The Hillbilly Experiment: Intro

I'd been thinking recently about trying to cut processed food out of our diet as much as possible; besides that, S likes to play "grocery bill limbo" (my term, not his), seeing how low he can get our grocery bill without resorting to buying things that don't taste good (or eating a diet entirely of pasta, for instance). To these ends, we decided to experiment with an interesting online resource: Hillbilly Housewife's $45 Emergency Menu . I'd like to share our experience with this in a few blog posts. My camera's batteries died and I don't have new ones yet, so no pictures for this first post, but they're coming soon, I promise.

Now, the title is misleading for a few reasons: first, the menu is for a family of 4 but the groceries were priced in 2006 and mainly came from Walmart and The Dollar Store. There are only 2 of us to feed, and we shop at Shnuck's, and it's 2008, so we knew the total wasn't going to be the same. Second, this wasn't an emergency, so I changed a few things according to my preferences.

In the next post I'll note what I changed about the menu and what our grocery bill came to - in future posts I'll discuss what I like about the menu/recipes, and what I've learned from the experiment, and highlight specific recipes.

A final note - this is not a wholesale recommendation of hillbillyhousewife.com. The author has a very different worldview from me, and I don't agree with some things she says, but I bow to her greater experience in the arena of home cooking.