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.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
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.
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.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Tea and 37,054 words
It's a foggy morning. Clouds hang outside our windows and hover beneath the trees. I have a cup of dark, decaf Irish Breakfast tea, and three whole hours to write. The only sound in the house is the hum of our oil furnace. Cora is at her nanny share this morning. I left her at Jane's house, inspecting their very cool kid's kitchen and chatting about what she planned to eat at snack time.
Our little boy is kicking. That's the first time I've written those words. Our little boy? We found out about a week ago and it's still surreal. I can't get over it, and I'm thrilled.
I've been pretty exhausted this week. I'm finding that I'm just physically more prone to exhaustion in general, and my body will tell me when it's time to stop--usually that means I'm lying in bed with cramps and contractions thinking, "Oh yeah, I'm pregnant. I guess I can't do everything in one day." I'll hit 20 weeks tomorrow--halfway there!
So I've been trying to take it easy...and that brings me to a discussion I had with Brian the other night: Since when did making burritos turn into a two-hour dinnertime adventure?
Answer: Since I started roasting and pressure cooking the rice with spices and chopped tomatoes, and soaking the beans overnight and pressure cooking them with garlic and cumin seeds, and making refried beans with fried onions, and making tortillas from scratch, and mashing the avocado, and cooking the corn, and cutting the tomatoes and making the salsa, and chopping lettuce. This was after a day running around town and parks with Cora. The meal was delicious but let me tell you, that is a weekend meal. No more Thursday burritos of that caliber for awhile. I was lying on my bed with contractions before dinner even began. I AM PREGNANT. Remind me of that sometime, will ya? Burritos used to be a lot easier when we had canned beans and premade tortillas and a quick pot of rice on the stove.
So. The food has been delicious, this budgeting experience has been very valuable toward helping us realign our thinking--how much do we spend? How do we eat? What are our goals when it comes to food? I'm enjoying the whole thing. However, I have to make sure the meals are less labor intensive to avoid going into premature labor, you know what I mean? Simple will be the goal and theme next month--both in preparation and ingredients. I'm excited about it--sort of like a new monthly challenge. I want to try making more meals with fewer flavors, highlighting herbs and sauces and fresh ingredients. I'm working on our weekly menu right now, but I'm not sure when I'll post it. Hopefully soon. I'll do a monthly budget recap next week, too.
Yesterday as I was writing, I looked down at the page counter and was surprised to find that I'm nearly to 120 pages. Slowly, slowly goes the tortoise. So, I'm returning to my tea and my 37,054 words, and hope this morning will let me get lost in that adventure until Noon.
Our little boy is kicking. That's the first time I've written those words. Our little boy? We found out about a week ago and it's still surreal. I can't get over it, and I'm thrilled.
I've been pretty exhausted this week. I'm finding that I'm just physically more prone to exhaustion in general, and my body will tell me when it's time to stop--usually that means I'm lying in bed with cramps and contractions thinking, "Oh yeah, I'm pregnant. I guess I can't do everything in one day." I'll hit 20 weeks tomorrow--halfway there!
So I've been trying to take it easy...and that brings me to a discussion I had with Brian the other night: Since when did making burritos turn into a two-hour dinnertime adventure?
Answer: Since I started roasting and pressure cooking the rice with spices and chopped tomatoes, and soaking the beans overnight and pressure cooking them with garlic and cumin seeds, and making refried beans with fried onions, and making tortillas from scratch, and mashing the avocado, and cooking the corn, and cutting the tomatoes and making the salsa, and chopping lettuce. This was after a day running around town and parks with Cora. The meal was delicious but let me tell you, that is a weekend meal. No more Thursday burritos of that caliber for awhile. I was lying on my bed with contractions before dinner even began. I AM PREGNANT. Remind me of that sometime, will ya? Burritos used to be a lot easier when we had canned beans and premade tortillas and a quick pot of rice on the stove.
So. The food has been delicious, this budgeting experience has been very valuable toward helping us realign our thinking--how much do we spend? How do we eat? What are our goals when it comes to food? I'm enjoying the whole thing. However, I have to make sure the meals are less labor intensive to avoid going into premature labor, you know what I mean? Simple will be the goal and theme next month--both in preparation and ingredients. I'm excited about it--sort of like a new monthly challenge. I want to try making more meals with fewer flavors, highlighting herbs and sauces and fresh ingredients. I'm working on our weekly menu right now, but I'm not sure when I'll post it. Hopefully soon. I'll do a monthly budget recap next week, too.
Yesterday as I was writing, I looked down at the page counter and was surprised to find that I'm nearly to 120 pages. Slowly, slowly goes the tortoise. So, I'm returning to my tea and my 37,054 words, and hope this morning will let me get lost in that adventure until Noon.
Monday, January 18, 2010
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.)
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.)
Thursday, January 14, 2010
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.
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.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Quiet day
This pregnancy has been one marked more frequently by fatigue, cramping, and spotting. Yesterday night I felt exhausted and crampy and sure enough by the end of the day I was spotting again. Not a lot, but it stresses me out for obvious reasons. Every time it happens I worry--even just a tiny bit--that this is the moment when the beautiful pregnancy is signaling that it's almost over. That said, it helps that this is my fourth or fifth time spotting with this pregnancy, and I can still feel the baby kicking.
I decided to make it an easy day, as low-key as possible. Cora and I ended up sipping chamomile tea after breakfast, painting at her easel in the kitchen, playing with her dollhouse (which today mainly meant walking the paper dollhouse dog on a long leash around the house) and catching a break of sun and springlike weather in the backyard. We ate a leisurely lunch of burritos stuffed with chicken, kale, corn, olives, and cheese (she claimed she didn't like the kale but she ate it anyway) and then sat back on the couch under a blanket and read 10 stories.
She's battling sleep right now. Even though I'm tired, I'm downstairs doing this instead of trying to nap in the next-door room. Vegetable broth is cooking on the stove and lentils are soaking for tonight's soup. We'll bake a new GF sandwich bread this afternoon when she's done napping.
My sister sent me home the other day with several books, and I'm well into The People of the Book, by Geraldine Brooks, which is proving to be the perfect combination of mystery, adventure, and culture for cozy January nights.
These mild, Northwest mid-winter sunbreaks confuse our plants. I noticed today that, along with a million weeds, we have bluebells pushing through the ground. Bluebells in January? The earth is soft and everything smells rich. Cora and I talked about our apple and pear trees and the site for our garden (I'm so excited to start growing food!), and wandered around studying birds and rocks and moss.
I think all my pregnancy hormones have catapulted me into a relative state of domestic bliss. This is nothing like the wanderlust I felt last year. I've never felt so much contentment from cooking and quiet afternoons of writing.
Now if only the little lady would fall asleep and I could write a few paragraphs of my story.
I decided to make it an easy day, as low-key as possible. Cora and I ended up sipping chamomile tea after breakfast, painting at her easel in the kitchen, playing with her dollhouse (which today mainly meant walking the paper dollhouse dog on a long leash around the house) and catching a break of sun and springlike weather in the backyard. We ate a leisurely lunch of burritos stuffed with chicken, kale, corn, olives, and cheese (she claimed she didn't like the kale but she ate it anyway) and then sat back on the couch under a blanket and read 10 stories.
She's battling sleep right now. Even though I'm tired, I'm downstairs doing this instead of trying to nap in the next-door room. Vegetable broth is cooking on the stove and lentils are soaking for tonight's soup. We'll bake a new GF sandwich bread this afternoon when she's done napping.
My sister sent me home the other day with several books, and I'm well into The People of the Book, by Geraldine Brooks, which is proving to be the perfect combination of mystery, adventure, and culture for cozy January nights.
These mild, Northwest mid-winter sunbreaks confuse our plants. I noticed today that, along with a million weeds, we have bluebells pushing through the ground. Bluebells in January? The earth is soft and everything smells rich. Cora and I talked about our apple and pear trees and the site for our garden (I'm so excited to start growing food!), and wandered around studying birds and rocks and moss.
I think all my pregnancy hormones have catapulted me into a relative state of domestic bliss. This is nothing like the wanderlust I felt last year. I've never felt so much contentment from cooking and quiet afternoons of writing.
Now if only the little lady would fall asleep and I could write a few paragraphs of my story.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Tortilla Heaven
Plato was right; necessity is the mother of invention. Not that I invented these tortillas, but I've never really considered making them until this week when we ran out of our gluten-free rice tortillas. True, I've never been a huge fan of the store-bought rice ones, anyway. They're relatively flat as paper, difficult to fold even when warm, and they get hard as soon as they cool--a frustrating scenario for a slow-eating toddler. Still, I was feeling rather sad about our lack of already-prepared food inventory--one more thing we didn't have to make lunch prep less of a scenario. I couldn't help feeling a bit ho de ho de hum about this whole budgeting and food thing.
However.
These tortillas are sooooooooo good. So good that I am having difficulty writing this rather than running upstairs to eat another one.
Okay. So just imagine you haven't been able to eat flour tortillas in a long time. Like, pretty much since you were 12 except for a gluten phase in college when all the same symptoms showed up but you tried to ignore them and eat pizza and drink beer instead. And then imagine it had been 12 years since you ate a flour tortilla, and instead you were relegated to the joy of discovering flat-as-paper brown rice tortillas in the refrigerated section of the health food store, and you diligently chewed through them with the usual ability to balance the benefits and flaws.
And then imagine you spend 5 minutes mixing up some flour and water and flipping a few tortillas on the stove while your kid zooms around the kitchen with her frog, asking you to please help her undress it even though the frog is meant to be dressed, the vest doesn't come off, that's the way it's made.
