Food Waste for the Week

Another good week in our household: no waste! We almost had an issue with a huge batch of lasagna, but luckily a friend came over for lunch yesterday and seemed happy enough to help us with the leftovers. I need to make a practice of setting aside and freezing a few servings when I double a recipe. I want there to be leftovers - but not *so much* so that we will find them unappetizing by the end of the week. Better to freeze some of it and then reheat another week, when we need something in a pinch.

What's Cooking 3.9-3.15

Today I spent $8.21 at Earth Fare, our whole foods market, because I needed to get thyme (they have a nice selection of bulk herbs and they cost far less and use less packaging than buying the bottles of spices somewhere else) and they had a sale on organic apples (.87/lb) and bananas (.59/lb) and vegetable broth. (I really should make my own broth, but considering I make almost all of our food from scratch, I give myself a break with broth. But I am currently making a note to save veggie scraps over the next week to attempt homemade.)

I spent $13.28 at Sav-Mor, a local discount grocery store. They have carts at the front with seriously marked-down items. I usually don't stop to look because they are often filled with stuff we don't eat, but today I was happily surprised to see that they were selling boxes of (12) organic ice cream cones for .49! These same boxes cost almost $5 at Earth Fare and my son loves to offer ice cream cones to his friends when they visit (and rarely asks for one for himself alone) and just yesterday a friend was over and there was only one cone left and he said, "Olive can have the cone, Mommy. I'll have ice cream in a bowl." So I would pay full price to support that kind of generosity, but as luck would have it, I think it is being rewarded another way. There are some grocery items that Aldi doesn't carry, like whole wheat pasta, eggplants and ricotta cheese, so I picked those up, too.

Then for the bulk of my shopping I spent $35.52 at Aldi. My grand total was $57.01. Still more than $20 under what I thought would be the impossible goal of $80. I really considered buying some items - like chicken tenderloins that were on sale at Sav-Mor for $1.87/lb - but I just couldn't. We still have some chicken (not much, but enough for one meal) in our freezer and since I can see that I can consistently spend under $80 a week for food (even when I stocked up on staples like flour and sugar this week), I don't think I have to watch sales on meat, especially since we rarely eat it.

At this rate I feel that I can buy more of our vegetables from local and organic sources and not break the budget - especially since our farmer's markets should be opening soon. And, of course, my weekly CSA share will start in May. Hooray for Spring!

Monday:
Slow Cooker Spinach Lasagna
Green Salad

Tuesday:
I'm back in the hospital for my 24-hour shift and there will be plenty of leftovers from the lasagna to cover us for today.

Wednesday:
Black Bean Tacos with Roasted Peppers and Onions
Crudites (raw broccoli, cherry tomatoes and carrots)
with Homemade Ranch Dressing Dipping Sauce

Thursday:
Tangy Twice-Baked Potatoes
Spinach Salad (with slices of hard-boiled eggs to boost the protein content of the meal)

Friday:
Pizza with homemade sauce and crust
Roasted Peppers and Pepperoni
Spinach Salad

Saturday:
Roasted Pumpkin Soup
Homemade Croutons

Sunday:
Ratatouille (classic French stew with eggplant, tomatoes, zucchini, and peppers)
Creamy Polenta

Including Moderation

One of my favorite sayings is "Everything in moderation - including moderation." I *usually* practice thrift and enjoy simple pleasures. But sometimes - especially around birthdays - I like to go over the top a bit.

This week I'm rejoicing in excess.

It was D's birthday on Tuesday: It all started with a simple - almost frugal - banana cake.

Then on Wednesday my parents took us to dinner at D's choice of restaurants - an adorable French bistro. I got a peek at the bill for the evening's revelry and it exceed what I spent on food for my family last month. Sacre Bleu! C'est magnifique!

And then Friday night we had a party with D's friends - and another cake, of course.

And what a cake it was! Our friend couldn't be bothered with a fork and opted to inhale it. (She made me promise I wouldn't post this picture on Facebook. I've kept to the letter of the law, if not the spirit. :)

My parents were back this evening to look after the kids so the adults could have a little more ribald (and I mean ribald!) fun, but after several hours they had to go home and G got to indulge in his favorite past-time - telling jokes, of course!

As you can see, he had the crowd in stitches. I think he's going to be responsible for the return of vaudeville.

It's a good thing we have a couple of months before our next birthday extravaganza - G's 4th! - and the Taqueria truck rolls into our driveway once again. I think we will have recovered by then.

Food Waste for the Week

The Crunchy Chicken's Food Waste Challenge officially ended in February, so I won't use her image anymore for my Food Waste Fridays - but I did find this lovely poster from the Google image archives. Even though this image is nearly 100 years old it is still relevant today. It can serve as a reminder that adequate food sources are still unavailable to large parts of world's population. I am grateful for the plentiful food that is available to my family. I don't take it for granted and I certainly don't want to waste it. Here's how we did this week:

Fortunately, we had another no food waste week in our household. This week we have a rather unusual challenge - we celebrated my husband's birthday this week and have an abundance of sweets to eat if we don't want to have any waste next week. Again, I know this is what can only be considered a "high class" problem. :)

Banana Birthday Cake (Or What to Do When Bananas Are on Sale)

If you look at the picture from my shopping trip yesterday (you can click on it to get a larger view), you will see that I bought a pile of very ripe bananas. My store was selling them in bags for 99 cents each. I weighed one and it was over 4 pounds, which means I spent less than 25 cents per pound - a very good price for bananas. I thought I would puree and freeze them and use them in smoothies or banana bread.

