grocery shopping

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The Daily Table Dorchester

January 29, 2016 in Food by traveleatlove | 2 comments

Have you heard of The Daily Table?  We’d be reading about it here and there and finally made a trip last week. It’s one of my new favorite spaces.

The Daily Table

Here’s the story:

Daily Table is a not-for-profit retail store that offers our community a variety of tasty, convenient and affordable foods that will help you feel and be your best; food that will keep you moving forward, not hold you back.  We provide both “grab-n-go” ready to eat meals, and a selection of produce, bread, dairy and grocery items all at prices that will put a smile on your face, and designed to fit within every budget.  Many of our items are prepared fresh daily in our own kitchen onsite.

We offer an upbeat, clean and friendly retail store environment that is open to everyone in the community.  We can offer these daily values by working with a large network of growers, supermarkets, manufacturers, and other suppliers who donate their excess, healthy food to us, or provide us with special buying opportunities.

In this way, we are able to keep prices affordable for all our customers.  Our meals are priced to compete with fast food options, making it easier for families to eat healthier within their means.  And all the food in our store is informed by guidelines set for us by a leading group of nutrition experts, which makes it easy for our customers to make great food choices.

hummus

We held off on going to Daily Table for so long partially because we weren’t sure if it was open to all, and we certainly didn’t want to take away from anyone who could really benefit from shopping there. Then, while at the Dorchester Winter Farmers Market (another favorite), we were encouraged to visit and learned that everyone is welcome. The more shoppers, the more support the concept receives.

The Daily Table is bright, colorful, and inviting, with a friendly staff, and it relies on volunteers to keep costs down. Every time we have visited, the selection has been different, as the food is excess food from the store’s partners. I love that the selection varies, and we’ve decided to start our shopping here each week to plan meals around what they have, then supplement at the regular grocery store. On past visits, we’ve seen amazing deals on wild tuna (two hefty steaks for $5), spicy chicken burgers (four for $2.99), and organic yogurts, which are $0.49 each. Five pound tubs of hummus for $2.99 and baby carrots for $0.49 per pound make for plenty of healthy snacks that are affordable for a family.

carrots One of the really great things about The Daily Table is their made-on-site pre-made meal program. So far I have tried the delicious curried butternut squash soup, pulled pork pizza, and my new favorite, chili lime coconut chips, and everything has been so good. You can peek into the kitchen while you shop, and just like with the grocery items, prepared foods also often change. I’ve seen curries with rice, beef stew, quesadillas, sandwiches, and more. The prices are extremely competitive with fast food, making eating healthier much easier for busy people, especially the many in our community who hold multiple jobs to make ends meet.

The Daily Table Kitchen

coconut chips Shopping at The Daily Table has allowed us to save money and discover new ingredients. It’s also made me get creative in the kitchen, and in general, it just fills my heart with happiness for our community, which is full of great people who deserve the opportunity and access to healthy food. Eliminating food waste while helping people eat better? It just makes sense.

The Daily Table is a big step in the right direction to alleviating some of the issues created by food deserts, and I am proud to support this pilot program.

Tags: community, cooking, Dorchester, Food, food blog, groceries, grocery shopping

Grocery Shopping at Target

February 28, 2012 in Food, recipe by traveleatlove | 10 comments

Buying food is one of my favorite things to do, right up there with tasting wine and visiting places where wine is made (or where food is made!). Saving money on day-to-day things so that I can do the above is also a favorite of mine, so I am always on the lookup for bargains and often compare prices from store-to-store.

Back in October, the Target in the South Bay Shopping Center in Dorchester got all fancy and became part-grocery store. South Bay is not one of my favorite places; it can be downright chaotic, but it’s close, and as much as I love me a small, local store, I do love Target.

And their grocery section is good! They have a lot of great deals, especially for their Archer’s Farms brand. A favorite this time around? Strawberry Cheesecake yogurt. It really tasted like cheesecake and made for a nice little Monday breakfast with some walnuts.

Target had some of my favorite things, including these addictive sweet peppers.

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While I was making dinner, I kept washing and eating them raw. I had to make myself save some for the chicken, which turned out to be skillet chicken with sweet peppers, tomatoes, and goat cheese.

I was happy to see that Target offers some humanely-raised chicken. It was a little more expensive, but this is one of the places I am willing to spend more.

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Here you see the chaos of my cooking station. I try to get lunches and dinner done at the same time. And eat olives while I cook.

The chicken was a really simple preparation. I threw it and a lot of olive oil into a pan and got it cooking. I wanted to make sure the outside got golden brown.

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When both sides were cooked, I added in grape tomatoes that were getting to that wrinkly point and the chopped sweet peppers. I topped it with a little more olive oil and some garlic powder and let it cook away while I made some spinach with lemon and garlic to go underneath.

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It always amazes me how spinach cooks down. An entire bag of fresh baby spinach made two teeny servings. It was good, but I want more spinach!

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Once the chicken and vegetables were cooked I put them on top of the spinach and then topped the whole thing with goat cheese which started getting nice and melty with the heat. After feeling icky for days, this bright meal was just the thing to help boost my energy. I am having daily freak-outs about my inability to run, with the marathon coming up more quickly than I would like. I am hoping some good eating and a little more rest will have me back to normal soon!

Do you have a particular grocery store you always shop at? Have you ever shopped for groceries at Target?

Tags: chicken, Food, goat cheese, grocery shopping, recipe

What’s for dinner?

March 12, 2011 in Food by traveleatlove | 10 comments

How’s your weekend going so far? After watching a disappointing Ireland vs. Wales Six Nations rugby match at The Banshee, I spent a wild and crazy Saturday night doing some freelance work and catching up on emails and life in general.

I can’t believe it has taken me so long, but I finally started compiling all of my cooking at home adventures into once place. So far, I have only gathered a few months; who knew I cooked so much?! I am hoping this new page will be a helpful, scan-able resource that will eventually feature all of the cooking and baking I have done, organized by category, but I did want to share in case, like me, you are shopping today to plan meals for the week.

http://traveleatlove.me/recipes/

I am sometimes asked about cooking and meal planning, and I wish I had a more organized way of going about it. Basically, throughout each week, I come across recipes whether it be on blogs, on TV, in magazines, or if I take the time to sit down with my mountain of cookbooks. As I go through the week, I write down recipes I want to try, usually for dinner, and start to compile a list based on the ingredients.

Before I go shopping, if I am being smart, I do a thorough inventory of what we have. I know we will always need milk for tea and cereal, almond milk, spinach, and bananas for smoothies, oatmeal, and yogurt. Those are the things that we always buy. After that, I try to figure out lunches. To save money and make sure he eats well, I send lunch with my husband fur days a week, so at the beginning of each week I try to figure out if dinners will have leftovers and then supplement that with sandwich or salad ingredients.

I leave about 10% of space on my list for new finds, which, if you shop at Trader Joe’s, you know are pretty common. They often have some sort of new frozen vegetables, soups, sauces, or snacks that might become part of or central to a meal I hadn’t thought of. That’s probably my favorite part of the meal-planning process, the chance to be creative on the fly. 🙂

I probably should get a little more organized with planning meals, but so far, so good. We seem to eat pretty well without overspending on takeout or finding ourselves without food in the house.

How do you plan meals for the week? Do you plan out every meal or just really stock up on ingredients so that you are ready for anything?

Tags: Food, grocery shopping, meal planning, recipes

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