And then zip. You are suddenly transported to this heavenly place where a soft, puffy, warm tortilla is on your plate, rolled with melted cheddar cheese and chicken and covered with salsa. You would be speechless, too.
Cora loved them. It was seriously a joy to see her eating a quesadilla without having to tug and tear at the tortilla.
Even if you're not gluten-free, I think you'll like these. And if you can eat regular ol' flour tortillas, I say get theeself to another page on the interwebs and find thee a good recipe and start cooking. It's heaven. Tortilla heaven. Save yourself from the monotony of dry, packaged goods and make them yourself, even just once.
Mary Frances Pickett's Gluten-Free Flour Tortilla Recipe
This recipe was inspired by Bette Hagman and adapted by Mary Frances Pickett. I followed it almost exactly except:
*I used her suggestion to substitute garbanzo bean flour for the soy flour.
*I sprinkled the counter with a mix of rice flour and garbanzo bean flour when flattening/rolling the dough.
*I didn't roll them as flat as possible. I left them a little bit thicker than the average tortilla, going for the more "handmade" tortilla thickness, if you've ever stumbled upon one of those delectable disks at a restaurant or grocery store.
*Lastly, I used a copper skillet and didn't use any shortening. An ungreased pan on medium-high heat worked great.
However.
These tortillas are sooooooooo good. So good that I am having difficulty writing this rather than running upstairs to eat another one.
Okay. So just imagine you haven't been able to eat flour tortillas in a long time. Like, pretty much since you were 12 except for a gluten phase in college when all the same symptoms showed up but you tried to ignore them and eat pizza and drink beer instead. And then imagine it had been 12 years since you ate a flour tortilla, and instead you were relegated to the joy of discovering flat-as-paper brown rice tortillas in the refrigerated section of the health food store, and you diligently chewed through them with the usual ability to balance the benefits and flaws.
And then imagine you spend 5 minutes mixing up some flour and water and flipping a few tortillas on the stove while your kid zooms around the kitchen with her frog, asking you to please help her undress it even though the frog is meant to be dressed, the vest doesn't come off, that's the way it's made.
And then zip. You are suddenly transported to this heavenly place where a soft, puffy, warm tortilla is on your plate, rolled with melted cheddar cheese and chicken and covered with salsa. You would be speechless, too.
Cora loved them. It was seriously a joy to see her eating a quesadilla without having to tug and tear at the tortilla.
Even if you're not gluten-free, I think you'll like these. And if you can eat regular ol' flour tortillas, I say get theeself to another page on the interwebs and find thee a good recipe and start cooking. It's heaven. Tortilla heaven. Save yourself from the monotony of dry, packaged goods and make them yourself, even just once.
Mary Frances Pickett's Gluten-Free Flour Tortilla Recipe
This recipe was inspired by Bette Hagman and adapted by Mary Frances Pickett. I followed it almost exactly except:
*I used her suggestion to substitute garbanzo bean flour for the soy flour.
*I sprinkled the counter with a mix of rice flour and garbanzo bean flour when flattening/rolling the dough.
*I didn't roll them as flat as possible. I left them a little bit thicker than the average tortilla, going for the more "handmade" tortilla thickness, if you've ever stumbled upon one of those delectable disks at a restaurant or grocery store.
*Lastly, I used a copper skillet and didn't use any shortening. An ungreased pan on medium-high heat worked great.
Monday, January 11, 2010
$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.
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.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Monday, January 4, 2010
A little bit of dreamy
Whoa, two posts in one day, you say? It's just that I wanted to write down one more thing, a new year's memory. We went to Bainbridge Island yesterday and walked along the water on one of our favorite, quiet stretches. I swear, maybe five or six cars passed us in the span of three hours.
Slate gray water was speckled with seabirds. We threw rocks off the end of a big pier, then sat on the beach and combed through green rocks slick with saltwater, flinty and barnacled, interrupted sometimes by a red jasper or abandoned shell.
Cora napped in her stroller and Brian and I had one of those rare walks that only parents can truly appreciate: it was quiet. Then we heard the wind in the trees and the waves lapping the rocks, and the songs of seabirds and the cries of gulls, and our noses and hands were cold from the damp January air but our bodies were bundled beneath coats and hats. Eventually, like always, we started to dream, and plan, and imagine. It was the best start to the first week of 2010 I could have wished for.
Slate gray water was speckled with seabirds. We threw rocks off the end of a big pier, then sat on the beach and combed through green rocks slick with saltwater, flinty and barnacled, interrupted sometimes by a red jasper or abandoned shell.
Cora napped in her stroller and Brian and I had one of those rare walks that only parents can truly appreciate: it was quiet. Then we heard the wind in the trees and the waves lapping the rocks, and the songs of seabirds and the cries of gulls, and our noses and hands were cold from the damp January air but our bodies were bundled beneath coats and hats. Eventually, like always, we started to dream, and plan, and imagine. It was the best start to the first week of 2010 I could have wished for.
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
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
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
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