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Today marks the first day of our Social Grocery Food Stamp Challenge. Good luck to those participating! Even if you are unable to participate in our challenge, remember that it is National Hunger & Homelessness Awareness Week. If you”ve been wanting to take the time to volunteer or make a donation to your local food shelf or clothing drive, this is the week to do it! Or you can find a Hunger & Homelessness Awareness Week Event in your area.
As a way to kick off the week, we start with an inside look into one participant”s progress. Laura S. kicked off her challenge this AM with a slightly plain (but tasty) breakfast:
How does this compare do your daily breakfast? Needless to say, it”s much cheaper (and healthier) than a large decaf and bagel from your favorite coffee shop. Would this hold you over till lunchtime?
As for the weekly budget, Laura began her shopping yesterday, spending only $18.18 of the $31.50 allowance!
Bananas $1.23
Frozen Peas $1.00
Hummus $3.49
Shredded Cheese $1.89
Dozen Eggs $1.69
Total Cereal $3.00
Pita Bread $2.50
Canned Kidney Beans $1.19
Canned Chick Peas $1.19
Ramen (x5) $1.00
What do you think the remaining $13.32 of the weekly budget will be spent on?
Would these foods be able to sustain your hunger for a week?
To track Laura”s progress, be sure to follow her on Twitter!
Thoughts on the challenge or a weekly food budget of $31.50? Share with us here or at the following links:
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Happy Halloween from all of us here at Social Grocery!
And let”s be honest, this is what our diet REALLY looks like today:
Happy Halloween!
Move over skeletons, ghosts, and ghouls–we all know what Halloween is REALLY about–candy! We love it all, Tootsie Rolls, Snickers, M& Ms, chocolate, gummies, gum, all of it! We hope you have a spooktacular and sweet Halloween from all of us at Social Grocery!
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Heads up everyone! There is only a month until Thanksgiving. That”s it. A month. Not sure about you, but Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday. In fact, lately I”ve been finding myself honestly dreaming about turkey dinner and hallucinating the scent of turkey and gravy. A problem? No — I just call it anticipation.
And because November 24th will be here sooner than you realize, now is the time to start figuring out your dinner plans. Who”s house this year? What to bring? Meanwhile, I”ll be listing off the usual dishes present at my favorite feast of the year:
TURKEY (obviously.)
gravy
stuffing
mashed potatoes
cranberry sauce
creamed corn
steamed veggies
butternut squash
sweet potatoes (with marshmallows!)
brussel sprouts (not my personal favorite, but nevertheless they”re usually present.)
creamed onions and peas
dinner rolls
banana bread (homemade and with walnuts, please.)
zucchini bread
corn muffins
apple cider
wine
pecan pie
pumpkin pie
apple pie
… Have I made my case yet? Thought so!
For some fantastic recipes to wow the crowd this year, check out Food Network”s Thanksgiving section. There are so many goodies on there, you could be browsing for hours.
What are your favorite Thanksgiving dishes?
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One of the best parts of getting into the Halloween spirit is decorating around the house. I”m not sure about you, but pumpkin carving is one of my favorite Fall activities — right up there with apple picking and visiting haunted houses. But as many crafties and creative heads have come to find, you don”t need a pumpkin to do a little carving (and no, that is not a slasher film reference). If you”re not feeling the strength to gut out a big pumpkin or if you can”t find any in your area, never fear — here are three alternatives that will prove to be just as fun for you and your family this Halloween.
FRUIT JACK-O-LANTERNS
What a cute idea this is. I love that with the pineapple thrown into the mix, it”s almost like a Tiki themed Halloween. Leave it to our friends at Tablespoon and their members (in this instance, bevcooks) to come up with something so fun and hilarious. And with fruit this small, large tools not required!
SNACK-O-LANTERNS
These fruit-salad-filled lanterns are adorable and a great way to celebrate Halloween without candy (or you can fill them with candy too, don”t expect me to stop you). These would serve as great party treats or for your child”s class at school. The possibilities are endless — but don”t forget that even with their kid nature, adults love fun snacks, too! If you”re looking for more ideas like this, check out Disney FamilyFun”s website for more cute recipes.
HALLOWEEN JAR LANTERNS
These creative jar lanterns from Fresh Home Ideas are perfect for those of us who don”t want to deal with rotting fruits and are more inclined to make something that will last more than a few nights. So if you”re feeling crafty — keep your leftover pickle and pasta sauce jars, make a trip to the craft store and get to decoupaging! (I personally love the striped one, so if you”re in the generous mood you can drop one off by my house.)
Do you like to channel your inner craft god for the Halloween season? Share your creations with us!
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Last night at the drug store I found a childhood favorite of mine just sitting on the shelf. And of course I had to buy them –
Yep, that”s right. WARHEADS. You can only imagine my excitement today in my cubicle as I popped these into my mouth — only to realize that my taste buds are not what they used to, and apparently the inside of my mouth isn”t either. But who cares — I”m a WARHEAD lover at heart and that means PERSISTENCE AND DEDICATION, no matter how many wounded tongues and cheeks it takes.
