El Nino Tuesday...with pictures, a budget, and menu

Unlike this picture taken last week after we received our Full Circle Farm CSA delivery, our fruit bowl is looking rather sad today. That's the thing about waiting until Tuesday for a produce delivery--you can find yourself rustling through eight limes and an apple in search of a little snack. Our vegetable drawers are looking equally dismal: five lonely carrots thumping about in the bottom drawer, and a few heads of romaine trying to look brave.

I guess it's one way to make Tuesdays take a walk on the wild side. I feel like it's Christmas today. I'm rubbing my hands together in glee, waiting for our produce to arrive.

Cora's sleeping and I should be, too. I'm recovering from a cold. It could be me, but I think it sucks to be pregnant, sick, running around with a toddler, AND not be able to take any kind of medicine. But anyway. Here I am. Instead of napping soundly, I'm going to write about food again. Which is becoming a trend, I admit. It's not that I think I am going to permanently veer into the world of food blogging, I'm just interested in this right now. I think it's contagious. In fact, as I was tucking Cora in for her nap, she drowsily looked up at me and said, "Mommy, someday soon we're going to have a garden."

One reason she's so excited about having a garden is because of a story called First Tomato, by Rosemary Wells (found in her book, Voyage to the Bunny Planet). In it, Ruby has a difficult day at school and daydreams about the Bunny Planet on her bus ride home. She flies to the Bunny Planet, where her mother asks her to pick the first tomato from their garden. Ruby puts on boots and a coat and runs outside by herself with a basket, where she harvests vegetables and the very first, red tomato from the vine. Her mother makes her First Tomato Soup "because she loves her so." I sing Cora a song based on the book and we've talked about going out to the garden and picking our very own food. I like that it is something she considers before drifting off to sleep.

We're all excited about the prospect of filling our fruit bowl with apples and pears from our trees, and bringing in baskets of green beans and peas, carrots and tomatoes and lettuce and broccoli and all the good things we hope to harvest from our garden. We're building the raised beds this month and hope to plant our first starts in early March.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Ahem. I meant to quickly log on to show you a few pictures because, well, my blog is dreadfully bare of them. I'm trying to be better about that. So here goes.

Today we were supposed to meet Brian for a picnic to celebrate a sunny, El Nino Tuesday. Just as we were about to jet out of the house with our tasty wares, he called and told us he was still in a meeting. So we unwrapped our sandwiches and plunked down our various containers of fruit and puffs and raisins and had a picnic in our kitchen. Here's Cora sampling the grapes:



And this is where I might make you laugh. That is, if you're one of those normal people who has no experience with gluten-free bread. The thing is, if you're accustomed to buying gluten-free bread at the store, you know the drill: you have to toast it to make it taste edible. That's how my life has been since I was 12. However, fast-forward to these last three months of baking my own bread, and you might stumble into my kitchen and wonder why one earth I'm taking pictures of my sandwich:



I didn't plan to take these pictures. I admit they're not the most artful, or in focus, or perfectly arranged, but they're real. They were quickly unwrapped and photographed just so I could post them here. But you do see, right? It's all there: mustard, jack cheese, tomato, romaine, stacked turkey, mayo, a sprinkle of black pepper. It's not just because I'm pregnant, I don't think, that I took such joy in eating this delectable little bit of goodness. I seriously thought I'd gone to heaven. I made the bread yesterday and it's soft and filled with seeds and gluten-free oatmeal, and it tastes hearty and soft and absolutely perfect, and it's not toasted, and it just makes me happy. I've been tinkering around with a couple of recipes and I'll post one for it someday soon, I just want to make sure it works every time. (In the meantime, if you're dying for delicious GF bread, look to this delicious recipe by Gluten Free Green Mommy.) It makes me happy to cut up a sandwich into pieces for Cora's little hands, too:



After our lunch, we tramped up to our park and I watched Cora race around in the sun. She was happy to swing for a full 10 minutes, which is unusual. I think it was because she was busy soaking up the sun.

JANUARY BUDGET UPDATE
Alrighty. We spent about $650 on groceries (including food and household supplies like dish soap, sponges, shampoo, toothpaste, and pull-ups) in January. We went out to two lunches and one dinner together, and Brian went out to about four in all with colleagues and friends. We both bought coffee and tea, too, on more than several occasions. I haven't added up the cost of those outings line by line, but I think they all add up to about $120. This is most definitely a significant savings over what we were spending last year.

FEBRUARY BUDGET GOAL
This month I hope to spend at or under $600 on groceries. I've already spent $280 on a couple of big trips to Trader Joe's and Whole Foods, and we're fairly well stocked on the basics. We've bumped up our CSA delivery to the Family size (total monthly cost: $156), which I hope will give us a bit more to work with each week, and I plan to keep my weekly trips to the store very minimal--to purchase dairy, poultry or fish, and some kind of "treat" to round out the week. This could be sliced turkey for sandwiches, a chocolate bar or fancy cheese or wine, additional produce, or something uber-prepared to make a few meals more easy. We have about $150 to portion out over the next four weeks, or about $40 each week. Does that sound crazy? I don't know. I'm curious.

