Week's meal plan, December 14 2013

This week I made a concentrated effort to keep prices down. Christmas is coming, and Christmas eats money.

With this in mind, I tried to find a way to eat economically. So I asked myself: what things are absolutely dirt cheap, absolutely pennies at the supermarket?

The things I came up with were:

• Bulk flour. Can't really argue with 39 cents a pound. Even whole wheat flour, which is a bit more than white, is ridiculously cheap at 44 cents a pound. Even taking into account the cost of electricity from running the oven, homemade breads are cheap cheap cheap.
• Bulk steel cut oats. Cheap, delicious, about as wholesomely nutritious as you can get.
• Pasta. The cheapest kind is something like 70 cents a pound. Even the more expensive whole wheat ones are only about a dollar a pound. Our family typically eats no more than half a pound of pasta in one meal.
• Rice. I'm less happy about rice, because I prefer basmati and brown basmati, which are the most expensive (although they barely break the bank), but if I wished, I could get long grain white rice for practically nothing.
• Beans and lentils, any kind. The canned ones are bloody cheap; the dried ones absurdly so. I'm going to blog more in the future about making beans and lentils bearable if you're like me and have a rather limited ability to love them.

Obviously, we cannot live on carbs alone. So I'm also sourcing cheap protein, such as:

• Eggs. $1.67 for 12. So filling, so nutritious, so versatile. Gosh, I sound like a spokeswoman. I have misgivings about eggs (see Chicken, below). This is clearly something I need to work on, i.e. learn to love beans and lentils a great deal more.
• Chicken. Whole chicken, chicken breast, chicken thighs. I've blogged before about my misgivings about the morality of the whole poultry enterprise, but there it is.
• Sausage and other pork products. I have misgivings about pork too. This is why we're not eating meat every night.

And let's not forget vegetables. I guess we're lucky to live in a very fertile part of the United States, where seasonal vegetables are plentiful and cheap. We all have our favorite vegetables, but I tend to buy mostly what's in season, because that's cheapest. Right now, broccoli and carrots and celery are pleasingly cheap. We go through a lot of onions, carrots, and celery because we like to use a mirepoix for a lot of our recipes. Baby B loves broccoli, so I'm getting a lot of that right now. Zucchini seems to be pretty cheap all the time. But I'm increasingly feeling that it's silly to be a snob about frozen vegetables--they can taste really good if you get freshly frozen ones that aren't covered in freezer burn. Peas, in my opinion, actually taste better frozen (well, previously frozen). Green beans, edamame, and corn are also fine. I confess I don't care for frozen spinach. I really wanted to like it (after all, you can get one of those ten-ounce "bricks" of cut leaf spinach for practically nothing), but it always tastes gross to me. Luckily, fresh spinach is readily and cheaply available here.

So, ideas I'm trying for cheap weekly meal plans will look something like this in the future:

• 1 roast chicken dinner OR other form of meat with the bone in, so I can use the bones for stock. Stock makes everything better.
• 1 soup and bread meal (using stock from chicken bones). The soups I make usually make enough for at least two meals for the three of us.
• 1 (at least) pasta meal (using stock from the chicken bones to improve the sauce, or leftover chicken).
• 1 beans/lentils meal, probably with rice. May or may not have bits of chicken stirred in. Will have masses of leftovers.
• 1 eggs meal, such as quiche, frittata, etc.

With this in mind, this is what I've planned for this week.

Breakfasts: steel cut oats, yogurt, frozen mixed berries OR eggs on toast.

Lunches: peanut butter sandwiches, apples, cheese, raw vegetables

Dinners:

• Almost-Foolproof Roast Chicken with a side of roast zucchini (I put the zucchini into the dish with the chicken half an hour before it's ready, seasoning it first with salt, pepper, and rosemary).
• Cream of broccoli soup with homemade whole wheat-yogurt baking powder bread.
• Whole wheat spaghetti, homemade tomato sauce with sauteed sausage mixed in, side of sauteed spinach.
• Homemade calzone using half a recipe of my basic bread dough, leftover tomato sauce and sausage, spinach, and mozzarella.
• An adaptation of this Skinnytaste.com recipe, but using spinach instead of escarole (no escaroles can be found at my local supermarket, alas), and leftover chicken instead of chicken sausage, a foodstuff I do not love.
• A Self-Crusting Quiche using whatever leftover vegetables I have, and/or whatever frozen vegetables I can find in my freezer (which I'm trying to clear out before the chaos of Christmas).
• Leftovers. I always have lots of those.

