Grocery Staples

What are your grocery staples or on your weekly grocery list? Do you buy snacks, chips, popcorn, cookies, etc...?

Ours is: fruit(bananas, seasonal), fresh veggies(lettuce, carrots, celery, onions, cucumbers, radishes, (ususally) broccoli, cabbage, brussel sprouts), milk, eggs, bread, juice, a couple times of month - cereal(grape nuts, oatmeal, raisin bran, honey nut cheerios), cheese, spaghetti sauce, canned and frozen veggies, frozen pizza, peanut butter, butter, yogurt, canned and dry beans, condiments, potatoes, rice

I hate to say but we like our potato chips and buy them a couple of times a month. I like my salty snacks and DGF likes sweets.

There are certain staples both of us have, while other stuff he and I individually have, because the other person just isn't interested in having the stuff regularily.

Nearly every week to have on hand:
freshly baked bread, rice, oranges, lemon, 1-2 fresh herb bunches per wk. (basil, dill, thyme or mint), parsley, 3-4 different veggies per week (whatever is in season/on sale, usually 1 Chinese veggie plus whatever else), mushrooms, ginger root, white onion, green onion, garlic, fruits (1-3 types weekly), then in additional we each have strong preferences), egg whites, small amount of meat (1 type: seafood or chicken breast), pasta (eggless or Asian dried noodles. I no longer buy Italian styled dried. But love freshly made Italian as an indulgence.), raisins.

Him: plain low-fat yogurt, carrots, apples, bananas (I eat latter 3, but not as much), sunflower seeds, walnuts

Me: skim milk, oatmeal, tea, grapefruit/pears.

These are staples after all, not the indulgences 2-3 times per month ie. goat cheese. But we don't buy butter, peanut butter, chips, sugar, jam, etc. for home. We rarely buy dried beans.

We have our cookies, chips, desserts, etc. at cafes, other people's homes, restaurants. :)

We would actually find things very dull if we didn't have: fresh ginger root, onions and garlic on hand at all times. Plus safflower cooking oil, chili paste and reduced sodium soy sauce on hand all times.

Fresh fruit and vegies - with a preference for local and seasonal, but I confess I'm not perfect on that count. Usually we'll also have canned and frozen produce on hand from the previous year's harvest.

Peanut butter
Shelled nuts (DH prefers pistachios, I prefer walnuts, but sometimes we get pecans or almonds)
Yes it usually takes us more than a week to go through a jar of PB or a pound of nuts!

Cereal, cold or hot depending on season
Often but not always - raisins or other dried fruit
Soy, rice or hemp milk

Dried beans and lentils (chickpeas are my favorite! but we like all kinds)
Dried grains (usually we'll have at least three kinds of rice on hand, plus maybe some barley, quinoa or buckwheat)
Pasta
Parmesan
Parsley
Olive oil

Salt-free broth cubes if we're low on homemade stock

Wheat-free yeast-free bread if we're down south where there are two good local bakeries. Up north, occasionally, but not always, sprouted grain tortillas or other flatbreads.

We usually have on hand, but use very sparingly so we buy them maybe every two to three months, local eggs and some local cheese. I'll buy cheeses that aren't local, but not eggs unless I need them for holiday baking and can't get them locally.

+1 on the ginger, onions and garlic, plus herbs and spices

Milk - I buy it 5 gallons at a time
Fruit - oranges, tangerines, tangelos, clementines (in season), bananas, berries (in season), mangoes
Vegetables - carrots, celery, potatoes, eggplant, green beans, peppers, tomatoes - mostly whatever grows in the garden is what we eat in season
Sugar (my dad goes through 5 lbs a week, I don't use it at all)
oatmeal
frozen omelets (I make lousy omelets and my dad loves these)
Grape juice
cilantro, garlic, ginger (whenever we're out)
fresh green chilies
Hamburger, corned beef ribs, sausage, or pot roast (this is for my dad, I hardly eat meat)
bread