As you know, I plan all our meals around the weekly CSA delivery. This week I had a slightly more difficult time planning the menu, and I realized it was because our delivery was missing a winter green (like kale, chard, collard, etc.). I love hearty greens. And we're out of onions. So I purchased these items through Full Circle Farm's Green Grocer, as indicated below. (I bought $3.50 worth of garlic through the Green Grocer a couple of weeks ago and received eight lovely heads of garlic. I was impressed.)

Here's this week's CSA delivery:
0.75 pound Snow Peas
2 each Golden Bell Peppers
1.75 pounds La Ratte Potatoes FCF
3 each Avocados
0.66 pound Baby Spinach
1 each Romaine Lettuce
1 each Celery
1.5 pounds Roma Tomatoes
0.66 pound Cremini Mushrooms *
6 each Braeburn Apples *
6 each Navel Oranges
6 each Fuji Apples *
5 each D'anjou Pears *
*Grown in the Northwest.

Items from the Green Grocer:
1 bag Green Kale $3.49
1 bag Yellow Onions * $1.49

Here is this week's menu:

Monday:
Pasta salad with romaine, tomatoes, mushrooms, onions, and chicken sausage. (And leftover turkey chili for those who want it.)

Tuesday:
Stir-fried snow peas, chicken, Cremini mushrooms, and baby spinach, with a ginger-garlic-tamari sauce; and steamed Jasmine white rice.

Wednesday:
Party/dinner with friends at their house.

Thursday:
Dinner with a friend at our house. Soft homemade GF flour tacos with Mexican brown rice, refried pinto beans, roasted mushrooms, peppers and onions, guacamole, romaine lettuce, black olives, Jack cheese, and salsa. (Make this in stages so it’s not so work-intensive.)

Friday:
Chicken Caesar salad and roasted potatoes.

Saturday:
Salmon noodle casserole with green peas, and apple-blueberry cobbler.

Sunday:
Toasted buckwheat (kasha) pilaf with sunflower seeds, and sautéed kale and chicken in garlic and olive oil.

An Insight Into Local Hunger

Please take a moment to check out Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef's delicious, inspiring blog, especially this week's post that discusses the maximum food assistance for individuals living in King County.

That's $7/day.

For a family like us, or for Shauna, Dan, and their little bean, the maximum allowed is $18/day. That's $540/month.

The comments on Shauna's post are equally inspiring and informative. Give them a look, too. You'll be glad you did.

Oddly, $540 is just around the amount I'd like to spend per month. Why? Because I think that's all we need. I think we can eat well--organically, locally, deliciously--on that amount. But I am deeply grateful that it is a choice for us, an exciting challenge, a health investment, a way to accelerate our student loan repayments. Not a necessity. Not a do-or-die situation. Not scrounging for change or eating food that is nutritionally compromised. There are so many people who are hungry tonight--not just in third world countries, not just in the devastation of Haiti, but somewhere in your own neighborhood. And they're trying to eat on less than that.

I remember counting change with my mom during one of our more haunting episodes into her newly single motherhood, just post-separation from my dad, trying to figure out how to buy some food. We had to live on assistance for a brief time, and I remember it being so difficult for my mom to deal with that reality. I didn't care. I was too young to mind. But I never went hungry. I never got home and looked in an empty refrigerator or tried to make tomato soup from ketchup. There was a rule in our home that we ate for good health. It was my mom's best health insurance plan, she said. We were vegan at the time, which certainly helped financially. In our house, food was our first priority.

It has to be.

Just think of it. Hunger. Kids, adults, elderly. There's nothing like looking at the world through empty, hungry eyes. Perspectives shift. Faith fails.

I feel grateful tonight. And I am inspired to give to our local food banks on an ongoing basis.

Weekly Menu and Salmon & Potato Salad Recipe

We just switched to a Family sized CSA produce box for delivery next week. This week we received another Standard size. I am pleased with the service. In fact, there has consistently been such a vast improvement over our first order that I think we'll stick with Full Circle Farm.

Here's what we received from Full Circle Farm this week:
1 bunch Broccolette
2 each Red Bell Peppers
1 pound Red Thumb Fingerling Potatoes FCF
1 pound Roma Tomatoes
1 each Bunched Orange Carrots
0.33 pound Baby Spinach
1 each Red Leaf Lettuce
0.4 pound Cremini Mushrooms *
3 each Comice Pears *
4 each Fuji Apples *
4 each Braeburn Apples *
4 each Navel Oranges
*Grown in the Northwest

Here's this week's menu:
Monday:
Indian food at Bengal Tiger on Roosevelt. Yum!

Tuesday:
Quinoa and brown rice pilaf and sauteed broccolette with soy sauce, green beans and tofu.

Wednesday:
Baked salmon, steamed green beans, and red potato salad with red peppers and fresh baby spinach dressed in an olive oil-garlic-herb vinaigrette. (See below for recipe.)