This week's groceries:

Fruits and vegetables:

2 lbs carrots 0.98

1.81 lbs broccoli crowns (3 large) 1.77

3.22 lbs Braeburn apples 2.83

1 head garlic 0.48

16 oz spinach 1.38

4 zucchini 1.52
5 lbs onions 1.98

Bulk:
10 oz penne 0.48
1.44 lbs whole wheat spaghetti 1.44

Dairy:
Cheese Heads light string cheese 2.98
Tillamook Italian blend cheese 2.73
Nancy's low-fat plain unsweetened yogurt 2.37
Organic Valley 2% milk, half a gallon 3.60
12 large eggs 1.67

Meats:
1 small chicken 5.56
1 lb mild Italian sausage 2.68

Frozen:
Mixed berries 1.88

Cans:
28 oz crushed tomatoes 1.13

Misc.
Stash Jasmine Blossom green tea bags 2.40
Sara Lee multigrain bread 1.98

Total: $41.84

So pretty good. Except not that good, because obviously I still had things at home like dried white beans, chicken broth in the freezer, flour and yeast and sugar and salt and oil for the bread dough, etc, so the true cost of this week's meals is much higher.

Plus, you know what's NOT cheap? Dairy. I haven't quite figured out why we consume so much dairy. Maybe it's because we don't eat vast quantities of meat each week, so we want something fatty and animal-derived to make food taste good. I think we could cut string cheese out of our diets and not really miss it that much, don't you? Maybe we'll do that next time. We like the little scoop of yogurt that we have on our steel-cut oats porridge in the mornings, and yogurt is useful for baking breads, etc.

Cream of broccoli soup

This is a great weeknight soup. It's quick, it's easy, it's not absurdly high in fat or carbohydrates, and it contains lots of vegetables. It's also satisfying and filling. My two-year-old daughter, who adores broccoli, absolutely loves it. She claps her hands and says "Green! Green!" when she sees it. I know this sounds as if I'm bragging ("My kid positively clamors for broccoli!"), but she really does love it. This recipe is well and truly kid-approved.

Ingredients:
1 large head of broccoli, cut into 1-inch pieces, including the stems
2 cups chicken broth
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 an onion, chopped fine
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tablespoon flour
1/2 cup milk
Cornstarch for thickening (optional)
1/2 cup shredded Parmesan or other strong cheese (this tastes best if you shred it yourself right before adding it, but this recipe will still be fine if you get the pre-shredded kind, or even that stuff that comes out of green canisters in dusty clumps.)
salt
pepper

Bring the broth to a boil in a large pot. Add 1/4 teaspoon salt and the broccoli pieces. Cook until the broccoli is tender, about 7 minutes. Tip the broccoli and broth into the food processor and blend until you have smooth green slime.

Wipe out the pot. Melt the butter in it over medium-high heat, and add the onion and garlic with a few good pinches of salt and grinds of pepper. Saute until the onion is softened and turning transparent but not browning, about 7 minutes. Add the flour and cook, stirring, until no lumps remain.

Now start ladling the broccoli mixture into the pot, little by little, stirring constantly to avoid lumps, until the soup has a pleasantly thickened texture.

If the soup is too thin for your liking, whisk a teaspoon or two of cornstarch into the milk before you add it. (Or just put the milk in without cornstarch if the texture is fine.) Add the Parmesan and stir well. Check the seasonings and serve. You may prefer to have it with toast, grilled cheese sandwiches, or a piece of homemade bread such as whole wheat-yogurt baking powder bread.

Whole wheat-yogurt baking powder bread

Homemade breads, even taking into account the cost of electricity used, are ridiculously cheaper than bought breads. We do still buy sandwich bread because it's more convenient for packed lunches, but when we eat bread for dinner, having a homemade loaf brings an air of gourmet-ness to the whole business.

