Iranian Kebob

When I was little (in the 70s), my mom's best friend had a roommate who dated an exchange student from Iran. He made this for a dinner party one night, and my mom loved it.

The recipe has been in our family for 30 years now, so I don't know how authentic it is anymore, I don't even know if Kebob is the real name for it, but we love it.

Iranian Kebob


4 eggs (separate the yolks & whites)
2 - 3 tbsps. turmeric
1 onion, diced in large pieces
salt & pepper to taste
1 lb. beef
4-5 whole tomatoes
3 c. cooked rice
1/2 stick butter

In a blender, mix the egg whites, onion, turmeric and salt and pepper. Blend until liquified.


Pour the blender mixture into the ground beef and mix together with hands. (The mix will be very wet at this point.) Form the meat into two patties on the bottom of a broiler pan sprayed with non-stick spray.


Core the tomatoes and place whole on the broiler, centered over the meat so any tomato juice drops will fall on the meat. Cook for 45 minutes at 350 degrees.

Meanwhile, cook the rice. You can use white or brown, but I think white just tastes better for this dish.

After 45 minutes, broil the meat and tomatoes for 5-10 minutes. (Make sure the tomatoes don't burn.) Remove from oven.

Place the butter in the bottom of a large bowl. Pour the hot, cooked rice over it. Let the butter melt and then stir. Add the egg yolks and stir until all blended.

Peel the tomatoes. Add them and the cooked meat to the bowl with the rice. Stir all together, salt to taste, and serve.

Lessons Learned from My Grocery Challenge

Over the last 4 weeks, I challenged myself to only spend $40 a week for groceries. It was a challenge, but I am happy to report that I was quite successful. (My weekly total averaged a little less than $43 a week.)

I learned several things:

Shopping at Aldi is a great way to save money. I never used to go to Aldi because the one near us was dirty and always very busy. I recently found one close to work that is clean and much less busy. Even though the challenge is over, I will still be going there.

Our budget didn't support the cat food we were buying. We adopted our cats from a foster home when they were little; they were fed Purina One there, so we just kept buying that. Now, however, we are slowly transitioning our cats to a less expensive brand.

We have a lot of food stocked up. When I started the challenge, our deep freezer and little freezer over the refrigerator were both completely full. Now, the deep freezer is about 2/3 full as is the little freezer. We still have a great deal of meat stocked up, which will make it easier to try to keep our grocery bill low.

I would have a very difficult, almost impossible, time regularly spending $40 a week without using coupons. Even with coupons, I don't see how I could sustain that amount if the freezer were not full of meat.

This challenge was a great activity for me. I was routinely spending $350 a month for groceries. Now I see that it can be done for less, much less. For the next four weeks, I will try not to spend more than an average of $60 a week. Maybe that will be a sustainable level we can manage month in and month out.

How Being Unorganized the Last Few Months Has Cost Us

For the last few months, ever since I returned to work, our lives have been chaotic and I have become very unorganized. Starting in August, I returned to work full-time; during that time, I have also been trying to give my husband ample time to work on his dissertation so he can graduate, taking care of two kids, trying to save money, running my eBay store, etc.

E-bay through me for a huge loop by pulling down all listings that do not have a return policy. I should have been able to bulk update, but because I needed to fix all my templates to reflect another policy change they made a few months ago, I could not bulk update. I had to update each listing manually. Because I have 2400 items in my store, that adds up to A LOT of time. (I am still not done!)

In addition, we found out we are going to have our third child in April. This is truly a blessing, and we are very happy. However, because I started feeling all of the effects of the first trimester right when I returned to work—nausea, sleepiness, etc—it through our schedule for a loop.

Here is how being unorganized and too busy these past few months has cost us:

--I recently discovered my $10 off your next order for Jewel expired 4 days ago.

--I found $4 ECBs that had expired

--While I am stacking up all of my coupon inserts, I have not clipped them since August and have not realized very many savings from them. Who knows how much I could have saved if I had diligently used coupons.

--We have a $17 subscription to Blockbuster for monthly deliveries, but we have not watched a movie since early summer. I need to cancel this!

--We have eaten out, albeit at cheaper restaurants, much more frequently than we used to.

