Tis true, I have not been updating regularly. But rest assured, I have been continuing to observe the challenge and have cooked several delicious dishes since the last entry.
First, I must admit to a restaurant meal. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I had no choice. On Wednesday I had to go to Lexington for work stuff. Traditionally, one of my colleagues in our Lexington office would have taken me out to lunch, which is also technically against the rules, but I would have let it slide for the sake of professional relations. However, this did not come to pass, and I was stranded in Lexington without my trusty lunch bag. So I went to a nearby Indian buffet and had a plate of food, a couple gulab jamun, and an iced tea. Is that so wrong?
Highlights from the last week or so of the challenge:
- We made this chili recipe on the recommendation of one of my coworkers. It was good. I enjoyed the vegetables.
- My mom tried to get me to meet her for lunch last Saturday, but I talked her into coming over for breakfast instead. I made this spinach quiche (an old standby) and these raspberry muffins. Delish.
- We had a picnic in Cherokee Park consisting of pimento cheese sandwiches, chips and salsa, and grapes. Not very exciting or exotic, but it was the first warm day of the year, and after lunch we both read for a while and fell asleep in the sun. Perfect.
- Neil and I have this joke about him hating lentils. He doesn't, really; it's more that he hates the idea of lentils because they sound like dirty hippie food to him. I was determined to show him how yummy lentils can be, so I made this red lentil curry recipe. It didn't have quite the complexity of flavor that it seemed like it should, but it was still really, really good.
- Thursday night we made this recipe for ginger scallops. Neil wanted to invite our friend Devon over for dinner, and I wasn't too enthusiastic about this, because the other times I've cooked scallops they've turned out quite mediocre. And Devon is a really good cook, so I didn't want to embarrass myself. But we ended up getting good scallop-cooking advice from Devon, and dinner was fantastic. The secret to searing scallops: use an oil with a high smoke point, or if you don't have any such oil (we didn't), use a combination of olive oil and butter. Turn it up high and cook the scallops one minute per side. We did that and then added the scallops to the ginger sauce. Mmmmm. I love scallops and now I know how to cook them properly. Hooray!
- Last night we made panang curry using this recipe, another favorite I've made before. I also used these instructions for dry frying the tofu. The tofu turned out great. The curry was both delicious and inedible. Life lesson learned: do not let Neil measure the curry paste. The recipe calls for 2-3 tablespoons. Every time I've made this recipe I've used 2, and it's been just right. But Neil is a heat junkie and added a third. We also used a different brand of curry paste than we usually do, so that may have accounted for some of the heat as well. At any rate, I can't eat any more of it. I only made it through dinner by drinking two big glasses of milk with it. And I never drink milk. I probably haven't had a glass of milk with dinner since I was 12. Anyway, I think I might make this again this week with much less curry paste, because it's soooooo good.
We're just about halfway through our 30 days. It's still fun. I somehow magically have energy to come home and cook dinner; I guess knowing that I have no choice is enough to get me started, and once I start doing it I realize I'm having a really good time. One thing I'm not sure we're doing though is saving a whole lot of money. I mean, surely we are. There is no way that $100 at restaurants could go as far as $100 at the grocery store. But last month we spent $406 on groceries, and this month we've already spent $412. So we are on track to spend over $800 this month on groceries. And we don't even eat meat! Since we've never really done regular grocery shopping, we're not in the habit of shopping with an eye toward value. We save coupons but never remember to take them to the store with us. And I really have no idea what foods are more expensive than others or how much things are supposed to cost. I guess as we continue to shop we'll get better at this.
I have photos of several of the meals we've made lately, but it's Saturday morning and the camera is in the other room and I'm lazy right now. I'll do a photo post soon!
Friday, March 13, 2009
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Day 5
You don't really care about breakfast and lunch, do you? Blah blah, yogurt and cereal, blah blah, sandwich and salad and grapes, etc. etc. You're here for dinner, aren't you?
Tonight's dinner goes on record as one of the better things I've ever cooked. This was serious, restaurant-quality tastiness. Which is doubly impressive considering that I'd never before cooked the two main ingredients, greens and polenta.
I give you...
