Husband and me. Here’s an example of what our week might look like:

Enjoy!

Sunday Food Prep

Happy Monday! I am in the middle of enjoying my lovely day off, thanks to the President’s Day holiday! (To those of you working today, you have my sympathies.)

With the snow day on Thursday we almost had a five day weekend, which would have been awesome – but I’m definitely thankful for a three day weekend instead of the regular two! And given that this is the last major holiday until Memorial Day – ugh – I tried to make the most of my time!

Kevin had to work on Valentine’s Day (we celebrated on Thursday instead), but I did make homemade pizza and took in it to work to surprise him for dinner. Unfortunately for me he worked again on Saturday, and so  I used my evening alone to catch up on some homework for my Perspectives class. I had fallen hopelessly behind (definitely not used to being in college anymore – was there this much reading involved when I was an undergrad??), so it was nice to have some uninterrupted time to really dig in to God’s word.

I attended church on Sunday morning, came home, and immediately got started on my weekly food prep. You may remember from my Whole30 recaps that I’ve been spending a few hours on Saturday or Sunday prepping food for the week ahead so that Kevin and I always have quick and easy meals to grab and go. Because Kevin’s job isn’t conducive to a sit-down meal I like to pack him foods that are easy to carry – hard boiled eggs are great, sliced chicken breast, meatballs, and chopped fruit or veggies. I also like to keep some snacks on hand like bars (I like Kit’s Organic bars by Clif – the berry almond and cashew flavors are whole30 approved!) and beef jerky packs (try PrimalPacs – also Whole30 approved!)

Here’s what I had on hand when all was said and done (about four hours of work):

You’ll notice most of my stuff is protein – I prefer to cook my vegetable sides the same day I’m going to eat them, so when I do my food prep I stick to protein, sauces or condiments, and vegetables that still taste great as leftovers – hence the gigantic bowl of cauliflower fried rice. Here’s what I made:

Curried meatballs: I combined ground beef, diced onions, garlic salt, curry powder, cumin, salt and pepper and baked in a 375 oven for about 25 minutes.

Cajun hamburger patties: Kevin loves taking hamburger patties to work, so I seasoned a bunch with my favorite cajun spice blend and cooked them on the stove. Normally we’d grill them, but the three feet of snow piled up between us and our grill on the patio sort of deterred me.

Hard boiled eggs: I use hb eggs to make the easiest breakfast ever, to have sprinkled with salt and pepper as a snack, or to whip up a quick egg salad if I have homemade mayonnaise on hand.

Baked Chicken Breasts: Again, these would normally be grilled if it weren’t for all the snow. I started brining my chicken breasts based on this recipe from Melissa Joulwan and then I play around with whatever seasonings I feel like using. This time I seasoned half the chicken with a moroccan seasoning blend, and left the other half plain. Brining the chicken takes a while, but trust me, it is so worth it. The chicken comes out deliciously moist and flavorful and pretty much tastes good with anything.

Cilantro Pesto: Recipe for this delicious condiment coming soon! I originally bought cilantro to try to make cilantro-lime cauliflower rice and made fried rice instead, leaving me with an overabundance of cilantro instead. But worry not! I scoured my pantry and decided to make pesto instead! (Hint: it’s the perfect condiment for the plain baked chicken breasts I just mentioned.)

Cauliflower Fried Rice: This has been one of my favorite side dishes lately, I think because it’s so versatile and I eat it with everything. Plus, a head of cauliflower is $3.49 at the store and makes approximately three hundred servings, so it’s a total win.

Chopped peppers: I should have done this with onions as well – Kevin and I use diced peppers and onions in just about everything, so dicing them up in advance saves so much time when you’re actually getting ready to cook.

So there you have it! I finished all my food prep just in time to wolf down some dinner, grab my books, and head off to class – it certainly made for a busy Sunday!

Kevin and I started our Monday off with something we haven’t done in a long time – coffee on our patio!

The temperature outside this morning hovered at about 26 degrees, but with the sun shining brightly we decided to brave it and it felt SO good to be outside! Plus having coffee on our balcony/porch/patio in the morning is a huge part of Kevin and my relationship and with the polar vortex hitting the East Coast it’s been months since we’ve gotten to do it, so it was an extra special indulgence!

All in all it was a great weekend – here’s hoping the rest of the week is just a nice!