Matt K,
I just cant agree with you on the meat issue. E-coli and listeria are things that concerns me, but yes, proper cooking techniques should kill most bacteria.
You cannot tell me that chicken from Produce Depot tastes good. I bought some a few weeks ago and made a stir fry and my husb asked me if it was tofu or chicken because of the texture of it. I assume it must have been "seasoned" with saline water to add weight. Haha, I realized that maybe some of the issue could have been my cooking skills....
I have cooked some outstanding meals that started with Produce Depot chicken. The best chicken I've had in my life came from a road side vendor in southern mexico, and what she had to start with was much much worse than anything PD carries.
Compared to the chickens raised by my father in law, they (the chickens from PD) are definitely lacking. However, I have not yet found a butcher that I like, find the value-to-cost worth it, and is close enough. So, we continue with Produce Depot. I have found their fish counter to be excellent (if you know how to select fish).
Some good reading on the saline-water issue with meats:
http://www.fsis.usda.gov/FACTSheets/Water_in_Meats/index.aspWhen meat and poultry are frozen, the water that is a natural component of all meats turns to solid ice crystals. The water expands when it freezes. The sharp-edged crystals push into the surrounding tissue, rupturing the cells. The water that is outside the cell membrane freezes first. As it does, it leeches water from inside the cell membranes. When it thaws, the original balance does not return to normal. The thawed product will have lost some of its natural springiness. The water released during freezing seeps out of the thawing meat and poultry into the package.
Bascially, the 'water' problem with PD chicken in particular is that their cheap chicken is shipped frozen. The taste problem is that it is fairly lean to begin with. If you think even a fatty bird at the grocery store isn't lean, you need to compare it to bird raised on grubs - those are oily (but tasty) birds. Proper free range chickens are far better eating, more nutritious, and so many great things, but lower in fat they are not.
I will also rephrase my thought. I am not "afraid" of the grocery store, but I am afraid of the corners they cut to get the meat so cheap. At the butcher we frequent, he is very upfront about the cost of items because of the quality and the care that he gives his product. And where he sources the meat/eggs from are not the cheapest options, by far, but they meet his expectations as a butcher. I cannot say that loblaws or costco (or produce depot) have the same convictions. I really dont think that XL Foods take much pride in their product, and with the way that food inspection budgets have been cut in Canada, pride in a product is all we really have anymore.
You are still saying you are afraid of eating contaminated meat procured through the regulated supply chain. The supply chain that infects 440 people per year, out of apprixmately 30,000,000. I won't argue that a butcher procuring local meat to his or her higher standards isn't superior in almost every way. But worrying about getting sick from a regulated supply chain in Canada is silly. The number of incidents is absolutley miniscule, and you can avoid being one of those simply by properly cooking the food.
I do like your idea of buying better quality cheese, versus a lot of cheap cheese. I will definetly give that a try.
And I do like your idea of making bread, I have tried in the past and failed but maybe with a little more practice, I will succeed.
The hard thing with bread is that the rising is affected by so many factors (water temp, air humidity, age of the yeast, type of flour). Using a thermometer I found a water temperature of 80F-85F gave consistent results. Although I've found the back of my hand measurement to be every bit as reliable. The awesome bread link in my sig has some more suggestions. If you want "sandwich" bread, add in 1TBSP of milk powder, it thickens up the bread. Also, do not use "all purpose flour". It'll work, but it won't taste any better than wonder bread. Pick up a small bag of Robin Hood Best For Bread to try out, and if you want to stick with it, go find a bag of Strong Flour for cheap.
I dont think I can get behind the idea of KoolAid, versus pop. I dont think they are interchangeable. I dont think anyone should be drinking either but i would take a can of ginger ale versus a Cool Blue raspberry glass of koolaid any day. On the other hand, if that is your "occassional weakness" than, i agree it could definetly be worse.
That was a very specific suggestion to someone who consumes a lot of pop, as it reduces costs, allows someone to control how much sweetner is in the drink, and what type of sweetener is used. By using a self-sweetening drink mix, you can use real sugar which avoids the issues with High Fructose Glucose, and lets you ween yourself off of high caloric drinks in general. If you barely drink sweetened drinks, it just doesn't matter. In my house we drink pop, but a 24 lasts us two or three months (and is usually consumed with guests).
Your budget is 100$ for two, per week and ours is about 225$ish for 5, so we are not all that far off. We just have a larger household.
But again, I am going to make my challenge to get our budget down to 200$ per week, all in.
Yup, not too far off. We could drop $25 by stopping our local food delivery, but that would be less tastey. You wanted ideas to lower costs, I presented some ideas.