Pasta

Lest anyone out there think that my meals are a constant stream of home-cooked, from scratch, organic concoctions, I thought I'd post tonight's dinner.

Pasta. Mini wheels, because they were on sale and I had a coupon, making it $0.50 for a pound.

And jarred sauce. Though I did add one bunch of steamed chard, and used the immersion blender to mix.

Pasta with sauce and chard:
1 lb pasta: 0.50
1 28-oz jar pasta sauce: 1.00
1 bunch chard: 1.00
4 oz grated parmesan: 1.49
Total: 3.99 for 8 servings, or $0.50 per serving.

Though I'll run out of sauce before I hit the 8 servings (only have enough for 6 - use some frozen pesto for the rest, or make a quick sauce with some leftover tomato paste).

And I'm trying to watch my weight, so I did actually measure out the pasta so it will be 8 servings.

Fava Beans

Fava beans are another thing we get from the CSA that I never *really* know what to do with. This week we got 2 lbs. Here's what I did:

Favas with garlic and carrots:
2 lb unshelled favas
1/2 c. shredded carrots
2 stalks celery, diced
2 T. rehydrated dried onion ('cuz I didn't have regular onion)
2 cloves garlic
2 T olive oil
salt and pepper
1 T fresh savory (savory goes well with favas...oh, what do I know. We got savory from the farm.)

Shell the favas. Boil a pot of water, drop in the shelled favas, and boil 3 min. Drain and cool.

When cool, peel the outer skin off the beans.

Saute the celery in the olive oil until soft. Add garlic, onion, savory, and carrots, and saute 1 min. Add favas, saute one min. Add 1/2 cup water, cover, reduce heat, and simmer 15 min. Remove cover and continue to cook until water is evaporated and beans start to brown a bit. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Grocery Budget So Far

An update on the annual grocery budget. Budgetary goal (family of three):

CSA: $850 for the year

in addition:
Odd Months: Jan, Mar, May, etc: $160/month
Even Months: Feb, Apr, June, etc: $300/month

This does not include:
wine (seriously, couldn't fit it in that budget)
soda (I used to have such a bad habit that I gave it its own category. I'm much better now.)
dining out and certain snacks (my husband's desk snacks, and chocolate)
paper products

None of these are huge expenditures, but I want to know what I spend on FOOD. The other food-type products go into "entertainment" category (which I also track).

So far:
Jan: $159.77
Feb: $297.92
Mar: $145.65
Apr (so far): $214.75

Oatmeal

Breakfast...the most important meal of the day, depending on who you ask.

My husband travels a lot. Now, compared to some men, maybe not a lot. But 6 times in four months seems a lot to me, especially when I become a single parent for a few days (while working full time).

I get by with lunches and dinners by cooking two big meals and eating leftovers. Yeah, I get sick of the leftovers after 4-5 days.

Breakfast, however, I don't mind eating the same thing for a week. When we returned from our vacation at 12:30 am last Saturday, our fridge was bare. Dry cheerios were fine for my spouse (he prefers them that way), but I needed something else. So Sunday morning I cooked up a big pot of steel-cut oats (1 cup oats, 4 cups water, boil, reduce heat, and simmer until water is absorbed. Be careful, they will spill over. Stir frequently.)

And thus, I reheated parts of it every day for breakfast, and topped with yummy things, like:
1. diced dates, raisins, and figs, with cinnamon, honey, and toasted almonds
2. homemade plum jam, and more almonds (shown)

One cup of cooked oatmeal is really filling, and pretty cheap. At $1.99/lb for organic steel-cut oats, that comes out to:

1 cup oats = 5.625 ounces (yah, I weighed it): *1.99 per lb / 16 oz per lb = $0.70, for 5 cups.

1 cup cooked oats = $0.14.

Yum! Half an ounce of almonds is $0.11, and you'll have to add a little for fruit, sugar, honey, syrup, whatever. Still a deal. Breakfast for under 50 cents.

Spanish rice

I love Spanish rice. This recipe comes courtesy of Dan Feeney, a cooking instructor for a class I took for a couple of years (it's such a fun class that a lot of people take it over and over). Post-child, it's not in the free time budget.

I've adjusted it a bit...switched from white rice to brown, substituted tomato paste (which I always have) for tomato sauce (which I never have), and most recently - switched it over to the pressure cooker.

