My Daily Dollars

All in all, the pantry project is going pretty smoothly, so far.  Of course, it’s only week one.  The real fun will begin in a couple of months when we see if all my supplies last!  Over the weekend, I got a lot accomplished:

• At the farmer’s market, I arranged to buy two bushels of tomatoes in two weeks (our next kid-free weekend).  I plan to go on a big spree and can them all! 
• I bought 12 bell peppers, sliced them all, and froze them.
• I made breakfast bars, two batches of rye crackers, and pita bread.
• I made a really yummy roasted eggplant dip to spread on sandwiches and for snacking.
• I made our own spreadable butter.  This is a great tip that I found blog surfing (unfortunately, I didn’t track the link!)  You just whisk together 4 TBS for softened butter with 1/2 cup of canola oil and a pinch of salt.  It’s SO much cheaper than the store stuff and works really well.

All told, my “baking day” only took about thirty minutes in the morning to mix the pita dough and an hour in the afternoon to make the crackers and bars and bake the pita bread.  It was nice and relaxing in between the rest of our busy day.  During the afternoon, the house smelled wonderful! 

I did go to the grocery store before the market Saturday, but it was so nice to just zip in for cheese and turkey.  This was week four of September’s grocery budget, and I came in $16 under.  I plan to roll that over to offset the cost of the tomatoes next week.  I figure that I may use up all of October’s budget since I’m storing produce, but hopefully there will be some savings.  I’ll let you know!