I have always been a sweet tooth, so Halloween was always a favorite of mine as a kid. I loved dressing up, I mean who doesn”t — but I think we can all agree that the best part of Halloween was dumping out our huge bags of goodies at the end of our trick-or-treat run. My friends and I were so hardcore that our parents would take us to multiple neighborhoods and mooch the sugary treats out of every house we could. Yup, we were greedy — but hey, isn”t that just the spirit of the holiday?
But now that I am too old to trick-or-treat and have it be socially acceptable, I have to buy my own candy. And what fun is that? Here are a few sugary treats I”ll be grabbing myself at the store to feel like a kid again this Halloween:
SOUR PATCH KIDS
These babies are another culprit in mouth deterioration. But you just can”t help but love them — they”re sour, then sweet, right? I must say, even after watching those creepy new commercials I”m still a Sour Patch Kid fan. The watermelon slices are also great, but the lime flavor will always be my favorite. In my opinion, the lemon should really just go away — who actually eats those?
AIRHEADS
AIRHEADS! Another favorite, even if they will most likely 100% get stuck in your teeth EVERY TIME YOU EAT THEM. I was always a Blue Raspberry and Cherry fan — and the White Mystery was always a good one too (because it was usually, in my experience anyway, a Cherry flavor). Although for some reason, when these came in mini sizes I feel like they were always too hard to chew. Anyone else?
LEMONHEADS
When I was in elementary and middle school, I used to stop at the convenience store across the street from my school and when I wasn”t buying slush or Hot Fries, it was Lemonheads and Cherryheads. I love these things! I”m not a huge lemon flavored candy fan but these were always a favorite. The variety pack was a good choice, too!
POP ROCKS
Last but certainly not least — I give you Pop Rocks, one of my absolute FAVORITE candies. I”ve found that most convenience stores and dollar stores still carry these packets of crackling joy. And you will more than likely find me purchasing these with a 20oz Coca-Cola, because YES I am still one of those kids at heart. Love it!
What are your favorite childhood sweets?
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Not sure what it is about cereal. There are so many different kinds, so many different flavors. Spice it up with fruit, eat it plain. Even eat it without milk! Cereal is a big deal — I mean, it even has its own aisle at the grocery store (that”s when you know you”ve hit the big time). For a food that”s such a staple in the breakfast routines of many healthy eaters, I”ve realized that I don”t know much about it. Do you?
I decided to do some research. Did you know that the creation of Corn Flakes was actually an accident? In 1894, Will Keith Kellogg (get it, Kellogg”s?), while researching new healthy diets for patients at the Battle Creek Sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan, experimented with boiling wheat and made a great discovery. While his original intention was to come up with a bread substitute, he realized that after boiling, the wheat berries rolled out into individual flakes. He tried baking them and the result was a crunchy, tasty cereal (then called “Granose”) that was a hit with the patients. It was after this success that Kellogg attempted the process with corn — leading to the start of the classic cereal we love, Corn Flakes. Other favorites came later, like Kellogg”s All-Bran in 1916 and Kellogg”s Rice Krispies in 1928.
Cereal has come a long way since then, with so many different flavors, shapes and treats (granola, nuts, marshmallows, dried fruit, etc.) in each one, you could go months without eating the same cereal twice. What”s your favorite type of cereal? A great way to check out trending cereals is by browsing on Social Grocery. Here are the top 4 most popular cereals on the site as of today:
Do you agree? Cheerios, another classic, takes the cake as the most popular cereal among Social Grocery users. Not only does Cheerios have heart-healthy benefits, there”s just something about it that makes you feel like a kid again. Not to mention, it”s delicious with fruit — I personally love it with some sliced banana!
Are you a cereal person? What”s your breakfast of choice?
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A little over a month ago, Hurricane Irene made landfall along the Eastern Coastline, causing over $10.5 billion dollars in damage. Here in Vermont, the home state of Social Grocery, many towns, businesses, and people are still cleaning up the mess it left behind. Our parent company, MyWebGrocer, took a look at its online sales data and found that many consumers were stocking up prior to Hurricane Irene”s landfall. So, we give you our “Preparing for Hurricane Irene” infographic.
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The closest I ever got to traveling the world when i was younger was “Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego?”. (Anyone? Anyone?) It wasn”t until I was a junior in college that I got my first opportunity to leave the country.
Now that I”ve done a bit of international traveling, I”ve realized one of my favorite things when traveling is finding new and strange foods. Some are new and exotic dishes in restaurants or street markets, and some of them of fun packaged foods sold in grocery stores in that country. So, you can imagine my excitement when I stumbled upon Jaunted.com”s weekly “Foreign Grocery Friday” blog series. These fun folks are in the travel biz, and therefore have come across some of the world”s best (and strangest!) foods.
In their most recent post, Jaunted features a product that combines my favorite Sunday morning breakfast with my favorite Thursday night bar snack. Enter pancake flavored pretzel sticks called Pretz.
At first glance they look seemingly harmless, but the Jaunted.com reviewers warn of the sickingly artificial sweetness smell that overpowers your nose on first sniff. Apparently the taste is just as sweet, according to their post:
” The flavor has been baked into them, and it”s the flavor of Japan”s idea of Pancake Syrup: an extremely rich honey milk paired with regular syrup. Just one stick should do for a while; five and you”ll think you”re due for a cavity.”
Want to read more on this or other fun, foreign grocery Friday finds? Check out their blog here.