Thursday:
Soft tacos with whole garlic-cumin pinto beans, chili brown rice, baby spinach, roma tomatoes, black olives, jack cheese, and roasted chili and tomatillo salsa.

Friday:
Cannellini bean and pasta soup.

Saturday:
Dinner with friends. Homemade pizzas with GF and wheat crusts, Italian chicken sausage, red peppers, roma tomatoes, black olives, crimini mushrooms, yellow onions, and mozzarella. (We'll customize them for vegetarian or kids' preferences.)

Sunday:
Cream of carrot soup, fresh GF sunflower rolls, and a spinach and red lettuce salad with shaved apple.


BAKED SALMON with RED POTATO SALAD
Serves 4

1.5 pounds Wild Alaskan Salmon fillets
Soy sauce
Olive oil
Paprika
Ginger powder or fresh grated ginger
Salt and pepper
Optional: 1-3 T butter

8-10 medium red potatoes
2-3 cups washed baby spinach
1 red pepper, chopped into 1/4" pieces
Paprika

Dressing:
Equal parts olive oil, grapeseed oil, and apple cider vinegar (or to taste), to equal about 1.5 cups
1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
Ume plum vinegar, to taste
1 T Italian seasoning
1 t dill
2 T minced onion
3 small garlic cloves, pressed
Salt and pepper to taste

Salmon:
Drizzle olive oil and soy sauce over salmon fillets--enough that you produce adequate sauce to cover the bottom of the baking pan and guarantee a little leftover to spoon over each fillet when serving. Use about 2 parts olive oil to 1 part soy sauce. S

Sprinkle a small amount of ginger powder over each fillet (or, even better, use a small amount of fresh grated ginger), sprinkle each fillet liberally with paprika, and finish with a small dash of sea salt and ground pepper.

Marinate in the refrigerator until ready to bake.

Bake at 400 until salmon is tender and flakes with a fork.

Optional: For a more tender fillet, dot the fish with small cubes of butter.

Potato salad:
I served this cold, but I think it would also be excellent served warm.

Cut potatoes into quarters and boil in salted water until tender but not mushy. Drain (and cool if you're serving a cold salad). Add spinach and red pepper and toss thoroughly.

For the dressing, follow your intuition and taste buds and use my portions as a guide only. Ume Plum vinegar is a wonderful flavor to add to this dressing, offering a tangy, salty boost that I love to add to nearly every salad dressing I make, but it is not necessary. You might prefer to skip the onions or garlic or add chopped fresh herbs or substitute chives or green onions--all would be great ideas. I combined the ingredients and shook them in a jar to thoroughly incorporate.

Dress to taste. I dressed the potatoes lightly with about 2 tablespoons of dressing. Because of the garlic, this made for a flavorful dish without very much dressing at all--you might prefer more; also consider serving additional dressing at the table for those who prefer it.

Sprinkle potatoes with paprika before serving.

Budget Update and Weekly Menu

Bread is cooling on the stove. The house is filled with the smell of yeast and grain. All the windows are open to let in the sunny air and sounds of birds. It's a beautiful day.

My favorite meal this week was creamy parmesan polenta cakes with turkey-artichoke heart pasta sauce. The parmesan polenta recipe came from Moosewood Cookbook. The turkey pasta sauce was inspired by Joy of Cooking. See below for a recipe if you're interested. (No picture yet; I'm still not in the habit of photographing my food, but I'm trying to remember to do so.)

We didn't end up making stuffed cabbage. We weren't in the mood for it, so we made a fresh broccoli-cabbage slaw inspired by Gluten-Free Girl and The Chef. We didn't have brussels sprouts or Napa cabbage, so I used endive, radicchio, and green cabbage instead, and added julienne carrots (1 carrot) and toasted sunflower seeds (3 TBSP). I followed their dressing recipe exactly. We served it with rice pilaf and sauteed mushrooms. Delicious.

Alright, so we're over our budgeting goal for January. I'm at $638 for this month. We ran out of some essentials: butter, almond butter, and eggs. I also bought mozzarella cheese (I'm having a pizza craving) potatoes, olives, apples, and raspberry and blueberry jams.

Here's what I'm noticing about our new budget, health goals, and attempt to do a monthly shopping trip:

*It has inspired me to cook everything from scratch. So far I haven't opened a package, jar, or can in two weeks, except for the bags of frozen food in the freezer, our almond butter and jam, and some mayonnaise and mustard for a salad (although, as soon as the mayonnaise is gone, I'm going to start making ours from scratch...and I'm thinking I should do the same with the jam). The creative process of cooking from recipes and from instinct has been a total joy.

*I have discovered the incredible pleasure of making and eating warm, homemade tortillas. I love the way the dough feels in my hands when I roll it out on a lightly dusted counter top, and the way the tortilla peels off the surface of a hot pan.