The white rice version is good too, and in a regular pot, cooks about as long as the brown rice cooks in the pressure cooker (20 min).

Spanish Rice
1 T. olive oil: 0.11
1 small onion, chopped: 0.20
1.5 cups brown rice: 0.62
2 3/4 cups water
2 cloves garlic, minced: 0.10
1 tsp salt:
1 tsp cumin: 0.03
1 tsp dried parsley: 0.02
1/2 tsp pepper
1 spoonful of tomato paste (about 1/4 of a small can - tablespoon or two):0.08
Total: $1.16 for about 5 cups, 5 servings, $0.23 per serving.

Saute onion in oil until soft and starting to brown. Use pressure cooker if you have it, regular lidded pot if you don't.

Add rice and coat with oil, saute until it starts to brown.

Add remaining ingredients and stir well.

If using a pressure cooker, cover, turn heat to high. When high pressure is reached, turn down until it stays at high pressure. Cook 20 min, remove from heat, allow to return to pressure naturally.

For regular pot, cover, reduce heat and simmer. 20 min for white rice, 45 to 50 min for brown.

My first harvest

Okay, it might not be terribly exciting, but I picked my first two radishes today. Toddler ate 1/2 of one, rest went on my salad.

It's not my first harvest ever (I did have some tomatoes the last two years, green beans the year before).

Hopefully everything else grows well too!

Back from Vacation

It should be no surprise that I prefer to cook, even when on vacation. I don't like gaining weight on vacation. I do enjoy eating out (yum, food!) and the social aspect too. But the social aspect takes a back seat when you have a three year old. And the more I cook, the more disappointed I am in restaurant food.

So on this one-week trip to the east coast (Myrtle Beach, um, brrr), we ate in a fair bit. My sister cooked a delicious dinner our first night there (scallops with mushrooms and spinach). She also stocked us with some delicious banana muffins and coconut cupcakes.

We were in Myrtle Beach for 6 nights. Saturday night was the arrival day, and we just all ordered pizza. Sunday was a night out for Chinese buffet/ Mongolian BBQ. I hadn't planned on going out that night, but Mongolian is a build-your-own stir-fry, so there was the opportunity for lots of veggies (not terribly common in the South).

Monday, we ate in (spaghetti and salad)
Tuesday, out again (Mexican). Turns out Mexican, when you are trying to be vegetarian, isn't very good. Mostly a lot of cheese. This is also true in many California restaurants, so I'm not blaming South Carolina.
Weds, in (veggie burgers and broccoli, bean salad)
Thurs, out (a steak place, I got seafood and chicken. More meat than my body is used to, so I wasn't feeling too well after that).
Fri, out (we were en route back to Raleigh to fly out). We ate at Ruby Tuesday's. Can I tell you how much I love this place? Ate there last year too. They have brown rice and broccoli on the menu!

Saturday...well, that was the fiasco of a trip back (9 hours in the Houston airport...if I never see it again, it will be too soon). We didn't actually get dinner because we flew standby on a flight we didn't expect to get on. Oops. We luckily (because it's how I am), had a plethora of carbs in my backpack (chocolate, pretzels - thanks Sis!!, animal crackers, nuts, raisins, carrot sticks, and granola bars). Dinner was actually 13 hours after lunch, at 11:15 pm, Taco Bell drive-through half way into our 2 hour drive home. And don't even get me started on the hotel - the 11:15 pm fire alarm and the teenagers who were yelling and running down the halls at 2 am!!

Breakfasts and lunches were eaten in. For lunch every day, I had a middle-eastern sandwich. Flatbread, hummus, red onion, red pepper, olives, balsamic dressing, cucumber, and feta. I never took a picture. But it was GOOD. Despite a daily run or walk on the beach, and 50 pushups a day for a few days, I gained a pound or two. Eh.

Our 3-year old had an awesome time too. Thoroughly spoiled by cousins, aunties, parents, and farmor. His first words after waking from the nap the day we left was "Where's farmor?" And then a few more times "I want to go get her".

Now we're back home to 95 degree weather. I am not joking. Hubby is off to ANOTHER business trip. And I'm making falafel and caponata and lots of good veggies. Stay tuned for a spanish rice recipe.