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| Grocery Budget Share your grocery budget and help others get thier grocery bill under control |
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10-02-2006, 07:20 PM
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What do you need to Use Up??
What do you need to use up?
I just finished using approximately 5 lbs. of brown sugar that was up in the cabinets. Evidently I had intended to do a bit of baking at one time and there was a bunch of it in the cabinet. I've been using it to make Toffee Coffee and it was actually pretty good but I finished it up this morning. Next on the list of things in the cabinet that need using is a jar of 'Fake Blueberries'. Really. They are a dry product. Round. Purple. They come from some baking supply place long enough back that I can't recall where...but they are shelf stable, I'm just tired of seeing them up there in the cabinet. So, I see some blueberryish pancakes and blueberryish muffins in our future. There are also some chocolate chips in the baking cabinet and some Toffee Crumbles (??) up there that need to baked into some kind of cookies. The Toffee Crumbles also work well in brownies. I am challenging myself to get these products into usage and off the shelves. Hauling them onto the kitchen counter to be in sight for cooking whims. What can you challenge yourself with? What do you need to use up? 
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10-02-2006, 07:45 PM
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Re: What do you need to Use Up??
I have lots of stuff stockpiled. But the only stuff that I want to use up faster is apple sauce. I do not plan on baking anything for at least a couple of weeks, watching my waistline now, I started to gain weight for no reason.
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10-02-2006, 08:00 PM
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Re: What do you need to Use Up??
For some reason I have a ton of confectioner's sugar.
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10-02-2006, 08:17 PM
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Re: What do you need to Use Up??
Mmm...blueberries and chocolate chips - sounds like you need to make pancakes (not together - a batch of blueberry and a batch of my favorite - choc chip).
Dh used up some about-to-go-bad deli ham and half-and-half tonight to make a really good alfredo-like pasta dish. I need to use up some sour cream and the rest of my homemade yogurt - maybe I'll do some baking tomorrow, or some type of casserole.
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10-02-2006, 10:01 PM
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Re: What do you need to Use Up??
Vegetables. I went shopping Saturday, bought broccoli, cauliflower, potatoes, carrots, celery, mushrooms and green bell pepper.
My mother callled Saturday evening to say she was going to visit her family for a week and to come and get her perishables including broccoli, zucchini from the garden, tomatoes from the garden, lettuce and 2 more green bell peppers!
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10-02-2006, 10:52 PM
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Re: What do you need to Use Up??
Same here, vegetables. We managed to go shopping, but have been resting and eating soup and tv dinners, so the fresh veggies are getting a bit, well...needy
 The worst is the beautiful cauliflower that we cooked up, but it has been sitting in the frig for two days and AGH it smells. Tomorrow it will go into a strata. Unless we sleep all day again. Being sick seriously messes up the cooking plan. (Homebody, good to see you online!!!)
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10-03-2006, 03:26 PM
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Re: What do you need to Use Up??
Ahhh yes, Veggies. Thanks for the reminder - I had CashHappySon chop up the celery left in the crisper and stuck it in the freezer. Will use it over time in making Potato Soup. YUM!!
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10-03-2006, 05:38 PM
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Re: What do you need to Use Up??
Ok, I got rid of half of the sour cream in twice-baked potatoes tonight...most of the yogurt went into my lunch. But in doing a re-eval of the crisper, it appears our vegetables have been reproducing in the fridge after we turn the lights out at night! Four yellow squash, nearly a full head of starting-to-rot cabbage, one head of cauliflower, some swiss chard cut several days ago, four green peppers, a bowl of jalapenos...all of this from the garden. Add to that some tomatoes, cukes, and lettuce, not to mention carrots and celery (staples) that were purchased - we have to eat more! There's no way around it.
Squash and peppers will go into eggs tomorrow morning. I plan to make Caulifower Bacon soup for lunch tomorrow - a salad with that may use up some of the excess. I guess there are worse problems to have than too many veggies!
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10-04-2006, 07:35 PM
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Re: What do you need to Use Up??
