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>This is a recap of food purchased (or otherwise acquired) for the past week.
This week I payed my cow share. We contribute to the room and board for a couple of Brown Swiss cows and in exchange for that we get one gallon of raw milk per week. Our monthly fee for this is $27, soon we will be increasing to two gallons a week since the one gallon is no longer enough.
Four stops at regular grocery stores this week. First stop totalled $16.32, second $18.24, third was $17.95 and fourth was right around $6 (Joe went for me and forgot to provide me the receipt). The four stops were mainly a result of poor planning on my part. My sister, brother in law and niece came for Christmas and we were still decide what all we would be eating on Christmas Eve Day.
I got more free fruits and some veggies this week. Joe brought home another 10 pounds of kumquats, a dozen or so apples, a couple dozen kiwi and about 5 pounds of carrots. I’ve been making some interesting things with the kumquats which I’ll share in a future post. I’m quite pleased with the flavor of them and have had a fun time finding uses for them. But I’ll admit that another 10 pounds is a little overwhelming! The carrots will be lacto-fermented with garlic and onions to make spicy carrots. We love the flavor of the carrots done that way. The apples and kiwi we have been eating raw.
My previous spending total for December was $375.15 (Week 1, Week 2, Week 3). New total after adding in this week is $460.66. I don’t think I’ll be buying too much more for the month of December but there is always the chance that we’ll decide on something last minute.
We ate out of our pantry and freezer a bit in December. We’ll probably do more of the same in January since my freezer is still very full. Speaking of eating out of the pantry, Angela is joining in a challenge co-hosted by Money Saving Mom to eat out of the pantry for the entire month of January. Angela works hard to feed her family on a Nourishing Traditions based diet, I’ll be interested to see how she does for the month. I’m tempted to join her, but I don’t think that I couldn’t make a full month. I’m low on a couple of staples and I would need to do some serious lacto-fermenting so we would have veggies. I’m good on fruit though, especially kumquats.
>I would love the recipe for the spicy lacto-fermented carrots!
As for the pantry challenge…I totally forgot about Azure. So while I'll be staying out of the grocery stores, I'll need to place an Azure order for some basics (didn't plan ahead for this pantry challenge). Our Azure delivery is usually around mid-month and I don't think I can make it till mid-February on some of my staples.
Guess I've fallen off the wagon before it left the barn…
>Angela,
Azure was my big issue too. I really need wheat, flour and sweetener since I didn't get all I ordered last month.
For the carrots; I used the method that Alyss used in the comments section of this post
http://gnowfglins.com/2009/06/03/lacto-fermented-naturally-pickled-turnips-and-beets/comment-page-1/#comments
from Wardeh's site. Only I don't put in jalapeno's (because I never have any) and of course, I changed it a bit because that is what I do 🙂