*I've been baking a great deal: GF breads, cookies, muffins, crumbles. It's part seasonal (I always bake more in the winter than any other time of year), and partly because I've committed to making everything from scratch.

*I love dessert. It makes me happy to sit down at the end of a long day and dig into a warm dish of apple-blueberry crumble. Amy over at Dish inspired me to make an apple pie that I hope will taste as good as hers looks.

*It's easier to create weekly recipes based on what you have, rather than what you plan to buy. My weekly CSA box deliveries shape our weekly menu, in addition to what I know I already have in the cupboards and freezer.

*I think we need to bump up our CSA delivery box contents to the Family size, which is designed for a family of four. The Standard size (what we receive now) is designed for two adults and a small child. I thought it would be perfect for us, but because our family lives for good produce and fruit, I think we need a bit more. That will bump us up to $160/month on produce.

*Next month I'm going to try going to the store either weekly or biweekly, but limiting my total grocery purchases to $400, if possible, resulting (hopefully) in a total monthly bill of $560.

*We've only gone out to eat once this month. Brian has nearly stopped going out to lunch at work. One of the main reasons is that we're keeping our budget at the forefront of our minds. The second biggie is that the meals we're eating are adequately diverse, both in content and level of food prep complexity.

*Lastly, I've been conscious about how cooking food from scratch energizes me creatively. I rarely feel depleted after making a good meal.

This week's CSA delivery will include:
1 bunch Broccoli
1 pound Roma Tomatoes
2 Romaine Lettuce
2 Yellow Onions *
1 Bunched Carrots
1 pound Zucchini
1 each Collard Greens
4 each D'anjou Pears *
4 each Navel Oranges
4 each Cameo Apples *
2 each Hass Avocados
4 each Braeburn Apples *
*Grown in the Northwest.

Here's our weekly menu:

Monday:
Leftover lentil soup, kale and wild rice salad, and fresh-baked bread.

Tuesday:
Coconut curry with zucchini, red potatoes, onions, and chick peas, served over a bed of quinoa.

Wednesday:
Burritos with homemade GF flour tortillas, cumin black beans, roasted Mexican brown rice, black olives, lettuce, jack cheese, lime tomato salsa, and guacamole.

Thursday:
Baked russet potatoes with melted cheddar cheese, spinach, and caramelized yellow onions, and a salad.

Friday:
Pizza with homemade GF crust, homemade tomato-artichoke-Parmesan sauce, mozzarella, olives, Roma tomatoes, Italian chicken sausage, and onions, and a Caesar salad.

Saturday:
Homemade GF egg fettuccine with roasted broccoli, roma tomatoes, with a browned butter OR an olive oil herb OR an alfredo-style sauce. (I'm excited to try this, I've never made fresh pasta before.)

Sunday:
Baked rice, broiled chicken, and collard greens.


Turkey Pasta Sauce
Olive oil
3-4 small garlic cloves
1 lb ground turkey
1 large yellow onion
3 carrots, diced
3-4 small stalks celery, including the tops, diced
7-8 fresh or frozen roma tomatoes, with skin and seeds, quartered
10 artichoke heart quarters (I used frozen)
1/2 cup tomato sauce OR 1-2 TBSP tomato paste
1/2-3/4 cup vegetable or chicken broth
1 TBSP dried Italian seasoning, or more, to taste
1 tsp poultry seasoning, or more, to taste
Sea salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Brown the turkey and set aside. Drizzle a generous portion of olive oil in the pan. Add chopped onion and garlic. Saute for several minutes. Add carrots and celery and saute until nearly soft. Add browned turkey, Italian and poultry seasonings, and several generous grounds of fresh pepper. Cook for several minutes before adding tomatoes, broth, tomato sauce or paste, a pinch of salt, and more pepper. Simmer for 2-3 hours, salt to taste, add artichoke hearts, and simmer for about 10-15 more minutes. (Can be ready within an hour, but the flavors mingle best with more time.)

Seriously cheesy and fiscally fit

We ate some incredibly creamy, cheesy pasta for lunch today. It was the perfect warming meal after a long morning wandering through the wetlands at Magnuson Park and playing in sand and mud puddles. I made a quick white sauce using unsweetened soy milk and flour, and then added chopped Italian chicken sausage, a finely chopped leaf of kale, salt and pepper, and about half a cup of cheddar cheese. Yum! This turned out to be another excellent way to get Cora to eat kale (I have a bit of an obsession with wanting Cora to love green food).

Also, I noticed this article on Yahoo this morning: Fiscal Fitness: Find Your Biggest Cash Flow Leaks, which reminded me of my ongoing quest to find hidden money for savings and those thousands in student loan repayments.

$595...three weeks to go... & tortillas and a menu

It's been a busy week, filled with a lot of cooking. But we've been well-fed. I've enjoyed working off of a set menu, even though we've deviated from it a bit when dinner prep actually occurs--making a quinoa-kale salad and paprika baked chicken with roasted mushrooms and artichoke hearts instead of plain quinoa and a green salad and basic baked chicken, for example. Brian cooked this meal and Cora and I ate it in awe. It was that good.

