Real Food Friday: It's Baaaaack

As I mentioned in my last post, I've been doing all kinds of cooking from scratch lately and I've had much less time on my hands for blogging!  This isn't all bad, as it gives me something to do while Hubby Blue has been on different shifts every week, but it's definitely time-consuming!  Sometimes I think, yes, I am in fact crazy for making my own pita bread from scratch, but it's all just part of my experiment in healthy eating and living!  I'm almost done reading In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan and I'm still finding this idea of eating less processed food very fascinating.  It really only takes a few ingredients (flour, water, salt, yeast, olive oil, and maybe honey) to make bread...or pitas...and I realize that the reason for grocery store bread having like, 34 ingredients is so they can bake it and ship it all over the country without it going bad...but I'm also questioning the long-term effects of eating all those preservatives and ingredients you can't even pronounce.

When I started this whole change in our eating habits almost three weeks ago, I was super excited about our meals for that week.  And our snacks.  Oh, the snacks.  I felt like I ate so much that week that I wasn't sure how this was going to turn out!  But actually, I lost about 2 pounds without even trying, and I felt like I had more energy than usual.  Interestingly, when I do eat something that's highly processed or full of sugar (like a piece of cake at a co-worker's bridal shower), I feel SO sick soon afterwards.  I was very unexcited about our menu for the second week (part of why I never blogged about it), and this week wasn't super either.  But a couple things DID turn out really well over that last two weeks: the whole-wheat tortillas, whole-wheat pita bread, and hummus.  Now, I don't want to fool anyone into thinking that all this homemade stuff is just my thing...you're looking at a girl who swears by boxed cake mix!  I made a cake from scratch ONCE and it was the most time-consuming thing I ever did and I swore it was NOT worth it.  But I've been having pretty good luck with these recipes so far, and I feel good about what we're eating.  I have to say I don't think I've ever had a tortilla that tasted as good as the ones I made...if I do say so myself. :)  Hubby Blue isn't totally on board yet...I think I might be asking him to make too big of a change too quickly, but we'll get there.

So, this is what we ate:
Breakfasts:
Granola cereal and fruit
Cinnamon raisin toast and yogurt, fruit
Leftover frozen pancakes with banana

Lunches:
For Hubby Blue: meat sandwiches on whole-wheat bread from my breadmaker
For me: Leftover tomato bisque soup, leftover chicken noodle soup (frozen), hummus/spinach/cheese on a tortilla or pita, leftovers from eating out

Dinners:
Tomato Bisque Soup
Hamburger Oriental Style (this is an old family recipe...not made with totally unprocessed ingredients, but it's something we like and we had the ingredients to use up)
Leftovers
Whole Wheat Pita Pizzas
Dinner out (x3 for me, x1 for HB)

And here is what we spent:
Aldi 12/16
Onions, Havarti cheese, cheddar, almonds, pork chops, pineapple, salad, spinach, cucumber, oranges, olives, Italian seasoning, salsa, apples, tomatoes, lettuce, milk.............$39.66

Grocery 12/16
Triscuits, chinese vegetables, chickpeas, tahini (for hummus), lunchmeat, a pummelo (fruit), I don't remember what else (lost the receipt)............$27.93

Walmart 12/18 (Hubby Blue...had a long night at work)
Frozen pizza, Dr. Pepper, tortilla chips....$12.75
[This is what I mean...I guess we need baby steps! :)]

Total for the week: $80.34

If you take out the trip to Walmart...we'd have been at $67.59, which is easily under the $75 budget.

Interestingly, I came across this document from the USDA on average costs of food.  For a family of 2 between ages 19-50, the THRIFTY plan is $86.70 a week.  That's the lowest plan!  Even the low-cost meal plan would be over $100 a week.  Food is expensive.  So I'm not going to beat myself up over $80.34.

You might be wondering about all the eating out...or you might not be, but I'm going to tell you anyway!  Two of the nights are family holiday events we (actually I...Hubby Blue has to work :( ) have going on...but one of the dinners out was my little brother's ENGAGEMENT dinner!  My little brother (who is not so little anymore) proposed to his lovely girlfriend two weeks ago and the two families went out for a celebratory dinner last weekend.  It's all very exciting and I'm sure I'll have more to blog about the wedding plans later!

Thanks for reading!  Until next week (hopefully...if there's time. :)!