The Sodastream Experiment and Flavor Review

 

I've mentioned before that I exclude soda from our grocery budget. That's because we drink A LOT ( ie way TOO MUCH)  of pop. In an attempt to be more sustainably frugal (and healthy,) we made a big purchase this past week! We bought a Sodastream Genesis. After a lot of research on models, prices and reviews, I decided to buy the Genesis because it is the most inexpensive model that Bed, Bath and Beyond carries. I bought it with a coupon, of course.

Plenty of naysayers said that it wasn't worth the initial investment. My initial investment for the Genesis, a carbonation cartridge, 1 reusable bottle, 12 soda sample flavors, 3 seltzer water flavors, and one bottle of ENERGY mix was almost exactly $100. (Again, all purchased with a coupon.) After we'd tried a few flavors, we went back and bought 2 new flavors, 2 travel bottles and 2 regular sized bottles for an additional $37. We should be good to go for awhile!

Ok, so let's be real here. I was previously spending anywhere from $10-$12 a week on pop for my husband and I to have at the house to take to work. I figure if we can come in on Sodastream for less than $520 this year, we will have made a good investment. So far, we're "in" $137. My plan is to keep track of our Sodastream purchases for the next 6 months in order to average out our potential savings.  Stay tuned on that one.

While we're at it, here's a quick review of the flavors we've tried!

ENERGY - My favorite. 35 calories. 80 mg of caffeine. My husband says it tastes like Monster. It tastes close enough to Red Bull for me. I've happily swapped my morning Diet Coke for this, and I have been drinking seltzer during the day.

Orange - I think this is our other "favorite" so far!

Root Beer - Very Good

Diet Root Beer- Pretty Darn Good

Diet Cream Soda - STRONG, but good. Maybe more caramel y than vanilla

Sprite - Very good

Orange My Water - Very good, if you like seltzer

Raspberry My Water - Very good, if you like seltzer

Cherry Cola - Our least favorite. It's a little weird.

And that's it! I'll update as we go!

(Photo from www.sodastreamusa.com.)

Bananas 'N Cream Bread

I've been using the Tyler Florence's ultimate banana bread recipe for several years, and for whatever reason, I grew a little tired of it. I've used this one twice lately, and it is my new fave! I hate how banana bread is really SO bad for you under the guise of being possibly a little healthy, but whatever. A little treat is ok sometimes! One of these days I'm going to get around to trying it as banana bread french toast. YUM!

Here is the killer recipe, adjusted from allrecipes.com.

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup butter
• 3 cups white sugar (Using less has worked just fine for me)
• 3 eggs
• 6 very ripe bananas, mashed
• 1 (16 ounce) container sour cream
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 teaspoons baking soda
• 1.5 cups whole wheat pastry flour
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
• 2 Tablespooons of cinnamon sugar mixture

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees F (150 degrees C). Grease four 7x3 inch loaf pans. 
2. In a large bowl, cream butter and 3 cups sugar. Mix in eggs, mashed bananas, sour cream, vanilla and cinnamon. Mix in salt, baking soda and flour. Stir in nuts. Divide into prepared pans.Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.
3. Bake for 1 hour, until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.(Mine took a little longer!)      (You can see more recipes at beautyandbedlam.com.)

The Marathon

I think marathon runners are awesome. I wish I could run like that, but oh, the asthma! Truly though, lately I've been feeling like every day of my life is a marathon. Especially Fridays! Yesterday I was full speed ahead from 5:15 AM - 11:30 PM. By 6:30 ALONE, I had gotten myself ready, given the baby a bath, ordered a birthday cake and arrived at work. *whew* This is actually only day three of a week long marathon. In the next few days we have my oldest daughter's 6th birthday, a baby shower, volunteering and consigning with Just Between Friends, a CPCU exam, and leading Bible study. Oh yeah, and I have a full-time job. And three kids 5 and under.

I didn't get to my coupons until late last night, so I tackled two grocery stores with three kids this morning. It was relatively painless. It just took about twice as long as normal with Saturday samples for 3 kids, a few bathroom trips, playing a reading game for a reward with my 5 year old, etc., but we made it!

The picture is from our bigger trip to Hy Vee. At Hen House I picked up some sugar pears, sour cream, Activia, Tostitos, cream of chicken soup and some almost free candy bars.

The main meals on the menu for this week are My Mom's Chicken and Rice and Crockpot Mexican Chicken. I also will probably try to getting around to making a few loaves of Bananas 'N Cream Bread. Other than that, we will be flying but the seat of our pants, but hopefully still eating as healthfully as possible! Last week "healthy" was a stretch so this week I'm going to try to give flying by the seat of our pants AND healthy a better shot!

$50/week grocery project (No Coupon Edition)

This week was a massive planning ahead fail. I have a HUGE stack of coupons I didn't get through because I can't find my scissors. The grocery ads were also AWFUL (save for a Kraft deal.) I had planned on making a meal plan and a list during my lunch break on Friday, but that is always a horrible idea. I never end up actually getting to TAKE a lunch break, and yesterday was no different.

I found myself at Trader Joes with only an exhausted baby last night. I picked up a few things for quick and easy meals, and then we hit Price Chopper for $.99/lb chicken breasts and cheese. My after tax total from both trips was $47. It's sure looking like $40 isn't going to get us very far this week! And how about that lack of produce? YUCK. With my extra $3, I'm going to buy a package of tortillas and a can of enchilada sauce. That will at least net us another meal! I'm sure I'll pick up a few other things while we're there because this will just not cut it!

Some of the meals on our agenda for the week are easy cheese calzones, orange chicken with fried rice, cavatini, cheese and onion enchiladas, and pancakes and eggs. We have plenty of cereal and baby's favorite for breakfast. Making lunches may be a problem! It seems like we EITHER have meals for the week OR snacks for the week. We rarely have an abundant supply of both! This week we have meals, I guess!

For more meal plans see www.orgjunkie.com.