January Discount Grocery Haul

It's the beginning of the month and time for another discount grocery haul. I honestly wish that my favorite grocery store was all over so that everyone could get such great value for their food dollars. This doesn't account for all of our nutritional needs for the month but it sure does make a dent and I purchased all of this for $238.

I'll start with the snacks:
~ 5 boxes of Annie's Organic Chewy Oatmeal Raisin Granola Bars
~ 5 boxes of Annie's Organic Chewy Peanut Butter, Chocolate Chip Granola Bars
~ 2 bags of Annie's Organic Grabbits Chocolate Mint Sandwich Cookies
~ 3 bags of Annie's Organic Grabbits Chocolate Sandwich Cookies
~ 3 bags of Annie's Organic Chocolate Chip Cookies
~ 3 bags of Annie's Organic Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
~ 3 bags of Annie's Organic Double Chocolate Chip Cookies
~ 1 box of Nature's Path Organic Love Crunch Dark Chocolate and Red Berries
~ 1 box of Nature's Path Organic Love Crunch Dark Chocolate Macaroon
~ 1 box of Nature's Path Organic Love Crunch Dark Chocolate and Peanut Butter

Next up is breakfast foods:
~ 1 box Core Organic Pecan Spice Granola
~ 1 box Cascadian Farm Organic Fruit and Nut Cereal
~ 1 box Full Circle Farm Organic Frosted Flakes Cereal
~ 1 box Barbaras Multigrain Spoonfuls Cereal
~ 1 box Nature's Path Organic Love Crunch Dark Chocolate and Red Berries Cereal
~ 1 box Nature's Path Organic Love Crunch Dark Chocolate Macaroon Cereal
~ 1 box Nature's Path Organic Love Crunch Dark Chocolate and Peanut Butter Cereal
~ 10 boxes Nature's Path Organic Unfrosted Granny's Apple Pie Toaster Pastries
~ 4 6 packs Stonyfield Organic Kids Strawberry and Banana Yogurt Cups
~ 4 containers Stonyfield Organic Double Cream Yogurt

Here's the kid friendly lunch items:
~ 6 24 count Oscar Mayer Jumbo Angus Beef Uncured Franks
~ 4 packs Nature's Own 100% Whole Wheat Hot Dog Buns
~ 3 boxes Buff Bake White Cocolate Protein Peanut Spread Chia and Flax
~ 6 jars Peanut Butter and Co Smooth Operator Creamy Peanut Butter
~ 5 cans Health Valley Organic No Salt Added Chicken Rice Soup
~ 1 can Progresso Organic Black Bean Soup
~ 1 can Progresso Organic Savory Bean Soup
~ 24 boxes Annie's Organic Shells and Real Aged Cheddar
~ 2 loaves Nature's Own Non-GMO Perfectly Crafted Multigrain Bread
~ 1 loaf  Nature's Own Non-GMO Perfectly Crafted White Bread
~ 1 loaf  Nature's Own Life Sugar Free 100% Whole Grain Bread

We also picked up some drinks:
~ 1 bottle Ocean Spray Organic Cranberry Apple Juice
~ 2 bottles Ocean Spray Organic Cranberry Blueberry Juice
~ 1 bottle Ceres Organic Guava Juice
~ 1 bottle Synergy Organic Kombucha Gingerberry
~ 4 boxes CapriSun Organic Grape Juice Pouches
~ 6 bottles Grown Right Organic Cherry Limeade

Next are main meal items:
~ 8 packages Buitoni Non-GMO Roasted Garlic and Chives Pappardelle Pasta
~ 12 boxes Imagine Heirloom Jacob's Cattle Beans with Roasted Peppers Soup
~ 10 cans Manischewitz Non-GMO Matzo Meal
~ 60lbs Perdue Fresh Chicken Leg Quarters

These are the fresh (and frozen) fruits and veggies:
~ 2 packages Earthbound Farm Organic Baby Spinach and Arugula
~ 1 bag Dole Non-GMO Mango Chunks
~ 5 bags Simply Perfect Non-GMO Sweet Potatoes
~ 4 Wholesum Harvest Organic Eggplants
~ 4 Lemons
~ 8 Limes

And that leaves us with miscellaneous other items:
~ 1 container Polly-O Part Skim Ricotta Cheese
~ 1 container Turkey Hill Stuff'd Double Cookies 'n Cream Ice Cream
~ 1 container Turkey Hill Trio'politan Ice Cream
~ 1 container Turkey Hill Party Cake Ice Cream
~ 3 boxes Pacific Organic Whole Berry Cranberry Sauce
~ 1 container Nature's Supreme Pure Sea Salt
~ 4 bags Enjoy Life Non-GMO Semi-sweet Chocolate Mega Chunks
~ 2 packages Meyenberg Whole Powdered Goat Milk
~ 2 bags Ghirardelli Caramel Chips

I really love this bargain grocery store. They don't carry everything that I need to feed the family but the things that they do have are amazingly priced!!! The rest of our groceries will probably be picked up in bits and pieces so I don't plan on sharing those. I just couldn't resits sharing these incredible finds!!!

Until next time,

May all your endeavors be a blessing!

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Aspiring to be a Proverbs 31 Woman. "She is like the merchants' ships; she bringeth her food from afar." Proverbs 31:14

Time In The Garden

We've been so busy with baseball and soccer games that we haven't had any time in the garden, until yesterday. It was amazing that we actually had a Friday evening available. Thankfully, we took advantage of the overcast weather and got a lot accomplished.

