Saturday, June 30, 2012

Cape Cod

So every year the weekend before my birthday in may I go out to cap cod with my friends Ed and Shirley to celebrate my birthday and their wedding anniversary. This year was their 54th anniversary and we had a blast . We stay right across the street from the beach in a nice quiet very cheap motel.
This post isn't really about the trip to the cape, it's actually about the stop i made on the way home to Cabby Shack in Plymouth MA. It was featured on an episode of the best thing I ever ate "guilty pleasures" on the food network. The feature on the show was their clam chowdah, for those of you non new englanders it's always chowdah if it's good and the key mark is that it should be thick enough for your spoon to stand straight without tipping. It was wonderful and worth the trip. I would definitely consider it the best chowdah I have had ever and that is one of those foods I try almost everywhere I eat in new England to test them out.
If you're out that way I recommend it, I also had a lobster roll, not quite as good, still very good but that chowdah was a hard act to follow. It was the perfect day too since it was pouring rain outside which is when you want to curl up with a warm thick bowl of chowdah and snuggle. I didn't get to snuggle since I was in a restaurant, but you get the idea.

Also I had to post a photo of this awesome sign I saw in a shop on the cape, still makes me smile every time I look at it.

First of the season

Seems like a nice night for blogging I'm relaxing on the couch with dad, something I don't get a chance to much so I'm gonna take advantage of this time.
I went out in the backyard this afternoon and picked some of our wild blackberries. We've got wild strawberries in the front, but they're not quite ready yet. They're super sweet and yummy, but hard to get to because of the thorns. I probably shouldn't have worn shorts and flip Flops out to pick them but it's in the 90's here so no way I'm putting on jeans and long sleeves. Here's a photo!

Best dad ever

I have the best dad ever so I thought he deserved a little post. Wed was his 60th birthday. I told him how excited I was about my blog and he asked how many followers I had. I said about 6 and he said "well Jesus only had 12 and that wasn't until he was 33 so you're on your way". Just reminded me why I have the best father in the world. I soooo got my sense of humor from him.

Shopping the sales

So I'm not allowed to extreme coupon because extreme couponing is a gateway drug to hoarding and I definitely don't want to end up on an episode of that show. I'd hate for someone to come clean my house and find a dead cat decomposing under my couch.... I'm sure my 3 cats appreciate that statement!
I managed to do quite well. I spent just about an hour looking at sales flyers for the three major chains in the area (shoprite, hannaford, and price chopper) then I always make a stop at the bakery outlet store. Then I go online and check for coupons for the products I'm purchasing on sale. That way I'm not buying things only because I have a coupon. Where the ladies on the show may save $600 or more they buy mostly junk food and spend upwards of 60 hours a week couponing. I only spend about 4 hours every two weeks and that includes the time spent at the store.
One of the things I see frequently on the extreme coupon show is that they buy so much unhealthy stuff, plus a lot of stuff I'm not sure they really need or would buy if they didn't have a coupon. Who really needs 100 tubes of mentor candy? Even if they're only 25 cents each....not even me and I love bargains!
So here's a little rundown of what I purchased complete with a photo of my receipts and some of the stuff I got.
At the bakery outlet I spent 7.07. I got 3 packs of thomas's bagels, a pack of hamburger buns, a pack of hotdog buns, a pack of English muffins. That's a huge savings since the bagels alone are normally 2.50 each when you can find them on sale and I got them for $1 each!!! Based on the prices at the grocery store I would have paid $13.98 had I bought all that at full price. I only spent 10 minutes in the store and i drive by on my way home everyday so I don't even have to go out of the way to pay 1/2 price.
I won't bore you with the whole list of things I got but needless to say I got a ton of stuff, some of the highlights were powerades for 66 cents each, normally a buck a piece. 2 giant 6 packs of sparkle paper towels $4 each. You would not believe how fast my mom goes through paper towels... I also got Santa Cruz organic lemonade (one of my favorite things and healthy too) for 99cents each, normally 2.39 each here. I also got 2 huge seedless watermelons on sale for 2.88 each, dad said he saw them at another store for 6.99 each for the same size. I also bought 4 huge London broil steaks for 1.87 a pound. Also got a bunch of frozen veggies and other healthy items too. I left the stores without buying any chips or soda. The cat litter was also a spectacular deal, I bought 4 bags of worlds best all natural corn cat litter that is $8 a bag, I had mail in rebates for 2 free bags and 2 $5 off coupons. That meant I got 4 bags of expensive cat litter for $6, I would have paid $32 for that!
So in total I saved $7 at the bakery outlet, $26 at petsmart, $21 at price chopper and $87.03 at shoprite. I got an amazing haul for $132.81 I got a massive amount of groceries and will be able to feed everyone in the house including taking care of my kitties for at least the next two weeks. I feel very accomplished. And I didn't have to give up every spare moment of my time clipping and collecting coupons or stressing myself out.

Sunday, June 24, 2012

Kitchen porn

So I'm working on my current sales goal right now. I've been wanting a kitchenaid mixer forever, with all the attachments. The pasta maker, meat grinder, etc. This is the one I picked out, I budgeted about $350 to $400 for it, and I have just over $150 towards it for now!

Tonight

So I'm still a little behind on posts... More about my cape trip and California trip to come, but in the mean time...
Took a drive out to schoharie this morning, a lot of the farms still haven't recovered from hurricane Irene last year where most of the farms were underwater, but shaul's had a small stand out today and I got some fresh zucchini and fresh from the ground garlic. Delicious and the price right from the farm beats any grocery store chain.
Tonight I decided to make good use of my fresh ingredients, I made stuffed zucchini, made with sausage and mushroom stuffing I make from scratch. One of these days I'll make the healthy version with ground turkey, but Gabriels meat market makes in house pork sausage that is spectacular so for now that's how I roll!
I also made some tollhouse cookies from my coworker who took a night out to come over and repair the electrical outlets in my kitchen that were completely dead. He wouldn't take any money, but when I offered to make him cookies he said tollhouse were his favorite. This was my first time making chocolate chip cookies from scratch (believe it or not) I normally don't have the patience to swap out trays every 9 minutes. I get distracted and burn them. Not tonight though I was determined to make them perfect. Well they turned out great! I used the recipe on the back of the tollhouse chocolate chips and they're super yummy.

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

It's about time

Well the last month has been super busy between work, having a craft show, moving, and traveling I haven't had time to post. I'll catch up more soon especially photos from my trip to California memorial day weekend, but for now..... The bacon sundae at burger king was available locally last Thursday so you know I had one for lunch that day... Probably not a balanced meal, but a yummy one at any rate. Overall I would give it a 7 which is pretty good considering it's a fast food sundae. 95% of the bacon was nice and crispy, I think a drizzle of caramel would have taken it much higher. Definitely a nice treat, I doubt I could eat them too often, but a nice treat when I'm having a rough day.
Below is a photo of my bacon sundae, I almost ate it in the car before I could take a photo hehehe. Also pictured are some bacon sunflower seeds that I picked up on my way home. Haven't eaten those yet though, been feeling a little queasy lately (no I told you so's, it wasn't the sundae I swear) but I'll keep you posted on the seeds. I wonder if i plant them in my garden... Maybe I could get giant sunflowers that smell like bacon.