Things I stock up on but don't need every week:
coffee (for my dad)
flour
salt
Baking soda
baking powder
yeast
rice (basmati, preferably)
toor dahl (dahl is split legumes of several sorts)
urad dahl
chana dahl
moong dahl
chappati flour
rice flour
semolina
Urad flour
besan (chana flour)

Fruit Salt
Tamarind

curry leaf
curry powder
black mustard seed
turmeric
fennel
clove
cardamom, seed, whole, ground
Coriander, ground and whole
cumin, ground and whole
amchur (mango powder)
black cumin seed
Powdered fenugreek
Dried red chilis, whole and powdered
asofoetida
mamri-style tea (for chai)
Papad
Chips (not potato chips, this is an Indian thing I can't really describe)
mango pulp

Extra-firm tofu

Rarely - chicken, ground lamb, brown sugar, oil, vinegar, wine vinegar, brown rice, couscous, wine or sake, sea salt, cheese, bacon, catsup, tartar sauce (for my dad), saffron

Zensojourner- hope your dad will consider substituting some of the sugar with honey or sugarless applesauce instead of sugar. It's a serious amount there. He can't afford this impact on his health at his age.

Looking at all your different flours -- reminds me that we've been down to 1 c. of white flour--for past 4 wks. Just used as a sauce thickener. (His style of making sauce. I make my sauces differently.) But need that bigger bag of flour for focaccia later. We buy no other flour type for home.

There is no way my dad is going to cut down on his sugar, and there is absolutely no point in asking him to at his age. He's 89 and he's survived 4 bouts with cancer - I don't think sugar has impacted his health much, not compared to the carcinogens he was exposed to working in machine shops in the 30's and 40's. He has no weight problem, no sign of diabetes. Short of his suddenly becoming diabetic, which is just not going to happen, there is no way I'd even consider asking him to cut back.

If *I* ate that much sugar, I'd be one of those people on Dr. Phil, who are too fat to fit through their own doorways. But he handles it just fine. It's one of the few things he can still enjoy. I'm just really grateful I didn't inherit his sweet tooth.

As far as the flour, I make chappati and puri, have done for years. I'm learning to make dosai and idli - finally found some recipes for that that don't require a lot of grinding. And I am just now in the process of learning to make bread, though I've made pizza dough for years.

Heck ya, he's lived long enough to enjoy whatever he likes! :)

It seems like the only staple I buy a lot of is gallons and gallons of organic milk! I bought 4-1/2 gallons on Monday, still had 1 gallon in the fridge, and I'm down to 2-1/2 gallons. :eek:

That's just from one teenage boy and the half an ounce I put in my tea every morning!

Luckily, I can buy it at Sam's club for less than the local store, 3 halves at a time, and since it is ultra-pasteurized it lasts for 6 weeks before going bad. But it never makes it 6 weeks in this house. He drank the last batch labeled for May 30 before it was even May!

Then, I keep Rotel tomatoes and chilies in the cabinet, along with tomato soup, just for him. During baseball season we have to keep whatever can be made at the last minute--sandwich stuff, etc., because there is usually no time for cooking.

Karen

It's a good thing I can't get papadum locally. I'm pretty restrained about snack food but those are just too good.

ZenS, you seem so enterprising, have you ever tried making them from scratch? I've read that they're an enormous pain... but so is bread...

Papad from scratch?

Enormous pain doesn't BEGIN to cover it, LOL! It's much worse than making idli or dosai the traditional way.

Here's a link describing the process briefly:

http://www.aayisrecipes.com/2008/06/...ddina-happala/

When she talks about uradgram, what she means is urad dahl, whole, with skins still on, brought to the household by tenant farmers in wooden barrels. Basically this is the raw bean picked straight off the plant.

That stone thing is a grinding mill for separating the urad from it's skin and crushing or splitting it. This had to be done by hand with that heavy heavy stone and a heavy piece of wood for pounding the urad. The separating is done by hand too.

This is sort of like having to harvest the wheat, separate the grain from the chaff, and then grind it. She was cleaning this stuff by hand and then paying someone to pound it and clean some more.

