fruits & veggies

if you know me IRL, you know i'm not much of a fruits & veggie girl. i'm more of a chips & other snacks kinda girl. if i could, i'd survive on chili con queso (preferably from chuy's) and tortilla chips.

anywho, the weight watchers thing has been interesting as i try to figure out what to eat to stay on track. it's also been interesting to note how much more i'm spending on groceries. we've spent more on groceries this week ($184.94) than we have over probably the past two months! now, in the interest of truth, some of what we spent was stockpiling approximately a year's worth of cooking oil with a raincheck for an amazing sale price coupled with coupons ($9.99), stockpiling about 6 weeks's worth of laughing cow cheese wedges (see below)($19.04),(kitty litter
($8.99), 4 bags of charcoal ($9.76), 4 slabs of pork ribs ($21.92), and a couple cases of bottled water ($3.96) for M to take to his next BBQ cookoff in a few weeks. nonetheless, as i get used to changing my eating habits, i think i'll have more energy to try to keep "healthy" eating on track with what i'd like to spend out of our budget for groceries.

i have done well in a couple of areas. first, laughing cow cheese wedges are looking like they're going to be an integral part of my staying on track with WW (1 point for 2 wedges!). on wednesday, when the new grocery ads came out, i saw they were on sale at HEB for $2.88. since i'd just seen that the regular price of them at kroger was $3.59, this looked great. then i saw that a recent sunday paper had a $1/2 coupon, so i hopped on over to ebay and ordered 20 coupons for about a buck. they arrived yesterday, and M and i made a trip to HEB where we each picked up 4 packages of laughing cow cheese for me which got us up to the minimum purchase amount to get pork ribs for 99 cents per lb, limit 2. so i got inexpensive (relatively!) cheese and M got ribs for a couple cookoffs. we'll repeat this deal before the sale ends tuesday, then he'll be stocked on ribs for all of his summer cookoffs and i'll be stocked on laughing cow cheese for the next 6 months! (and before you ask, yes, i did check expiration dates, and because it's a processed cheese product, the stuff is good for almost a whole year from now!)

next, my friend liz introduced me to the tasty goodness of skinny cow ice cream bars, which clock in at a wee 4 points each! tuesday night i was at kroger and noted that the 12 count packs were on sale for $6.99. today i found out that on their facebook page you can print off two $1/1 coupons. well, i printed out my two coupons, and before the sale ends on tuesday, i'll pick up two packages at a pretty great price for diet treats that taste good (50 cents each).

but back to the produce. . . produce coupons just aren't that common, and the few that are more available are generally for pricey organics. so, i'm trying hard to check out what's in season (i.e. at the best price) and looking for new recipes to try. i also heard about an HEB branded store called Joe V's Smart Shop recently, so we drove over to check it out this morning. really, really good produce prices, and some great deals on other stuff as well. i got boneless, skinless pilgrim's pride frozen chicken breasts 2.5 lb packages for $3.75 (an EXCELLENT price), and zuchinni and tomatillos 2 lbs for $1, green beans 77 cents per lb, strawberries $1.27 per lb, and bananas 3 lbs for $1. M got jimmy dean reduced sodium premium cut bacon 2 pkgs for $3 and ribeye steaks (albeit thin cut) for $1.97/lb.

[NOTE: i got out all my receipts, and totalled up all the produce and it was just $25.58, for about a week and a half's worth of fruit (maybe 2 weeks) and a week's worth of fresh veggies). that being said, maybe the high total on all groceries had something to do with the fact that we hadn't really been shopping for a while.]