On weeknights, however, I simply don't have the time or the energy to start a homemade loaf from scratch. It would take hours, and we don't have hours. That's where baking powder bread is useful. This recipe is an adaptation of one I used to make as a university student when I was feeling particularly poor and under-nourished. It's often hard to make whole wheat breads taste good without adding a bit of white flour to improve the texture, but this one works because of the butter and the yogurt. Butter gives it that wonderful buttery taste, and the yogurt makes it light and almost fluffy.

This recipe makes four biscuit-like hunks of bread that are wonderful for dipping in soup. Our little family finds that one each is a perfectly filling accompaniment to a bowl of soup, with another hunk left over for someone to gnaw on in the middle of the night, or for breakfast.

Ingredients:
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 oz unsalted butter, plus extra for brushing the loaf
1/4 cup plain unsweetened yogurt
1/8-1/4 cup water

Preheat the oven to 430 degrees Fahrenheit, with the oven rack in the middle position. Line a smallish baking sheet with baking paper.

In a medium bowl, whisk the dry ingredients together. Using a pastry blender or a knife (or a food processor, if you wish), cut the butter into the dry ingredients until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs. Add the yogurt and the smaller measure of water, stirring gently until the mixture just comes together. If the mixture seems unduly dry and crumbly, add more water until the dough holds together.

Shape the dough into a round, flat disc about 4-5 inches in diameter. Place the disc on the baking sheet. Using a sharp knife, make a deep "x" on top so that the dough is divided into four quarters without actually being cut in four. Melt a little extra butter and brush the bread with it before putting it in the oven and baking for about 15 minutes, or until the top is golden and the insides are cooked through. (You can check by inserting a knife in one of the deep cuts.)

Week's meal plan, December 6, 2013

This weekend is Baby B's second birthday. In some ways, I can't believe she's going to be two. It seems like such a short time ago that she was a tiny, fragile little newborn.

I asked her what she'd like for her birthday dinner. She doesn't talk much yet, but she considered the question for a few moments before replying "Apple, chee [cheese], brocky [broccoli], pah-tah [pasta], sossie [sausage]. Sossie sossie sossie!" Well, that was pretty predictable. So I decided to make a baked pasta recipe with sausage and cheese, with a side of broccoli and sliced apples for dessert. I also had to get supplies to make a birthday cake. She adores chocolate cake, so I decided to try my hand at one, although I'm not a great baker. I know I could buy a cake, but the nice ones are expensive, and I'm sure that if I follow a good recipe exactly, I stand a chance of not messing this up.

This week's meal plan:

Breakfasts: steel cut oats with plain unsweetened yogurt OR eggs on toast

Lunches: wraps or sandwiches with Smitten Kitchen's chicken salad, carrot and celery sticks, string cheese, apples, oranges

Dinners: 

Vegetarian burritos with beans, cheese, and zucchini

Roast chicken with sides of brown basmati rice and steamed broccoli

Tomato-sausage penne bake, side of steamed broccoli

America's Test Kitchen tamale pie (not available online, sorry!), side of steamed broccoli

Madhur Jaffrey's mushroom curry, sides of brown basmati rice and peas

Lentil-sausage soup

Leftovers (of which I anticipate there will be lots)

Desserts/snacks: America's Test Kitchen Emergency Chocolate Cake with chocolate buttercream frosting for Baby B's birthday, apples, oranges

Drinks: homemade cold-brewed black iced tea

This week's groceries:

Vegetables and fruits

1 lb cremini mushroos 2.98

bunch of cilantro 0.48

1 lb broccoli crowns 0.97

1 head celery 0.88

5.13 lbs Fuji apples 5.03

5.83 lbs navel oranges 2.80

Bulk

0.43 lbs dried cranberries 1.50

0.89 lb Dutch process baking cocoa 3.57

0.7 lbs penne 0.59

Dairy

Sargento Italian shredded cheese 1.98

Sargento reduced fat Mexican shredded cheese 1.98

Cheese Heads reduced fat string cheese 2.98

Nancy's low fat plain unsweetened yogurt 2.37

Organic Valley 2% milk, half a gallon 3.60

Organic Valley whole milk, half a gallon 3.60

Challenge unsalted butter 2.87

Meat

Small whole chicken 5.94

1 lb local ground pork 2.78

1 lb Italian sausage 2.68

Cans

Store brand crushed tomatoes, 28 oz 1.13

S&W black beans 0.68

Other

100 Red Rose black tea bags 2.96

5 lbs plain flour, supermarket brand 1.64

2 lbs powdered sugar, supermarket brand 1.28

Clabber Girl baking powder 1.58

Sara Lee 12-grain bread 1.98

birthday candles 0.64
Mayonnaise, supermarket brand 1.50

Total: $62.97.

So, altogether a bit more than I usually spend, but still far less than my goal at the start of this blogging project to spend less than $100 a week for our family of three. I guess it was more because of all the baking things I bought: a big bag of flour, powdered sugar, cocoa (though I was pleased to be able to get good-quality cocoa in the bulk section, because packaged cocoa is always expensive), birthday candles and so on.

I'm still uneasy over where our meat comes from. I suspect I'm too easily hoodwinked by the term "locally produced," and my wishful thinking endows this with all sorts of qualities it might not necessarily have, like naturalness and wholesomeness. Now that I consider this, I feel ashamed of myself, because there's no way a pig farmer can bring me a pound of ground pork for $2.78 without keeping those pigs in crates.

I suck.

Oh well, I will try to improve in the future. We are really going to have to go on the straight and narrow next week, because we're so darn broke. I was looking at the prices of bulk beans and grains, and thinking that all this brown basmati rice we buy because it's supposed to be low-glycemic is more than twice as expensive as plain short-grain brown rice, and three times as expensive as plain long-grain white rice. Now, if I'm not misinformed, I believe it's possible to bring down the glycemic load of a meal by having lots of low-glycemic things with the high-glycemic ones, so we could, in theory, eat a moderate portion of cheaper rice with a nourishing Non-Disgusting Bean Stew, a bit of chicken and some broccoli florets, and be OK.

Also, I know I'm always going on about my non-negotiable policy of feeding my daughter only organic dairy products, but the fact is that we can't get organic yogurt or cheese in this town except at the natural foods co-op, which is very, very expensive. The brand of yogurt I buy, Nancy's, claims that it comes from farms that don't use rBGH, so that seems acceptable to me. But I actually can't find any brand of cheese at the budget supermarket that says anything about not using rBGH, and I'm going to take this as an indication that they do, since if they didn't, they'd certainly want to advertise it. So why am I not cutting cheese out of my diet? More importantly, why am I squeamish about using supermarket-brand cheese when I happily use supermarket-brand everything else, from flour to mayonnaise?

So maybe next week, when all this birthday partying is over, I'm going to take a good hard look at my unnecessary expenditure. After all, if I can cut a few things down in price, then maybe I can get some actual free range meat. Or perhaps I shouldn't eat meat at all. These are the things that keep me awake at night.

UPDATE: I want to let anyone reading this post know that the mushroom curry was awful. Awful, awful, awful. Terrible taste and flavors. I had to throw it out. I was surprised, since Madhur Jaffrey is a reputable author. I swear I followed the recipe to the letter. We had eggs on toast that night.

Lentil-sausage soup

This is an incredibly warming, filling winter soup. To be honest, I don't really adore lentils, but I like them a lot more if they're well seasoned. I find that starting with a mirepoix and adding the balsamic vinegar and cilantro at the end give the soup an interesting flavor that makes the lentils bearable. Which is great, because they're so relentlessly healthy--superbly high in fiber, protein, and all sorts of vitamins and minerals. And absurdly cheap, too. The sausage is optional--I just put it in because Baby B loves sausage above almost any other food.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups brown lentils
5 cups homemade chicken broth (if you buy broth, get the low-sodium kind)
5 cups water
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 onions, finely chopped
3 stalks of celery, finely chopped
1 medium carrot, finely diced (I don't bother peeling it, but feel free if you prefer)
3 cloves of garlic, crushed with the blade of a knife, peeled, and minced
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 cup cilantro, minced
1/8 cup balsamic vinegar, or more to taste
kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
1/2 pound mild or spicy Italian sausage (pork, turkey, chicken, or vegetarian sausage would all work well)

Place the lentils in a large bowl and cover with boiling water for an hour to soften the lentils. Drain.

