two hundred and forty-four

Friday Quick Tip # 6 - Are your plastic food storage containers stained, dingy, cloudy, or (ew) smelly?  To restore them to their former glory: fill your kitchen sink with the hottest water you can, then dissolve one large scoop of Oxiclean into the water.  (Your water should be white.)  Add the plastic containers to the water, weighing them down with glass bowls, and let them soak for four to six hours.  Give them a quick scrub, then wash with dish soap or run through the dishwasher (use rinse agent!) and then admire your cleaner, clearer storage containers!

Menu Plan: May 17 - May 23, 2013

This week's menu plan is a little more luxurious than normal due to an awesome "$50 off $125" Fresh Direct coupon that came in the mail last week.  I'm including the coupon in my price breakdown, because there's no way I'd spend that sort of money on groceries normally!  Most of the recipes were planned based on Fresh Direct stuff that was made affordable by the coupon--like the swoon-worthy fettuccine alfredo made with fresh noodles and sauce.  If the spinach pie turns out well, I'll share the recipe with you next week.  Lunch out on Saturday is due to "Hot Rods and Harleys", an event that's going on downtown this weekend that, due to its noise, is impossible to ignore.  We'll wander the streets and find lunch somewhere!

Friday - $5

• Breakfast - toast with butter ($1)
• Lunch - leftovers from Wednesday ("free")
• Dinner - black bean, yellow rice, and blackened chicken bowls ($4)

Saturday - $23

• Breakfast - homemade cinnamon rolls with cream cheese frosting ($5)
• Lunch - lunch out downtown ($10)
• Dinner - fancy pants jambon beurre ($8)

Sunday - $9

• Breakfast - leftover cinnamon rolls ("free")
• Lunch - leftover jambon ("free")
• Dinner - spinach pie ($9)

Monday - $11

• Breakfast - croissants ($2)
• Lunch - leftover spinach pie ("free")
• Dinner - Cuban sandwiches ($9)

Tuesday - $8

• Breakfast - bagels and cream cheese ($1)
• Lunch - leftover Cuban sandwich ("free")
• Dinner - fettuccine alfredo with sun dried tomatoes ($7)

Wednesday - $8

• Breakfast - bagels and cream cheese ($1)
• Lunch - leftover fettuccine alfredo ("free")
• Dinner - more Cuban sandwiches! ($9)

Thursday (my birthday!) - $52

• Breakfast - croissants ($2)
• Lunch - more leftover Cuban sandwiches ("free")
• Dinner - dinner out maybe? ($50)

Total Meal Cost - $66.00 + plus $50 for eating out on my birthday = $116.00

Two Week Total - $129.00 (plus $80 for eating out) = $209.00


P.S.  Did you notice anything different about My Dreams Unreal?  Does the new design suit me or was the old one a better fit?  Is there anything you would like to see changed?  I'd love to know what you think!  (If you read this blog in a reader/subscribe via email and want to see the new design, head on over to dreamsunreal.com to check it out.)

two hundred and forty-three

My favorite part of living in America is the fact that seemingly every store allows you to drive "thru".  From prescriptions to dry cleaning to car washes to oil changes, you almost never need to get out of your car!  New Jersey takes this convenience a step further and even offers drive through gas stations; pull up, give the guy your card, tell him how much you want, and *poof* gas appears in your car.  Even better, now that paying with cash has gone the way of writing checks, you're no longer pressured to tip the attendants with your leftover change.

Speaking of cash and change, another of my favorite things is the invention known as the ATM.  I don't carry much cash on me, so I often find myself going to the magical money machine more than just a few times a month.  Dealing with a teller that often is too much of a pain for my time-strapped (ahem) schedule, which meant that in the past I would oops! forget to go to the bank for cash or to make a deposit.  With New Jersey's vast quantity of ATMs, though, I can just drive on through and get my banking done without even having to get out of the car!  Given the ever-present lines of cars at most of the machines, I could only assume that my fellow ATM goers were in the "HOORAY FOR SLOVENLINESS!" boat along with me.  As with all of my assumptions about normal human behavior, New Jersey has managed to prove me wrong.  (Again.)

Today, I drove up to the ATM to find two people in front of me.  The first was an elderly woman at the ATM proper who was standing next to her car, while the second waited in line behind her.  The elderly woman spent a few minutes hitting the screen's buttons like she was punishing them, and then proceeded to rage against the (automated teller) machine when it took too long to return her card.

