Blogs - Qponix

Pumpkin Time!

Few things are more gratifying than growing pumpkins. Plant a few tiny seeds indoors in May, transfer them outdoors in early June, and in four months you will have gorgeous bright orange orbs that scream "Fall is Here!". We dug out separate pumpkin patch a couple of years ago, when our pumpkin plants began taking over the garden. Pumpkins love space; their tendrils will wander everywhere, and it got so that they spilled out of the raised beds and cluttered the pathways. Luckily, a pumpkin patc… Continue

Added by SAB on September 22, 2009 at 11:39am — No Comments

A Successful Exchange

This summer, our family went to our cottage in Canada for seven weeks. Being there is blissful, but leaving our Bainbridge generated some stress. Where will the dogs go? Who will take care of the chickens? Who will water and weed the garden? This summer I got really lucky - my friends Nina and Ruth agreed to take care of the chickens and garden in return for fresh vegetables and eggs. On alternate days, they came to the house to feed and water the chickens, collect the eggs, and pick whatever w… Continue

Added by SAB on September 14, 2009 at 4:08pm — No Comments

Cooking and Growing Swiss Chard

Swiss chard is one of those overlooked vegetables. You have to search for it in the grocery store, usually in the corner of the produce section sharing a bin with bok choy and kale. Go find it, because once you eat it you will be hooked. As a side vegetable, we enjoy it cooked two ways. Swiss Chard is delicious at its most simple: steamed, tossed with a pat of butter, a splash of balsamic vinegar, and some ground sea salt. For a variation, sometimes I saute it in butter over high heat with a cl… Continue

Added by SAB on September 4, 2009 at 7:04pm — No Comments

Southsides Anyone?

Ah - Summer in the Northeast....beautiful sunny days, tank tops and fireflies at night, evenings sleeping with all the windows open and only a sheet on top of you... Not this year! We've been on the East Coast since June 17 and have barely seen the sun poke through the clouds. Every day brings a new set of showers, or out and out rain, and the fireflies are still hibernating. What's a person to do? Beckon the summer gods with an offering of Southsides! My husband can make a killer Southside.… Continue

Added by SAB on August 5, 2009 at 7:44am — No Comments

Hot Summer Meals: Fish Tacos in Top 25 Budget Meals (New Video)

Experimenting with different ways to tell people about all the ways MealBox can save them time and money. Thought I would shoot a new video with audio of me going in to MealBox to find a tasty fish tacos recipe that also happens to be listed in the Top 25 Budget Meals - so a bunch of the ingredients are on sale. Tell me what you think of the video. Have a nice weekend.

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Added by Kevin Thomas on July 31, 2009 at 6:00pm — No Comments

WZZM Video Shows Mom Using MealBox to Save Big on Grocery Bill

Over the holiday weekend, WZZM ran a segment on the evening news showing a stay-at-home mother in Grand Rapids using MealBox to find recipes, plan meals, identify savings and build a shopping list to take to her local Meijer store. Here is the video:

You can see it posted on the WZZM website here. The piece shows her finding recipes with ingredients on sale, stacki… Continue

Added by Kevin Thomas on July 6, 2009 at 10:06am — No Comments

"It’s tougher than ever to plan your finances. But it’s also easier than ever to find help on the ch…

"It’s tougher than ever to plan your finances. But it’s also easier than ever to find help on the cheap. There are a host of Web sites that help you lay out a budget and track your spending and investments. Some let you set up a plan for a long-term goal, like college or retirement, and others offer advice about where to put your money. And many of these services are free of charge. Billeo is one of the best sites and offers a Bill Pay Assistant, A Shopping Assistant and a Password Assistant." Continue

Added by steve on June 16, 2009 at 9:30am — No Comments

A visit to the Wilder Homestead

I grew up on the Laura Ingalls Wilder Little House series of books. Starting with Little House in the Big Woods, I read them cover to cover when I was in 4th grade, and then read them cover to cover again each summer in Quebec up through high school. The pluck and optimism that Laura and her family had, confronted with daily hardships ranging from a plague of grasshoppers to being resettled off Indian lands, inspired me and made me long to live back in the pioneer days. Reading the books… Continue

Added by SAB on June 2, 2009 at 12:00pm — No Comments

Meijer WineList iPhone App Hits the App Store

Last night we released the new WineList iPhone app. Allows you to browse hundreds of wines in the same ways as the widget. Also has new Wine Matrix to browse by intensity gradient. Great way to make wine choices while standing in the aisle of your Meijer store. See screencast video above. Feedback welcome. Continue