I made some red potato and corn chowder yesterday that is truly tasty--I'll write down the general ingredients and proportions and post it here at some point. Also simple (and heavenly) baked salmon with an olive oil, soy sauce, pepper, and lemon juice marinade. And chicken-bean-quinoa enchiladas (made with homemade corn tortillas), homemade refried beans, and tomato-lime salsa. And GF pumpkin bread, GF bread, and GF blueberry-pear crumble.

I'm considering taking pictures of the meals and tracking the ingredients and proportions, but I hesitate to go there because then it feels like this will be entering the realm of a food blog. Still, it might happen. (See below for this week's menu and a corn tortilla recipe, if you're interested.)

As far as the food budget, we're doing OK but I'm nervous because we still have three weeks to go and I've already had to go to the store three times. The additional purchases include:

*Soy sauce (totally out of it, should have looked more closely)
*Sea salt (ditto)
*Eggs (we'll probably need more)
*Yogurt (I think we'll be OK till Feb)
*Sorghum flour (for GF bread)
*Garbanzo bean flour (for GF tortillas)
*Masa Harina (for corn tortillas)
*Bananas
*Trail mix

Supplies (remember I'm counting these in our general grocery budget):
*Dish soap
*Toilet paper
*Bio bags
*Compost bin
*Aluminum foil
*Plastic wrap (for making tortillas)

Total spent: $595.

I'm a little nervous, but I think we can make it. It's definitely a switch to try to shop once a month. I'm going to do it a little differently next month; I think I'll still do one big shopping trip, but will leave about $80 for additional purchases each week. Also, I'm hoping that next month I'll have a better sense of my own food inventory; this month I clearly forgot some staples--salt, dish soap, TP, baking supplies.

The CSA delivery last week was disappointing. Four items were from Mexico, which generally I don't take issue with except when it arrives in my "support local" CSA food box. Even though they were out-of-season items (avocado, broccoli, roma tomatoes, grapefruit), I was under the impression such items would be culled from warmer states within a U.S.-based CSA network. The kale was wilted. The avocados were hard as rocks. Three of the apples were bruised. It was nothing like my previous experience with them, making me wonder if their recent expansion has caused a decline in quality. I wrote to Full Circle and complained, and they sent back a nice email explaining their stance on food sourcing--they source locally, nationally, and internationally, believing that supporting organic agriculture anywhere is a good practice. Maybe so, but they need to make this more clear in their marketing material. They'll also replace the apples and kale, or offer an equivalent, in this week's box.

We had plenty of produce to last the week, but we did find ourselves "rationing" the apples. We're used to eating several apples a day, which can't happen with this system. I think next month we'll need to either try a Family size box or else set aside money for additional fruit each week.

Full Circle Farm's online system does identify which items are local; I tried to pick as many of those this week as possible. Tomorrow's CSA delivery will include:

1 bunch Green Chard
0.4 pound Cremini Mushrooms *
1.5 pounds Russet Potatoes FCF
2 Yellow Onions *
1 Bunched Carrots
4 Braeburn Apples *
1 Green Cabbage FCF
4 Navel Oranges
1 Broccoli
4 Fuji Apples *
1 Red Leaf Lettuce
3 Bosc Pears *
*Items with an asterisk are from the Northwest. Items marked FCF are from Full Circle Farm.

Here's this week's dinner menu:

Monday:
Leftover corn-potato chowder or chicken-pinto enchiladas.

Tuesday:
Roasted sausage and potatoes and a green salad.

Wednesday:
Spinach lentil soup with sugarplum tomatoes.

Thursday:
Baked chicken, quinoa pilaf, and steamed green chard with raw carrots and an olive oil, dill, ume plum dressing.

Friday:
Tofu-broccoli stir fry and pressure-cooked brown rice. (We had this last week and it was delicious and very easy--perfect for a tired Friday night.)

Saturday:
Baked stuffed cabbage with turkey, rice, mushrooms, and chopped chard.

Sunday:
Homemade pasta sauce with parmesan polenta cakes.

Tortillas
I started making my own corn tortillas. I never knew it was so simple. The big deal is that you need to use Masa Harina rather than corn flour. I found a bag from Bob's Red Mill and it's worked beautifully. They never use GMO ingredients, although they can't guarantee GMO-free products due to wind drift.

The recipe is easy. You just need:
2 cups of masa harina
1-1/4 to 1-1/3 cups hot water
(I also add a dash of salt to the hot water, although I haven't found any recipes suggesting it.)

