Celtic_Angel

actually I was thinking the same but maybe that's cos i'm poor and have 3 kids *lol* the only way to eat cheap and decent here is a buffet
i'm serious but it'd only be cheaper than buying from the store if we had stomachs twice nay three times the size!!! after a plate i'm stuffed, so is my family, some people eat several piled plates :scared: ...wish i had the cheek to stay all day and pace myself

Bob

We can't afford to eat out either...just not cheap, much cheaper to make dinner from scratch, handy that the missus is a good cook, I ain't that bad either, and I cook during the week when she's at work so we have dinner on her break.
But the fruit and veg is well expensive up here...cheaper in the summer though, thank god...but what I don't get, pink ladies, the apples are always battered and bruised here, were much better in blighty, and there all grown in florida..don't get that.

neil

I'm just into my 30's - eating out is relatively cheap; for example tonight we went to the local Thai restaurant where a main course is typically $7.50 and lasts for two meals. I'd definitely call that cheap. I do know how to cook from living on my own in the UK for several years, but I just don't so much now partly because it's relatively inexpensive to eat out (and supermarket food is generally more expensive here than the UK - in NJ at least) - we still do cook at home; just not as often as we should and it's difficult to be motivated to when one of us, or sometimes both of us, aren't home from work until 8pm.

Ben

Have you tried the somerfield brand of yogurt - organic and not bad. Also the whipped types have a taste of back home.

Also, try the Welch's cans for juice for the kids. You can get black grape which is similar to the blackcurrent back home but with no sugar so a bit more tart. You could always add a little sugar until the kids get used to the taste. Also the apple or white grape flavors are really nice. It tells you on the can to dilute 3 to 1 but dilute it 5 or 6 to one and personally I think it taste much better and you will all be happy, including the kids. with them being 100% juice, it is a bit kinder on their teeth, especially if you dilute it more. They also are not too expensive with being less than $2 a can.

It took me quite a while (probably 3 years) before I started to get the hang of shopping over here. I have found that meat farm shops are the best place for fresh fruit and veg and many of them will stock a little organic fruit and veg too at good prices. I have found quite a few and swap between them all depending on what I am doing on a particular day.

I think one of the problems with things like lettuce is the fact that it gets watered while in the shop. Lettuce needs to stay dry to stop it from going yucky and also not kept in the plastic you buy it in. It could be worth trying to dry the lettuce with kitchen roll, popping it into a zip lock bag wrapped in kitchen roll and then storing it in the fridge. Same with herbs. I have found it works and you can reuse the zip lock bags for the next time. also english cucumbers need taking out of the plastic but they still don't last very long. we find the American cucumbers are much better if they are peeled.

tips for what works for you regarding how you cope with the food hear might help others.

NC Penguin

I very rarely eat fast food (not eaten in a Mickey Ds, Burger King or KFC since moving here) but when we go out to eat, we more often than not go to a non-chain restaurant, mostly for taste reasons.

Effi- you're making a sweeping assumption here. I'm in my 30s and I cook from scratch, mostly due to the way I was raised.

The veggies and fruit in the US is pretty poor quality 'cos it's grown for size and weight, not taste. The reason, I believe why fresh produce spoils so quick is that it is pumped full of water and then grocery stores spray water on it whilst its on display, hastening spoilage.

Even the organic produce is of a lower quality than the equivalent in Europe.



NC Penguin

snowbunny

Get the hell out of Houston and over here to Austin! lol! everyone's fit, loads of biking trails....

Anyway.

Have you tried the Central Market (I think it is on Westheimer)? Loads of fresh fruit/veg/meat/seafood there. Our Central Market in Austin, the first one, is a tourist destination for selection and quality.

I can't believe you guys can't get decent grapefruit. My grandparents lived on the Mexican border where we could pick grapefruit from the tree. The stuff I can get at CM is nearly identical. Pink lady apples? No probs and we live hundreds of miles from where those can be grown.

http://www.centralmarket.com

Or just bring a couple of Igloo coolers and we'll go shopping. One of the best is in summer when they ship down fresh sweet corn from Minnesota; they fly it down wrapped in something that wicks up a bit of sugar water. And no, it's not horribly expensive.

snorkmaiden

I guess it's all relative but eating out here in Texas is much more do-able for us with four children than it ever was at home.

As for cooking, at the risk of blowing my own trumpet I think I'm a pretty great cook, and to be honest my hubby is pretty handy as well. The problem we find is that there is a real lack of ingredients. We do have a Central Market with more products from around the world but the prices are ridiculous, there is no way I could do all my shopping there and even just buying cheese and fruit and veg there would add significantly to our grocery bills - it's a lovely trip out though, quite the delight for foodies.

The veggies I am buying in the supermarkets here are not anywhere near as good in terms of quality as they were back at home in our local Sainsbury's or even Lidls for that matter.

The other huge problem I find is that, even with air conditioning going full blast, cooking is incredibly unpleasant during the Texas summer

We bought a great barbecue last year and did a lot of kebabs etc; but of course then you have to take on the wrath of the west nile carrying mosquito's.

All of that makes the local chinese look like a really great option

Celtic_Angel

*lol* actually after a year here we planned on moving to Austin , the Lake Travis area but it all fell through i've good friends from Austin, they say the town has a really different feel to it than Houston, actually 2 of them are doing that cycling trip from Houston to Austin..the M something *lol*...now THAT's some decent exercise!!

snowbunny

The MS-150, sponsored by (drumroll) British Petroleum! It's about 150 miles in two days. My super-fit SIL has no problems with it; my semi-fit brother did it last year and plans to do it again. Austin is lightyears better than Houston.