We are still in the process of putting our garden back together. At this point we are weeding and filling the border beds. Those beds are two feet deep and run around the outside of our garden area. We don't have all the border beds installed. Hopefully that will be finished this year as well.

We started off with a short border bed, weeding it and filling it with a mixture of top soil and mushroom soil. We were able to plant two rows of Giant Stringless bush beans. In total we used 53 seeds, planted 3" apart (the seed package said to plant them 1" apart) and the rows are 6" apart. We've never had any luck with beans so we are hoping for the best.

Continuing around to the second bed in the border, we transplanted all the broccoli plants that were growing in the house. We have a nice tradition of putting milk jugs over them for protection. The bottoms of the jugs are cut off. This acts as a make shift green house as well as keeping the wild life from eating our sprouts.

The next bed that was weeded and filled was planted with Spinach and carrots. We used to grow Bloomsfield Long Standing every year but had gotten away from it. I'm excited to see how well it grows for us again. We really like spinach and I'm hoping that the weather stays cool so we can get a good crop out of it.

This is our first year trying Short 'n Sweet carrots. They look similar to the half longs that we usually grow so they should be fine. When we grow in mushroom soil, our carrots generally tend toward peppery, so we'll have to wait and see how sweet they get.

The last bed that we got to was planted with Harris Model Parsnips and Purple Top White Globe Turnips. This will be the first year that we have even tried to grow these. I have no idea what we will do with them if they do grow. I figured that since we have had these seeds since 2011, it was about time to plant them.

Of course, I can't leave out that we lined all of our border beds with walking onions. You will find that we are in the habit of always lining all of our produce beds with walking onions. The truth of the matter is that we have such an over abundance of them that they get planted everywhere. We are thankful for the blessing. They are also a great deer deterrent....... so far.

I hope all of your gardening plans are going well.
Until next time,

May all your endeavors be a blessing!

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"While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease."  Genesis 8:22

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More Seeds

When we did our seed inventory (here) we also made a list of the seeds that we didn't have but wanted. We were able to pick some up, locally, when we were running errands the other day.

I was happily surprised at the nice selection of organic seeds that we found at Lowe's. All are from Ferry-Morse.

New Seeds In

Organic Broccoli ~ De Cicco (1890 heirloom)

Brussels Sprouts ~ Catskill (1941 heirloom)

Cabbage ~ Copenhagen Market Early (1909 heirloom)

Organic Carrot ~ Rainbow Mix

Organic Lettuce ~ Black Seeded Simpson (1875 heirloom)

Organic Okra ~ Clemson Spineless #80 

Organic Radish ~ French Breakfast (1879 heirloom)

Organic Rosemary 

Organic Sage ~ Broadleaf

Organic Thyme ~ Common

Ultimately, I prefer organic, heirloom, regional seeds. I choose organic seeds because I don't want genetically engineered or modified seeds (GMO). I choose heirloom because I'm a history buff who loves to see and taste the old time vegetables that families have enjoyed for generations. I choose regional seeds because if people were able to grow the seeds in my growing region 100 years ago, then I should be able to grow them just as well now. 

Seeds We Still Want To Get
Hyssop
Anise Hyssop

We used to have Hyssop and Anise Hyssop just off the back porch. They self seeded and came back year after year. I'm not sure when they disappeared, but we don't have them anymore. I'd love to find more.

Root-stock We Still Need
Potato
Sweet Potato
Asparagus

We generally start our potatoes from store bought organics. We just cut them into pieces with at least 2 eyes each and plant them in the garden. We generally harvest several five gallon buckets from just a few potatoes planted this way.

We've tried sweet potatoes once before. They grew well and developed very nice sized roots. However, the mice got to them before we did. We were very disappointed in our luck, to say that least.

As for the asparagus, we should have planted a bed of them when we first moved into this house. We could have been enjoying them for several years now. Unfortunately, that didn't happen and we have yet to start a plot. Crossing my fingers that we get it started this year.

Next up, we have to set aside time to get these new seeds planted so they will be ready to go out into the kitchen garden, once it's warm enough. We've already planted our nightshade vegetables. Here's the link to that post, if you are interested.

I hope all of your gardening plans are going well.
Until next time,

May all your endeavors be a blessing!

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"While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease."  Genesis 8:22

** This Is Not A Sponsored Post **

Soup & Crackers ~ Organic Review

Today was a soup and crackers sort of day. However, since the garden is nowhere near producing what I need to make homemade vegetable soup, I opted to try some things from the pantry.

I had picked up a few boxes of Annie's Organic Vegetable Soup with Farm-Shaped Pasta and thought that I'd see how we liked it. I was happy to see all of that beautiful corn. I'm a big corn fan and that is something that I really miss in the winter. The children ate it but didn't rave about how wonderful it was. I didn't mention that the pasta was shaped and no one seemed to notice. All in all, it was a nice, warming soup for a chilly day.

I wanted to have some crackers to go along with our soup and these Organic Classic Rounds from Full Circle Market were a big hit. Everyone loved them so much that I had to put away the box before they were all eaten. These are buttery and salty and so, so good. We will definitely be picking more of these up whenever we see them.

I hope that this review was helpful. 

I'd love to read your thoughts on these items. 

Feel free to comment below.

Until next time,

May all your endeavors be a blessing!

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"Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God."
 1 Corinthians 10:31

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