Added by Kevin Thomas on May 22, 2009 at 11:19am — No Comments

MB Coupon Tutorial by NW Indiana Deals

Meijer's clarification of its rules on coupon stacking is bringing new fans to MealBox. See this new tutorial on how to print coupons at NW Indiana Deals. Continue

Added by Kevin Thomas on May 19, 2009 at 1:55pm — No Comments

Substantial Salads to Enjoy Through the Week

Some friends and I went to Vancouver last weekend to run the Vancouver Half Marathon. It is a wonderful race, very scenic and friendly, and the organizers and participants were so fun and friendly, we have made it an annual event to trek up there for a girls' weekend. On the way home, famished, we stopped at this incredible store in Vancouver on Granville Street called Meindharts Fine Foods . This store is amazing! Yes, we w… Continue

Added by SAB on May 11, 2009 at 4:30pm — No Comments

MealBox and Grocery Lists in the WSJ

MealBox got ink yesterday in a new piece by Timothy J. Martin in the WSJ. Martin looks at the merits of building weekly grocery lists and offers a useful overview of the tools available to shoppers. One big MealBox advantage that Martin does not include: the ability to use MealBox to build shopping lists based on that week's budget value meal recipes, which showcase recipes with lots of ingredients on sale in your local store.… Continue

Added by Kevin Thomas on May 5, 2009 at 12:30pm — No Comments

Meal Planning Tips from the Caribbean

Caught sight of this in the Jamaica Gleaner: 10 meal planning tips, including "6. Bring back soup Saturday. Soups are often the most delicious one-pot meals in Jamaica." Continue

Added by Kevin Thomas on May 5, 2009 at 12:28pm — No Comments

Rhubarb - Have You Tried It?

Though we have had a cold and rainy spring here in the northwest, one plant in our garden is absolutely thriving: my rhubarb. Rhubarb is a perennial vegetable that is incredibly easy to grow. When we moved to our house, we found a rhubarb plant growing in a corner of the yard. We moved it to a corner of the garden in the mid summer, thinking it may or may not survive being uprooted, and in August, it withered and seemingly died. The following March, however, new sprouts came up and by mid April… Continue

Added by SAB on April 29, 2009 at 3:44pm — No Comments

Thoughts on Asparagus

I’ll throw out a quiz I remember my father giving me when I was a kid: Can you name the three vegetables that are perennials? His answer: Artichokes, Asparagus and Rhubarb. I’m not convinced that Rhubarb is a vegetable – some sources classify it as a fruit, some as a vegetable, but asparagus and artichokes are perennials that will come up in your garden every year. Our first stalk of asparagus appeared late last week, poking its head through the soil toward the sun. For the next four weeks or… Continue

Added by SAB on April 16, 2009 at 6:48pm — No Comments

A Heartfelt Birthday Present

I am a sucker for birthdays. I see them as a celebration of the years past and the years to come. I also look at birthdays as an annual way to connect and say hello or I love you. I may be old fashioned and out of the tech revolution, but I think email birthday greetings are cheap. For my friends and family, I try to send a birthday card in the mail and give the birthday boy or girl a phone call. (This doesn’t mean my birthday greetings are perfectly timed -- ask my brother about his 40th birthd… Continue

Added by SAB on April 13, 2009 at 5:15pm — No Comments

Passion for Meal Planning

Over on the petit elefant blog, a series of posts on meal planning is appearing; here's the first one. Continue

Added by Kevin Thomas on April 13, 2009 at 12:39pm — No Comments

Quick Video Instructions on Saving Money at the Store

Missed this one last month. LittleMissKnowItAll gives us a rapid-fire, five-minute video on saving money at the grocery store. Continue

Added by Kevin Thomas on April 13, 2009 at 12:35pm — No Comments

Bolster Your Food Budget: Grow Vegetables and Fruits at Home

The greenest way to bolster your food budget is also the most enjoyable way: grow a home garden. The National Garden Association, a non-profit organization for gardening education, projects that the number of homes growing vegetables and fruits will increase 40% in 2009 from 2007. In total, over 23 million Americans will buy vegetable seeds for harvest this summer and fall! We couldn’t wait to start a garden when we moved to Bainbridge in 1999. In Seattle, our small and shaded lot could support… Continue

Added by SAB on March 19, 2009 at 8:25pm — 2 Comments

Kraft and Meijer Advertize MealBox on Product Boxes

Engagement with MealBox deepens. Here is a shot of a stack of Velveeta boxes in a Meijer store. The bo… Continue

Added by Kevin Thomas on March 17, 2009 at 9:00am — No Comments

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