I hope your week is off to a wonderful start! I splurged and bought fresh flowers for the house yesterday with the hope of them kicking off a fabulous week””so far, so good!
This week’s grocery shopping was all over the place: Stop & Shop, Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, and Walmart. Of course, I love to find good deals on groceries, but I’m not someone who will drive all over creation to get them. Usually, I hit up one or two different stores each week””even if I don’t get the best deals. I’d rather save time than money. Anyway, there were specific food items I needed for meals and various recipe development projects I’m working on, so I found myself driving all over the South Shore this week. It definitely took more time, money, and energy to shop at multiple stores, so I made sure to stock up on some of my favorite items while there.
Without further ado, here are this week’s meal plan and shopping lists:
- Sunday: Roast chicken with onions and carrots
- Monday: Chicken stir fry with rice
- Tuesday: Grilled scallop and veggie skewers
- Wednesday: Out to dinner
- Thursday: Cheesy Garlic & Herb Brussels Sprouts with Sausage
- Friday: Lime Leaf
- Saturday: Wing it
Stop & Shop
- Italian chicken sausage
- Bacon
- Bananas
- Red onion
- Blueberries
- Spinach
- Baby carrots
- Zucchini
- Summer squash
- Eggs
- Maple syrup
- Lemon juice
- Vanilla Chex
- Silk Pure Almond Original
- Silk Pure Almond Vanilla
- Almond butter
Walmart
- Trail mix <— it’s the same stuff they sell at Stop & Shop, Target, etc., but it’s so much cheaper. These huge bags were just $5!
Whole Foods
- Deli meat and cheese
- Coleslaw
- Boston lettuce <— the best for lettuce wraps
- Sea scallops
Trader Joe’s
- Sweet potato tots
- Shaved Brussels sprouts
- Chocolate chips
- Almond meal
- Almond butter <— half the price compared to Whole Foods or Stop & Shop
- Applesauce
- Honey
- Dill
I know I’ve mentioned this at least a half dozen times on CNC already, but, hey, it’s important: Trader Joe’s sells almond meal at a really affordable price. It’s literally three times the price at other grocery stores!
FYI: Almond flour and almond meal are pretty much the same thing. Almond meal is a little courser, so it works well for things like breading chicken or veggies. Almond flour is ground more finely, so I know a lot of bakers love using it. Personally, I love almond meal for baking. I actually really like it’s texture (thick and hearty) in cookies, muffins, and pizza dough.
TCBY & Silk Giveaway Winners
Thanks to everyone who entered to win a coupon to TCBY to try the new almond milk-based frozen yogurt from Silk! Here are your winners:
Emily Z
Unsweetened Vanilla is my go-to for cereal, baking, or just drinking a glass with a meal but I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE having some Dark Chocolate almondmilk as a treat!
Kayla
I think my favorite will always be a tie between vanilla almond milk and unsweetened vanilla almond milk!
Linda Kish
I like the light vanilla
MichelleG
Unsweetened Vanilla!!
I adore the unsweetened vanilla milks! So dreamy and amazing!
Congrats! Please email me at tina@carrotsncake.com with your full name and mailing address.
Questions of the Day
How many different grocery stores do you shop at each week?
How often do you buy fresh flowers for yourself?
P.S. Nikki’s Coconut Butter is celebrating their one-year anniversary with a special sale. Get 10% off all orders of two jars or more with code ”˜oneyear.’
Looks like your week is off to an amazing start! I love fresh flowers but probably only buy them for myself a couple times a year. They always make me smile when I walk into the kitchen so I should really do it more often.
I have to tell you, you can get almond butter even cheaper! Throw that almond meal into your food processor (for what seems like forever) and you can get your 1 pound of almond butter down to $3.99 a “jar”! My TJs hasn’t been carrying almond meal the last TWO times I’ve been in. so sad because I am almost out…
I typically shop at two stores each week: Wal-Mart or Target for packaged goods, then I head to Publix for the rest!
I shop at a zillion stores. It is getting a little out of hand. I want to say I can cut it down to 2 but in reality 3 is as low as its going to get right now. This weekend I went to 4 grocery stores plus target. That is ridiculous.
Sprouts and Whole Foods for me. Sprouts is a farmers market out here in AZ and they always have the best deals on produce. Since I eat paleo, produce is the majority of my groceries besides the meat.
I finally made my first Nikkis purchase… could you please tell me if I’m supposed to keep them in the fridge after I open them? Thanks!
