Food and Grocery: Where's the Beef?

I recently read an article that discussed how you could save roughly $3000 annually on food. They listed six ways to do this and assigned a dollar amount of savings to each action. The six ideas were: Eat Vegetarian a Few Nights a Week, Minimize Waste, Plug in the Slow Cooker, Discover Great Ways to Use Canned Fish, Don’t Order Pizza Make it yourself, and Pack a Lunch. I hope to explore some more of these cost savings ideas in future “Food and Grocery” posts.

When planning a meal my default thinking is always to start with the protein. Meal prep typically starts by going to the freezer to see if we have beef, chicken or pork available. I don’t know how my default thinking got this way. It may simply be my love for meat, the way I was raised, or being a male.

In regards to how I was raised, meals growing up, like in many homes, were based around a protein. The fact that we loved to repeat a popular commercial from the 1980’s Where’s the Beef? should tell you all you need to know about my family! In fairness, there were a couple popular exceptions included Sam’s Club frozen Stir Fry and my mom’s fruit salad.

Regardless of how I got the “meals start with meat mindset” the above mentioned article, as well as Lib recently telling me she would be fine with some meatless meals, got me to thinking. It got me to thinking about going vegetarian with some regularity. Maybe we will start with one dinner a week.

From a cost standpoint, the article says that if you replace 1 pound of sirloin ($5.99) with a 14-ounce block of tofu ($1.96) once a week you could save $210 per year. To put that into perspective, this savings after a whole year of munching on tofu (something I don’t think I have ever eaten) would buy you about a half an iPad. Nonetheless the principle is good, and in additional to cost savings, I know there is multiple health benefits from mixing in more veggies.

I turn to you blog community for assistance and information. Do you eat vegetarian with any frequency? If so, what are some of your favorite non-meat recipes? Thanks A Day In the Life blog for your Potato Soup recipe post during your Menu Monday, I look forward to giving that a try.

Thanks for your help and I look forward to hearing from you and giving your recipes a try.

Power of Genetics: That Look

From the first moment that I became a parent my perspective on the power of genetics was changed. Seeing Lucy for the first time was a life changing experience for many reasons. One of powerful emotion that I recall feeling at that moment was just how much this new human looked like me.

We can all recognize a family that shares the same hair color, facial features, or eye color. Through observing the girls (and Libby and I as parents) I have come realize that eyes and hair are just the tip of the iceberg for genetic power.

From the way Lucy's pinkie toe curls the same way has her moms, to the way she loves starburst over snickers liker her mom, to sharing the ability to make the below look like her mom.

I look forward to exploring the power/oddities of genetics with the section of posts. Like Mother,
Like Daughter!

Family Photo

I am going to keep the Halloween theme posts going one more day by posting a picture of some of our pumpkins. The pumpkins that are shown below are ones that we grew in our garden. I didn’t know it at the time, but the type of pumpkins we purchased were called Casper Pumpkins. This is a type of white pumpkin. Throughout the summer and early fall we kept asking ourselves when they were going to turn orange!?!?!

After harvesting our white pumpkins, we decided to drawn on them instead of carve them. With Lucy standing in the picture with the pumpkins, we have been joking that this is a great family photo. Don’t you think this would make a great family Christmas card!

Moving left to right across the picture we have Dad, Mom, Paige, and then of course Lucy.

In a slightly related story, I occasionally check out this website for a quick laugh...http://awkwardfamilyphotos.com/

Paige’s Trick

With Paige’s diet still consisting of breast milk and baby food, she went the trick routine versus treat this Halloween. She pulled off her trick over the course of two days.

Like in many homes with young children our living room is typically filled with folded clothes, books, and toys. With this particular morning being the day after Halloween there was a higher than normal number of candy wrappers sprinkled throughout the living room mess.

While getting Lucy some breakfast and negotiating with her to eat some healthy food between treats, I had placed Paige in her ExerSaucer. After dropping off the cereal and apples I noticed Paige had gotten a hold of a tootsie roll wrapper. She has put it into her mouth and seemed to be enjoying chewing on it. I fished half of a wrapper out of her mouth immediately and did a quick look for other wrapper pieces. I was unable to find it, but did not get alarmed. I assumed that it was just somewhere in the mess.

The second half of the tootsie roll wrapper was eventually found. It was found in a dirty diaper of Paige’s the next morning! Paige’s trick of making half a tootsie roll wrapper disappear for 24 hours and then reappearing, although impressive, is one I hope she doesn’t attempt to pull off again.

In discussing this event with my mom, who works at a pediatric nurse call line, she said it is somewhat of a common Halloween event. For us it was scary to think about her possibly chocking or what else the wrapper could’ve done while it is was rattling around in our baby’s body.

Paige, next year at Halloween you will be able to eat solids. To clarify, that means solid foods!?!?!?

Lucy’s Treat

Tomorrow’s post is titles Paige’s Trick. I thought I would mention that just to provide context to this title.

Lib did a great job recapping our Halloween with pictures in November 1st post, Happy Halloween.

