Things have gotten a little hectic recently, but I’m back!

And, I did do some grocery shopping last week.  Actually, quite a lot of stops.

First I went to BJs.  Not much variety here, but lots of quantity.

Later in the week, I went to Wegman’s.  (This somewhat makes up for the lack of produce from BJs.

I picked up a few items at Stop & Shop when I stopped in to pick up two cakes (not pictured).  Yes, it was taco night.  And yes, taco ingredients were on sale this week.

Finally, I made a second trip to Wegman’s.  Since this was over the weekend it was actually a different week for Wegman’s coupons so I got to use both week’s allotments.

You’ll see a lot of the above items in this week’s menu.

Saturday:
out at a party

Sunday:
tacos

Monday:
Kids: chicken nuggets, carrots
Adults: homemade pizza

Tuesday:
spatchcock lemon chicken
green beans
corn on the cob

Wednesday (husband is out):
take out pizza

Thursday:
Kids:  shrimp, broccoli
Adults: beef tenderloin fillets, hash brown potatoes, salad

Friday:
Kids: eggs
Adults: homemade pizza

Even though it was the first week of preschool, meaning very short days, I did do some grocery shopping.

First, I went to BJs.  It was nearly 100 that day so I got premade desserts for my get together that evening rather than running the oven.

Then I went to the farm stand.  I was hoping for local peaches, but was out of luck.  Broccoli & green beans are in season, though, so I bought those along with some of their chicken salad.

The same day I went to Wegman’s.  They have a display from local farms there and I was able to get local peaches (which have been good).  Interestingly, I also saw green beans from the same farm as above, and the ones at Wegman’s looked terrible.  I try not to the same place quite this close together, but the mini bagels proved to be quite popular so I went back primarily for more of those.

Then, Sunday I went to the farm stand again for corn on the cob (and picked up a few other things).  It’s a little hard to see what’s in the bags, but under the cauliflower are two tomatoes, one pear, and two apples.

Here’s what we did (with much of that) this week.

Saturday:
take out Chinese

Sunday:
nacho chicken
corn on the cob
green & wax beans

Monday:
Kids: chicken nuggets, broccoli
Adults: tuna noodle casserole

Tuesday (I’m going out.):
take out pizza

Wednesday:
Flank steak
Roasted cauliflower
Salad

Thursday:
Kids:  shrimp, carrots
Adults: homemade mac n cheese

Friday:
Kids: eggs
Adults: homemade pizza

This month was pretty normal.  Baseball ended the second week so we had more typical weekday dinners.  We were out a bunch for weekend BBQs, but often brought something so I don’t think that is skewing the data much.

Some observations about this month.  First, its substantially higher than recent months.  Frankly, I attribute this to eating better.  Fish and nice cuts of meat are more expensive than chicken nuggets, pizza, and pasta which were finding a lot of space in our diets with the hectic schedule.  Second, Wegman’s has swung firmly ahead of Stop & Shop.  I’m not sure if this will continue or not.  There are still some items that are better to buy at Stop & Shop and it is much closer (plus I don’t have to pass the mall at Christmas).  But, Stop & Shop didn’t do themselves any favors this summer.  For the first time in many years there were not weekly coupons for money off/free items.  Second, my specific location just made shopping difficult by replacing the easily accessible bag stands with semi-reuseable bags that on had to pay for.  Since I take very few bags when I shop and use those that I do regularly, I didn’t appreciate having to take time to scrounge for bags upon arrival.  The most recent two times this problem seems to have been addressed, though so maybe it was temporary.

• August TOTAL: $1046.93
  • Stop & Shop: $111.60
  • Wegman’s: $219.81
  • BJs: $399.22
  • Other: $316.30
    • Local: $170.91
    • Star Market: $95.98
    • Trader Joe’s: $27.99
    • Target: $21.42
    • Other: $0

I only made two shopping trips this week.  Frankly, I’m looking forward to taking fewer people shopping so some of this is putting off the inevitable until the boys are in school.

I was at Stop & Shop mid-week.

Then, over the weekend we went to Wegman’s.

I expect to visit BJs later this week, but I’m not sure I’ll have to go to a grocery store again until next week.  We’ll see.

Here’s the menu plan for this week.  You’re seeing fajitas again because they got postponed from last week.  In general, the schedule dictates that the kids are going to eat by themselves Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays through soccer season.

Saturday
Fajitas

Sunday:
Grilled steaks
Pan fried potatoes
Green beans
Salad

Monday:
Beef clod
Potato salad
Salad

Tuesday:
Shrimp
Green beans

Wednesday:
Nacho chicken
Corn on the cob
Salad

Thursday:
Kids: Chicken nuggets
Adults: Homemade mac n cheese

Friday:
Kids: Eggs
Adults: Homemade pizza

This has been a busy week – for reasons both expected and not.  So, posts got delayed.  But, more of that on Tuesday’s post.

I did my big shop of the week at Wegman’s.  The mac n cheese I was buying for the boys (because it was the only one they’d eat) seems to have been discontinued so I bought one box of what seemed like the most similar kind.  We’ll see.  The cans are beef broth.  The paper contains tuna steaks, which we had for dinner.  As you can see I also tried having them cut up my pork shoulder.  Oddly, they charged me less once this had been done, I guess they reweighed it minus the bone.  BUT, it wasn’t trimmed which meant I had to do a bunch of work at home and probably lost some good meat in the process so I won’t have them do it again.

I went to Shaw’s again to actually stock up on pizza supplies, since this time I could get home more promptly to get it in the fridge.

Friday I went to BJs.  This was part of a big trip with all the boys that also included Target for school supplies.  We had success there for everything except a small flexible binder (the list was pretty short so this wasn’t very difficult) that we had to get at Staples over the weekend.

Under the bread is more milk.  The long meat packages are ribs for our Sunday BBQ.  The hot dogs are for the Saturday BBQ (isn’t summer great!) and the other meats are for later.

Finally, over the weekend we went to Tomato Fest at the farm stand.  I had planned to buy tomatoes, but the boys won a bunch playing various games so that was unnecessary.  Obviously I got plenty of other items though.

There are a dozen ears of corn, a bunch of swiss chard, a dozen apples (split among two varieties), wax and green beans, chicken salad, as well as many more easily identifiable items.

My original menu plan got disrupted by the unexpected events, but I can supply the actual one here since I’m late to the party getting this posted.

Saturday
BBQ hot dogs

Sunday:
BBQ party –
ribs
corn on the cob
deviled eggs
cinnamon apples
baked beans
biscuits
bread (a guest brought this)
cookies (a guest brought this too)
apple cake (a guest brought this too)

Monday:
Kids: leftover BBQ
Adults: homemade pizza

Tuesday:
leftover BBQ

Wednesday:
Cod with potatoes & swiss chard
French bread

Thursday:
Fajitas

Friday:
Kids: Eggs
Adults: Homemade pizza