Mix the ingredients, being careful to achieve a smooth, malleable consistency. Let the dough sit for 30 minutes under plastic wrap or a damp towel. Then break off small chunks of dough (about 14 in all) and roll them into individual balls. Place them between two sheets of plastic wrap, and press down with a heavy pan. (If you have a tortilla press, even better.) Use a rolling pin to flatten out the tortilla to the thickness of a standard, store-bought tortilla. Peel off the plastic wrap. If the dough sticks, it's too wet. Return it to the bowl and add more masa harina, a bit at a time. If the dough crumbles, add more water, a tablespoon at a time. You can't over-knead the dough, so don't worry about working it to get the right consistency. Place in a preheated, heavy, ungreased pan on medium-high heat. Cook 30 seconds. Flip. Cook 1 minute. Flip again. Cook another 30 seconds. Set aside and cover with foil. You can make all of them at once and keep them warm in foil for up to 2 hours before dinner. Any leftovers can be reheated on the stove.

Organic meals on a budget

Since my last post, I have been obsessed with finding ways to save money and eat well. Once we made the resolution to change our habits, I've combed through budgeting and organic living sites, reading about how other people save money and eat food that's good for you and the planet.

I should mention here that I understand organic produce and poultry have reached unaffordable levels for many people. It angers me beyond measure that we've screwed up something so basic, so simple as food. It didn't used to be this complicated. It used to be that we bought or grew nutritious food grown in hardy soil, hand-picked our eggs, and let chickens roam around in fresh air. Greed has messed up something vital to our health and well-being by mixing up food with what people can manage to pull out of banks and pockets.

Check out last week's article on MSNBC about how antibiotic resistance in animals is leading to antibiotic-resistant infections in humans.

Or this one about toxic stuff in the regular ol' food we eat (things like canned tomatoes, butter, non-organic potatoes).

The food industry has spent a lot of time and money convincing us that eating a chicken that's spent its entire life in a cage--beakless and footless, being pumped full of antibiotics and food it's not meant to eat--is natural, healthy food for us and our children. It's simply not true.

And studies now show that produce grown with pesticides is less nutritious, not to mention less tasty. In the meantime, to make it easier to produce mass amounts of corn, soy, wheat, and canola, they're genetically engineering the cells of these products to cause pests' stomachs to explode. Coincidentally, there has been a significant rise in allergies to these common foods--especially in young children.

I'm not saying good food guarantees good health; it just helps a great deal. So we've made a priority out of eating well. The thing is, as I mentioned before, we've spent a fair bit of money doing it. I want that money for our student loans and savings.

To get started with our new budgeting goals, I spent some time tagging all our purchases on Wesabe, a third-party money management tool/financial community and looking at our spending trends. I also read financial, budgeting, food, and family blogs, and found families of six who live on $62.50/week. Of course, I am always also reminded the voice of Barbara Kingsolver from Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, who ate locally and off their (giant) farm for a year. And finally there are few of my friends' gourmet foodie blogs that inspire me to try to make ingredients count toward something tasty enough to be worthy of all the effort.

Trying to make sense of these resources in a personal way that actually works is turning out to be a fun challenge for me.

So, I suppose some figures would help here. Eventually I would like to spend $400-$600/month on food and general supplies. This is more than some people spend and less than some people spend, but for us this would be a very significant savings over what we've spent on a monthly basis in the past. On average, we spent $750-$1100 on groceries and supplies per month (in December, we spent more). This includes diapers and toilet paper and general household supplies, of which we generally buy very little. It doesn't include going out to eat. Yes, it's true. I'm embarrassed to tell you this, but somehow our food resolution doesn't feel as compelling without sharing the numbers.

I should add the caveat that we spent the most during months when we entertained a lot, made big dinners for friends, and hosted holiday dinners. Wine and beer is included in the grocery purchases. (For large groups this adds quite a cushion of moolah.)

Looking at some of the food budgeting resources out there, I can at least acknowledge that we aren't the only average consumers who dip into the four-figures when it comes to food. At the top of the line, I found a family in London spending the equivalent of $2,000 a month on food. People who live in highly urban settings with higher costs of living tend to spend more. Those with ready access to farmland and big backyards and lower costs of living tend to spend less. This makes sense, of course.

Combined with a renewed sense of being conscious about how much we spend, Brian is also interested in eating less meat for health reasons. Because I'm content eating mainly vegetarian food, his interest makes it easier to cook more healthy, easy, whole foods-based meals. We'll see how long this lasts.

So, the big experiment this month is that I'm only going shopping once, except for a biweekly trip to purchase more eggs and yogurt (and maybe something else, we'll see). To help us accomplish this, I signed up for our local CSA produce delivery system through Full Circle Farm. Coincidentally, Brian's company just signed up to be a community delivery location, so every Tuesday at 1 p.m., Brian will be able to go into his lunchroom and pick up our box of vegetables and fruit.

We used Full Circle Farm for over a year and quit the service when I stopped working, largely because I wanted to go out and pick out all our own fruits and vegetables, and because we were tiring of the winter fare--beets, squash, potatoes, and more beets, squash, and potatoes. Now, Full Circle Farm allows you to substitute every item in your box with something else, making it more flexible and accommodating to our needs. It's a great way to support small--and local--farms. We signed up to receive a standard size box on a weekly basis for $30/week, a total of $120/month of our food budget.

