[RedSpruce]

Company insisted on driving half an hour to pick up Korean food from two different restaurants and bringing it back to our place for lunch. Of course there was too much. We’ll be eating Korean leftovers for supper tonight. I’m not complaining. I love most Korean food!

 

[Stacy]

I had a win tonight. DS tried to talk me into fast food, but I said no, I want to save money. In the past, I would have caved in easily. It helps that I have a meal plan made, which I'll share in another board.
That's all for tonight!

 

[rujerro]

Red- What is your fave Korean dish? I've never had any Korean food before. My co-worker has a spouse from Korea and says he likes the noodles, pumpkin soup and rice paddy soup.
Stacy- Congrats on defying the temptation!

I made beef stew yesterday and thawed ground beef. I'll make a meat sauce for pasta, breaded chicken/potatoes/gravy and I'll check out new recipes for chicken. DH will smoke ribs this week. I'm thinking of ham next week and will thaw one....
We are getting through the 135 lbs of beef that we purchased in September. I'd say we're halfway through.

 

[Spirit Deer]

Rujerro, our top 3 favorite Korean dishes have always been bulgogi, which is a marinated beef dish, mahndoo, which is a stuffed dumpling, and jahb chae, which is a marinated pork, bean thread noodle, and bean sprout salad.

Thanks, now I'm craving Korean food and no time to make any. 🤣🤣🤣

 

[RedSpruce]

@rujerro , i like japchae (only I double the vegetables in it if I make it), bulgolgi (marinated beef) and dolsot bibimbap (hot bibimbap - lots of vegetables, bulgolgi on a bed of rice) are mine. I also like sweet and spicy chicken with rice.

I find the quality of the bibimbap varies quite a bit in Canada. Bulgolgi has a distinctive taste and some restaurants cut corners by not marinating the beef properly for their bibimbap. Usually I will only order bibimbap if I am with a Korean who can speak directly to the chef in Korean to check how it’s made. Oddly enough, if you order bulgolgi on its own you get the real thing.

 

[Contrary Housewife]

I'm not as familiar with Korean food, but I know you can get mandoo (or pot stickers, as I learned to call them) frozen in the asian grocery. I always have a bag around for easy dinners.

Added 5lbs of chicken wings and some canned corn to the freezer/pantry. Cheese has been on sale for pre-COVID prices, I got the max # allowed last week with the chicken quarters, and again when I bought the wings.

Last week I used up a can of green beans, a pack of instant noodles, and some bread crusts in my meatloaf. Tonight I'll use a can of beans in soup, and using a can of tuna to make sandwich spread.

 

[marthamfi]

Asian food is so good. actually have a jar of spice bulgogi sauce that I am going to marinate some of the steaks I defrosted. small but thick so will cook them a few different ways. on plain for dd. couple of them w mushroom soup in crock pot etc. will use up some instant potatoes too and veg

bought and used 4 pot pies and bag of tater tots from freezer. last night. stocked up on ice cream treats and cookies too. besides bread etc. smokies on sale so later this week.

 

[RedSpruce]

We had two different freezer meals for supper. Hubby chose sweet and sour meatballs. I chose teriyaki chicken.

 

[elsi123]

But I made tortiere (meat pie) for a late Christmas a week ago

I adore tourtière. I shared a house with a French Canadian back in the 1970s and his tourtière was wonderful. I have a large pork loin in the freezer. Maybe I should thaw it, grind it, and then make tourtière. Sounds like a plan!

Oh my. I got busy for a couple of weeks, and this thread exploded. So I'll jump back in here.

Me too. I looked back and my last post was on 10 January. I just got busy and forgot to check the forum.

Time for accountability I guess 😄. I failed massively mid January. ... Makes meal planning so much easier when I know what is there. ... Feeling revved up to be better at using what I have though.

I don't look at this challenge as something that I can fail. And it looks like you didn't fail either. We have gone out to eat more often than I intended, but it kept the hubby happy and eased the pressure on me to plan and execute all those meals! We also brought home leftovers from the restaurants that went into meals at home, so I count it a win-win.

 

[Spirit Deer]

I finished off leftover chicken noodle soup for supper, and added some leftover roasted cauliflower and some brown and wild rice blend. Delish! I also finished off a tub of French onion dip with some radishes and raw cauliflower. Husby has been on a salad binge lately, and finished a ranch salad mix with what was left of a pkg of imitation seafood. Good job cleaning some excess out of the fridge tonight.

 

[elsi123]

Well, the month is over. I'm going to extend my pantry challenge into January February -- but allowing myself to make one trip to the grocery store to purchase absolute essentials for which there are no alternative. Right now that appears to be Parmesan cheese and all-purpose flour.to feed my sourdough starter. I have wheat berries and rye berries that I can grind into flour to bake bread, but I worry that my starter might not be happy with an abrupt change of diet. There are some things that I want from the grocery, but they aren't necessary, so I'll hold back until March before getting those things and starting to stock up again.

We did eat out more than I had wanted, but all-in-all, I can't really complain about that. Hubby enjoys going out to eat, and there were some days when I was really stressed from work and a break where someone waited on me was quite welcome. Of the 93 meals in January, there were 10 for which I was on business trips, so that cuts the number of possible meals at home down to 83. And I ate out for 12 of those. That's really not too bad considering how much we normally eat out.