The woman in the car in front of me repeatedly rolled her eyes in the side mirror, and exasperated by the first woman's five minute ATM experience, even went so far as to roll down her window to "WTF?" hand gesture at no one in particular.  The first woman finished her transaction and gave a little wave as she tottered back to her car.  When she finally pulled away, the second (less elderly) woman restarted her own car and roared up to the ATM with the nearly tangible frustration of a teenager late for curfew.

Then this happened... Followed by a lengthy pause to send a text message and count her $40 multiple times.

Now, counting money at the ATM is something that I have never understood and could ramble on about for a whole other post, but that's neither here nor there.  Getting out of the car at a drive "thru" after being angry at someone else for getting out of their car at a drive "thru", though?

WTFNJ?

two hundred and forty-two

I'm sure that most people on the Internet have heard of Pinterest these days.  My head-in-the-ground self has an account--as does Mr N's work--so I'm pretty sure that it's fairly ubiquitous.  For those of you not in the know, however, Pinterest is an online "bulletin board" sort of thing where you can "pin" things that you like.  Men use it for sports cars and video game stuff, women use it for weddings and recipes, and it seems that everyone uses it to stare at supermodels in various states of undress.  Thanks but no thanks.  (I thought you'd all like to know that I accidentally typed "butt no thanks", which I found to be a highly amusing Freudian slip.)

I know that at least one of you follows me on Pinterest, so I know that at least one of you knows that I horribly misuse it.  Sure, there are a few recipes and a couple of nifty doo-dads, but my Pinterest is probably 90% sloths because, duh, sloths are awesome.  They're nature's bums, content to cling to trees, each other, and (most adorably) stuffed animals.  Their cuteness is enough to melt my icy heart, which is why I was absolutely horrified to learn of the atrocities that sloths face in South America where they are viewed as nuisances and constant reminders of their namesake sin.  You don't want to know what happens to them when they are found by hunters and ne'er do wells.

But you do want to know what happens to them when they are rescued by the Sloth Sanctuary in Limon, Costa Rica.  Orphaned baby sloths are hand-fed and taught to cling with the help of dedicated human helpers, while the hurt adult sloths are nursed back to health.  Though the hand-raised babies will currently always need to rely on their human friends for food, shelter, and lots of hugs clings, the adults can be released back into the wild so that they can continue on with their slow lives of clinging and eating hibiscus flowers and... well... That's about all they know about these furry fellas.  Presently, lack of knowledge is one of the biggest hurdles preventing the release of the hand raised sloths into the wild, and that is also why the Sloth Sanctuary is raising money for the Sloth Backpack Project.

Image courtesy of Sloth Sanctuary's blog.

Seriously, it is as awesome as it looks and sounds.  They strap little backpacks complete with GPS onto our two- and three-toed pals and track them as they live their lives, which gives those actively working in the field of slothservation (sloth conservation, mind you) access to groundbreaking--or is it treebreaking?--new information about the lives of these mysterious little critters.  Neat, huh?  Not nearly as neat as the fact that by learning about the habits of adult sloths raised in the wild, they can learn how to release the hand-raised baby sloths into their natural habitat!

Unfortunately for the Sloth Sanctuary, sloths have very expensive taste and their little backpacks run at $3,000 a piece.  That's a whole lot of greened beans for the baby sloths, so the Sanctuary is asking for our help.  Until July 4, you can make a donation through IndieGoGo that will go directly towards helping the (privately funded!) Sloth Sanctuary outfit their sloths with the highest tech back to school gear imaginable.

Please help save our sloths by making a donation to the Sloth Sanctuary.  How can you say no to these little faces?

two hundred and forty-one

Growing up in a vegetarian household, I didn't really "get" the love that many Americans profess for burgers.  Though tasty enough, they were mostly just vehicles for enabling mass consumption of cheese.  (Land'o'Lakes American, thank you very much.)  Then, as most of my stories go, I met my husband.  The second the weather began to warm for the year, my father in law would go into a primal trance and spend every weekend manning the grill producing enough meat for every man, woman, and child within smelling distance.  At first, all of that grilled meat was kind of off putting, but it wasn't long before I was sitting at my mother in law's kitchen table and making towers of burger patties for whatever gathering was happening that weekend.

Though I still consider the cheese a highlight of a burger, I now appreciate the patty's charred outside and juicy inside about as much as I appreciate a good steak.  Even more than the taste, I appreciate the frugality of a homemade semi-gourmet burger, so I try to make them at least once a month in the summer.  I bake challah rolls, think up interesting mayonnaise flavors, and try to work out a mathematical equation to calculate the maximum number of different toppings any given burger can hold (that number is known as the MTR or Maximum Topping Ratio).  Usually, it's great.  Sometimes, meh.  Rarely, a choir of angels having a rave in my mouth.

