Raspberry Struesel Muffins

Okay, I admit it. I LOVE to Grocery Shop.  There, I said it out loud–now you all know.  Never in my wildest dreams would I have ever imagined I would be such a dork–I mean who else gets excited about picking out vegetables??!!  (…if you do–know that you are not alone!! I feel your excitement! 🙂

Why do I love it, you may ask?  Well, I take a great amount of pride in feeding my family delicious and nutritious meals and carefully choosing the best of what is available this week allows my creativity in the kitchen to flow.  I also take pride in spending as little as possible–and if I am completely honest, it has become a bit of an obsession to see how little I can spend, and how great we can eat. ( we are currently down to about $50-$75 per week for our food bill).

( **please note: as of Feb 2013, we are now up to approx $100/week–the price of food has gone up considerably in the last 2 years, but we have also upgraded our meat/dairy/egg purchases to more local, sustainable, with better animal welfare wherever possible.)

Here are a couple of tips to shaving down your grocery bill:
1.  Only buy what you need this week–don’t stock pile
2.  Only buy what is on sale, work your menu around what is a good price this week
3.  Make more from scratch–you can eliminate buying quite a few items, if you make them at home (pancakes, muffins, cookies, bread, buns, pizza dough etc)  It is MUCH cheaper to purchase the flour, eggs and sugar  etc. to make these treats , than it is to buy them finished, not to mention much better for you!

BEST MUFFINS EVER…seriously.
Raspberry Streusel Muffins

Heat oven to 400°. Prepare streusel topping (listed below). Grease the muffin tin. Beat milk, sugar, oil, vanilla, and egg. Stir flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt and then add to wet ingredients and mix just until flour is moist. Batter will be lumpy. Fold in raspberries. Divide evenly among muffin cups. Sprinkle with 2 teaspoons of the streusel topping and bake 20 – 25 minutes until golden brown. Makes 12 muffins.

Streusel Topping
1/4 cup all purpose flour
2 tablespoons packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons firm butter
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon