Prices for Produce and Fleish- Per Pound or Per Peice?

Mama Bear

Sun, Jan 02 2011, 5:32 pm

jawscience broccoli is almost impossible to check. it needs to be greenhouse grown and/or cleaned with very strong jets of water.

cabbage I can check myself, but the checking and shredding take so long. if I'm using fresh cabbage leaves like for stuffed cabbagte, fine. but if I'm making cabbage salad or cole slaw, I get the ready shredded packs.

bnm

Sun, Jan 02 2011, 5:38 pm

my daughter will eat cabbage salad when I make, I prefer she stick to something with more calories but at least she is eating.

cabbage salad isn't hard to make, open bag of cabbage, sprinkle salt and pepper, 3 heaping spoons mayo, 1.5 sugar and 1 vinager (tablespoons) sprinkle some sesame seeds and cut up scallions, if you have slivered almonds add it in too and mix.

I buy a thing of almonds and toast the whole pack so I have it ready, I make it pretty often. I sometimes add a shpritz of sesame oil too....

we like broccoli salad and lettuce salads, I don't find isreali salads that much cheaper unless its mostly cucumbers and pickles, if I have to put in a pepper and tomato they can be expensive.

gryp

Sun, Jan 02 2011, 5:53 pm

Seraph: check out allfreshkosher.com for their prices

If I'm remembering right, I pay:
$1.99-$2.49/lb for chicken, depending if it's thighs, thighs with drumsticks attached, or quartered whole chicken
Typically I'd buy a $9 package of chicken and use two of those for Friday afternoon, Shabbos, and Sunday leftovers.

$3.99- $4.99/lb for chicken breasts- I only buy family pack and it divides up into about 4 dinners, an $18 package.

$.89- $1.19/lb for chicken wings- I only buy family pack and use the entire thing for one dinner. It costs a bit less than $5.

$3.99- $5.79 for ground beef- I only buy family pack and a package that costs about $18- $22, and it divides up into 4 dinners.

about $6/lb for beef stew, which I never buy except on a good sale, which is why I can't remember the price. I do buy "top of the rib" beef when on sale which isn't great quality but if I cut it real thin, no one knows the difference or cares enough. One package is about $20 and I split it into 4 dinners.

That's all I buy, fleish-wise.

Produce, like I said, I don't buy anything over .99/lb except if it's something I really would like to get and it's lightweight. The prices on the link above are mostly more than what I pay.

Seraph

Sun, Jan 02 2011, 11:13 pm

nylon wrote:

bnm wrote:

cabbage, lettuce, brocoli and such stuff I buy prepackaged/frozen. eggplant goes according to the pound but I would need tons of eggplant if I would want to replace the meat/chicken part of the meal with eggplant. a bag of frozen brocoli can be anywhere from 3.50 and up, same price as chicken.

And if you did, you'd have a new problem, because eggplant doesn't provide as many calories or as much protein per pound. You can't simply calculate the per-pound cost for meals--you need to calculate the nutritional value per dollar.

This time of year, the only cheap vegetables are root vegetables in the Northeast. Cabbages are also OK. Apples, citrus (still not cheap cheap, but reasonable) and bananas for fruits. Seraph, I saw what you bought recently, and all that produce would have been very expensive by me. I can get good deals in summer (I live OOT, plenty of farms) but January is tough.

I know I get terrific prices for produce, but I got mainly root veggies. Radishes, kohlrabi, beets, potatoes, carrots, onions. The only non root veggies I got were a few cukes, tomatoes, cabbage, and a few fennel bulbs. But the bulk was the roots.

Seraph

Sun, Jan 02 2011, 11:32 pm

Do people really only eat root veggies in soup?
I usually serve most veggies raw. Including root veggies.

Recent raw root veggies salad:
Spicy raw carrot salad
Raw beet salad
Raw radish and cucumber salad
Raw radish, raw beet, and fennel salad
Raw kohlrabi salad
Raw kohlrabi slaw
Sweet raw carrot salad

Alright, I don't usually serve turnips or parsnips raw, and potatoes are poisonous raw...

Mrs Bissli

Mon, Jan 03 2011, 6:13 am

I prefer to roast root vegetables--parsnips, carrots, sweet potatoes etc--they're delicious. Vitamin A/carotinoid in red/orrange vegetables are best absorbed if cooked with a bit of oil.
Turnips are grate either grated into salad (very refreshing, dress with salt, olive oil and lemon juice) or pickled. We also make grated fennel salad or beetroot salad the same way. Fennels are in season between now and spring.

nylon

Mon, Jan 03 2011, 8:13 am

Radishes and kohlrabi aren't cheap here. (Radishes aren't terrible, but the winter ones aren't as good quality.)

I'm the only one in the house who really likes raw vegetables, so I don't make many salads. I make them many different ways cooked, though. The only one I've never tried any other way is parsley root, but I've hardly ever even seen recipes for it.

PinkFridge

Mon, Jan 03 2011, 11:31 am

I don't make salads too often during the week, maybe a cabbage salad to go with felafel (homemade, Joan Nathan's recipe). More often then not I'll slice fresh veg. or open a bag of lettuce if we have leftover from Shabbos. Or I may have cooked veg., either planned extra from Shabbos soup or part of a stir fry. Or roasted veg. Sometimes canned.

The bulk of my produce I get at produce stores, not the supermarkets, unless it's on sale or reduced, or really, really makes my life easier and I'm saving on something else. Even then I won't go overboard.

elmos

Mon, Jan 03 2011, 4:45 pm

I am in Ny I use alot of veggies and mainly fleishigs as my dh doesn't care for dairy I am dairy free for my baby so for my toddler dd I do not make major dairy meals as she is not a big fan but we use a wide variety of veggies I buy chicken cuttlets on sale for 2.99lb or pieces for 1.59-1.99lb and use grnd stuff ranging 2.49 to 4.49 depending on sales I use root veggies more for cooking I do some raw I use kirbys tomato and lettuce some fruits and frozen veggies that me and the kids like. I try to not be heavy on carbs whihc is the only cheap thing in the grocery lately

JAWSCIENCE

Tue, Jan 04 2011, 6:15 am

Mama Bear wrote:

I have heard that about broccoli before. I thought you were talking about ALL vegetables, even peppers and cabbage. Makes more sense to me now.

IMHO checking and shredding the cabbage should not take so long but we each have own patience/tolerance level. Plus I've got a salad spinner.

Ruchel

Tue, Jan 04 2011, 6:57 am

Seraph wrote:

We almost never have soup.
I eat several salads (tomato, lettuce, cucumber, sometimes onion, sometimes asparagus) a day. Fills me up and I like it.
Some veggies I also like cooked of course and as you say potato!!

My dh holds that EVERYTHING is checkable and you don't need any device except eyes. He learned this (and how to check) from a kashrus gadol. He checks more seriously than restaurants who can use kulos and still it's no biggie time wise.

I also learned from a kashrus rav (think, having "his" hechsher) that all the novelties are unneeded. He comes every year to the local BY to tell girls "if you come from an Orthodox family, you follow how your mother checks, and that's perfect. No light no "pre checked" since the responsibility is on you anyway no nothing". I was surprised (in good).

Kosher meat is expensive (not even mentioning glatt meat, or CY decent dairy), never having anything fresh is not quite healthy. Everyone should ask before assuming.

JAWSCIENCE

Tue, Jan 04 2011, 11:41 am

Ruchel, I hold the same for vegetables but I know there are many who hold that certain things like broccoli and asparagus require special training to check and this takes too much time for them. So I don't serve these things to others on a regular basis.

ra_mom

Tue, Jan 04 2011, 1:17 pm

everything per pound:

chicken legs $2.39
chicken cutlets $3.99 (on sale)
marinated chicken legs $1.99 (on sale)
meat $5.49 (on sale)

kirbys .99 cents
potatoes .69 cents
sweet potatoes .99 cents
Bosc pears $1.49
eggplant $1.49
red onion $1.99
carrots .99 cents
garlic $3.99
baby carrots $1.49

from outside (on sale)

Cortland apples .69 cents
Golden apples .89 cents
plums .99 cents

But there is no way I can fill up on veggies instead of protein. You would need to specify how many ounces of which type of protein, and which non-starchy veggies are filling, and how they can work together in a recipe to form a filling meal.