Playing with Food

I've been having a great time "playing" with my food this morning. I should have been doing household chores but playing is much more fun. Now that I've put all my food lists out there for the world to see I feel challenged to use it wisely.

Thinking about how I attained this much food was fun. I noticed while I was making my lists that 90% of the items were brand names. I also know that I paid way below "actual retail prices" for all of it. Many years ago I was convinced that buying generics or store brands was the most cost efficient way of grocery shopping. So glad I learned my lesson! As I've discussed before on my blog, I require brand names of certain items, like Heinz Ketchup! And when I can get brand name for less than the other kind it makes me feel like I've won a game.

I was going to write a post about my stockpiling techniques but I figure most of you are already doing that too! But for those who aren't stockpiling I found the perfect article for you. If I had written a post, I would have said these exact things! This article is from Amy at "The Motherload". She tells us that there are 3 kinds of savvy shoppers: the first makes a menu and then only buys what is on the menu, the second shops from the flyers first to see what is on sale then makes a menu, the third shops only the loss leader and exceptional deals each week to stockpile the pantry and then shops from the pantry each week to make her menus. I'm definitely the third kind. That's is why ifyou ever see me at the grocery store I'll have 10 of the same item but only about 6 to 8 different products in my buggy. (Last week it was Progresso soup and Seapak shrimp!)

My Menu Planning Fun
A Big Thanks to day by day for posting the recipe finder at allrecipes.com I knew I had used something like that in the past; I just couldn't find it. I also found a neat tool at www.kraftfoods.com They have a dinner planner where you enter up to 3 ingredients and it gives you a list of suggested recipes. I went with the allrecipes site because of the huge number of recipes they house. I plugged in all kinds of combinations and sat here gaining back every bit of baby weight I've lost. Then I had a little evil streak! I didn't mean to, I promise, but every once in a while I get devious. So, I tried to think of the most awful things to put together in a recipe and see what Kraft told me. I tried "ground beef and cream corn". It found 5 recipes:

~slow cooker delight ~Tortilla soup III ~Cornbread that is a Meal

~Corn Chowder with beef

Well, those weren't so bad so I tried "salmon and green beans". One recipe found:

~Shell Pasta Salad with Green Beans

Next, I tried combining more ingredients: "potatoes, mushrooms, turkey" It found 6 recipes!

This is going to be fun! For a while.