This week's box contents include:
1 Broccoli
2 Hass Avocados
3 Fuji Apples
1 pound Roma Tomatoes
1 bunch Green Kale
4 Pinova Apples
0.75 pounds Green Bell Peppers
4 Fairchild Tangerines
0.4 pounds Mushrooms
2 Ruby Grapefruits
1 Green Leaf Lettuce
3 D'anjou Pears

Here's our dinner menu for this week:

Monday:
Apple-butternut squash soup and fresh-baked bread. (I cut up 2 butternut squashes and an apple last week and stuck 'em in the freezer. I'll cook the soup this afternoon.)

Tuesday:
Baked salmon, avocado-tomato-cucumber salad, and pressure-cooked brown rice.

Wednesday:
Dinner with friends at their house.

Thursday:
Black bean and rice Mexican bowl with lettuce, red onion, avocado, and corn. (Optional: ground turkey.)

Friday:
Sauteed broccoli and tofu with rice.

Saturday:
Quinoa with toasted seeds, green salad, and baked chicken.

Sunday:
Red potato (and maybe corn) chowder and salad.

Other options if the mood hits: enchiladas, chili and cornbread. Regardless, I'm cooking the enchiladas and chili this weekend and freezing it for easy lunches and dinners.

With this monthly shopping system, I've already spent about $405, not including four weeks of CSA deliveries. Total including 2 wks of CSA: $525. Over the goal, but it's my first time out of the gate. I'm guessing by the end of the month we'll hit $550. This total includes $85 I spent on a bunch of gluten-free flours and 3 giant bags of Pamela's (very expensive) gluten-free baking mix. I'm splitting the cost over the next 3 months. I like our home-baked gluten-free bread a lot more than what we can find in the store. And Pamela's makes the best cookies, crumbles, sweet breads, and Sunday morning pancakes. Probably not a lot of cost-savings in the end, unless I compare it to buying all the sweets pre-baked and going out for pancakes every Sunday, but worth it to be able to make treats whenever we want.

I think I managed to buy a lot of stuff. A month's worth? I don't know, I guess we'll find out. I think we have enough other staples (nut butters, jams, soy sauce, salt, rice, etc.) to last this month. Want to know what we bought? I'm just going to list everything out, which is going to take awhile but for right now, hey. Once a month. Big deal. Why? Because it'll keep me honest. Also because I like to read this stuff on other people's blogs. I don't know exact measurements for a lot of it, but here goes:

Vegetables:
CSA plus--
*3 bags org frozen corn
*3 bags org frozen green beans
*3 bags org frozen spinach
*3 bags org carrots
*2 bags of frozen artichoke hearts
*2 large cartons org Roma tomatoes
*2 cartons org sugar plum tomatoes
*5 big hass avocados
(I bought the corn, beans, carrots, spinach, and tomatoes from Trader Joe's, but next time I'm going to go to Costco and buy their organic options). I got the artichokes from Trader Joes--Costco doesn't have 'em. Okay, admittedly, they're not organic, but they do happen to be the the most delicious addition to pasta sauce ever. Yum. I'm going to stew the roma tomatoes and freeze them for soups.)

Poultry (bought fresh then individually bagged and frozen):
*5 org free-range chicken breasts
*5 org free-range chicken thighs
*10 org chicken sausages
*2 boxes kosher ground turkey (oops, on reflection, I don't think this was organic)

Fish:
*4 large fillets of wild frozen salmon

Grain/pasta/bread:
*2 lbs org quinoa
*3 lbs org gluten-free oats
*28 ounces Rice sticks (Pad Thai noodles)
*2 lbs org rice pasta
*Multi-grain bread for Brian

Beans:
*2 pounds org black beans
*2 pounds org pinto beans
*2 pounds org kidney beans
*1-1/2 pounds org lentils
*3 packages of org tofu
*4 big containers of org soy milk and 2 small unsweetened containers

Dairy:
*Organic 2% milk
*Cheddar cheese
*Organic jack cheese
*Parmesan
*Organic yogurt (large tub)
*Organic butter
*2 cartons of organic free-range eggs

Baking supplies(this was split b/w Whole Foods and Amazon purchases--Amazon offers wholesale-style quantities and prices on specialty flours):
*Sorghum
*Teff
*Potato starch
*Tapioca starch
*Yeast
*Brown rice flour
*Pamela's baking mix

Fruit:
CSA delivery plus:
*2 pounds org raisins
*Big bottle of org apple juice
*1/2 lb shredded org coconut
*3 bags org frozen blueberries
*4 lemons
*6 limes

Nuts/seeds:
*1/2 lb org sunflower seeds
*1/4 lb org sesame seeds
*1 lb mixed nuts
*1/2 lb slivered almonds

Sweeteners:
*Large bottle org maple syrup
*Large bottle honey

Oil:
*Lg bottle olive oil
*Lg bottle grapeseed oil

Vinegar:
*Organic apple cider vinegar

Misc:
*Pad Thai sauce (I need to start making this from scratch, it'll probably taste better)
*Jar of pineapple salsa
*Jar of regular salsa
*2 bags of 7th Generation pull-ups
*Conditioner
*Liquid multi-vitamins for Cora
*Homeopathic medicine (1) for Brian

Nearly New!