Even if you buy the urad already cleaned and split, it's still a huge pain to make papad. You still have to grind the stuff into a paste (that's what the second stone thing with the hand held stone thing on top of it is for), make the wafers, and spread them to dry in the sun. Here are some pictures of handmade papads drying in the sun:

http://www.dharavi.org/@api/deki/files/129/=papads2.jpg

http://www.aayisrecipes.com/wp-conte...s/happolu7.jpg

They have machines to do all the cleaning, pounding, grinding, paste making, rolling out, and drying. For about $1 I can buy enough papads for a month. There is just no way I would even try this, LOL! This is the sort of thing that only worked when women slaved from dusk to dawn trying to take care of the household because it was that or starve. I can't tell you how much I admire the generations of women who did these sorts of onerous tasks, and more, to keep their families alive. Food preparation and storage was a daily task that could not be shirked because there was no grocery store to turn to when the (winter, monsoon, or other non-growing season) came.

Today we wouldn't want to do this anymore than we would want to take our clothes to the river and clean them by pounding on them with rocks.

They are a MUCH more enormous pain that bread making, LOL!

Early in my marriage I actually did consider making papad from scratch, because everything's better from scratch, right?

However my then-husband (now ex) dissuaded me from this notion rather rapidly. Having actually witnessed the huge amount of labor that goes into making papad, he pronounced himself MORE than happy with the store-bought stuff, as any negligible improvement in taste for having made it by hand was more than offset by the guilt he felt over the tremendous amount of work.

This from the man who insisted I should be ironing his underwear. If HE thought it was too much work, it was REALLY too much work, LOL!

Here's another picture I found of drying papads:

http://www.ifood.tv/files/u259/papad_on_car_roof.jpg

Too funny!

:D:D:D:D:D

Eggs
Milk
cheese
cereal
garlic and garlic powder

I'm not much into cooking.

Yikes ZS! :D

Weekly or near-weekly:
Gallon each of 1% and 2% (boyfriend likes 2%; to me, it's like drinking oil)
meat (ground beef or turkey, chicken, flank steak if we're feeling affluent)
veggies (broccoli, kale...it depends what's available and how adventurous we're feeling
cereal
fruit--apples, cherries, berries (in season), citrus (lemons and limes for cooking, oranges)
bread or English muffins


Staples that I replace as necessary
Cheese
Rice (basmati, preferably)
potatoes
garlic
onions
cilantro
pasta
sauce
canned tomatoes
cocoa powder
various spices
sugar
all-purpose flour
baking soda and powder
honey
tea (we have a cabinet full. It's ridiculous.)
Olive and canola oils

Rarely:
Nuts
Random snacks (at least, on my part).
2 liter of Coke (mostly occurs during finals)
chocolate (see above)

The kids always need milk. That's a multiple week trip... my frig is not that big.

Nuts... I could not survive without them. Almonds always. But Planters makes a mix called "The South Beach Diet" that I get regularly too. They are a great crunchy alternative to chips, without the mega carbs.

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Originally Posted by Miranda

The kids always need milk. That's a multiple week trip... my frig is not that big.

Nuts... I could not survive without them. Almonds always. But Planters makes a mix called "The South Beach Diet" that I get regularly too. They are a great crunchy alternative to chips, without the mega carbs.

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I can't buy mixed nuts--I pick the brazil nuts out of the cans and eat those first, followed by the hazelnuts and almonds. Peanuts...I like them, but unless they're roasted, I get a mild allergic reaction. :( Just too many peanuts in those cans to justify it.

Weekly: milk, various fruits and vegetables, bread, yogurt

Staples restocked as needed: eggs, chicken, ground beef or turkey, fish (frozen or canned), carrots, whole wheat flour, brown rice, olive oil, butter (which takes a while to go through), dried beans/lentils, quinoa, nuts, dried fruit, honey, canned tomatoes, potatoes, sweet potatoes, onions, garlic, various seasonings, peanut butter, dark chocolate

Occasional: tortilla chips, salsa, cheese, avocados, junk food (ice cream etc.)

