Long time no blog

It has been a long time since I last blogged. I have started a second job and that along with trying to graduate a senior this year has eaten up all my time. I thought I would catch you up. We are still going strong with Aldi. We have tried a few new things and have found them to be very good. We tried the garlic and cheese and garlic bread for a dinner one night and found it to be very tasty. We also tried their bowl of barbecue pork. Although it tasted good it has an interesting consistency that was not very appealing and I think had too much sauce in the pork. The kids would only eat it with their eyes closed! Kurt and I also went out one night for a meeting and left the kids with a "Hamburger Helper" box Aldi style. They used the Aldi brand of dinner for cheeseburger macaroni. Susan made it and said it was good but needed some more pasta so she added it. The frozen vegetables continue to be good and we are enjoying the milk products. There is no cheese I have had so far that is bad. Kurt is amazed at the cost of their flat round tortilla chips. Only $0.99! It is a great savings. they started carrying their brand of "Captain Crunch" so Kurt is trilled about that as well. Nothing like a sugary breakfast.

We are getting ready for open house here so will have some more reports. We are having ice cream sundae's and cookies for the menu so need to get lots of butter. The butter at Aldi is by far the cheapest I have found in town including Sam's. Enough for now will try to get a blog in tomorrow.

Disappointing Fruit and Aldi

Over the months as I have bought food from Aldi there is one thing that is usually disappointing. It is the Aldi fruit. I have yet to find reliable fruit that looks good tastes good and lasts. The only exception would be during strawberry season. Then they had good local berries that were very tasty and were not over-ripe. I have not bought apples, grapes or bananas there because many of them are spoiled. The vegetables on the other had have been very good on a regular basis. I can always find beautiful peppers, yellow, red and green, as well as mushrooms, cucumbers, tomatoes and broccoli. All these have been good and never disappoint.

Best Maccaroni every

On Saturday I had the privilege of participating in a birthday party. I wanted to bring something so I made my most popular Macaroni and cheese. Everything was from Aldi. I was wonderful. I had the chance to make a big batch and I put it in my crock pot and baked it for four hours. Here is the recipe:

1 8 oz box of elbow macaroni cooked according to direction
8 oz sour cream
8 oz mayonnaise
4 cups shredded cheddar cheese
1 Tbs dried onion flakes or 1/4 cup chopped onion
salt and pepper to taste
crushed saltine crackers

Cook macaroni, rinse and drain. Mix together rest of ingredients except crushed crackers. Mix in macaroni and put in a large buttered baking dish. Top with crushed crackers and bake 350 degrees for 30 - 45 minutes. SOOOO GOOD!

Shopping Again

I have gone shopping again for the next two weeks of dinner. I will write about the menu tomorrow or Monday. I have managed to keep our groceries down to about $400 this past month. This includes paper products and cleaning items. I will give a more detailed shopping cost next month. Earlier I wrote about laundry soaps at Aldi. I have some prices so you can compare. They have their Laundry soap that is called Tandil 2X Ultra that is comparable to Tide 2X Ultra in both regular and bleach alternative. It costs $6.99 for a 100 oz bottle. Their fabric softener is comparable to Ultra Downy it comes in 2 scent, Mountain Fresh and Spring Time Fresh. It is $2.99 for 51 oz of product. I also can see significant savings with the cereals they sell. They have kids cereals, raisin bran, mini wheat's, oatmeal, granola, and cereal like special K. They all cost around $2.00 with most of them at $1.89. They are also constantly changing their inventory and providing special items at different times of the year. During Christmas there are many more varieties of baking goods available. At Thanksgiving there are of course all the goods associated with that time of year.