Yay! I hope you love it! You can keep it in your fridge or at room temperature.
I try to limit the number of grocery stores to 2-3, just to avoid spending too much money on all the stuff I don’t need 😉 but if you’d let me it would probably be 5 or 6 plus the farmers market. Haha, guess every normal person would think that is an unnecessary hassle, but hey that’s what we foodies love 😉
Fresh flowers always make me so happy. I definitely don’t buy them often enough, less than once a month. We usually get our groceries delivered from one supermarket and go to the local butcher but we may change it up and try shopping at a different store which is cheaper.
I swear I have to go a different store like every day. LOL. Trader Joe’s is not fun with toddler twins by the way. 🙂 Can you please come do my meal planning for the week? Thanks!
There are only three grocery stores that I regularly shop at, plus Target. But there is pretty much nothing on earth that could convince me to go into a Wal-Mart. Even the thought makes me shudder.
I LOVE buying fresh flowers…especially sunflowers while grocery shopping 🙂 It just makes the whole house feel happy!! I am usually a multiple grocery store type of girl, it just depends on how much time I have to shop. Gotta get the best deal!
I wanted to buy myself fresh flowers on the weekend but knew I was away for work this week and my boyfriend wouldn’t appreciate them like I do! 🙂
I usually do a fresh market shop and then go to the grocery store too every week. It can be annoying but works out cheaper and with much better produce.
If you like almond flour, I found these (haven’t tried them yet, but thought you might maybe like):
http://livinghealthywithchocolate.com/desserts/paleo-cookie-dough-bites-1752/
http://livinghealthywithchocolate.com/desserts/raw-no-bake-chocolate-chip-cookie-dough-brownie-1156/
http://fitnessista.com/2013/07/quick-no-bake-grain-free-cookie-dough-2/
@Jill:
Also this one is interesting: http://www.olivesnwine.com/2013/06/28/easy-breakfast-cookie-in-a-mug/
It’s single serving and egg free and uses coconut flour (which I have no idea what to do with…and am wary to use because it is ridiculously high in fiber or recipes usually require eggs with it….but that recipe above is no eggs…still a lot of fiber though which kinda scares me 🙂
Thanks!!
I end up at the farmer’s market plus 2-3 stores on any weekend. I’m trying to limit the # of stores and focus on using what I have on-hand and loading up on veggies at the market.
I got to two grocery stores a week. If we had a whole foods I would go to three. I make a trip there once a month to load up.
Fresh flowers don’t make it in my house as often as they should. Probably once a year unless someone buys them for me.
Every once in awhile I get a craving for trail mix. I think my favorites are the ones I end up making myself cause then I can put in all the things I like.
I’m a horrible customer. I usually shop at one grocery store only, and I buy what I want instead of looking to see what’s on sale. They definitely make their money off me.
@Jolynn @ Lift Pray Love: that makes you a good customer, bad shopper, haa!
I usually buy almond meal, corn meal, oats etc. at Ocean State Job Lot. They have the best prices on Bob’s Red Mill. I’ll have to compare the prices to Trader Joe’s. I’m starting to shop at TJ more.
@christi in ma: I agree! I also got a huge bag of Flax seed there too for a great price…I just dont know what I am going to do with all that flax! I have to get through my huge Bag of Chia seeds from Costco as well!
Almond meal/flour is awesome! you can use it when attempting to make French macarons! it gives it that light fluffy shell 🙂
Ugh! I hate having to run around to a zillion different stores either in order to get the best deal or because one store doesn’t carry everything I need. My husband and I have worked around this issue by making a monthly shopping list where we go and stock up on the things we need from places like Target and TJ’s and then do our weekly shopping at a place with great produce (in our case Sprouts).
I go to two different stores during the week. Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods are my go-to-places.
I’m a big fan of Costco. They carry a huge tub of organic coconut oil (64oz) for $16.59, Maranatha Almond butter (26oz jar) for $7.59, Pre-formed turkey patties, 3lbs plain almonds for just over $10, grass-fed beef for about the same price as their other beef.
Walmart – One of the Walmarts in my area carries Maranatha (but not as cheap as Costco), Justin’s PB, the protein bars I like for .99 and they price match without having to have a store circular with you.
I shop at Trader Joe’s for their jumbo eggs and their brand of Almond Milk, which is only $2.99 a carton and I find it to be much creamier than others.