Polenta squares with gorgonzola cream, braised greens, and cannellini beans
Not only had I never cooked greens, I wasn't even sure if I liked them. I don't recall my mom ever making them when I was a kid. I do remember her cooking kale for herself when I was a teenager and it stinking up the whole house. (I remember this so clearly: I walked in the back door with my friend Jamie and said "God, what's that smell?!" Years later Jamie I still talk about this.)
Anyway. The recipe said I could use whatever greens I fancied, so I chose mustard, totally at random. Basically how this all worked is that I cooked the greens down in a skillet with some onion and garlic, and then added a can of cannellini beans. The sauce consisted of half-and-half, gorgonzola, garlic, and rosemary; all it needed to do was come to a simmer and get properly melty. The polenta that I cooked last night was cut into triangles, dredged in flour, and fried. The whole thing was a little time-consuming, but fairly easy.
Neil observed that the gorgonzola sauce was a little overwhelming and might work better with a milder blue cheese. I did think that it drowned out the other flavors in the dish a bit, but it was still awfully good (I'm a sucker for overbearing cheese). It turns out that I do like greens, quite a bit, and the beans were a nice complement. The fried polenta was awesome. In fact, there's quite a bit leftover that hasn't been fried yet, and I think it's going to be a cornbread-esqe side dish when I make chili in a few days. I am now quite interested in polenta and excited to see what else I can do with it.
I would share the full recipe with you - from Vegetarian Suppers from Deborah Madison's Kitchen - but the recipe actually contains two other recipes from the book, Polenta Cooked in the Double Boiler and Braised Mixed Greens and Garlicky Beans, so it would be a huge pain to transcribe. If anyone is really interested let me know and I'll get Neil to scan it and then just send it to you.
Now we're approaching the worst part of the week for eating at home: the weekend. I've already turned down lunch with my mother, even though she offered to buy. The buying is not the point, at least not all of it. It's the thought and the effort that goes into preparing my own food, even if it's just making a sandwich or heating up some soup.
So far I am really, really enjoying this project. Toward the end of February we had two very good dinners - one at Osaka, and one at Cafe LouLou - that totaled $129. We spent less than that at the store last night and got enough food to last a week. Don't get me wrong; I think Cafe LouLou and Osaka both serve great food that is worth the price we paid. But from a budget standpoint, Neil and I need to learn that meals like that should not be an everyday occurrence. Or at least not until one of us has a substantial increase in income.
I feel like I'm really having a major shift in my perspective on food as a result of all of this, but I'm tired and I want to go read. I will save that to blather about in another entry.
Tonight's dinner goes on record as one of the better things I've ever cooked. This was serious, restaurant-quality tastiness. Which is doubly impressive considering that I'd never before cooked the two main ingredients, greens and polenta.
I give you...
Polenta squares with gorgonzola cream, braised greens, and cannellini beans
Not only had I never cooked greens, I wasn't even sure if I liked them. I don't recall my mom ever making them when I was a kid. I do remember her cooking kale for herself when I was a teenager and it stinking up the whole house. (I remember this so clearly: I walked in the back door with my friend Jamie and said "God, what's that smell?!" Years later Jamie I still talk about this.)
Anyway. The recipe said I could use whatever greens I fancied, so I chose mustard, totally at random. Basically how this all worked is that I cooked the greens down in a skillet with some onion and garlic, and then added a can of cannellini beans. The sauce consisted of half-and-half, gorgonzola, garlic, and rosemary; all it needed to do was come to a simmer and get properly melty. The polenta that I cooked last night was cut into triangles, dredged in flour, and fried. The whole thing was a little time-consuming, but fairly easy.
Neil observed that the gorgonzola sauce was a little overwhelming and might work better with a milder blue cheese. I did think that it drowned out the other flavors in the dish a bit, but it was still awfully good (I'm a sucker for overbearing cheese). It turns out that I do like greens, quite a bit, and the beans were a nice complement. The fried polenta was awesome. In fact, there's quite a bit leftover that hasn't been fried yet, and I think it's going to be a cornbread-esqe side dish when I make chili in a few days. I am now quite interested in polenta and excited to see what else I can do with it.
I would share the full recipe with you - from Vegetarian Suppers from Deborah Madison's Kitchen - but the recipe actually contains two other recipes from the book, Polenta Cooked in the Double Boiler and Braised Mixed Greens and Garlicky Beans, so it would be a huge pain to transcribe. If anyone is really interested let me know and I'll get Neil to scan it and then just send it to you.
