Annual virtuous reboot

Another year, another resolution!

The goals:

$800 of groceries in a month

No takeout (especially donuts!)

1500 calories a day (ugh...we'll see if this is more achievable than 1200)

For Round 1.1, the lineup includes the following:

* Turkey (well, chicken) biryani

* Salmon with apricot-chili sauce and spinach

* Beef bulgogi

* Tuna salad

* Kale salad

* Cottage cheese and pineapple for breakfasts

Snacks:

* Instant miso soup (with fresh tofu and green onions)

* Rice crackers, goat cheese, hummus

* Mandarin oranges

* Tea

Today's grocery tally:

AFP provisions: $106.71

Other food: $58.28

                    -------------

                     $164.99

Turkey Biryani

Fine Cooking, online here.

Super flavourful, very filling, cooks up nice and fast. Used ground chicken, since that was what was available, and I could not track down any cilantro tonight for some reason, so substituted juice of half a lemon. Dollop of sour cream would probably be pretty delicious too.

$3.99 per serving (since I haven't counted the cashews as pantry staples - if they're on hand, it's more like $2.24.)

Grilled flank steak with cucumber-yogurt sauce

Fine Cooking - online here.

Delicious, storage-friendly and easy to make ahead in increments, which is an excellent feature for when you just don't have the spoons to spend the whole night cooking. Gluten free as long as you're careful about the brand of soy sauce.

Salmon seared on bacon with balsamic vinegar, honey and rosemary

Fine Cooking, online here.

Fast, swanky, delicious. Think I will just get skinless salmon fillets next time, though, otherwise I just end up scraping fish skin off the bottom of the pan, which, bleah.

Kale salad with cranberry vinaigrette

Fine Cooking - online here.

Careful with the ginger, it packs some heat when used like this. Nice tenderizing effect on the kale, though. Double the oranges next time, I think.

Beef tenderloin with mushroom-dill sauce

Fine Cooking, online here.

Insanely delicious and pretty fast-cooking. $$$ for the cut of meat, though, holy crap.

Beet, orange, and watercress salad

Canadian Living - online here.

Used mixed greens instead of watercress to no ill effect. Would probably be nicer with the beets warm, though, so make-ahead capability is limited.

Slow-cooker apricot chicken

Fine Cooking - online here.

Make-ahead is further assisted by putting this in the fridge and reheating - doesn't suffer for it. Pretty scrumptious. I made waaaaayyy more than we needed, though; will see how it takes freezing.

Slow-cooker pomegranate wine brisket

Fine Cooking; online here.

Super delicious and helpfully should be made a day or two in advance, and the slow cooker makes it an easy during-the-day or overnight proposition. Pomegranate garnish is a particularly nice touch.

Iced tea, version 2

1 L boiling water
4 orange pekoe teabags
1/2 c sugar
Juice of 2 or 3 lemons
3 or 4 peaches, peeled and sliced

Nectarine and tomato salad

From Canadian Living - online here.

Peach and raspberry cobbler

From Canadian Living, here. Blanching peaches makes them astonishingly easy to peel. This was fantastic. Even better eith ice cream, I bet.

Cedar-planked salmon

From Allrecipes. Bob made this at my mom's today and damn, it was fantastic, so I bookmark it.

Smoked salmon and avocado openface sandwiches

Fine Cooking January 2010; online here .

Does well with a bagel or - to make it gluten-free (or snacky) - some rice crackers.

Gravlax

Variations on this abound on the intertoobz, but the one I work from is here.

On the advice of the sage gourmet who pointed me to the recipe, I skip the coriander and add a few sprigs of rosemary and a couple sliced-up cloves of garlic. I never bother with the mustard sauce; the fish is plenty delicious without. And I generally don't get around to toasting the peppercorns.

With cheese and crackers, this is an ample appetizer for 8. Will have to see how far it stretches as breakfast or snacks. I seriously doubt that it's very economical, though, although variations on my favourites could yield some savings...could try cucumber slices and cream cheese instead of goat cheese and rice crackers, for instance.

Lemon iced tea, version 1

From Fine Cooking, here.

First attempt at a substitute for Bridgehead's Lemon Black Iced Tea. Not half bad. Powerfully minty, though, and a little over-sweet; may leave out the mint and reduce the sugar next time and see what happens.

It LIIIIIIVES. AGAIIIIIIIIIN.

OK, for serious this time!

Ambitions for week one:

* Replace delicious lemon iced tea concoction from Bridgehead with homemade substitute. Iced tea is helpfully self-limiting for me, since too much of it will upset my stomach.

* Replace delicious falafel wrap from the work caf with homemade substitute. Need to see if I can lay hands on a jar of pickled turnip spears at one of the local mid-east groceries.

* Replace delicious hummus wrap from the work caf with homemade substitute.

* See if an egg and a nectarine will be sufficient to get me through the morning, since I find I am getting good and sick of muffins.

Bean burgers

A Canadian Living recipe from a billion years ago - in the first black binder - online here.

One of the best lunch recipes I've found. Tasty, filling, unfussy, and healthy. You can even omit most of the fancy garnish-like ingredients without negatively affecting their tastiness.