Thanks Jolt, and a couple of others, who admitted to some junk food. I was beginning to feel bad! We have a lot of healthy stuff, but I would also have to add chocolate chip cookies, Baked Lays BarBQ Chips, ice cream, chex mix, Laughing Cow cheese, and wine as staples at my house.:D

Oh, I eat plenty of baked goods. :cool:

I just don't count store-baked goods as staples because I never plan to bring them home, they're a total impulse buy. And once they're in the house, they don't stay. :rolleyes: Buy 'em or bake 'em, eat 'em, it's over.

I've had to cut down on my wine intake :( but yeah, we buy wine very regularly too.

We buy a lot of things in bulk and store them for later, so even perishable staples like cheese and meats we don't buy weekly since we put so much in the freezer. The only thing that we absolutely buy weekly is two gallons of milk and fresh fruit and vegetables.

But our standard grocery list of staples includes:
bread
tortillas
soynut butter
breakfast cereals
cottage cheese
yogurt
various cheeses
almonds
crackers
pretzles
goldfish crackers
Oreo cookies
lunchmeat
eggs
frozen vegetables
chicken breasts
ground beef
tilapia (the only fish the whole family can agree on)
chicken nuggets
fish sticks
french fries
canned or dried beans
rice
pastas
potatoes

Eggs
Organic/Natural chicken
1lb beef (used sparingly for spaghetti, pastas, chilis)
Canned Tomatoes
Canned Blackbeans

Frozen Veggies: Spinach, peas, beans, broccoli

Fresh Veggies:
Spinach
Carrots
Broccoli
Peppers
Cucumbers
Celery
1 Potato (for DH)

Herbs:
Cilantro
Parsley

Cheddar Cheese
Hummus

Fruit:
3 Apples
3 Oranges
Bananas
Red Grapes

Raisins

Organic Whole Grain Spelt Bread
English Muffins
Puffins Cinnamon Cereal

Silk
Grape Juice

Indulgences:
Twilight Delight Intense Dark chocolate Bar
Potato Chips for DH
PB & J

We work out of a huge pantry, have chickens for eggs, a goat for milk and I'm working on replacing all cleaners with home-made versions, so our weekly trip is mostly random things.

We do buy cheese and lunch meat for DH's lunches each week. And cold cereal...but that's about it besides restocking the veggie drawer and the occasional container of icecream or box of crackers. We also buy TP as needed because I can't seem to find the brand I like in bulk anywhere local.

The chickens, goats and pantry have reduced our weekly grocery trip from $150 to about $65 or less (for 2 of us). By mid summer, we hope to have that down to virtually zero. :D

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Originally Posted by GLC1968

We work out of a huge pantry, have chickens for eggs, a goat for milk and I'm working on replacing all cleaners with home-made versions, so our weekly trip is mostly random things.

The chickens, goats and pantry have reduced our weekly grocery trip from $150 to about $65 or less (for 2 of us). By mid summer, we hope to have that down to virtually zero. :D

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Nice! That's one thing I like about having a garden in the summer.

Oh wow. Funny this came up. Bf and I were just talking yesterday about how I don't need a grocery list b/c it's so standard. We're not very adventurous.

For him- milk, meat of some sort, lunchmeat, sugar free syurp, ww waffles, and pb.Oh! And Newman's light ital. dressing.

For us- leaves (spinach, romaine) cucumber, canned artichoke hearts, brown rice, sprouted grain bread, apples, bananas, baby carrots, celery, beer on the weekends

For me- firm tofu, beans, salsa, Kashi GoLean cereal, Vitasoy light milk, small bar of dark chocolate, squash, mushrooms, ww pitas, hummus, vegan patties, pino noir berries or other fruit, dried apricots,nuts of various flavors, a couple Amy's organic burritos, just in case.

That's standard, and I'll p/u others stuff as deemed nessesary, depending on my mood. This week I made a big pot of lentil soup for me, and ONLY b.c it's his birthday this week, bf gets Hamburger Helper (I avoid stuff in boxes).

