Ah, the post-Thanksgiving carb crash. We woke up feeling decidedly out of sorts from eating so much! If nothing else, my recent drive towards eating healthy, vegetable-rich meals seems to have put us off wanting to eat lots of high-calorie foods and desserts. Oh well, there are worse things, right?
We also had the strange problem of having a refrigerator full of leftovers--turkey, bread rolls, mashed potatoes, and all sorts of desserts--but feeling like we had no food. We had no milk, sandwich bread, steel cut oats...or, I might add, vegetables. I had to brave the Black Friday crowds and get some groceries! We were all craving simple meals like soups, and vegetables. Lots of vegetables. And detoxing by drinking a lot of water, and, to mix things up, some of our homemade iced tea, using a delicious brand of green tea that we've discovered.
This week's meal plan:
Breakfasts: steel cut oats, plain unsweetened yogurt, frozen blueberries.
Lunches: peanut butter sandwiches, carrots, celery, apples, cheese.
Dinners: Skinnytaste.com slow cooker tomato soup (makes lots) with grilled cheese sandwiches, Skinnytaste.com turkey pot pie soup (also makes lots, doesn't need a side), Smitten Kitchen black bean and pumpkin soup with toast, whole wheat spaghetti with homemade tomato sauce and Italian sausages, and meatloaf. (I don't have a recipe for the meatloaf--that's Mr. B's domain. I am reliably informed that he makes it with 90% lean beef, mild Italian sausage meat, fresh white breadcrumbs, a grated zucchini, a grated carrot, a minced onion, and an egg.)
Sides for dinners: steamed broccoli and carrots; sauteed zucchini
Drinks: homemade cold-brewed iced tea--this week's flavor will be green ginger-peach tea, which is just gorgeous.
Desserts: grapes
Oh, and I began our day with some bubble and squeak made with the leftover mashed potatoes, and fresh white breadcrumbs from yesterday's dinner rolls.
Today's groceries:
Vegetables and fruits:
Parsley 0.58
Broccoli (lots) 1.86
16 oz spinach 1.38
Shallots 0.47
5 lbs onions 2.48
8 oz cremini mushrooms 1.88
4 large zucchini 1.62
Red grapes 4.88
3.7 lbs Jonagold apples 3.25
Bulk:
1.22 lbs arborio rice 2.07
1.16 lbs steel cut oats 0.73
Dairy:
Sargento reduced fat sliced provolone 2.68
Sargento reduced fat shredded Mexican cheese 1.98
Organic Valley 1/2 gallon skim milk 3.47
Organic Valley 1/2 gallon whole milk 3.47
Frozen:
16oz frozen peas/carrots mix 0.98
Meat:
1/2 lb organic ham 3.99
1 lb free range Italian sausage links 4.27
1 lb 85% lean grass-fed ground beef 4.50
1 lb Italian sausage meat 2.68
Etc:
Tisdale Chardonnay 3.08
Stash ginger-peach green tea 2.25
Free range beef broth 1.78
Total: 56.33
Observations: I'm a little stunned at how incredibly, irredeemably middle-class my shopping list looks. I feel like a bit of a fraud, or at least a twit, for writing a blog called The Penurious Kitchen and then filling my shopping list full of organic this and free-range that. Arborio rice! Chardonnay! Shouldn't a person trying to save money be living on gruel, or at least lentils? (In my defense, I am having beans this week--I had a bag of dried black beans and a can of pumpkin in the cupboard, hence the bean and pumpkin soup recipe).
In my defense, the organic and free-range and grass-fed things weren't any more expensive than their non-organic, non-free-range, corn-fed counterparts. I had a little extra time today, so I went to our local organic supermarket, where I don't normally allow myself to go because it's expensive, because the one thing there that isn't expensive is locally grown and butchered meat. Strange--the vegetables are hugely expensive and the dairy, though wonderful, prohibitively so.
Same deal with the milk: it's expensive even if you buy the conventional kind, so I'd rather have some from a cow that might have had a bit of grass to eat and, I hope, not a totally miserable life. We go through a lot of milk because Baby B chugs two large glasses every day, although Mr. B and I tend only to use it for cooking.
...And the Chardonnay? Well, we aren't going to drink it. It's for cooking. I tend to get the cheapest possible bottle of plonk I can find. I'm using it for my risotto, and in place of sherry in another recipe because I don't like sherry and resent buying something I wouldn't use for anything else.
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