Shortening for starters. I went to my local store a little while back while they were having a rare triple (up to 1$) coupon sale so I loaded up on lots of stuff, I ended up getting several of those small cans of Crisco for free. I got as many as I could, figuring they had a pretty good shelf life.
Baby food. DD has moved on to solids and absolutely won't touch the stuff any more. I have several days worth that my DH bought when on a really good sale. I don't particularly want to eat pureed turkey with gravy or the like. I wish they had recipies that I could blend it into or something. Seems like a waste of money sitting on the shelf. As is the baby cereal. When I got to thinking that DD was starting to want solids I started getting the oatmeal. That way we would at least be able to put some fruit in it and eat it. But I still have boxes of rice cereal and barley, I think. What else can you do with them? I've tasted the rice, I don't know how she survived! I guess if you never knew good food to start then it wouldn't be a problem. That's probably why she wont eat any of it now! I also have a few bags of frozen berries that should probably be eaten up in the freezer. But that won't be too hard to use up. Maybe in pies, that would use up some of the shortening making the crusts.
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10-05-2006, 05:41 AM
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Re: What do you need to Use Up??
Use the rice cereal in muffins and bread.
Barley I'd use in soups but it could also be used in breads. The pureed turkey in a chicken based veggie soup. Good luck! Mmmmmm....berry pies!! JanH - use your powdered sugar and make a chocolate sheet cake. It uses it for the frosting. Heck, any old frosting uses powdered sugar. How about making belgian waffles or pancakes and sprinkling it on top? I used some of my fake blueberries last night for pancakes! Think sometime this week will see some blueberryish muffins coming to life!
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10-05-2006, 07:02 PM
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Re: What do you need to Use Up??
LuxLiving,
How would I go about doing that? Would I use the rice and barley cereals in place of the flour or half and half or what? They are not whole ingredients, they look more like instant potato flakes. Are there recipes out there for this kind of thing that I have not found? I also have several jars of veggies and fruit. I was thinking of trying to mix some of the fruits into breads and muffins, but I'm not really sure how to go about doing it. I can cook from a recipe very well, even with a little deviation of ingredients if I don't have what's on hand, but I'm pretty average when it comes to cooking knowledge.
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10-06-2006, 06:09 AM
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Re: baby cereals
How much baby food do you have?
If I were having serious difficulty using it up, and it wasn't past expiration date, I'd simply donate it to a food shelf. Baby cereal is a "staple" in our medicine closet for whichever adult gets seriously ill and can't keep food down. Just prepare it like you do any hot cereal and then pour on a little milk & a little sugar, most adults can keep it down no matter how bad their stomach flu is. Baby cereals don't have a long shelf life, so I normally toss away the box near the expiration date, and purchase a new one to have on hand just in case it's needed for someone ill, it's so easy to digest and immediately calms an upset stomach. It's sure alot less expensive than most stomach OTC "medicines" and seems to do a better job, as well. If you have a dog, they really like the baby food meat as a special treat. The baby food fruit is delicious, it's simply pureed fruit, and anyone of any age should be able to eat that. Pour it over some vanilla yogurt. The plain veggies, simply use them up in vegetable soups, a little bit at a time.
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10-06-2006, 06:09 AM
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Re: baby cereals
How much baby food do you have?
If I were having serious difficulty using it up, and it wasn't past expiration date, I'd simply donate it to a food shelf. Baby cereal is a "staple" in our medicine closet for whichever adult gets seriously ill and can't keep food down. Just prepare it like you do any hot cereal and then pour on a little milk & a little sugar, most adults can keep it down no matter how bad their stomach flu is. Baby cereals don't have a long shelf life, so I normally toss away the box near the expiration date, and purchase a new one to have on hand just in case it's needed for someone ill, it's so easy to digest and immediately calms an upset stomach. It's sure alot less expensive than most stomach OTC "medicines" and seems to do a better job, as well. If you have a dog, they really like the baby food meat as a special treat. The baby food fruit is delicious, it's simply pureed fruit, and anyone of any age should be able to eat that. Pour it over some vanilla yogurt. The plain veggies, simply use them up in vegetable soups, a little bit at a time.
