Good morning!
First up, a bit of OSG house keeping this morning:
1) Don’t forget to check out my wedding recap posts. The rehearsal, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4 are all up for your viewing pleasure. ;)
2) I also updated the Green Monster Movement website with new reader recipes.
3) Now the winner of the Summer Glow Photo shoot contest!
A huge congrats to Sarah for winning the contest with 43% of the votes! Sarah please email me with your contact info and I will give it to Dave and Charlotte.
Thank you to everyone who participated!!! We wish that we could give each and everyone of you a photo shoot! I will be sure to post about it when it is complete so you can all see the exciting photo shoot!
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Eric’s birthday dinner #2 with the family last night was fun. We made reservations at Kelsey’s.
I ordered a green tea as I was not in a wine kind of mood after all the festivities lately!
Eric ordered the bruschetta with naan bread (sans cheese) as an appetizer:
I had two wedges. It was really yummy!
For my main course, I ordered the vegetarian burger (sans egg) with a side house salad. Not sure why they put cheese on it! I just picked around it. I ordered the balsamic dressing on the side (a great trick that I always do with any type of dish that has a sauce).
The veggie burger was DELISH. Lettuce, red onion, with bruschetta (on bottom). Oh it was lovely.
I ate 90% of the burger and most of the salad without the cheese.
It was a nice outing with the family!
I feel like we’ve been spoiled this past week. We’ve been ‘out for dinner’ 3 times in 1 week (Eric’s birthday, Leah’s WEDDING, and tonight)! I think that is more than we have eaten out all YEAR! haha. While it is nice not to have to do dishes and cook, I do prefer to cook myself at home. Nothing beats it…and it is just so much cheaper. For what we paid for Eric’s birthday dinner, we could have almost bought groceries for a week! It’s crazy to think about.
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Speaking of groceries…
Last night we made a quick grocery shop at Loblaws:
- Bag of avocados
- High protein High Fibre pitas
- Rolled oats
Homemade Crack Down
OK guys, I promised myself this was my LAST store bought pitas and hummus this week!!! For the past several weeks, I keep saying, ‘I really need to start making my Buck Ten Spelt Tortillas and 50 cent hummus again to save money!!’ So it ends here.
I am going to make time this week to make them. It has been way too long. And the spelt tortillas are sooooooo good- actually my favourite things in the world!!!
Just as the name says the spelt tortillas only cost $1.10 for 1 batch. So I will save about $2 by making them myself (and they are super quick to make- like 10 minutes). The hummus also only costs 50 cents per batch, which saves me about $5-6 because it makes twice the amount!Ok, now that I just typed that I am seriously kicking myself for slacking in the homemade food department. I need to set aside some time each week to prep these things. By taking just 30 minutes out of each week, I could be saving over $10 VERY easily. Please give me a kick in the butt if I don’t make these this week!
Whoa that was a tangent, wasn’t it? lol. Back to the groceries…
- Red, yellow, orange peppers
- 2 english cukes
- Fontaine Sante hummus
- Almond Breeze
- Organic baby carrots (not sure why I got baby carrots, I guess it has been a long time since I got them)
- Mystery fruit of the week :D (Anyone spot it?)
- Simply natural organic pasta sauce (on sale)
- Mary’s Crackers (on sale)
- 3 organic tomatoes
- 2 organic nectarines
- 7 Eve apples (non organic- they were all out)
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Well, I am off to bake up two orders and then get cracking on a couple business calls. I have a huge long list of Glo Bakery stuff to do this week. Let’s hope I can charge through it!
See you at lunch for a Healthy Living Summit hot topic! I can’t wait to hear your opinion on this one.
Today’s question: Do you make any homemade versions of things to save some money instead of buying it at the store/restaurant? What are they?
One thing I always make at home is tea (unless of course it is the odd time like tonight when I was out to eat and wanted something other than wine or water). You will be hard pressed to ever find me buying a tea at a coffee shop. When I was in the workplace all of my coworkers went on a coffee run every morning and afternoon. I brought my own kettle to work and made my own tea instead. It saves me so much money- probably $60 a month (yes, I drink a lot of green tea, hahaha)!!!
