How we buy our groceries

I read a lot of food blogs, and I always enjoy reading posts about how the bloggers do their grocery shopping. There is such a range of shoppers and eaters out there from the strictly all-organic everything (even toilet paper) to the all cans and processed goods shoppers. I guess I fall somewhere in between, although probably more heavily towards the natural side, so I thought I'd share with you all how our grocery shopping works.

Non-grocery store purchases:

Great Country Farms: This is the CSA that we've used this year. I've had a lot of fun with it, but I'm afraid I haven't used it as well as I thought I would. Probably part of the reason is that for half of the weeks our boxes have been delivered I had terrible morning (all-day) sickness so I didn't want to cook a thing. Kale and beets and eggplant were the last things that I wanted to deal with. But I also realized that I'm really not that adventurous when it comes to vegetables. I wanted to be, but I guess that's something I'm going to have to let go of. So, with having a newborn next year, I'm not sure that we'll do it again, but I would still recommend it to people who enjoy having fresh food delivered to their door.

Hollin Farms: This is where we get our beef, and it has been one of the best things food-wise that we have done. I love never having to shop for good beef prices at the grocery store, and I really love having other cuts of beef around that I wouldn't normally buy. We have averaged buying 1/8 of a cow (45 pounds) every 4 months which is about $200 each time.

Quail Cove Farms: This farm gets their meat, dairy, grain, and produce from Amish farmers. I trust Amish farmers, but please don't tell me if I shouldn't. I know they're not a perfect group of people and there are many discrepancies about them, but I want to believe that they raise and produce good food the way that God intended. So again, don't tell me otherwise! :) In order to get the good deals you have to buy in bulk, so at one time I buy 20 pounds of chicken breast, 10 pounds of cheddar and mozzarella, 12 pounds of butter, 20 pounds of flour, and 5 pounds of popcorn with some extras here and there. We have found this to last us about 5 months, and again, I love not having to watch for deals on all these products!

Amazon.com: We had a free Prime membership for awhile but it expired. So now I just do everything as Subscribe and Save and I get 15% off with free shipping. I get this awesome organic coffee for around $11 for 2 pounds because I use my Swagbucks gift cards for $5 off. I have to buy it about every 2 months. I also buy this organic olive oil but it's gone up in price a bit so I may search around for other deals. So far it's lasted about 6 months and we still have about 1/2 a can. When this laundry detergent was on sale I bought 4 containers, so we're good for at least a year!

Mountain Rose Herbs: I have only ever used this site to buy 1 gallon of coconut oil. They say it's for health and beauty but we use it for cooking and baking all the time. I don't buy canola or vegetable oil anymore, so this has replaced that in most recipes. We've enjoyed using it to make popcorn in our Whirley Pop. It really works well! And I get the refined coconut oil because I can't stand the flavor of coconut and refining it takes away the flavor. I'm not sure if it's as healthy because of that, but I figure that we'd never eat coconut oil otherwise, so it's better for us to do it this way!


Grocery Stores:

Trader Joes: I find that I can get most everything else here that I need. Their organic produce is so much cheaper than any other place I've found. On a typical shopping trip, I'll buy:

• 2 gallons organic milk
• organic bananas
• organic avocados
• sour cream
• 3-layer hummus (the cilantro hummus in this combination is phenomenal!)
• organic potatoes
• organic romaine
• organic frozen broccoli
• organic super-sweet frozen corn
• calcium-fortified orange juice
• crackers
• unsweetened cocoa
• tortillas
• eggs (the expensive kind for eating, the cheaper kind for baking)

Harris Teeter: I only shop here if it's their Super-Double coupons week or triple coupons. Otherwise they're pretty expensive. I typically don't use coupons anymore, but I still clip them every week to save up for these deals. Plus, every month I get a $10 off $50 purchase through using Recycle Bank. Oh, and if their organic milk is $5.29 a gallon I definitely shop here!

BJ's: We usually go here about every 2 months to get toilet paper, Stacy's pita chips (I can get a huge bag for $3.50!), blocks of parmesan cheese (I've found this to be the best price anywhere), organic Heinz ketchup, Prego spaghetti sauce (I can't convert to any other- it's my absolute favorite!), lemon juice for lemonade, Cape Cod potato chips, and the huge bag of Nestles chocolate chips that I must have on hand at all times in order to make my cookies!

World Market: I typically go here for the bag spices. They're super-cheap and they last me forever.

Entenmann's Bakery Outlet: I am so glad we have one of these close-by. I'm fine with getting non-organic bread products, and I can get these at such a good price. This is usually what I find:

• 9 packs of Thomas' English muffins: 89 cents, and buy 3 get 1 free!
• Dutch Country whole wheat bread: $1
• Thomas' whole wheat bagels: $1
• Entenmann's crumb topped donuts: $1 (these are Chris' favorites!)
• sub rolls: $1

You usually have to buy 3 or more of each product to get the deal, so I usually go about every 3 months and store the rest in the freezer.

So, that's how I shop. I really don't buy many convenience foods at all anymore. I try to make as much as I can from scratch, but I enjoy it so I don't feel like I'm slaving away in the kitchen. Here's what I typically try to make:

• All our dinners and the bread to go with dinner
• Muffins
• Waffles
• Any dessert-type baked product
• Beans (black, kidney, and pinto- I just cook a huge batch in the crockpot and put in 2 cup portions in freezer bags)
• Tomatoes (during our CSA season of tomatoes I crushed all of them in my food processor and have many bags of frozen tomatoes that I'll use instead of canned)
• Pumpkin (can't wait until the season really starts! I love fresh "from the freezer" pumpkin!)
• Graham crackers (I make these organic, whole wheat, no salt, no sugar for Evie. What a trooper- she loves them!)
• Yogurt (again for Evie. After making it myself I can't eat it. Warm milk just does not have a good smell)
• Naan (oh so good!)
• Granola bars (I have not once used the same recipe so I'm still looking for a favorite)
• Sour cream (if I have leftover cream from a recipe I'll make some)
• Shredded potatoes for hash browns
• Pizza crust

Over these next couple weeks I'm going to try making homemade goldfish crackers and homemade pepperoni. I really love finding new things to keep in my recipe file.

So, even though this looks like I'm a granola-y save the world kind of person, I'm really not at all. When I go to someone's house for dinner I never once wonder if we're eating organic food. In fact, I never even notice what types of food people have in their house. If we have a Stouffer's lasagna, I'm very happy because we never eat those anymore! Please don't think I'm sharing this because I think everyone else should do this or even because I think this is the right way. I don't sew, I don't scrapbook, I don't do crafty things, I'm not really that into fashion. But cooking I have always enjoyed and now that I'm home more often I really have the time to fly with my passion. Plus, since I'm not teaching anymore, I needed something beyond a toddler's world to keep me stimulated.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this, and if any of you have a link like this on your blog, please let me know! I would love to read it!