Also, thanks a lot whoever started this, now I want falafel and no easy way to get it. 
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I was thinking how I don’t know where to buy pickled turnip, and then I was all, “I could make pickled turnip”
This is why there are so many little companies that make preserves isn’t it?
Tomorrow I think I will try to find cheesecloth to salvage what I can of my first yogurt attempt.
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Meee toooo. I love how this became a food thread!
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I once tried to buy pickled turnips from a small shop t he wouldn’t do it. Instead he gave me the recipe which went something like:
You get the turnips that look like this, not like this (odd hand gestures). You can do beets but you shouldn’t. Not too much salt. Just enough. It’s easy. I make it for my restaurant but you can make at home.
So I’ve never made them.
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You reminded me that I have pickled turnips.
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A surprisingly easy, filling, cheap meal. We put in ground sausage but it could easily be vegetarian/vegan by adding spices instead of sausage. Quinoa, sausage, bell peppers, tomato, squash, and eggplant. Sauté veggies, cook meat, cook quinoa, then mix together. We scoop it up using tortilla chips to add some calories. Very yummy!
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I just transferred $1k to our e-fund! Only $3k away from the goal now. And I was worried about having to pull from savings to pay credit cards this month, lol. I don’t think my brain has fully acclimated to our new income yet.
ETA: Also check this company out! Everything they make has a lifetime guarantee. I’m all about BIFL for household things.
I think I might give it a try because I’m having trouble finding what I need in the size I need at thrift stores. Hm…oh and I found them thanks to this site, which I also hadn’t heard of:
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Haha can confirm, our Hario hand grinder has lasted a decade and lots of camping, road trips, etc. We broke the bottom chamber (oops) but a little mason jam jar we had fits perfect.
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Sunday is our usual grocery shop day but the store will be closed for Easter so Saturday it is! Loosey-goosey change subject to change:
Mexican unstuffed shells (I’m just going to do small shell pasta and mix the whole thing together cause I don’t have the patience for stuffed shells)
Honey mustard chicken with roast vegetables
Chicken pot pie
I also want to start stocking up the freezer again. Might not make these this week but sometime soon:
Root beer pulled pork
Sweet potato black bean burritos
Chicken pot pie
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We have an antique, tabletop wood coffee grinder we use during power outages. The best “use less stuff” idea we’ve done re coffee was to buy an all metal French press coffee maker. We were buying new carafes about every 3 years and got sick of it.
Also, btw, along the same lines? The only glasses in the house (no kids) are wine glasses. We use mugs for all our liquids. We also don’t entertain… ymmv!
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I make balls of 1T butter and 1T flour and freeze it. Same idea.
These are really fun websites to browse!!! Looking at these fancy linen sheets…I’d love to never buy sheets again haha
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All of that food sounds so good.
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For anyone with Amazon Prime, I just came across the documentary Generation Wealth and it was super well done. It’s by the same photographer that did Queen of Versailles, which I liked a lot. Highly recommend!!!
TWs for the movie
There are drugs shown, addiction mentioned, mention of sexual assault, porn industry footage, lots of objectifying women, reference to restrictive eating disorders, highly critical body talk about physical beauty standards, and a few scenes that include plastic surgery (which I skipped, it’s not a ton but it happens kind of suddenly), photo of scars from self harm, and a couple of sexually derogatory comments about Latina women.
The film is highly critical of all that stuff, but it is involved so keep that in mind.
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I really liked this documentary too! I saw it on a plane a few years ago and it gives a ton to think about. My mom grew up in that part of LA and saw a lot of it first hand too.
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Isn’t it good?!
Summary
I went to high school in a super upper middle class town (where everyone believed themselves to be middle class) and it was such culture shock for me. It was not the same level of ostentatiousness as the documentary shows, but there were definitely similarities in mentality compared to where I’d lived before. It was just a lower scale of consumption but the same ethos in a lot of ways, some of the objects of affluence were more like, degrees, achievements, sustainable things, etc, but it’s basically the same IMO.
It was interesting to see the most extreme version of that opulence and I think the fact that the filmmaker was also raised in that culture made it even more compelling. I also love her photography! And the old pictures of like, 12 year old kate moss, kim k, etc. were soooo crazy.