Yes, CM and Whole Foods are expensive but they are the only way to get decent produce. In summer, the object is to drink more (water!) and eat less, and eat chilled foods, such as salads, cold sarnies, chilled soups.... Have you ever had a chilled fruit soup? they are lovely; and chicken salad with tarragon.... make popsicles (ice lollies) out of watered down juice and the kiddies love them.

If you grill, grill at night (and I mean like 9 pm) and then save meat and reheat the next day. Trouble with Houston is with the humidity from the Gulf it can't cool down as much at night as it can here on the edge of much drier land. Now you know why I am resisting moving to Houston with all my might!

Celtic_Angel

Well i've been in the South for 8 years so I'm used to the humidity....er...NO I'm not!!!!! yeah when i first arrived i couldn't leave the house before 6p.m(and then my shades would get condensation after 30 seconds) but then at 6p.m all the mosquitoes come out with a vengence so you have to run inside!! :scared: yep i spent my first summer indoors!! *lol*

I was in La before i prefer houston cos I'm closer to the beach...yeah when i first saw Galveston i went "URGH!" but now i muck in like the natives

snorkmaiden

Ha, ha.. I'd like to see you get my husband out on our patio at night. We had a tarantula in our garden the first year here - frightened the crap out of him, and the girls go crazy with all the little gekko's running around It's quite an adjustment to make, when the worst thing you are used to in your garden is the odd slug!!

I can only begin to imagine what my kids would say if I told them they were having chilled soups And they believe salad to be of the devil!

We had a lot of success last year with pitta pockets and chicken or cheese and cucumber, or ham and egg etc. (cucumber is apparently not of the devil)

Bob

Strawberry soup is yummy...MIL makes a great one

Celtic_Angel

:scared: :scared: I would have had to move!!!!! :scared:

actually last year i found a recipe for Gazpacho, made from scratch,none of that V8 crap...it was delicious but then i was lumped with eating it all cos the rest of the family hated it!!

Sarah

Have to agree with you there NC High Fructose Corn Syrup is in EVERYTHING.
My husband and I put on about 35 lbs each since we got married and we havent' been married a year yet. :scared: Our weight gain got out of control and was due to unhappiness at work, financial worries, homesickness, contentedness, comfort zone eating and always celebrating and loving each other with food - y'know the way when you go home and your mum makes a massive dinner for you - loves you by feeding you. We're only slowly now coming out of the krispy kreme, ben and jerrys haze and getting our act together.

We spend a lot of time int he supermarkets looking on the ingredients list and finding bread that doesn't have HFCS is nigh on impossible. If foods does appear to be High Fructose Corn Syrup-free then it usually has the (just as bad, if not worse) ingredient of hydrogenated oil in it which is absolutely deadly and should be treated as such. Not only do they fast-track you to heart disease but they also turn toxic in your body. Personally I don't trust all the shite they pump into food, I don't see the need. A nutirtionist guy at Uni told my husband that if there are things on the list of ingredients that aren't in your kitchen at home then don't buy them. In other words, if the ingredients are full of chemicals, put it back on the shelf.

We've started to make a lot of things from scratch, and try not to eat out more than 3 times a month - to save money as well as for health. We don't have kids yet so its easier for us to make our own stuff.

We reconciled ourselves with the fact that even though our food bill is ridiculously high for just the two of us, its worth it to be healthy. My in-laws live off mac and cheese, cereal, steaks and those disgusting snack cakes. they all look and act about 20 years older than their actual age. Its frightening.

I miss the variety in dairy produce you can get in the UK, fromage frais, creme fraiche, greek yoghurt all pretty hard to find here and expenisve when you do find them. We live near lots of Menonite and Amish so their farmers markets start up again in Spring we'll go and buy their stuff - I prefer my money going to them than to any supermarket, but in general I think the no-walking culture along with cheap fast food and going absolutely everywhere by car nuture a society for weight gain. I have never been as chubby in my life before as I have been since I moved here. Yeah my own fault I know but I did used to walk everywhere at home, hardly walk anywhere now. No local shop or pub or post office to walk to, don't get off at the train station and walk 15 mins to work like I used to, here its park the car and walk about 2 mins into the office.

I think Americans are becoming victims of their own sucess, their own entrepreneurialship (sic) my husbands boss always says "Americans got too smart for their own good" Kinda true in a way, the way that all new technology is supposed to make your life simpler but actually ends up complicating it more.

Can't believe that children born here now have shorter life expectancy than their parents, thats so sad.

snowbunny

Shipping costs from Europe are horrendous. As you mentioned you can sometimes find local producers and we are lucky to have some dairy products made here like chevre with no preservatives.

America's problem is trying to have everything. Food costs are low so long as you are willing to buy from huge conglomerates vs a family farmer, accept preservatives that are slowly pickling YOU, etc. One huge factor is that there are few seasonal menus -- we are so used to shipping in produce year round from South America, where it is legal for US companies to sell pesticides that have been banned in the US for safety reasons! Cooking seasonally can save you money and give you the freshest in produce.

What's better, eating good-tasting food, lowering your weight, feeling better.... or having some extra for shiny wheelrims for your jacked-up truck? Some people truly cannot afford good food, but some who can choose to spend money elsewhere.