Grocery Haul for Two and Pickled Veggies

Today's grocery haul is actually from last week. I was doing the final shopping for my family gathering. This week I did not need to shop at all. We have plenty of food in the house to make it to next week's shopping trip.

I was feeding anywhere from 6 to 20+ people over the course of 6 days. It was mostly adults so I had another big haul.

My first stop was Winco. I had to do 3 pictures since I had so much...

I purchased some apples and limes, lettuce mix, tomatoes, mushrooms, a bag of sweet Walla Walla onions, and 2 large bags of mixed veggies. This was a mixture of broccoli, cauliflower and baby carrots. I did buy a 10lb bag of potatoes which somehow did not make it in the pic.  Plus macaroni, olives, chips and 2 containers of coleslaw from the deli.

This pic has some of the breakfast foods I needed, cereal, muffins, yogurt, milk and cream cheese.

And finally dessert. I wanted it simple and this did the trick.

For this trip to Winco I spent $71.00

I made another trip to Winco while I was in town on a separate day and bought a 2 liter bottle of lemon/lime soda, tortilla chips and hamburger buns. That trip was $6.00. 

 

Total for Winco: $77.00 (rounded up)

The next stop was Costco and it was a big one. I got so much that the groceries spread all over my counter..

I was excited to see my favorite coffee for the Keurig was on sale for $22.99 a box. Making the cost for each one .23 cents.. a great bargain! Since I knew we'd be going through a lot of coffee I bought 2 boxes. I have lots of coffee still left to last me a long time. 

 

For my dairy I purchased a big container of half n half, a big tub of sour cream (I was planning a taco night), and butter.

I also picked up extra fruit (watermelon, cantaloupes, bananas, and another big box of oranges), and a salad mix. On the big day of our gathering I was serving steak and burgers and hot dogs. I picked up a bag of hamburger patties and a 3 pack of beef hot dogs. The other meat in the pic was a pork shoulder roast...

 

The weight was just under 14lbs and the cost was $1.99 a pound. That is a great deal around here. I used half of this to make pulled pork sandwiches and cut the rest into approximately 2lb sizes and put that in the freezer.

In this pic I have more chips, french bread (to go with our lasagna), bagels (for breakfast meals), salsa and guacamole (for taco night). 

I had never tried this brand of guacamole and have to say it was wonderful. It came in 3 1lb tubs. We used one of them and I was happy to see that it sad it could be frozen so the other 2 tubs are in my freezer for a future day. 

 

Finally was more coffee, nuts and the bbq sauce for the pulled pork. 

 

This trip to Costco was a whopping $214.00

Combined total for this big haul was

$291.00

Of course other people brought food and I had a lot of things leftover and this is why there was no need to shop this week.

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Pickled Veggies

I don't think I've shared this before, at least I hope not! :) My daughter, Emily, makes pickled veggies and sent me her basic recipe to try. I've been hooked ever since.

I love pickled veggies. These are not fermented veggies (I have shared that). I made them with water, vinegar and sugar.

You can pickle any type of veggies you want, even some fruits.  My daughter likes to pickle mangos. I had seen cucumbers on sale and grabbed a couple extra with this in mind. I put my veggies in canning jars. The jars are not sealed, just stored in the fridge. They last at least 2 or 3 weeks at least. I honestly don't know how long they'd eventually last because we go through them quickly.

For the pickling brine you will need...

1 cup water

1 cup white vinegar

1 ½ cups sugar

1t salt

For the batch I'm showing you I used 3 large carrots and 2 cucumbers. After getting a couple quart jars washed and ready I washed and peeled my veggies..

 I sliced my cucumbers and cut my carrots into matchsticks...

I put my pickling brine ingredients into a pan and heated them up to dissolve the sugar and salt...

 

I packed the veggies into the jars..

And poured the brine over them...

I discovered at this point that I needed to make another batch of brine. I did not have quite enough. I think it's safe to say one recipe of brine will approximately cover a bit more then 1qt jar of veggies.

When I was done I put lids on the jars and put them in the fridge..

They get better and better the longer they sit.

I add these veggies to salads, put them on sandwiches or simply serve them as a side with a meal.

That's all for this week's Grocery Haul!