--The library just called and said I have a magazine out that was due October 10th. I didn't remember that and have no idea now where the magazine is!

--Instead of making my own baby food as I did in the summer, I had to resort to store bought baby food frequently the last few weeks. Luckily, she is eating table food almost entirely now.

These are just a few ways being unorganized and too busy has cost us money. I am sure there are more, but I can't think of them all now!

Grocery Shopping, 11/9/09

I entered this 4th week of my grocery challenge with $17 and some change for groceries. Here is how I did:

Aldi (not pictured):
2 gallons milk
1 bag bananas
2 cartons eggs
1 jug apple juice

Total = 7.60

Rite Aid:

Double pack contact solution = 9.99
1 large package baby wipes = 6.99
1-20 ct. thank you notes = 5.99
1 bag Goldfish = .99

I had a $25 gift card from a diaper deal a few months ago. I was specifically planning on using it this week as I desperately needed contact solution and the money simply wasn't in the grocery budget. However, I lost the gift card!! My son found it, so his treat was the goldfish.

Total OOP = 1.38

Meijer:

12 boxes mac 'n cheese = 4.68 (I know this is not that healthy, but it is a pregancy craving. I have been paying $1.00 a box, so I was glad to snatch these up at .39/box)
2 packages bacon = 3.58
1-5 lb. bag grapefruit = 2.99
1-3 lb. bag oranges = 4.49
1-3 lb. bag apples = 2.50
1 loaf bread (not pictured) = 1.79

Total = 20.03

Total for the week = 29.01
Total for the 4 week challenge =171.90
Average for each week = 42.98

Menu Planning, 11/8/09

I had very little grocery money left from my 4 week grocery challenge, so many of the recipes this week are items we can make from the pantry or recipes I had earlier that we never actually made.

Monday--Beef Kababs & baby carrots
Tuesday--Salsa Chicken Dump, rice & asparagus spears
Wednesday--Beef Kabab Pita Pockets
Thursday--Kielbasa Bean Soup
Friday--Ultimate Mac 'n Cheese & broccoli & cauliflower blend
Saturday--Omelet for Two
Sunday--dinner out

Breakfasts will be oatmeal, omelettes, cereal, fruit, pancakes
Lunches will be leftovers or sandwiches

A Fun Meal for Kids or a Halloween Meal

My daughter's birthday is just a few days before Halloween, so this year we had her birthday party on Halloween. A few of the food items had a Halloween theme, but I imagine kids would love these recipes any time of the year as it is fun to have food that looks like something.

Remember all of the Crescent rolls I got at Jewel a few weeks ago? I used 5 packages and 40 hot dogs to create these "Crescent Mummy Dogs." Kids and adults a like liked them. In fact we had a little less than 20 people at the party, but only about 5 hot dogs were left at the end.



For one of the appetizers, I created these Ghoul Fingers. I believe I originally saw the idea while watching a Robin Miller episode on Food Network. All you have to do is put a small amount of ranch dressing on the end of the carrot and attach a sliced almond to that to create a fingernail on the finger. This tray was completely gone by the end of the party.

I shared this post at $5 Dinners, Tempt My Tummy Tuesdays and The Grocery Cart Challenge.

Grocery Shopping (Very Late Edition)

This is the third week of my grocery challenge.

Dominick's:

2 boxes macaroni & cheese = 2.00 (outrageous price, I know)
6.3 lb. bag of cat food = 7.49
8 pk Yoplait yogurt = 3.99
2 boxes Healthy Choice lunch meat = 2.69

4 pears = 1.06
1 bag organic baby carrots = 1.50
3 lb. bag apples = 3.99
1 pineapple = 1.99
Total = 26.01

Aldi (no picture):

2 gallons milk = 3.78
1 bag bananas = .83
1 loaf bread = 2.00
Total = 6.78

Meijer (no picture):

10 jars baby food = 3.30

Total = 3.42

Total for the week = 36.21

Total for the challenge thus far = 142.89

Remaining for next week =17.11 (Yikes!)

It will be tight making it through this challenge on target. I do still have a $5 Target card and a $10 off your next order for Jewel, plus a $20 rebate from Kraft from their rebate back in August. If I have to, I can use those.