The other thing I found super interesting was when she said a social historian told her, “Psychopathologies come and go but they always tell us a lot about the historical time period in which they’re produced.” That was fascinating, especially in regard to eating disorders and self harm. I was also really shocked that she said the majority of people who get cosmetic surgeries in the USA make less than $50k a year! Like, if that’s accurate it’s super wild. I think she did an amazing job showing that it’s not just the top 1% or 5% living with these ideals. That’s something that bothers me a lot in conversations about excess (in consumption, work, busyness, achievement, etc.) and I think she really showed how that has trickled down.
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Grocery spending! Ughhhhh. I tried the discount grocery store but it was truly terrible, details in my journal. I tried! Honest! Their prices weren’t even that great!
@Cranky made me feel a little better by telling me that it’s normal to spend a lot immediately after a cross country move where it was impractical to move an entire pantry stash. Still, though. Ughhhh.
I had to go to 3 stores to get everything. Posting for accountability.
Whole Foods
- 2 packages of tofu $3.98
- no salt tortilla chips $3.49
- vegan sausage $5.15
total: $13.19
Save-a-Lot
- bag of mini sweet peppers $2.99
- big flour tortillas $1.79
- maple syrup $6.89
- 3 cans no salt tomatoes at .99 each
- 2 rolls paper towels at .99 each
- dozen eggs $1.89
- vanilla extract 5.19
- butter 4.59
- blue cheese crumbles 3.19
- chili powder 1.19
- pasta 1.29
- celery 1.29
- 2 green peppers 2.58
- 5 lb potatoes 1.99
- block of cheese 2.19
- … something on my receipt just says Grocery? What the hell was this? No idea. $3.99
total: $48.92
Winn Dixie
- gallon of almond milk 5.59
- Soft Scrub with Bleach (aka hair dye remover) 3.00
- kleenex 1.79
- trash bags 6.49
- bathroom cleaner 4.29
- laundry detergent 8.99
- spinach 3.50
- bag of King Cake flavored popcorn 4.99 (I bought this out of sheer exasperation/feeling sorry for myself after failing to find ANYTHING in the snack aisle that was low sodium. This is low sodium. And loaded with sugar. And it’s actually not bad!)
- wine 7.99
- 4 ears of corn $1
- wheat bread $3
- strawberries 2.99
- pub cheese $4
- hand soap 1.99
- parmesan 2.99
- goat cheese crumbles 5.49
- coconut aminos 6.99
- mushrooms $2
- basil $2.69 (clearly I had not checked the plants at home before buying this or else I would’ve noticed I have basil to harvest - oh well)
- no salt cajun seasoning 3.99
- chick peas in can 1.25
- 3 avocadoes 3.75
- 2 boxes rice crackers 6.00
- coffee 4.99
- 2 no salt veggie stock 6.58
- cashews 5.99
- dry red beans 1.49
- band aids 2.09
- bananas 1.13
- contact stuff 8.49
- … what the hell is SEGNB GF TBPY GRN? Whatever that is, it was 3.79.
total: 137.37.
Grand total $199.48. BLARGH
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Sort of but not related, we are on a vacation for a family wedding and I caught myself saying we were spending $$ “to survive the weekend” (studio room, a baby who wakes everyone at 430AM, my own need for routine etc). NO. We are Rich Bastards. I am spending on CONVENIENCE. And that shall be me from here on. I am a Rich Fancy Person and I am Spending on Family and Convenience to hang with that family in comfort, not merely struggling to survive! Ha! I’m such a tool for not really getting the language around this kind of thing right sooner.
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You spent almost $40 on stocking back up on non-food things, so I would cut yourself some slack! It took me months and months to restock when I moved. I did it slowly, which honestly probably made it worse. 
(Also, these seem like reasonable prices for my area, so also ditto with the slack!)
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I spent $235 on groceries last weekend and we didn’t just move. I definitely got some pricier items because I want food that I like to eat! (Heirloom tomatoes were on sale but still over $3/lb, the meat sticks I like for snacks, several blocks of cheese for Human, Right Rice “risotto” which sounded like a good side for our chicken, turnip pickles…)
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