Audra is Back With Her Aldi Shopping Trips and Weekly Menu

Hi there! My name is Audra, I’m from Ohio and am doing an Aldi challenge this month to restock my pantry, save money, and check out Aldi’s products. I’m still using up the last bits of produce from my garden, but all of my grocery shopping for our family of 3 will be done at Aldi’s this month!

One of the first things I did after my big restocking grocery shop was to cook up the bag of dried black beans and the bag of quinoa. I combined some of the black beans with the quinoa and some spices to make a base mixture for several of our meals and to freeze some for later. I had enough black beans to freeze some plain, too! I also roasted most of the sweet potatoes. I was able to use up the last of our cherry tomatoes from the garden and we still had cilantro growing even though we had some frosts this week.

Here’s what I made this week:

Breakfast: We usually eat oatmeal for breakfast. The Aldi quick cook steel oats are really good! My husband puts brown sugar, raisins, and peanut butter in his and I like chocolate chips, maple syrup, and cinnamon in mine. Our 3.5 year old daughter likes chocolate chips and raisins. One morning we had toast with cashew butter and bananas on top and scrambled eggs.

Lunch and Supper: We usually have leftovers or soup for lunch, and often add fruit and cheese with crackers to round it out.

Black Bean and Quinoa Tacos (made with with avocado, cherry tomatoes, cilantro, sour cream, corn tortillas) with roasted sweet potatoes.

Sweet Potato, Black Bean, and Quinoa Salad (made with avocado, spinach, cilantro, sour cream (in dressing)).

Roasted Butternut Squash Salad (topped with spinach, roasted pepitas, and dried cranberries).

Easy Tomato and Herb Soup (I’m sending Mavis the recipe to post, it’s amazing and SO easy!).

Veggie Burgers with Brioche Buns and Roasted Sweet Potatoes (with spinach, cheese, and avocado on the sandwiches).

Smoked Mozzerella Ravioli and Peas

Date Night Platter (cured meat, cheese, organic grapes, wine, butter, French baguette (olives were already open in our fridge but not from Aldi’s). We really enjoyed the wine, it’s an Aldi special which means it’s for a limited time.

Cranberry Chicken Sausages with Sweet Potatoes, Quinoa, and Black beans (topped with cilantro, avacado, and sour cream (in the dressing))

Creamy Black Bean Taquitos with a Spinach Salad (with black beans and cream cheese, pepitas, dried cranberries, and cheese. We also used sour cream and home made salsa for dipping)

Product Reviews:
The only product I used this week that I didn’t like was the Aldi corn tortillas. I found them to be really bland and didn’t like the texture as well as other ones I have used. We really liked the veggie burgers with brioche buns, the cured Salami (this is imported from Spain and the back of the package said that the pigs are free to range and forage and that it is prepared in the traditional Spanish way), and the Smoked Mozzerella Ravioli.

All of the alcohol we tried was pretty good, but we especially liked the Italian white wine (San Zenone Venezie) which only costs $6.99 here in Ohio and is likely cheaper in other states. I was impressed with the Asiago cheese, it’s very tasty for slicing with crackers as well as using as an ingredient in recipes. I’d also like to note that the organic canned tomatoes I used in the soup were BPA free. It didn’t say it on the label, but it was printed in tiny letters on the top of the can by the expiration date.

I ended up going back to Aldi twice this week, I definitely need to work on minimizing grocery trips like Mavis! On my first trip back the squash was on sale for .99 each so I couldn’t help but stock up! I also needed more spinach and toppings since I was taking part of the roasted squash salad and tomato soup to a friend who just had a baby. The gluten free crackers were for her, too. I also bought organic cage free eggs, cashew butter, natural peanut butter, dried cranberries, and more cheese! $31.57

The second trip was inspired by a surprise offer by my mom to babysit our daughter so that we could have an impromptu date night. We stayed in and binge watched some of the final season of Dark Matter on Netflix while we ate a fruit and cheese platter with a crusty baguette and butter and drank some wine. It was a great way to spend an evening!
$9.36 (the onions rang up as .69 for the entire bag, I think this was a pricing error and they were supposed to ring up at $1.69).

Total spent at Aldi for the month: $187.15

I’ll be taking another round of food to my friend who just had a baby, any suggestions for what to bring? They are gluten free.

~ Audra from Ohio

Do you have a shopping trip and weekly menu you’d like to share? Maybe you would like to have your garden, chicken coop or something you’ve made featured on One Hundred Dollars a Month, here’s what I’m looking for:

• Your Garden Pictures and Tips – I’d especially like to see your garden set ups, growing areas, and know if you are starting seeds indoors this year. If so,  show me some picture of how you are going about it.
• Your Pantry Pics – Submit at least 5 HIGH QUALITY pictures of your pantry/fridge/cabinets, as well as a short blurb {at the very least} about you and your food habits.
• Your Chicken and Chicken Related Stories – Coops, Chicks, Hen’s, Roosters, Eggs, you name it. If it clucks, send us some pictures to share with the world.
• Cool Arts & Crafts – Made from your very own hands with detailed {and well photographed} pictures and instructions.
• Your pictures and stories about your pets. The more pictures and details the better.
• Garage Sale, Thrift Store and Dumpster Diving pictures and the stories behind the treasures you found including how much you paid for them.

You’ll need to send in a Minimum of 5 HIGH QUALITY pictures and the stories to go along with those pictures. Do not send in a couple of grainy photos and a sentence about them. I can’t post that. It doesn’t make for an interesting or informative story.

If I feature your pictures and the stories behind them on One Hundred Dollars a Month, I will send you a $20.00 gift card to the greatest store in the world: Amazon.com. You can send your submissions to me at onehundreddollarsamonth @ gmail.com {spaces removed} and be sure and put Mavis Mail in the subject line. Thank you. I’m looking forward to your submissions.