Yeah for homemade hummus! I am eating the last of my store-bought hummus today, too. I have some black beans I cooked up a few days ago, and plan to make a spicy dip with them. It takes so little time. . . I don’t know why I sometimes stop making it myself. ;)
BTW — those wedding photos were delightful. My husband is in a wedding in two weekends, and I’m really looking forward to all the festivities.
Yum, love Mary’s crackers, they are so good but at $9 a pack over here in Australia I don’t get them all the time as that is a ridiculous price! I can’t wait to see your tortillas, I’d be keen to make them if they are easy!
I usually make pancakes and freeze them–they are much cheaper than buying the frozen waffles or pancakes. AND just as yummy, if not yummier!!!!
I make my own hummus now it is so much cheaper than buying. The creamy hummus recipe from Dreena Burton’s Vive le Vegan is really good I notice you bought Almond milk the store had it on sale last week for 2 for $4.00 so I stocked up. I am also on the lookout for bread recipes since going vegan a lot of what I thought was considered vegan is turning out not to be the case. The PC brand Naan bread for one is not vegan also their thin buns which I really love have honey in them. I also wanted to ask what brand of chocolate you buy as I am looking for a vegan brand that does not use soy.
You have totally inspired me to start making my own hummus again too! I used to make it, and have been buying the Sabra brand lately. It’s so good, but $$$! I bring salad, wrap and hummus to work for lunch at least 3x week, so I am stoked to save the $ too. Thanks for the inspiration :) You looked gorgeous at the wedding!
That veggie burger looks awesome! It’s OK to be a little spoiled every now and then :) Nice grocery store haul!
I always make salad dressing at home with EVOO and basalmic vinegar. yum!
Mystery fruit looks like a Persimmon/Sharon Fruit. We almost always make our own dressing, you control the ingredients and it is so much cheaper!
I always make hummus at home, and my husband always makes sauce (marinara). I would love to learn to make more things at home!
haha you are too funny with your crack down! But you are right, there are so many things we can make at home for less money – and they’d be more fresh, too!
I spy a persimmon!
we never ever buy bottled/jarred pasta sauce, and I want to start making my own hummus, too.
that veggie burger looks really good! i love the idea of the bruschetta on it.
I make hummus, and bring my own tea bags to work. I even bought a coffee maker for my office this year! Wahooo! Oh, and when I feel like bread, I bake it instead of buy a loaf.
I need to start making hummus!! But I do make my own dips – white bean and garlic with some flat leaf parsley and lemon is a good one.
Wonderful ideas!! The wheels are turning :) I think I need to set aside a specific time each week to prep a few things.
Hi Angela,
I make my own muffins, all different varieties. A lot less calories and fats as well as much cheaper. Case in point I will be making Pumpkin chia muffins today. Yum!
Congrats to Sarah on the win! Your burger looks SO good.. now I’m craving one for lunch. :) I like to make my own meatballs and spice them up with oregano, onions, and garlic. They make a tasty meal on their own :) With ketchup of course!
I see you persimmon and I want to eat you :) Just a heads up, those (the flatter hard ones) are meant to be eaten kind of firm, but let it sit out a few days till it gives lightly to the touch to ensure the bitterness is gone. I wouldn’t even say bitter, more of a weird dry taste that happens if it isnt ripe enough.
I actually like to keep some tea bags in my purse so that I can just order a free cup of hot water at a restaurant! I also keep some Truvia or Stevia in my purse too so that I can sweeten my tea at Starbucks or whatever the way I want it!
i try and make my own kombucha and bread! but i still like my sandwich thins … lol.
im going to attempt to make my own pitas here soon…
and yeah, tea too!
-muffy
Mmmm, I just tried my first persimmon this summer and was pleasantly surprised.
I work with a rather jaded group of individuals when it comes to different foods, so I’ve tried bringing in different foods to expose them to new worlds. So far I’ve done persimmon, jicama, your raw brownies, seitan jerky, and butternut squash fries. I’ve been pleasantly surprised at their approval of new foods!