I thought I would fill you in on where I get all my fantastic produce without breaking the bank. I know you were just riveted by my score on meat and cheese. It left you thirsting for more. Do not fear!! I shall give you more.

We try to eat as much organic local produce as we can. The best way we have found to do that is with a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). Our CSA is through Full Circle Farm in Carnation WA. Every week we get a box of fantastically fresh produce delivered to a drop point in our neighborhood. Lucky for me, the drop point for our area happens to be my house.

I love opening my box each week. I am able to see the box contents on Friday afternoon and then substitute out the things I might not need or want. Sometimes I double up on the things coming and sometime I choose things from their sub list. It is flexible and by knowing what is coming, I am able plan my meals for the week. It also encourages me to use new things that I may not pick up otherwise.

This is just a sampling of the stuff in my box. There were more pears, mushrooms, yams, and oranges. I couldn’t get it all in the picture. And I got all of it for just $35 (I get 15% off for hosting a drop point). Organic peppers are normally $4.99 each at least. We eat through everything in the box.

I also get produce from Costco every 3 weeks or so to round things out. While often not organic, they are offering more and more. I can get organic carrots, apples, and broccoli. I also grab conventional onions, peppers, avocados, berries, pineapple and other such things.

Check out Azure Standard for organic produce as well. I’ll do another full post on Azure alone as I get many things there for a great price. I’ll try to do it soon as I know you are on the edge of your seats.

How do you get your local organic produce? (If you live in Cali and have year round farmers markets, don’t rub it in:).

We hit the mother load at the grocery store today!! We happened to walk in right after they marked down all the meats and cheese that were about to expire. Look at this haul.

We got 6 top sirloin steaks (4-1/2lbs), 4 small Tri Tip steaks (1-1/4lbs), 3 Bottom Round steaks (1-1/2lbs), 2 packs of Canadian bacon, 1pk of hot Italian sausage, 4 whole chicken fryers, 1-1/2lbs of extra sharp cheddar, 1lb of Monterey jack cheese, 1/2lb of Hot Wasabi Horseradish aged cheddar, 2 8oz pks of shredded triple cheddar, and 3 8oz pks of shredded Mexican blend cheese. Phew!!!! And I got it all for, drumroll please, $79.48. Normally it all would have cost $150.

I also saw them putting out bananas that needed to be sold. They called them baking bananas for $.39 per pound. I bought some for Sunday School snack tomorrow and then got 4 bunches for our freezer. They will be great for paleo muffins and smoothies.

Teagan and I had a great time shopping. It was fun to see him get excited about the good deals we were getting. We discussed getting the ribeyes but they were still around $8 a piece. He was able to see that while they were on sale, they still were quite expensive. We also left the hamburger packages for someone else since we have so much good grass fed burger in the freezer. We left feeling like we had just saved a ton. Talk about a great homeschool lesson. Things like this will benefit him for a lifetime. It was so cute to hear him telling Logan about all the deals we got when we got home.

I’m sure you are wondering about all the cheese. Cheese is something that we will allow as a treat here and there. None of it expires until May and if we haven’t eaten it by then, we can throw it in the freezer.

Well I guess this whole post is just encouragement that eating Paleo/Primal can be affordable. We now have meat for 10 meals for under $50. That is only $5 per meal for our family of 7 plus veggies of course.

Watch the managers specials/clearance at your local grocery stores and you too can write a blog post about grocery savings that no one may care about;-)

In our house, we are not good green eaters.  I didn’t grow up eating collard greens, chard, and kale.  Not only was preparing them a problem, liking them was too.  How was I going to begin introducing them to my family?

We have made different sautéed greens over the last couple years. Okay, so it has been less than a dozen times. While I found a couple preparations that I find palatable, my kids won’t touch them. I needed to find a way to slowly introduce the taste and sight of greens. So here is what I did today…

I knew that the collard greens I purchased a week ago were on the verge of turning into a slimy, stringy, black mass. I wasn’t going to let another purchase go to waste. (Please note here that many a package have turned into said black mass in my fridge.) I have good intentions of making them, especially since I tend to be low on my iron and the rest of my family does too. On the menu tonight was beef stew. I went ahead and sliced up my greens nice and thin and added them to the stew. Voila…yummy colorful stew that everyone loved. No one picked out the green stuff and no one complained about it being there. A success!!!!

I will continue on with this trend until greens have become a usual sight at our table. If you have any other suggestions for yummy preparation of greens or other ways to add them to familiar dishes, please leave me a comment. I’d love to learn from you!!!

UPDATE:  I just added my recipe here if you are interested.

So the first time I opened a natural peanut butter jar, I got quite a mouthful.  Seriously a mouthfull of peanut oil.  It was so gross and it was everywhere.  I know, I know.  I shouldn’t open things with my mouth.  Let’s move on from that obvious point and talk about the rest. 

As we all know, or maybe not as my mouthful proves, in natural peanut butter the oil separates to the top.  This can be a real bummer.  I have gained a little knowledge over the last few months and would like to share some pointers with those of you thinking about making the switch.

1. Open the seal on the jar carefully and don’t do it with your teeth.

2. Store your peanut butter jar upside down before you open it.  This allows the oils to separate to the bottom (which is at the top) of the jar.  This helps with the sloshing out of the oil when stirring.

3. Stirring with a table knife helps me reach the bottom of the jar without getting my fingers all peanut buttery.  I have also heard that using one beater on a hand mixer works well.

4. Store your peanut butter in the fridge so you don’t have to keep stirring everytime you want to use it.  I have found that some brands get a little thick and harder to spread when stored in the fridge so experiment with what you buy.  We really like the Kirkland brand organic peanut butter from Costco.

I hope these pointers help you all.  If you haven’t made the switch to natural peanut butter, I highly recommend it.  Even after a mouthfull of oil:)