Now boil the lentils in the water and broth for about 25 minutes, or until the lentils are cooked.

While the lentils are boiling, heat the oil in a cast-iron frying pan (or non-stick) over medium-high heat. Add the onions, celery, carrot, a pinch of kosher salt, and a grinding of pepper, and cook, stirring frequently, for about 15 minutes. Add the garlic, oregano, and cumin, and cook a further minute or two, stirring constantly.

When the lentils are almost cooked, add the vegetables and simmer for another 10-15 minutes while you cook the sausage. In the same pan as before, saute the sausage, breaking it up with a wooden spoon to crumble it. Cook until there are no pink bits remaining.

Add the sausage to the lentils. Stir in the balsamic vinegar and the cilantro. Adjust the seasonings to taste.

Serve with toast or grilled cheese sandwiches.

Tomato-sausage penne bake

This is a warm, comforting winter dinner. It could easily be made vegetarian or vegan by substituting vegetarian sausage and vegan cheese for the animal-based ingredients.

I often find baked pasta dishes bland and uninspiring, so here's my hint for making them better. First of all, make sure you salt your pasta water well so that the pasta has some flavor. It should be as salty as the sea: use around 1/4 cup of salt in a large pot of water. I know that seems like an obscene amount of salt, but it won't be too salty, promise.

The other thing is not to overcook your pasta. It will keep cooking in the sauce while it's in the oven, so you should drain it before it's cooked through..

And the other other thing is to make your own tomato sauce. I have never tried a jarred pasta sauce that wasn't horridly sweet, with a slimy consistency. My recipe (link below) uses crushed tomatoes and a mirepoix. It's a beautiful thing.

Ingredients (serves around 6)

1/2 pound penne (I used whole wheat)
salt (for the pasta water)
1/2 recipe tomato pasta sauce
1 teaspoon olive oil
1/2 pound Italian sausage (pork, turkey, or chicken would all work well)
4 oz shredded Italian blend cheese (=a mixture of 3 parts mozzarella, 1 part parmesan)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

Cook your pasta in a large pot of salty water. Drain it 3 minutes sooner than the recommended cooking time on the packet.

Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a non-stick frying pan. Add the sausage, crumbling it with a wooden spoon, until there is no more pink remaining.

Mix the pasta with the tomato sauce and the sausage, and pour into an 8x8 oven dish. Sprinkle with the cheese, and bake for 20 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and beginning to turn golden brown.

Vegetarian burritos

This is a wonderfully cheap, filling meal. When I try to eat cheaply, I so often find myself filling up on huge amounts of starchy carbs, but this really isn't necessary. This recipe is healthy, high in fibre, and has enough protein and vegetables to get you really full.

Ingredients (serves 3):
3 large tortillas (I used La Tortilla Factory's low-carb whole-grain ones)
1/2 recipe crock pot refried beans
1/2 cup shredded cheese (I used Sargento reduced fat Mexican cheese)
1 large-ish zucchini, sliced
1 medium onion, radial cut
1 tablespoon peanut oil
1/8 teaspoon salt
freshly ground black pepper
1/8 teaspoon chipotle chile powder
3 teaspoons salsa (any kind)
3 teaspoons sour cream

Heat oil over medium heat in a cast-iron frying pan (non-stick would also work). Add onions, salt, and pepper, and cook gently, stirring frequently, for 20 minutes. Add zucchini and chipotle chile powder and cook, stirring, for another 10 minutes until the zucchini are tender and juicy.

Divide the refried beans between the tortillas and spread to cover each tortilla. Divide the cheese and sprinkle it evenly over each tortilla. Microwave each tortilla, one at a time, for 30 seconds or until the cheese is melted and bubbling. Divide the onion-zucchini mixture between the tortillas and top with a teaspoon of salsa and a teaspoon of sour cream each. Wrap the burritos up tightly and serve.