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10-06-2006, 06:20 AM
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Re: What do you need to Use Up??
I want to use up any storage foods that don't have an Expiration Date plainly printed and easy to find and read.
I am seriously irritated with food manufacturers who are using unintelligible codes instead of ready to read dates, and so when these non-user friendly brands are used up, I'm replacing those brands only with food that is plainly dated. In a little bit of surfing I did the other day, I came across several accounts of how many grocery stores so rarely actually stock their canned food to make positive that the freshesh goes in back -- I did not know that, so I cannot rely on whenever I purchased any of that "code dated" food - for all I know, it was already expired when I bought it. I'm seriously irritated about this, because if we have some major emergency, if we are quarantined, or told to shelter in place --- how will it be for people who open up stale canned goods? And don't even know it? That's NOT the time I want to play around with my family's health, although NO time is any good for that. It's possible that I'll simply find all those canned goods with the strange codes and give them to a food shelf --- they MUST have the ability to read those codes, and then I'll simply have them GONE, where they won't RE-irritate me every time I happen to look at them.
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10-06-2006, 06:20 AM
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Re: What do you need to Use Up??
I want to use up any storage foods that don't have an Expiration Date plainly printed and easy to find and read.
I am seriously irritated with food manufacturers who are using unintelligible codes instead of ready to read dates, and so when these non-user friendly brands are used up, I'm replacing those brands only with food that is plainly dated. In a little bit of surfing I did the other day, I came across several accounts of how many grocery stores so rarely actually stock their canned food to make positive that the freshesh goes in back -- I did not know that, so I cannot rely on whenever I purchased any of that "code dated" food - for all I know, it was already expired when I bought it. I'm seriously irritated about this, because if we have some major emergency, if we are quarantined, or told to shelter in place --- how will it be for people who open up stale canned goods? And don't even know it? That's NOT the time I want to play around with my family's health, although NO time is any good for that. It's possible that I'll simply find all those canned goods with the strange codes and give them to a food shelf --- they MUST have the ability to read those codes, and then I'll simply have them GONE, where they won't RE-irritate me every time I happen to look at them.
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10-06-2006, 09:26 AM
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Re: What do you need to Use Up??
Mountain mist: I too wish I could read the codes. Believe it or not, yesterday I bought milk and had to reach way in the back because the store had moved the old milk dated AUGUST into the front. The stuff was about to explode the carton! Horrifying to think that I could be buying food that bad......
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10-06-2006, 09:55 AM
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Re: What do you need to Use Up??
budgetmom, I'd just throw a few tablespoons into a standard muffin or bread recipe. If I used 2 T. of cereal, I'd probably add an additional 1 teaspoon of liquid (but only if it looked like it needed it.)
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10-06-2006, 02:37 PM
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Re: What do you need to Use Up??
Well, I have LOTS of the cereal. I gave a bunch away to the neighbor who just had a baby, but I still have 64 oz. worth. Half is mixed the other half is oatmeal. I like the tip of using it when you are sick, but I still have so much to be used. I have about 6 or 7 jars each of the food. (fruit, veggie, meat w/ rice etc. dinners). I found a recipe for carrot bread using baby food so I'm giving it a shot as I type. My last 2 jars of carrots were used for that. I have mostly mixed or two in one jars of veggies. They are having a pretty good sale on yougurt at my local store so I thought that I would pick some up. I don't really like it that much (bad experience when I was pregnant with my first one, just can't bring myself to eat it to this day) but DS LOVES it so I figure I could use it for that. ---I should have read this before I started making the carrot bread. I could have thrown in a couple of spoonfulls into that mix!
Bread came out of the oven about 20 min. ago. It's not bad. I let it cool for 10 min. and took it out of the pan. I couldn't wait to bite into it to see if it was even worth the time. I'd probably make it again, if baby food went on a good sale and then I would only buy what I needed.
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