The burger I'm about to share with you is one of those angel raves, therefore I recommend you make it as soon as possible.  Preferably yesterday.  (Make extra patties for lunch, too.)  Oh, and not having a grill is no excuse; this recipe is apartment-friendly.

two hundred and forty

Friday Quick Tip # 5 -  Have you ever spent five minutes trying to scrape the last bit of sauce out of the jar?  Get it done in ten seconds: add two tablespoons of water to the "empty" jar, replace the lid, and shake!  Pour your newly found sauce into the pot with the rest.  (Don't worry, the water won't change the consistency of the sauce.)

Before I get to the menu plan, I'd like to apologize for yesterday's post (or lack thereof).  I wrote a recipe that should have been good, but when I actually made the recipe, something awful happened.  I'm not sure if it was the fact that our oven has been wonky for the past few weeks or if it was the thawed egg roll wrappers I chose to use, but the end result was inedible.  To prove that this isn't just an excuse, here is last night's dinner fail: Mexican egg rolls.

The skins after scooping out the filling.

Now that you're good and hungry after looking at my failed dinner, click through for my new, improved menu plan with price breakdown!

two hundred and thirty-nine

Just last year I was complaining about the cost of groceries and, lookie here, it's happening again today!  Since I spent the last couple of months nauseated and/or vomiting, I started relying fairly heavily on restaurants and convenience foods (especially for breakfast) to produce meals that I didn't have to smell being cooked.  Not cool, I know.  I'm no longer taking my nausea-inducing drug, fortunately, and now I'm good to buckle down and work on revamping the grocery budget to make up for months of slacking.  What better way to do that than post my budget and grocery purchases on my blog, right?

Well, I would say that you're right, but the thing about the Internet and food budgets is that there is always someone out there who is going to out-frugal you.  You make your own bread?  They harvest and mill their own grains.  You buy vegetables at the farmer's market?  They grow theirs in homemade window boxes.  Your budget is $20 a week for 2 people?  Theirs is $2 a week for 20 people.  It's enough to make you throw up your hands and go out for dinner--and I have.  More than once.

The more I think about it, though, the more I wonder how many other people are in the awkward budget boat with me.  I mean, the whole Internet and blog world can't live in America's Bread Basket, can it?  Since I'm convinced that I can't be the only one living in the suburbs of a major city who struggles with high food costs, I figured I'd take the plunge and share my food budget embarrassment with you all.  And, to take my budget accountability a step further, I am going to modify my menu plans so that they resemble the one I did for the SNAP challenge: breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a price breakdown of each meal.

So... Here goes.

Including toiletries, pet food, and carbonated beverages, our food expenditures have crawled up to $800 a month.  For two people.  I know, it's terrible, but that's why I'm sharing!  I aim to decrease that amount to $500, which is 35% less than what I spend now.  It feels like a huge different (and it kind of it), but I really think it's doable, especially when I have you, my dear Internet friends, to keep me to my word--which I totally expect you to do, by the way.

Check back on Friday to see my detailed menu plan and to find out if I got out of the store without spending half of the month's budget in one go.  As always, feel free to join me on my adventures in frugality.  With your support, I may even make this last for more than a couple of months!  I know you're just itching to get in on the fun of eating on the cheap, right? 

...Right?

two hundred and thirty-eight

When I started writing for Home Ec 101, I hadn't really sewn anything in a while.  Sure, I'd mended tears and fixed buttons, but the lack of decent fabric stores in my area left me disinterested in making anything other than curtains over the past few years.  They were nice curtains, but they're much less interesting now that they're living in a Tupperware plastic bin in our storage closet.

Note the *ahem* custom dyed slipcover on the couch.

I figured that I would get sick of all of this sewing and photo taking, but the opposite has been true.  All I want to do is sew or crochet!  I've been thoroughly enjoying myself (except when I've been grumbling at the sewing machine for eating my knit fabric), but between the ironing, cutting, pinning, and the inevitable vacuuming, these various needley projects have been taking up an awful lot of time and energy--energy I probably should be putting into writing a decent blog post.

Instead, I'm going to take the day off of "writing" and tackle that evil jersey skirt.  To make up for it, here are some pictures of the ankle length denim skirt I made last week.  (I'll try to update with better pictures later.  The light was woooonky... and I promise that I do have a head.)