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Monday, February 20, 2012

Frugal Veggies

 It's still winter. I just thought I would throw that little tidbit of info out there in case you had forgotten. I personally get a good dose of remembrance every time I hit the produce section at the grocery store. Today being President's Day, our local school is out on "winter break." Yep, it is still winter. Even if all the teenagers hanging out at Wally World had on shorts and flip flops (I'm sure their mothers didn't know) the prices on produce still say WINTER. So the best way for me to save any money on fruits and veggies is to be sure nothing I buy goes to waste. Easy enough, right?
 Well maybe it's easy for you. But I have a very bad habit of buying that head of lettuce, making that one salad I wanted, and then putting half a head back in the crisper drawer. You know the crisper drawer, that place where all good veggies go to be stored until they are ready for the compost bin??? Ok, maybe that's just me. But I have to admit I am one of those "out of sight, out of mind" girls.
 As if that isn't bad enough, I also have the tendency to wait until the last minute to start a meal that hasn't been planned out. I AM getting better with this one, it helps to follow all your blogs. Did you know there are people who plan out their whole week's menu-breakfast, lunch, and dinner? And some smartypants    geniuses who can plan a whole month??? Like I said, I'm getting better.... But still there are days when the meal preparation gets started before I realize I don't have time to chop up broccoli, so it gets left out of the meal.
 Anyway, since today was my market day, I set aside an extra half hour to prep the veggies and fruit for the week. Now, I can grab and go. And since most of it is now in containers that have to be moved to reach the milk and eggs, maybe I will be better at remembering it's there!
 There is most of the hard work done: celery and carrots cleaned and in sticks with the celery tops bagged up and roast ready, broccoli and cauliflower ready for munching or to throw into a soup, cucumbers sliced and soaking in salt water and vinegar, lemon and lime wedges to squeeze into tea or water, and radishes washed and ready to slice onto a salad (if I can keep DH from snacking on all of them.) I left the lettuce out of the picture but it is shredded and ready to go also!
 Tomorrow I will be taking my mom to Indy for a heart procedure. We will be there for a couple of days so I will be checking in after that.