Now we're approaching the worst part of the week for eating at home: the weekend. I've already turned down lunch with my mother, even though she offered to buy. The buying is not the point, at least not all of it. It's the thought and the effort that goes into preparing my own food, even if it's just making a sandwich or heating up some soup.
So far I am really, really enjoying this project. Toward the end of February we had two very good dinners - one at Osaka, and one at Cafe LouLou - that totaled $129. We spent less than that at the store last night and got enough food to last a week. Don't get me wrong; I think Cafe LouLou and Osaka both serve great food that is worth the price we paid. But from a budget standpoint, Neil and I need to learn that meals like that should not be an everyday occurrence. Or at least not until one of us has a substantial increase in income.
I feel like I'm really having a major shift in my perspective on food as a result of all of this, but I'm tired and I want to go read. I will save that to blather about in another entry.
Day 4
Breakfast
Neil had his usual yogurt and cereal. I skipped it, as I often do.
Lunch
Soup and tuna sandwich for me, Caesar salad and tuna sandwich for Neil
Dinner
Taco salad:
I admit that it doesn't get a lot of points for presentation, but it's so quick and tasty. Brown up some ground whatever (in our case Quorn), add some taco seasoning (at which point the Quorn becomes virtually indistinguishable from ground beef), and put it in a bowl with some tortilla chips, refried black beans, shredded cheese, lettuce, sour cream, guacamole, and salsa (or whatever you like - you know how this faux Mexican thing works). This satisfies my guilt-riddled love of the Taco Bell taco salad without being so disgusting and bad for me.
In other news, yesterday we finally went to the grocery store. Two grocery stores, actually, because Kroger was out of zuccinni (the produce clerk blamed Senior Citizen Day) and didn't have the corn meal I was looking for. So we went to ValuMarket as well. We spent a little over $100 and got enough food for three dinner recipes (that will each feed us at least twice), some sandwich fixings for lunch (PB&J and pimento cheese), and some snacky things like fruit, carrots, crackers, etc. It's kind of neat to know that if I get hungry, I can just go into the kitchen and get something to eat!
I'm excited about tonight's dinner, and I can't wait to blog about it. It's polenta squares with gorgonzola cream, braised greens, and cannellini beans. I have never cooked polenta, greens, or cannellini beans before. The polenta has to be cooked in a double boiler, allowed to cool in a rectangular pan, sliced up, and fried. In the interest of not eating at midnight tonight, I made the polenta last night. It was reeeeally good just by itself, and I can't wait to fry it up and slather it in gorgonzola cream sauce!
Neil had his usual yogurt and cereal. I skipped it, as I often do.
Lunch
Soup and tuna sandwich for me, Caesar salad and tuna sandwich for Neil
Dinner
Taco salad:
I admit that it doesn't get a lot of points for presentation, but it's so quick and tasty. Brown up some ground whatever (in our case Quorn), add some taco seasoning (at which point the Quorn becomes virtually indistinguishable from ground beef), and put it in a bowl with some tortilla chips, refried black beans, shredded cheese, lettuce, sour cream, guacamole, and salsa (or whatever you like - you know how this faux Mexican thing works). This satisfies my guilt-riddled love of the Taco Bell taco salad without being so disgusting and bad for me.
In other news, yesterday we finally went to the grocery store. Two grocery stores, actually, because Kroger was out of zuccinni (the produce clerk blamed Senior Citizen Day) and didn't have the corn meal I was looking for. So we went to ValuMarket as well. We spent a little over $100 and got enough food for three dinner recipes (that will each feed us at least twice), some sandwich fixings for lunch (PB&J and pimento cheese), and some snacky things like fruit, carrots, crackers, etc. It's kind of neat to know that if I get hungry, I can just go into the kitchen and get something to eat!
I'm excited about tonight's dinner, and I can't wait to blog about it. It's polenta squares with gorgonzola cream, braised greens, and cannellini beans. I have never cooked polenta, greens, or cannellini beans before. The polenta has to be cooked in a double boiler, allowed to cool in a rectangular pan, sliced up, and fried. In the interest of not eating at midnight tonight, I made the polenta last night. It was reeeeally good just by itself, and I can't wait to fry it up and slather it in gorgonzola cream sauce!