Hehe:

12 pack frozen burrittos
Bread
Milk
Giant brick of cheese
eggs
5 pack mac and cheese
Ham
Mayo
Tomatoes
Onions
Butter

Hmmmm.... Yea I think it's time for the college diet to go! My fruit and veggie intake: tomatoes and onions on piles of mayo in a ham sammy. That's it! Pure carbs and starches and cheese.... And I wonder why I'm getting fat... :eek:

Speaking of which... The place I'm moving into with my friend has no functioning stove/oven, just a microwave. I should be getting food stamps soon so I'll at least be able to afford non-junk food for once, but does anyone know of some healthier things I can eat that I can either make raw or cook using only a microwave?

I seriously need to change my eating habits, and I guess a change of environment at the same time can really help with the motivation. :p

Oh yea, and one more thing: I can't use the freezer cuz theres dead snakes in there... so no freezer stuff either!:eek:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by IvonaDestroi

Hehe:

12 pack frozen burrittos
Bread
Milk
Giant brick of cheese
eggs
5 pack mac and cheese
Ham
Mayo
Tomatoes
Onions
Butter

Hmmmm.... Yea I think it's time for the college diet to go! My fruit and veggie intake: tomatoes and onions on piles of mayo in a ham sammy. That's it! Pure carbs and starches and cheese.... And I wonder why I'm getting fat... :eek:

Speaking of which... The place I'm moving into with my friend has no functioning stove/oven, just a microwave.

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I'm not the right person to suggest microwave dishes/recipes even though we do have a microwave...we only use it to warm up leftovers, bagels or zap my daily instant oatmeal. The latter as a healthy, suggested start for microwave breakfast with fresh fruit and milk. Very effortless. :)

Perhaps the library has a book on microwave recipes? Go online and check their database.. Will save you cost of printing off recipes.

A rice-cooker is not that expensive if you save your money carefully. Up here in Canada, the smallest rice cooker: $30.00CAN.

And with a rice cooker you can cook all kinds of rice. PLUS when the water starts to boil in cooking rice, you can add thin slices of meat or near end, just break 1 whole egg and let the steam cook the egg for next 8 min. or so. have veggie and fruit on side. Done.

There are recipes for microwaved rice, potatoes but I haven't tried using a microwave for these items. Nor have I tried a raw food diet. You can eat fresh daikon raw, red radishes where we live are only 69 cents for a bundle. I read a recipe that makes an interesting sandwich out of thinly sliced radishes, lettuce. Sounds like a retro-tea party sandwiches.

By the way you can make a fake egg salad, by cubing pressed tofu and mixing with mustard, etc. I do seriously suggest shopping in the Chinatown districts --pricing can be quite good for produce with a wide selection.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by IvonaDestroi

Hehe:
Speaking of which... The place I'm moving into with my friend has no functioning stove/oven, just a microwave. I should be getting food stamps soon so I'll at least be able to afford non-junk food for once, but does anyone know of some healthier things I can eat that I can either make raw or cook using only a microwave?

I seriously need to change my eating habits, and I guess a change of environment at the same time can really help with the motivation. :p

Oh yea, and one more thing: I can't use the freezer cuz theres dead snakes in there... so no freezer stuff either!:eek:

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Can you store the snakes in something airtight, then clean the freezer and use it anyway? I know nothing about zoonotic diseases involving snakes, but you might email a herpetologist at a local university or ask a vet.

Many vegetables are okay cooked in a microwave. There's a ton of food & cooking information online. Google is your friend.

I agree with checking out your area's Chinatown. In NYC bargains abound and it's much more fun than the regular grocery store. You can learn to cook all manner of new things.

Pam

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PamNY

Can you store the snakes in something airtight, then clean the freezer and use it anyway? I know nothing about zoonotic diseases involving snakes, but you might email a herpetologist at a local university or ask a vet.

Many vegetables are okay cooked in a microwave. There's a ton of food & cooking information online. Google is your friend.

I agree with checking out your area's Chinatown. In NYC bargains abound and it's much more fun than the regular grocery store. You can learn to cook all manner of new things.

