Food costs are atrocious.  My mom has been going to the city food bank weekly and the Salvation Army food pantry give out every two weeks.  I've told her we'll take care of her food, but she is stubborn as a mule and would rather get what she can for free than depend any further on me and my family than necessary.  But that is an offer I wonder if we can actually afford to make anymore, anyway.

She gets to pick out some of the items herself and she also picks up for my eldest sister (by eleven years) who is semi-retired.  They allow that as long as they have a name and address and the person comes in for the first time.  She works just enough to not have her social security and medicare taken away.  So at the city food bank she picks out 2 boxes of stuff each for herself and my sister and then they give her a couple of big boxes that everybody gets, so a total of four boxes, 2 for my sister.  One is full of root vegetables and one is full of pasta, rice, beans, some canned goods, and then on top of that any shorter term produce like broccoi, cauliflower, spinach, lettuce, etc.

Well, my mom and my sister have been getting some stuff they don't like or eat in those boxes and since you can't donate back any food that has been given back, they are left with food they can't or won't use or won't be able to eat it all before it goes bad.  So Mom offered it to me.  I told her I didn't want to take it, it was hers, I felt bad because it was from the food bank, etc.  She said she had offered it to the neighbors, but no one wanted food bank food because they all felt bad about taking it.

So Mom finally said if I could use it, take it.  Otherwise she was going to throw it in the recycling bin.  Well, that was not going to happen.  And with the cost of food getting so high, I finally agreed to take it, even if it made me feel guilty.  Throwing it out just goes against everything I believe in.  I ended up with 15 onions, 5 crowns of broccoli, 2 cauliflower, 1/2 a bag of mandarin oranges, 3 gigantic sweet potatoes, 25 yellow baby potatoes, 4 huge carrots, a container of spinach, an iceberg lettuce, and a bunch of celery.  So I guess this is basically my grocery shopping for the most part for this next week on produce.  I might get some berries and corn since they are on sale and pick up some gluten free pasta, but otherwise, I think I'm good.

I broke down the broccoli and cauliflower into pieces to take up less room.  I ended up with 2 freezer bags of broccoli and 2 smaller bags of cauliflower.  I froze one of each and we will have the rest this week for dinner.  I cut up all the onions.  I did three gallon bags of sliced onions and 1 gallon bag of large diced onions.  I froze all the slivers because I have some slivered onions in the fridge already, but I put the large diced onions in the fridge because I will be making black pepper chicken for dinner and then making a second batch to make into tv dinners.  I already had celery in the fridge, but with a second bunch of celery and all these onions, I can make more.

Our variety of homemade tv dinners is getting low since we are out of my lasagna and the last batch of black pepper chicken and the last batch of fajita chicken and peppers and onions.  All we have left is 4 meatloaf meals, 2 beef stew meals, 3 chorizo chili meals, 3 beef noodle with vegetable soups, 2 ham and potato soups, and 1 American Goulash.  I like to have my stash up around 30 tv dinners, maybe even 40 and a little more choice on what to eat.

I might do an extra large ravioli bake this week and then divide up the leftovers.  Same with making fajitas.  I can use up a lot of the stuff in the freezer in making the food and have the space for the meals.  I could do chicken papperdale alfredo and maybe smothered pork chops with potatoes and mixed vegetables.  Having a lot of onions is certainly going to help with all this.  And not having to pay $1.79 a pound for onions is nice.

I'll just have to get over any residual guilt.  As it is our budget is being stretched pretty thin.