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
30 Days of Home Cookin'
The past few months have seen me grow extraordinarily lazy. Part of it is just winter, and part of it is, I think, an economy-induced case of the blahs. Whatever the reason, I've been putting very little thought into my food lately. Oh, I've still been enjoying it, but only to the extent that I go somewhere else to eat it (or pick it up and bring it home). I've hardly been cooking at all.
Toward the end of February, I had an idea. I posted the following on LiveJournal (and Facebook):
This is going to be quite a challenge, because we go out to eat all the time. And I also have mixed feelings about a month of not supporting Louisville's wonderful local restaurants, since so many of them are hurting right now. But I think I can justify this to myself by thinking about how over the last several months, we've spent way more than our fair share dining out. It's only 30 days. And come April, we're going to go have a really nice dinner somewhere (and resume restaurant dining in general, though hopefully a bit scaled back).
Blog Tartare hasn't been getting much love from me lately, and I thought this would be a fun project to blog about. I'm sure I won't get to it every day, but hopefully I can keep a pretty good record of what we've been eating instead of eating out constantly. For a baseline, let me share this with you. Last month, according to the checking account (so there's a few days' margin of error), we ate at:
La Rosita
Sol Azteca
Cafe LouLou
Red Robin
Sitar
KenTex
New Albanian
Shapiro's
Hing Wang (I've never heard of this; must be something of Neil's)
Panera
Moe's
Double Dragon
Lunch Today
City Cafe
Cracker Barrel
Vietnam Kitchen
Lynn's Paradise Cafe
Big Boy
Papa John's
McDonald's
Pizza Hut
Dairy Queen
Qdoba
Osaka
Applebee's (I will own the other crappy chains on this list, but not this one; my coworkers forced me to go there.)
Wow. Having typed all that out, I'm rather embarrassed. When did we become incapable of buying raw food and preparing it ourselves?! Do you see now why we need this project??
Here's how it's gone so far:
March 1
Breakfast: Scrambled eggs with cheese and bits of leftover fake peperoni, toast, grapefruit.
Lunch: We skipped it, but had some cottage cheese and apple sauce as a snack.
Dinner: Cooked for my parents and Neil's mom and step-dad. A somewhat bland blue cheese fettuccine, Caesar salad, bread with olive oil. (My mom brought a delicious cake for dessert.)
March 2
Breakfast: Cottage cheese and apple sauce for me, yogurt and granola for Neil.
Lunch: Oh crap! I forgot to bring lunch. I went to Kroger and got soup from their soup bar, which is perilously close to going out to eat. But I got the 16 oz cup so I'd have two days' worth. I think Neil had a fake turkey sandwich.
Dinner: Quorn Cranberry & Goat Cheese Chik'n Cutlet, half a baked potato each (we only had one potato in the house), salad, leftover cake.
March 3
Breakfast: Same as the day before.
Lunch: For me, leftover soup and salad I brought from home. I know Neil also took salad but I don't know what else he had.
Dinner: Plans to cook a real meal were foiled by the fact that I got a ticket Saturday night for driving around with tags that expired in October. After working an hour and a half late, I had to go to the county clerk and deal with that. Then Neil had band practice at 8:00. So we squeezed in some soup (Pacific Natural Foods Cashew Carrot Ginger) and grilled cheese.
And that brings us to right now, when I just had some more leftover cake and another cup of tea.
What's really making this whole thing interesting is that while I've made a grocery list, I haven't actually been shopping yet. And as I'm sure you can imagine from the above list of restaurants, we don't keep a lot of food in the house (when would we eat it?). I hate grocery shopping and I have decided to put it off until tomorrow night (unless Neil comes home from practice and somehow motivates me to go now, even though I'm already in my PJs), so I will have to come up with something for lunch tomorrow based on our limited supply of consumables. I'm thinking tuna sandwiches. I'm sure my co-workers will love me tomorrow.
Toward the end of February, I had an idea. I posted the following on LiveJournal (and Facebook):
Neil and I are trying an experiment in which we will not go out to eat during the entire month of March. Occasionally we add up the amount of money we spend dining out and it's always a totally ridiculous number. I know the local restaurant community is hurting right now, but we really want to try this and see how much money we save in a month.