It is hard to believe this year is coming to an end and 2010 is so close on the horizon, barely peeking over the edge with its inherent possibilities and resolutions.

A recap seems fitting here, if only because I won't remember everything unless I write it down.

So, here's 2009 in a nutshell:

*First time since college without an employer and caring for a child (my child!) full-time. (Yep, it's not the same as being a nanny.) :)

*Winter/Spring was really tough. Too many doctor's visits and not enough hand washing.

*Summer was glorious. Gl-or-i-ous. Camping, hiking, beach combing, sunset watching, picnics, sunning, swimming, romping through parks. Deception Pass, Camano Island, San Juan Island (saw a beautiful pod of Orca Whales here), San Diego, Whidbey, Vashon, Bainbridge, Port Orchard, the Peninsula, ferry rides and car rides and a couple of plane rides. Lots of moments to stare out a rolled down window after a day in the sun. The best summer in a long time. Long days rule.

*Started running again! Woot! I'm excited to start again sometime next year.

*Started a novel. Still just 92 pages and counting.

*Lots and lots of restlessness. Put our house on the market (whew, that was a lot of work). Thought we'd move to an island, but didn't.

*Cora turned TWO. We partied with her animals for two months prior while listening to thousands of replays of "Happy Birthday."

*Got pregnant with #2. Yippee!

*Cooked up a storm. I love to cook.

*Rarely managed to stay within my food budget.

Which is a good intro to resolutions for 2010:

*Stick to a brand new food budget and still eat nutritious, organic food. (I am way too embarrassed to state how much we've managed to spend per month on multiple occasions; let's just say I am trying to cut it by 1/3 and eventually in half.) Consequently, I've been combing through online resources searching for the answers. I swear, I think I'm going to create an Excel file with all our foods listed out with prices next to them. No more impulse buying. No more dark chocolate and sea salt covered almonds just because they sound lovely. It has to be on The List. The Grocery List. The One I Will Hold True and Dear. I want the money we save to be a bonus, an unexpected extra amount we can reroute to other places--savings, debts, vacations, whatever. I like that we eat well; I don't like that it feels like our money gets eaten and thrown away.

*This means I need to be one of those extremely organized go-getters who makes menus and lists and shops for deals and buys in bulk and cooks nearly everything from scratch. Repeatedly. While I do cook a lot of things from scratch, the uber-organized menu-making diva thing doesn't come naturally, as I am sure I have stated before. This is not typically my personality. While I do consider price and budget, I like to browse and buy when it comes to food. However, I am going to do better. Much better. And so is Brian.

*Start a garden in our backyard.

*Invite people over more often.

*Start year 1 of our 4-1/2 year goal to become debt-free. For all you non-student-loan-bearing people, pat yourselves on the backs and be grateful. We are going to comb through our student loan debt and throw a big party in 4-5 years. I can't wait for that party. We'll serve over-the-top delicious food and beverages and give grand and glorious toasts. We'll wear top hats and sequins (ok, maybe not, but who knows?). We'll serve tiny little sandwiches and buttery crackers covered in salmon and watercress and creme fraiche and buy bottles and bottles of sparkly drinks. Our children will be 7 and 5, respectively, and we'll both be almost 38 years old, but for goodness sake, we won't owe anyone anything, except for this small thing called our mortgage.

*Maybe if I write about our budgeting/debt-paying experience, we'll have a better chance of sticking to our goals. Watch out, I might write about it here.

*Have a baby.

*Finish my novel.

*Start running again.

I feel very motivated. Spreadsheets and recipes and bulk foods, here I come. In these days of in-between holidays and New Year reflection, I am remembering how difficult it was last winter to reconcile myself to the fact that I was chopping off my salary and instead of portioning out thousands to their respective destination (nanny, mortgage, yardwork, savings), I needed to consider the dollars, the tens, the hundreds. It felt uncomfortable, pedantic and constraining. After a year of watching countless families suffer financial setbacks due to a recession and job losses, and experiencing everything I traded my salary for, I have a different frame of mind. I am so regretful that we didn't save every penny of my salary when we could, because lo and behold, we didn't need it. We just didn't know it back then. While I can't turn back time, I want to shake ourselves free of our student debt (oh what a mighty freedom that will be!), save as much as we can, continue to cook because we love to, and reap the rewards of being more conscientious about what we eat--and how much we spend on it. I want to simplify and prioritize. It feels like a new kind of freedom is ahead, one that is more directed and full of choice, less fractured by wanderlust and indecision.

Of course, not surprisingly, more than anything else this year, I am excited to meet our new family member in June. Will it be a girl? A boy? What kind of baby will it be? I've been imagining a bassinet by our bed, and the little form in there. Holy mole.