Pam

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I dunno about the freezer... I sort of just don't want anything to do with it! I'm going to try to convince my friend to get rid of them (they've been in there forever and I dont think he's ever gonna get around to the taxidermy). If he throw's 'em out that thing is getting bleached like 10 times over before I'll even go near it :rolleyes:

Chinatown does sound amusing and interesting... hmmm.... I'll see what I can find online in terms of using that kind of stuff:D

Chocolate with almonds. Two bars every week :D :D must be a staple for us.

Tater tots when we got a hunkering for junk food. It is junk food isn't it??

Pace Picane Sauce and organic multi-grain chips or bean chips. Also junk food.

Otherwise, we eat healthy. And we are almost finished with planting our garden. Lost track of all the varieties of lettuce we grow. crooked neck yellow squash, three kinds of cucumber, 8? different varieties of tomatoes. At least 6 are heirloom variety, Zuccini, acorn squash, bell pepper, Japanese pepper, several varieties of beans... French tarragon, cilantro, parsley, basil, oregano. garlic, ginger to name just some of the herbs growing...

We also have meyer lemon trees, washington navel orange trees, bears lime trees, Rio red grapefruit trees, and just picked up an odd looking pink lemon(ade) tree. Missing are Hass avocado, Bay Leaf (bay Laurel) in my yard. Bay laurel tree died several years ago.. :(

Most of our groceries will be coming from our yard in about a month. We've been back to eating our home grown micro-green for the past week. And hopefully, we can start adding our tomatoes to our salad in about three maybe four weeks. Green zebra tomato plants have set some fruit :D :D hmm raddishes too.

So can I get away with hens and guinea fowl in my urban setting??

And flowers for our table are also growing. Roses, dahlias, glads, ...

And yes we have torn out all the useless grass on my property. Ooo just realized, I think I want to get some yellow rasberries just outside my window. Berries and to discourage would be intruder.

Urban homestead at its best :D :D :D maybe I'll post a pic in about a month or two when things are lush and green.

You could also get one of those 2 burner things - we use one for camping. I know Walmart carries them for $30. Also an electric griddle(flat cooking surface) or an electric fry pan, or a george foreman(or knock-off) cooker. ++ for the rice cooker, a friend of mine at work has one that came with a steamer insert.

I take an electric tea kettle with me camping, and it will boil all the water you need for anything you can cook with hot water. :) And there's also a few websites with nothing but recipes of things you can make in your hotel coffee maker! Both of those items can be had for less than $15.

Karen

So what is the difference between "micro-greens" and "sprouts"? About 18 hours and a little sunlight from what I can tell?

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Originally Posted by smilingcat

So can I get away with hens and guinea fowl in my urban setting??

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Maybe hens. Definitely NOT guinea hens- they make the most GODAWFUL LOUD racket all day! :eek: :eek: :eek: The only racket louder I've ever heard is peacocks.

Here is a site where you can hear some clips of them making their racket.
http://www.guineafowl.com/fritsfarm/guineas/sounds/

Here this is funny:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvEzD...eature=related

A friend of ours has two guinea hens, and they make an incredible noise neverending, all day- you can hear it a mile a way. Her chickens hardly make any racket at all. Even her rooster pales in comparison to those guineas. :eek:

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Originally Posted by IvonaDestroi

Chinatown does sound amusing and interesting... hmmm.... I'll see what I can find online in terms of using that kind of stuff:D

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This is not a quaint "ethnic" food suggestion...this is a suggestion for economic food survival.

You'll be with shoppers doing the same like you to save money, in those areas. And some are eating just as cheaply but in some ways healthier than you are right now.

Sorry....you will find some cheaper pricing for ordinary ingredients. I've given you suggestions what to eat raw ...and dont' forget cubed tofu is tasty uncooked too. Like cold custard in texture.

micro-greens to me are baby lettuce leaves. The leaves we collect are no more than 4 inches in length. Green yes, red yes, mottled color yes. green/red oak leaf lettuce at three to four inches in length.

Sprouts to me, refer to plants that just germinated. The first set of baby leaves may have opened but not the real leaves. So, much of the sprout is just the baby stem. Don't know enough of botany to give you the correct names for the parts of plants as they "sprout".