I wanted to document my observations on what was the first Halloween that Lucy really got into. She enjoyed being a monkey last year, but got tired of trick-or-treating quickly and really wasn’t too interested in other costumes. This year, she got excited just thinking about trick-or-treating. “I can’t wait! I can’t wait!” was a commonly heard phrase when she was asked about Halloween.

When trick-or-treating finally rolled around she enjoyed seeing what the neighborhood kids were wearing. She also loved running door to door and was pretty good about saying, “trick-or-treat” and “thank you” after receiving candy.

Lucy’s excite was also a “treat” for me to watch. I had forgotten just how exciting Halloween can be when you are young. Watching her took me back to the trick-or-treating days of my youth, when I hit up my home town as a football player, court jester, San Diego Chicken, panda bear and others. The pure joy was priceless to observe. It makes me really look forward to future holidays!

Sandler and our new fish

For Lucy's birthday, which was a couple months ago, she got a fish. She loved our trip to Petco. She was checking out the mice, rats, ferrets, and the wide variety of other animals they have for sale at the store. After talking to a store employee we learned that if you don't have anything prepared at home (fish bowl, fish food, etc.) you are most likely leaving with a beta fish.

A beta is perfect for us because, they are low, low maintenance. Feed it once a day, clean the water once a week, it prefers to live alone, and it doesn't need a filtration system.

For any pet owner, especially a three year old, selecting a name for your pet is a big deal. I wanted to share my theory on how Lucy named her fish and its funny double meaning.

Lucy has really been into rhyming words lately. This interest in rhyming often leads to her just making up words that share sounds with other words. When discussing names here brain starts by thinking of names she knows. Libby is typically the first name that pops into her head. With that being her mom's name that is understandable.

Recently she has been calling all her dolls Lollie. I think this is a spin off of the L sound. She did the same with naming her birthday fish. We landed on the name Lippy. I wasn't sure if the name would stick, but it certainly has. I would like to take a moment to publically welcome Lippy to our family.

The double meaning of this name that always makes me laugh is that Ms. Lippy is the name of Adam Sandler's odd preschool teacher in the movie Billy Madison. I think of Billy and Ms. Lippy regularly when we are feeding Lippy.

Before signing off today, I wanted to list my top five Adam Sandler movies. In researching this list, I realized there are numerous Sandler movies I haven't seen. I would love to hear your Sandler movie recommendations.

1)Happy Gilmore

2)Billy Madison

3)The Waterboy

4)Big Daddy

5)The Wedding Singer

DUDE REPORT: Beer and Beards

As parents we have learned the importance of being a step a head of your kids. Having a plan for a snack or nap can be very important to avoid a meltdown. While we of course want to teach our girls to be flexible too, a hungry 3 year old is hungry or tired 7 month old is simply no fun.

With this DUDE REPORT (the first non-sports DUDE REPORT) I want to list two examples of where I applied the proactive attitube to two aspects of my "dude life".

First, I started buying and drinking Octoberfest beer in early September. Octoberfest beer is my favorite seasonal beer. I anticipated my need, and was successful in being a step ahead. I analysis Octoberfest beer further later in this post.

Secondly, I started growing my beard for what I like to call “No Shave November” in early October. Again, if that doesn’t speak of being proactive, I don’t know what does. Don’t look now, but I just might have my Christmas shopping done by Thanksgiving!?!?!?

The "No Shave November" tradition started a couple years ago when I started deer hunting with my father-in-law and brother-in-law. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your feelings on beards, I plan to discuss my beard at least two more times during the month of November. Some many remember that I got some support with the beard last year. (The circus was in town)

Octoberfest Beer
As I mentioned, Octoberfest beer is my favorite season beer. Now that the calendar has turned to November, I wanted to reflect back on my favorite Octoberfest beers. Please let me know which ones I am missing and which are your favorites. Then together we can count down the days to next years “Octoberfest season”!

1) Hoptoberfest-New Belgium Brewing Company: From the makers of Fat Tire this seasonal beer took top honors for me this season. As you can see from the name it may be too Hoppy for the Octoberfest purist. In addition to not 100% knowing what “too hoppy” tastes like, Hoptoberfest was spot on for me.

2) Spaten OctoberFest Beer: Originally made on Munich, drinking this make me think that I was in Germany for Octoberfest. Going to Germany for Octoberfest is definitely on my bucket list. Buying it at my local Sam’s Club reminded me that I was clearly in America!?!?!?

3) Sam Adam’s OctoberFest: Sam Adam’s is always a favorite of mine. I wasn’t able to muster up the courage to buy or try their Harvest Pumpkin Ale, but it sounds intriguing and perfect for Halloween. Sammy’s Octoberfest were shared by a neighbor buddy who ranks this beer number one.

4) Leinenkugel’s Octoberfest: Pains me to have a Wisconsin beer earning a 4th place rank. I am always open to retesting, and I think the Leine’s many have fallen victim to my high expectations. I love the Sunset Wheat and Summer Shandy and the Octoberfest was a slight step back.

Octoberfest I would like to try: Lakefront Oktoberfest Lager Beer, Milwaukee, WI, Beck’s Oktoberfest, Germany, and Ayinger Oktoberfest, Germany to name a few!

Who knew being proactive could taste so good!?!?!?