As I posted earlier, my personal pantry challenge allows for buying dairy at the dairy store and getting veggies and fruit through our local produce co-op. Total spent in January for dairy and produce was $65.65. (I didn't keep up with how much we spent on eating out.) Compare that to $211.25 for groceries (including dairy and the produce co-op) in December.

 

[Spirit Deer]

Rujerro, I found this on Pinterest. It seems like a good place to start.
5 Must Try Korean Recipes for Beginners including gambap, tofu stew, Korean egg roll, kimchi, and bibimbap. Learn how to inc… | Korean dishes, Korean food, Recipes
I read on another bibimpop recipe that Sriracha sauce can be subbed for gochujang. It's not authentic, but here in the land of Finns and Swedes, I can't always be fussy. As long as it's tasty, that's all that really matters anyway.

 

[dlrcpa]

Spent $40 at two grocery stores but got a lot. Included mark-down meats and free items: milk, eggs, cheese dip, frozen cauliflower, plant-based "nuggets". Thanks to hubby's junk food habit I have a lot of "points" at the closest store. BSCB was $1.99/lb and at first I got a smaller pack but then remembered $3 off $10 meat purchase so went back and swapped for one marked $10.11 and yes the coupon worked.

 

[Contrary Housewife]

Well, the month is over. I'm going to extend my pantry challenge into January -- but allowing myself to make one trip to the grocery store to purchase absolute essentials for which there are no alternative. Right now that appears to be Parmesan cheese and all-purpose flour.to feed my sourdough starter. I have wheat berries and rye berries that I can grind into flour to bake bread, but I worry that my starter might not be happy with an abrupt change of diet.

I need to cut back on shopping trips. I buy too much. I admit I get a little endorphin rush from shopping, and it doesn't matter if it is craft supplies or chicken breast. I can justify food purchases to myself, especially during the pandemic panic, but we've run out of room to store things.

The sales this week are not very good, so I can probably keep things to a minimum. We need milk, and some basic vegs like celery and onions, a bell pepper, maybe potatoes... and I'm out of parm too. At some point this month I'll need buns so we can finish the burger patties, sloppy joe mix, and other sandwich fillings.

When I use rye in my sourdough I swap it for 1/4 cup of white flour while adding the dry ingredients. I've experimented with more, but find that less is better for my recipe.

 

[RedSpruce]

I decided to cash purchase groceries. We did really well in January and I want a repeat in February.

I get frustrated with the amount of celery that hits the compost here. It’s $4.99 a bunch now!!!😭. I saw a YouTube video on dehydrating it. It’s mostly water. I wonder how long it would take? I’m seriously thinking about it.

 

[hikr00]

Finished up a can of cream of chix soup, two packs of brown gravy, container of chicken broth and two lbs BSCB to make chicken and gravy. I added slices of bread and 1/2 stuffing to each for open faced hot chicken sandwiches.

Also we finished up a carton of eggs and a waffle mix. Temps supposed to be single digits or below with even worse wind chill so I think I’ll bake some bread or cookies so the oven will add a bit more heat.

 

[elsi123]

I get frustrated with the amount of celery that hits the compost here. It’s $4.99 a bunch now!!!😭. I saw a YouTube video on dehydrating it. It’s mostly water. I wonder how long it would take? I’m seriously thinking about it.

We eat so much celery that I rarely have extra! We really like eating guacamole with celery sticks. I started doing this as a way to cut the calories by eliminating the corn chips but keeping the crunch. We enjoyed this so much that I now take a container of celery with us whenever we go to our local Mexican restaurant. They know that we're going to order the "made at your tableside" guacamole appetizer if I have a plastic container in my hand when they seat us.

I do have a couple of tricks to make sure that none of the celery is wasted. First of all, I put the trimmings into a container in my freezer along with trimmings and peels from carrots, onions, and other veggies. When the container is full, I dump it into the slow cooker and make vegetable broth. Or if I'm making meat broth, I'll grab a couple of cups of the veggie trimmings to toss in with the bones.

I have also dehydrated celery. The last time, I used only the leaves and those tiny stems they are attached to. It did take a long time to completely dry them out -- I left the dehydrator running overnight. Once they were good and dry, I pulverized them in the food processor and then rubbed the flakes through a fine mesh sieve to make celery powder. I use it as is in lots of dishes -- also mixed with salt to make my own celery salt.

 

[RedSpruce]

Thank-you @elsi123 ! Lots of ideas to try there.

 

[Spirit Deer]

I've found celery keeps a lot longer if I close the bag at the top. If I can't use it before it will spoil, I slice and freeze it for soups or other cooked uses.

I used up a box of jalapeño mac and cheese, a partial bag of frozen peas, and some air fried chicken breast for a quick supper tonight. We ate up some more cauliflower and radishes with dip along with the hotdish.

 

[miteigenenhaenden]

I also freeze celery for soup or roasting.
I cut small ends very finely and put them on the newspaper to dry. I don't have a dehydrator. I mix the dry powder with powder from leeks, carrots, ...