And hi to Lisa,

Well my property did have a permit for a chicken coop back in the late '30s I think. Do you think that permit is still good? Are these permits open ended?? Wouldn't it be a hoot if there was no time limit on the permit. Chicken are far more destructive on the ground with all their scratching. Guinea fowl less so. And they are better at pest control than chicken. Ticks for example. I didn't realize they were really loud though. oops. :eek:

adding to shooting star,

works with silken tofu not the firm variety.

cut tofu into 1 inch-ish cube (slightly bigger for my personal taste.)
one medium sized scallion or two small scallions sliced thin (into little ringlets)
1/2TBS of fresh ginger grated.
dried bonito flakes (optional)

place 3 or 4 cold tofu cubes on a plate.
top the tofu with scallions, grated ginger and dried bonito flakes.
drizzle some soysauce over the top.

Enjoy. The dish is called hiya-yakko in Japanese.

Wow, everyone eats healthy!
Mine isnt all that different;

veggies( all sorts, lots of whats in season) lots!!
potatoes ( I can eat these every night, baked mostly.)
quinoa flour ( to make cookies, scones and cakes)
quinoa
moong dhall flour ( to make flat bread for pizza )
free range organic eggs( I eat the yolks)
cheese( vegetarian variety, Im really into GOOD cheese - parm regiano, mortadella,halumi, good edam, hard cheeses mostly). Dont have much, just about half a block a week
organic yogurt - unsweetened or honey sweetened
fruit - heaps, esp apples. I eat these all day
Roobois tea -I drink this all day( no caffeine)
Stevia- to sweeten tea
Flaxseed oil - this is a must!!( fish oil makes you smell bad too)
Balsamic vinegar
antipasto things - artichokes, sundried tomatoes, etc
butter
unsweetened whole fruit preserves
avocados
soda water
chips( sometimes! yummy)
ice cream ( sometimes,only one kind I can eat sadly)
frozen spinach ( I like this with mashed avocados) or frozen broad beans
deep fried beans or garlic peas( sometimes!)
Vitamins - zinc, vit c, selenium,iron, copper, multi, mixed antioxidants, women's PMT preventer, isa flush( for constipation - works great if you eat lots of fiber but have trouble anyhow), chromium picolinate, cleanse for life, glucosamine, spirulina( I dont get much protein in diet)
protein shakes ( on occasion)

Husband;
pasta
tofu
nuts( uncooked and unsalted)
dairy free choc
canned chick peas
tea

We used to have a big organic garden but husband got tired of it, so giving it a rest.
I do think its a good idea to have some junk food, myself. I have a weakness for chips so only buy small bags -as soon as a I open them, I eat the whole bag.
I eat the most boring meals! Mostly steamed veggies and a baked potato. Im sick of cooking.

On that note, for cheap student cooking - how about a crock pot? You often can get one from thrift shops. I had a rice steamer when I was young and poor - but dont mistake barley for rice( bought ten lbs - yuck!).
You should( whomever that was) eat more fruit and veggie. Lots of people are coming down with scurvy, believe it or not( my Mother in law for one) now days. At least two fruits and three serves of veggies will keep bad things away( food stamps will help, I went thru that too.Its nice to be able to afford food!!)

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Originally Posted by smilingcat

micro-greens to me are baby lettuce leaves. The leaves we collect are no more than 4 inches in length.

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Ah, okay. I've always seen those referred to as "baby greens." When we get micro-greens in restaurants, they are just very large sprouts. Just the cotyledons, but allowed to grow larger than the sprouts you usually see, seed coats shed and rinsed away, and exposed to light to green them up. No true leaves yet. That's been consistent in at least four or five restaurants where we've had micro-greens.

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Originally Posted by BleeckerSt_Girl

Maybe hens. Definitely NOT guinea hens- they make the most GODAWFUL LOUD racket all day! :eek: :eek: :eek: The only racket louder I've ever heard is peacocks.