I am already planning to make my husband a birthday cake (a very decadent chocolate, his favorite) for his party this Friday, but last night my son and I were talking about D's birthday the next day and he said, "And we're going to have a cake with a candle in it!" Anticipating future events is not his forte (when we talked about D's birthday he said, "Isn't it my birthday tomorrow?" and when I told him it was in two months he said, "No, I think it's in one month."), so I realized that I needed to think quick and bake a cake today because he just would not understand celebrating a birthday without a cake. (Not a bad problem to have!)

I thought of all the bananas and how I planned to puree and freeze them today and decided to make a banana cake. After reviewing quite a few recipes I chose the one that included the most bananas (four) in the mix. I already had all the ingredients - including buttermilk that I bought for pancakes a couple of weeks ago and was hoping to use up this week - so the cost to make this cake was less than a dollar.

The person who posted the recipe says that it will also make great muffins and bread: That was enough encouragement for me to puree all of the bananas in batches of 4, seal them in bags, and store them in the freezer until the next time we want a yummy treat.

The recipe calls for 8 inch round pans, but I used 9 inch because I wanted the layers to be thinner and provide more surface area for the delicious chocolate frosting. :) If you follow my example you should shorten the cooking time to around 25 minutes (but it depends on your oven - take the pans out when the cake is slightly browned and pulls away from the pan).

Happy Birthday, D! We love you!

What's Cooking 3.2-3.8

Last week I only spent $47.54 for my weekly food plan, but I knew I would probably end up spending more for food since my friend was coming to town and I wanted to treat her to a meal out. I took her and my son to lunch on Friday and we happily spent $25.21 and then I ended up at our whole foods market and spent $4.05 to buy a French batard to make the garlic bread for our dinner that evening with my girlfriends. (The morning got away from me and I forgot to make it from scratch.) Those expenses brought my total for the week to $76.80 - still $3.20 under my budget goal of $80. Hooray!

Here's what I bought this week:

I spent $38.60 at Aldi and $43.64 at Ingles, our local grocery store (including almost $20 on beer for my husband's birthday party on Friday!), for a total of $82.24 - $2.24 over my goal of $80 per week, but this week completes the February challenge where I pledged to spend $80 a week or $320 for the month. Combining all my food expenses for the month yields a grand total of $290.81 - $29.19 under my goal! And that amount covered the food to host a friend at our home for several days and two parties. I am surprised and delighted. (Remember I used to spend $150-400 a week on food.)

I will try to continue to spend only $80 a week, but I depleted my freezer and pantry over the last month and $80-100 is probably a more feasible goal. Still, I am so grateful for my experience this last month - it was a great challenge to plan meals that would be satisfying and thrifty and learn that we really could live cheerfully on less. I'm also very happy that my new consciousness around food buying and preparation has led to a couple of weeks of no food waste and the hope that there will be many more.

Here is what we're eating this week:

Monday:
Black Bean and Sweet Potato Burritos
Spinach Salad

Tuesday:
Cassoulet (A classic French bean and veggie casserole)
Homemade Garlic Knots
Spinach Salad

Wednesday:
D's Birthday Dinner Out!
(My parents' treat!)

Thursday:
Vegetarian "Sloppy Joes"
Homemade Whole Wheat Rolls
Sweet Potato Oven "Fries"
Green Salad

Friday:
D's Birthday Party with Friends!
3 Pizzas:
Pepperoni, Sausage, Onion and Green Peppers (homemade red sauce)
White Pizza with Roasted Winter Vegetables
Portabello Mushroom-Pesto (from homegrown basil, prepared and stored in freezer last summer)
Green Salad
Homemade Chocolate Stout Cake with Chocolate Ganache Frosting

Saturday:
Monastery Style Lentils (with carrots and tomatoes)
Brown Rice

Sunday:
Broccoli Quiche with Shredded Potato Crust
Grapefruit

The Other Gold

When I was a child my mom taught me a song that we would sing in rounds: "Make new friends but keep the old. One is silver, the other gold."

This week I am rejoicing in my gold friends.

One in particular stayed with me this week. We were great friends in our last year of high school (a school I attended only for that one year) and did fairly well keeping in touch through the college years and in our twenties, but then we lost contact over the last 9 years. Another friend from a different high school (but a friend we shared) died last fall and the giant take-home message for me is that I want to try harder to nurture the relationships with my far-flung friends.

This week my friend made it easy for me by carving time out of her busy schedule, traveling thousands of miles and adapting herself quickly to daily life in my family. My son welcomed her at the start, but adored her by the end. On the first day he asked, "What is your friend doing?" On the second day he asked, "Can our friend make transformers?" and on the morning after she left he ran to our guest room and looked at the now-empty bed and asked , "Where did my friend go?"

It was a great joy to see my dear childhood friend and my child enjoy each other so much. They played, she taught him to shoot marbles, and they told each other silly jokes. My son: "What did the chicken say to the man?" My friend, "I don't know. What did the chicken say to the man?" Him: "Hey! You ate my donut!" Her: "What do you get when you drop a piano down a mineshaft?" Him: "I don't know. What do you get?" Her:"A flat minor." And that would go on and on and on, to all of our great delight.