The Real Shopping Cart 12/9/24
Image description: plate with salad, ground beef, eggs and gochujang sauce, plus fork on sheets.
Highlighted Meal of the Week: Beef Bibimbap-Inspired Bowls
Gochujang on eggs is one of my favourite things in life. The meal contained cauliflower and carrots roasted with butter, then mixed with the soy sauce mirin dressing described below, plus ground beef, spinach and green peppers. We mixed the Gochujang with toasted sesame oil, and yum. We made our own soy sauce mirin blend for a dressing. It is a combination of soy sauce, mirin and rice vinegar, and reduced the amount of mirin to one tablespoon to keep the sugar content low and diabetic friendly.
The total cost of the meal for two was $6.28 and the single serving was $3.14.
Although I did not test positive for Covid, I had symptoms and even water tasted like dirt to me, so anything spicy helped me to actually enjoy my food.
This Week’s Cart
Last week’s plans were greatly affected by Charles coming down with Covid. However this is when unlimited delivery service with low minimum carts can really come in handy. Walmart’s $35 minimum allowed us to order essential items while recovering, something to consider if you are signing up for a delivery service.
Stores considered this week were Metro.ca, Walmart, Massine’s, Isabella Loblaws, Kowloon and Farm Boy, which are within walking distance, Real Canadian Superstore, Metro Rideau and Food Basics, which are accessible to us by public transit and two stores in Gatineau: Maxi and Super C. The Gatineau stores did well but not so well that we were tempted to shop there, so this is their last week here at the Real Shopping Cart.
This week has already started out with disappointing results from our local shops. We purchased Ground Chicken for $6 (454 grams) from Massine’s not a great price but needed the chicken for an upcoming pizza crust. To our surprise and disappointment, the chicken was underweight. When we purchase meat, we weigh it and portion it into servings which we freeze. Being over/under weight is expected but, in this case, it was only 412 grams, that’s a 42-gram shortfall. Hopefully others don’t experience this.
Also, a little reminder about watching your checkout experience. At Farm Boy this week we picked up a sweet potato, great price at 1.49/lb but again when we got home what we paid didn’t add up. It turned out that the cashier charged us for a white sweet potato not a standard one and the white variety is more expensive. We do watch what the cashier is doing but on the cashier’s screen, the item was labelled as a sweet potato, so we assumed she had gotten it right. In fact there are several different kinds of sweet potatoes. I don’t know about you, dear readers, but sometimes it is so hard to keep paying attention to every damn thing, even now when it matters more than ever.
If we could get the cheapest price at all the stores, the total amount would be $147.92.
By combining delivery from Walmart, and a few strolls to local stores, Charles has obtained a price of $157.49 for this week’s shopping list, only six percent higher than the cheapest price if we could shop all the stores.
Since no single store had all the groceries we needed, this week’s table demonstrates how close each store got to exclusively providing the items in the cart. Each store on its own will cost a shopper anywhere from eight to forty one percent more or $60.76 more. Any store that provided less than thirty of the thirty four items we were looking for was disqualified.
[i apologize for not doing the image description here, but it’s quite arduous, and it’s described in the text.]
I wish you nutritious, delicious and affordable meals, lingering conversations with loved ones, joy and whimsy.
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