Here is a site where you can hear some clips of them making their racket.
http://www.guineafowl.com/fritsfarm/guineas/sounds/

Here this is funny:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvEzD...eature=related

A friend of ours has two guinea hens, and they make an incredible noise neverending, all day- you can hear it a mile a way. Her chickens hardly make any racket at all. Even her rooster pales in comparison to those guineas. :eek:

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Those guinea hens are loud! One time my family and I were visiting relatives in Montana and were staying in our camper in my grandparents' yard. Their neighbors had a small flock of guinea hens that would sometimes wander into their yard, and one morning when we weren't really ready to wake up yet they came over and were making all kinds of racket. So...I ended up going outside and herding them back into the neighbors' yard in my pajamas! Everyone thought this was pretty funny.

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Originally Posted by smilingcat

Chocolate with almonds. Two bars every week :D :D must be a staple for us.

Tater tots when we got a hunkering for junk food. It is junk food isn't it??

Pace Picane Sauce and organic multi-grain chips or bean chips. Also junk food.

Otherwise, we eat healthy. And we are almost finished with planting our garden. Lost track of all the varieties of lettuce we grow. crooked neck yellow squash, three kinds of cucumber, 8? different varieties of tomatoes. At least 6 are heirloom variety, Zuccini, acorn squash, bell pepper, Japanese pepper, several varieties of beans... French tarragon, cilantro, parsley, basil, oregano. garlic, ginger to name just some of the herbs growing...

We also have meyer lemon trees, washington navel orange trees, bears lime trees, Rio red grapefruit trees, and just picked up an odd looking pink lemon(ade) tree. Missing are Hass avocado, Bay Leaf (bay Laurel) in my yard. Bay laurel tree died several years ago.. :(

Most of our groceries will be coming from our yard in about a month. We've been back to eating our home grown micro-green for the past week. And hopefully, we can start adding our tomatoes to our salad in about three maybe four weeks. Green zebra tomato plants have set some fruit :D :D hmm raddishes too.

So can I get away with hens and guinea fowl in my urban setting??

And flowers for our table are also growing. Roses, dahlias, glads, ...

And yes we have torn out all the useless grass on my property. Ooo just realized, I think I want to get some yellow rasberries just outside my window. Berries and to discourage would be intruder.

Urban homestead at its best :D :D :D maybe I'll post a pic in about a month or two when things are lush and green.

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Definitely post pics!! It sounds awesome!

Check with your local ordinances, many cities and towns allow urban chickens (but not roosters). If I remember correctly, in Portland (even downtown!) you are allowed up to 4 hens (again, no roosters) with no permit. Of course, Portland tends towards more progressive than a lot of places, but you never know (particularly in California).

Chickens will definitely eat a garden, but they are not that destructive if you have a small number on a larger space. Most people confine them to too small a space and in those cases, they will destroy all things green. They will also eat just about anything (we feed ours any leftover/spoiled milk solids), so they are a good compliment to a compost bin.

Guineas are loud, but they can be an AMAZING alert system. Like most birds, they have great eyesight, and they will sound the alarm at anything unusual. I can see how this would be a huge problem in an urban environment, but my husband's parents kept them on their rural land in MS years ago and loved them. They didn't need a dog or even a doorbell! ;)

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Originally Posted by Tuckervill

I take an electric tea kettle with me camping, and it will boil all the water you need for anything you can cook with hot water. :) And there's also a few websites with nothing but recipes of things you can make in your hotel coffee maker! Both of those items can be had for less than $15.

Karen

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Coffee maker?! This I have to see...

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Originally Posted by shootingstar

This is not a quaint "ethnic" food suggestion...this is a suggestion for economic food survival.

You'll be with shoppers doing the same like you to save money, in those areas. And some are eating just as cheaply but in some ways healthier than you are right now.

Sorry....you will find some cheaper pricing for ordinary ingredients. I've given you suggestions what to eat raw ...and dont' forget cubed tofu is tasty uncooked too. Like cold custard in texture.

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I just said it'd be interesting because they have a pretty wide variety of unique fruits and veggies out here in our chinatown, most of which I would have no idea what to do with (or even what they're called)! It would definately be interesting to try some new things though, I think I might check it out :D