If anyone else out there in LJ Land feels that they are also burning through way too much money going out to eat, feel free to join us!
Local friends, we need your help. Yes, we want to see you, but no, we cannot go out to eat with you. Expect to be invited over for dinner in the coming month. Or invite us over for dinner. Or, when the weather gets better, lets go on a picnic.
I'm actually really excited about this. I've been so lazy about cooking lately. It feels pleasantly challenging knowing that I have to plan meals, grocery shop, and cook. Of course not every meal is going to be some big production, especially not the nights I work late, and I imagine there will be a frozen pizza in the mix at least once. But I'm excited that this will force me to get back in the cooking habit. I know we're going to save a ton of money, and I wouldn't be surprised if we lost weight too.
This is going to be quite a challenge, because we go out to eat all the time. And I also have mixed feelings about a month of not supporting Louisville's wonderful local restaurants, since so many of them are hurting right now. But I think I can justify this to myself by thinking about how over the last several months, we've spent way more than our fair share dining out. It's only 30 days. And come April, we're going to go have a really nice dinner somewhere (and resume restaurant dining in general, though hopefully a bit scaled back).
Blog Tartare hasn't been getting much love from me lately, and I thought this would be a fun project to blog about. I'm sure I won't get to it every day, but hopefully I can keep a pretty good record of what we've been eating instead of eating out constantly. For a baseline, let me share this with you. Last month, according to the checking account (so there's a few days' margin of error), we ate at:
La Rosita
Sol Azteca
Cafe LouLou
Red Robin
Sitar
KenTex
New Albanian
Shapiro's
Hing Wang (I've never heard of this; must be something of Neil's)
Panera
Moe's
Double Dragon
Lunch Today
City Cafe
Cracker Barrel
Vietnam Kitchen
Lynn's Paradise Cafe
Big Boy
Papa John's
McDonald's
Pizza Hut
Dairy Queen
Qdoba
Osaka
Applebee's (I will own the other crappy chains on this list, but not this one; my coworkers forced me to go there.)
Wow. Having typed all that out, I'm rather embarrassed. When did we become incapable of buying raw food and preparing it ourselves?! Do you see now why we need this project??
Here's how it's gone so far:
March 1
Breakfast: Scrambled eggs with cheese and bits of leftover fake peperoni, toast, grapefruit.
Lunch: We skipped it, but had some cottage cheese and apple sauce as a snack.
Dinner: Cooked for my parents and Neil's mom and step-dad. A somewhat bland blue cheese fettuccine, Caesar salad, bread with olive oil. (My mom brought a delicious cake for dessert.)
March 2
Breakfast: Cottage cheese and apple sauce for me, yogurt and granola for Neil.
Lunch: Oh crap! I forgot to bring lunch. I went to Kroger and got soup from their soup bar, which is perilously close to going out to eat. But I got the 16 oz cup so I'd have two days' worth. I think Neil had a fake turkey sandwich.
Dinner: Quorn Cranberry & Goat Cheese Chik'n Cutlet, half a baked potato each (we only had one potato in the house), salad, leftover cake.
March 3
Breakfast: Same as the day before.
Lunch: For me, leftover soup and salad I brought from home. I know Neil also took salad but I don't know what else he had.
Dinner: Plans to cook a real meal were foiled by the fact that I got a ticket Saturday night for driving around with tags that expired in October. After working an hour and a half late, I had to go to the county clerk and deal with that. Then Neil had band practice at 8:00. So we squeezed in some soup (Pacific Natural Foods Cashew Carrot Ginger) and grilled cheese.
And that brings us to right now, when I just had some more leftover cake and another cup of tea.
What's really making this whole thing interesting is that while I've made a grocery list, I haven't actually been shopping yet. And as I'm sure you can imagine from the above list of restaurants, we don't keep a lot of food in the house (when would we eat it?). I hate grocery shopping and I have decided to put it off until tomorrow night (unless Neil comes home from practice and somehow motivates me to go now, even though I'm already in my PJs), so I will have to come up with something for lunch tomorrow based on our limited supply of consumables. I'm thinking tuna sandwiches. I'm sure my co-workers will love me tomorrow.
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