Erin's Thanksgiving sides — $148 at Whole Foods
It's the inaugural grocery run.
Firstly, thanks for following along. Hope you had fun shopping and eating with your loved ones. Now that we’re all full from this past week, here’s a post. I imagine expanding and experimenting with the format, as you all continue to care, and as current events touch grocery shopping. For the record, I am loosely trying to keep track of everyone’s opinions and spend, as responses and feedback come in.
You can submit a grocery run here. Looking for anyone who wants to say many words about lil decisions. Additionally curious about Instacart, Thrive Market, Freshdirect, etc. Happy shopping!
Here’s Erin in Brooklyn, who prepped some vegetarian sides for Thanksgiving. Maybe we can compel her to comment back below, if you have any questions about what she made.
Erin Laporte, 29, Head of Design
Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, NY
Shopping for 1, cooks 3 nights per week
Grocery budget: roughly $250-300/month
Grew up doing family dinner nearly every night, nothing fancy but a sit down family dinner whenever possible. I love cooking whenever possible, again nothing fancy and always cooking for one so I make big portions to eat dinner and then bring leftovers for lunch in the office.
I live in Clinton Hill and go to Trader Joes or Whole Foods when I have time for a big shop but go to Key Foods a block away when I just need a couple things. I love to make breakfast at home nearly everyday and I look forward to cooking after work.
I'm a vegetarian and I love Asian food and have several vegetarian Korean and Chinese cookbooks I try to find new recipes from. For dinner, I make a lot of tofu stir-fry recipes, this one risotto recipe, noodle dishes like peanut garlic noodles or ramen, a vegetarian version of spam musubi. For breakfast, I make either a tofu scramble or a breakfast burrito almost every morning.
I put hot sauce or some spice on truly everything. I always have tomatoes, mushrooms, spinach, tortillas, eggs, milk, cheese and butter in the fridge. Lunch is usually leftovers from dinner the night before or sometimes I'll buy lunch at the office. No allergies and no aversions, besides ya know, meat.
Eggs, milk and butter are things I buy frequently and I've seen a general increase in the last few years. But also as I've gotten older I lean more towards organics or higher quality brands which means higher prices, smaller portions and therefore more grocery shopping.
Wednesday, Nov 27 @ Whole Foods = $148.14
Is that where you normally go? Trader Joe's is usually my go-to because I know the store layout and typically lower prices better. They also have some frozen meals I like to stock up on. But today I picked Whole Foods because it's bigger and I was worried that Trader Joes would be busier, possibly out of some items, etc.
Walk through what you were shopping for: Green beans, salad stuff + homemade dressing, cranberry sauce ingredients, mashed potatoes, restock of mushrooms for breakfast and umami seasoning just because I love it, vegetarian gravy, sparkling cider for those who don't drink. I also bought a couple candles since I used up a few of mine recently.
What were you making?
Justine Snack's sesame and mint green beans
mashed potatoes
Was anything particularly cheap, or expensive? Did you buy anything just because you saw it was on sale? I couldn't find pomegranate seeds so I bought two pomegranates which is more expensive but hopefully more flavorful. I was going to buy honey crisp apples anyway but they happened to be on sale! I picked cheaper coriander and apple cider vinegar since I don't anticipate using it too often. I also picked cheaper, smaller milk for the mashed potatoes because it's truly just for that recipe.
Some key purchases, with prices:
I'm noticing in this moment that I got charged for three bags of green beans but I only bought two OOPS ($11.97)
8 russet potatoes only cost $6.41, which seems low but I'm thrilled;
oof caramelized walnuts for the salad was $8.29, why are nuts so expensive;
the two fresh pomegranates were $7.32 with a small sale which is more expensive than just buying the seeds;
similarly, two bags of fresh organic cranberries cost $7.78 after small savings