According to Canadian Living a billion (i.e. 12) years ago, this costs about $1.60 per serving. Probably somewhat more now.

Mushroom and feta pasta

Canadian Living, Jan 2014 - online here.

Very tasty, especially with goat cheese, but not very filling. Would be good with some chicken thrown in. Baby spinach works fine in place of the full-grown stuff (although it's probably more expensive).

About $3.54 per serving.

"Superfood" platter

From Canadian Living, Feb 2014. Surprisingly, not online. Maybe not yet posted.

The term "superfood" annoys the tar out of me - in this case the most prominent ingredients are quinoa, kale and chickpeas. Used red quinoa, since it was on hand, and red kale, since it was on special. Suspect this would be yummy (although no longer vegan) with a dollop of yogurt or sour cream to go with.

$2.24 per serving.

Hunter's chicken

From Canadian Living's Affordable Feasts cookbook - online here.

Substituted brown rice for the polenta, since in my total lack of familiarity with that dish I am not sure how well it keeps. Discovered that an egg slicer makes quick work of chopping mushrooms! Have not tasted it but Corey reports it's delicious.

$5.05/serving, though, if you don't count the strained tomatoes as a pantry staple (otherwise $4.38). Tsk.

Week 2.2

Well, with the additional infusion of some salad fixings and a steak (about $25 all told) Week 2.1 was pretty successful! Probably some takeout on Corey's end, but only one instance of cheating on mine.

Cooked so far for this week:

* Mushroom, spinach, and feta pasta
* "Superfood" platter (whatever, Canadian Living - kale, chickpeas, and quinoa)
* Hunter's chicken
* Rhubarb muffins (more expensive than usual - fancy winter rhubarb from holland - but I couldn't resist)

Still to cook:

* Turkey with black beans and orange sauce

Additional salad fixings may become necessary at work, but grocery tally so far:

Recipe fixings = $61.80
Non-recipe stuff = $84.89
----------------------------
$146.69

Quick beef bulgogi

From Canadian Living - online here.

Quick, flavourful, tender - a decent steak cut thin really shines here. About $3.28/serving, depending a little bit on the steak.

Week 2.1, redux

Well, I flunked out of my last round pretty badly, but now I'm broke, so that seems like a good time to reboot!

Got a boost from weekend chili from my mom. Otherwise, planned for the week:

Pork & green bean stir fry
Ginger salmon
Kale salad
Quick beef bulgogi

Groceries:

Recipe goods = $20.56
Non-recipe goods = $200.17
Total = $220.73

Week 2.1

SO tally for the week:

~$85 non-recipe goods
~$82 recipes
= $170 groceries
~$80 takeout

Too-small batches of stuff led to mucho cheating on the takeout front, alas. Suspect I have not accounted for all the expenses on that front.

Planned for the week to come, mostly from my fabulous new Affordable Feasts Canadian Living cookbook:

* Kale and chickpea salad
* Quick beef bulgogi
* Pork kofta pitas
* Black bean rice bowl
* Slow-cooker butter chicken

Week 2.2 is not off to an awesome start, having run out of spoons before I got to do any cooking beyond the first item on the weekend, but the bulgogi made a flippin awesome stir fry tonight, so I may yet overcome!!

Blueberry muffins

Online here.

$1.16 for a two-muffin serving. Very tasty and lasted well without getting sticky or dry. Used milk instead of soy milk.

Stewed kale and lentils

Canadian Living - online here.

$2.78 per serving. Also benefits from a dollop of yogurt. Had to cook it a lot longer than advertised to make liquid evaporate, so kale was way past wilted. Still tasty, though.

Beef and spinach rice

From Canadian Living Feb 2014 - online here.

$2.40 a serving, and very tasty, esp with the suggested dollop of yogurt.

Kale and Chickpea Salad

Online here.

As advertised: kale that actually tastes good. I find two bunches of kale takes about twice the dressing indicated here, but maybe I've just been buying big bunches. Two bunches makes about twelve servings as a side, I'm guessing, and as a light lunch, it makes about six.

So as a light lunch, this works out to about $2.55 per serving.

ROUND 2 - Strategizing

So in addition to eating out as little as possible over the next 4 weeks, my target is to spend $800 on groceries, which I'm told is a reasonable figure for a family of four in Ottawa. I don't know that I'll achieve that this time around, but I'll gather relevant data, anyway.

To Eat during Week One

Beef and spinach rice (Canadian Living Feb 2014)
Stewed kale and lentils
Butternut squash soup
Blueberry muffins
Tuna salad and "power bars" for work snacks
Beef bourguignon from freezer

Groceries so far:
~$85 on non-recipe goods (kids/staples)
~$75 on recipes 

Target of $800 per month = $26.67 per day = $8.89 per meal, or $2.22 per serving.

That's a little intimidating, but breakfast should help shave that down a bit (considering that the muffins, for instance, being made mostly from pantry staples, cost $0.58 apiece).

Healthy work snacks

Just posting to bookmark these tasty-looking ideas!