June grocery shopping & cooking

I decided to get a head start on this week's grocery shopping so I could do meal prep over the weekend, so I headed to the stores by the end of last week. It's been a long time since I did breakfast freezer cooking, so I decided to fix that. I don't like cooking in the morning. I just want my coffee and food to heat & eat. 

My first stop was the produce market, since we were low or out of many things. I absolutely love fresh produce. It's what we mainly eat with some type of protein. The produce store did not disappoint at all. As I entered the store, I saw strawberries & blueberries. My 2 favorite things to buy. Blueberries were $1.50/pint, so I bought 4, because this is my absolute favorite berry. The grocery stores are charging more than that for a 6 oz container. I saw pint blueberries for $2.99 at Aldi. 

For those who are not aware, the market fills big boxes of 'what they consider' not perfect produce and sell it for $2/box. I was surprised to see so many available boxes, because the store was fairly busy. Look at how good these apples look. Thus far I've only found 2 badly bruised apples in one box, that went to the squirrels out back. The pears are still hard, so there's plenty time to eat them. I'm guessing they were making room for new inventory. 

The lemons were marked down to $1/bag. There's 6 lemons per bag. I'm gonna make some lemonade with it. DH & DS will eat some of the apples, but I'm not a fan of red apples. So I made some applesauce and apple/carrot juice (I had a bag of 'expired' carrots in the fridge, so I juiced it). We love the fresh apple juice. This is why I bought 2 boxes. You can't find fresh squeezed apple juice for $4 anywhere. I've made 4 litres thus far and still have a more than one full box of apples left. The best part - no added sugars. Hooray!

Look at the size of this cucumber. This thing measured 20 oz long and it's thick. Not to mention it tastes delicious! These were 50c each. They had a ton of small cucumber in that area, but I decided to dig through the pile and found a few large ones. I understand why they were 2/$1 (baby ones), but I always look for the largest size produce when I pay per item, instead of by weight. Well, I left the market $67 later. I'm not even worried about that number. My cart was overflowing and I know I would've paid at least 3 times as much at the grocery store. 

I stopped at Walmart for some odds and ends for breakfast and my BWW sauce (paid with a gc). Then to Aldi for bread. Would you believe that I buy 3-4 different kinds of bread at Aldi, every other week? We all eat wheat bread. DH like ciabatta, DS likes Chocolate Brioche & I like raisin bread. So I buy one of each. I'd say we're a little spoiled...lol Paying $6-9 every other week is a steal. How much is a loaf of bread at the regular grocery store these days? Last I checked it was over $4 each.

When I got home I cooked a package of breakfast sausage with onions for the freezer, the hashbrowns (I buy the O'brien ones), some of which were added to burritos. Crumbled and cooked another package of sausage. Then I chopped up some veggies and made 14 breakfast burritos for the freezer. The burritos are loaded with veggies & protein. Now we can just grab one from the freezer to heat & eat. We still have muffins that I've made the past 2 weeks & cereal. So there's enough breakfast foods to last the next 2-3 weeks. All we have to do is make eggs when we want some. I also haven't made pancakes in almost a year, so I'm gonna freeze some blueberries and make lemon blueberry pancakes to freeze. I really need another freezer. I could cook our meals for a month or 2 and not have to worry about slaving over a stove every day.

I finally found some thick bunches of cilantro at the market (their products vary from week to week and I haven't been able to find any the last time I shopped), so I made pico de gallo to go with that Mission Tortilla chips I bought a few weeks ago. Most of the peppers are diced and frozen. I wanted to make stuffed peppers, but didn't want to turn on the oven in this heat. I made a double batch of falafel instead.

I bought lots of zucchini. I know that I wanted zucchini, but can't remember what I wanted to use it for (in my old coupon group we called it CRS - can't remember s#*&) No, it's not for baking. Zucchini bread is just too bland for me. I wanted to cook a meal with it. I might have to google recipes to see if a lightbulb goes off.

Today I'll make some beetroot salad. I must have my beets. I'll eat them with just about anything. My father always used to ask me whether I'm eating the actual meal or beetroot as my meal, because I'd fill my plate with it...lol

I also went to Meijer to get some 79c Kraft salad dressing. I had to hit 2 stores, because the shelves were completely bare at the first store. The 2nd store only had a few bottles, but I managed to get 5 for the sale price (I needed 5 to get the discount). I also got my Chick Fil A sauce, because Walmart was out of it. 

I tell ya, the budget is already broken for this month - or at least it will be. I made a Costco trip yesterday. I also stopped at Ollies afterwards. Come out of Ollies to see my car keys laying on my seat. Of course the car was locked. I had to wait 2 hours in the heat for DH to come get me. Long story. I'm so glad I made the falafel, because I didn't have to worry about dinner then. We just filled pita pockets with falafel & salad fixings. I didn't make the sauce yet, so we just used some CFA sauce on it. No money spent on take out. 

I need to go to the drugstores. I don't even have a plan yet, other than WAGS. As for groceries, we're good for a coupla weeks. I might just need bananas & onions next week.