Someday A Goat

Cheap anniversary, tasty dinner

We went to New Orleans to celebrate our third anniversary at Jazz Fest, but our actual anniversary in May fell about a week after we returned and we wanted to celebrate inexpensively. The dinner we made was extremely tasty and also extremely cheap for the quality of the ingredients.

One of our favorite stores in Atlanta is a little deli and provisions shop, Star Provisions. It is attached to one of the finest restaurants in the Southeast, and as they put it, it's like having access to the pantry and walk-in cooler of the restaurant. Cheeses, meats, breads, spices, cookware -- the variety of items is almost intoxicating. They also have a local farm stand during the growing season.

 

The funny thing is that it is often the most frugal option for us. We can buy bulk spices in bulk and save significantly over even a cheap grocery store. I'm sure we could find bulk prices at other stores that beat these, but when it's so much cheaper than pre-packaged goods from the grocery store, and the quality is so high, why go cheaper? A few cents is not worth it in this case. Some of our recent bulk purchases (and I don't mean large quantities by bulk, we only buy what we can reasonably use) include bay leaves, peppercorns and lentils.

 

The total cost of our meal was approximately $17.78, excluding alcohol. Normally we would have had wine with dinner for an occasion like this, but we classed it up this time with Coors Light cans. The $0.60 we spend per can was much more manageable than all but the cheapest wines. And in our house, cheap without quality is a last-ditch option.

Menu

Pork tenderloin sandwiches with farm-fresh tomatoes and sauteed onions on baguettes, and salad. Prosciutto for an appetizer, and strawberries with balsamic vinaigrette for dessert.

We had lovely prosciutto to start, with plain buttered baguette slices. A little fleur de sel (fancy sea salt) and fresh ground pepper enhanced the meat quite well. Going simple with your dishes is one of the easiest ways to save money and still enjoy expensive ingredients. The most expensive parts of the meal were the prosciutto and the strawberries, and both were so good that they were worth every penny.

While my husband prepared dinner, I portioned out the bay leaves and lentils that he had bought at the store that day.

Unfortunately, when I went to portion out the lentils, I managed to spill them EVERYWHERE. You know you have a good marriage when lentils are scattering all over the kitchen in the middle of dinner preparation and all you can both do is laugh.

With the oven preheated to 350F, the foil pouch with leftover pork tenderloin was put in the oven to warm up. My husband sauteed the onions in a cast-iron pan, with salt and pepper and a little butter, on medium low. After the meat was nice and warm, he toasted the bread in the oven, after brushing just the top half with butter before toasting.

The sandwiches were simple -- pork, topped with farm-fresh tomatoes (uncooked) and sauteed onions. They were heavenly.

Even though we ate a good number of strawberries before dessert (some of the best either of us has had), we enjoyed a nice plate of strawberries drizzled with balsamic for dessert. Perfect end to a lovely meal. One of the best parts of the evening? He wouldn't let me balance the checkbook. There are some occasions where chores like that just have to wait.

A friend of mine has an anniversary tradition that fits with a frugal lifestyle. Each year, they each spend about $20 to $25 on a gift for the other, but only within the traditional themes, such as paper for first anniversary, wood for fifth, bronze for eighth. I think this is a great idea, adaptable for any budget.

Total food cost: $17.78

$4.08    proscuitto -- ate about half (total $8.16 for 0.375 lb)

$3.00    4 mini baguettes

$4.00    local farm strawberries

$3.00    local farm green leaf lettuce

$0.35    local farm tomatoes (approx 6) $3.00 total -- used not even half of one

$0.30    half an onion leftover - at our common price this spring of $0.99/lb, I'd be surprised if half of a small onion cost more than $0.30

$2.50    The pork tenderloin was bought in early April half-off at Kroger and frozen for just this sort of occasion. We thoroughly enjoyed it the night before in the oven, and the leftover are what we used for the sandwiches. The tenderloin cost a total of $5.11 ($1.99/lb), so we'll say that $2.50 was the meat cost for this dinner of sandwiches.

$0.55    Teriyaki marinade -- the garlic probably only added pennies, let's say $0.05. We paid $0.17 per ounce for the teriyaki, and probably used 2-3 ounces, so $0.50 is a nice round guess. Other spices were used in the marinade, but it would add minimal cost.

Please note that this doesn't include electricity costs, nor does it account for the bit of butter, parmesan and balsamic used in cooking and garnishing. If you had to buy an entire bottle of balsamic vinaigrette (we mix our own) or a chunk of parmesan cheese, cost of replicating the meal might be much higher.

Back in the kitchen

The past three months have been a whirlwind of starting this site, keeping the checkbook balanced and the bank account in the black, not to mention my day job. While talking to my mom on the phone last week, I realized that it had literally been months since I had fixed dinner, and I couldn't honestly remember the last time I cooked something from a recipe.

My husband is definitely much more of a cook than I am, but I had been making progress up until this year. Right before we were married in 2006, I left my job and didn't end up starting at my new one until 11 months later, which left me with LOTS of time to start trying recipes. I perfected a few, got into a rut, and once the holidays hit last year, I had a whirlwind of weddings, family events and various other projects.

Last night was my first night back in the kitchen. With the last wedding of the year two weekends ago, it's like a whole new world of time has opened up. My husband didn't seem all that interested in two of my standby recipes (he's probably still sick of them from late 2006), so I browsed through my "recipes to try" tag in Google Reader, and found one that seemed pretty simple.

Parmesan chicken

Kevin at Closet Cooking covers a wide range of cooking styles, and this recipe looked like an easy alternative to my baked Parmesan chicken. The chicken turned out very tasty, but I had some definite presentation problems. Namely, the breading did NOT stick to the chicken. I almost gave up before eating, standing in front of the stove, glaring at the Parmesan-encrusted mess of a pan. I scraped the breading off the pan and on to the chicken, and was pleasantly surprised with the result. I'll definitely try this one again.

I kept pretty close to the recipe, although I didn't make the salad as a side, as I would have needed to buy additional ingredients, and I wanted to keep it inexpensive. After I pounded the chicken breasts, I brined them in water, salt and half a lemon's juice. I added garlic and onion powder to the bread crumbs. Some reasons why the crumb might not have stuck:

• I patted the breasts dry and seasoned with pepper in between the brine and the flour. I didn't want the coating to be entirely flour, but it may have needed some moisture on the surface at this stage. The flour seemed to stick fine, though.
• I used panko bread crumbs--we've had the package for quite some time now, but it doesn't seem to go bad. Packaging without expiration dates drives me crazy. The relatively larger panko crumbs may have been part of the problem, although I did try to reduce the size before coating the chicken.
• I know the temperature of the egg can make a big difference in baking, but I have no idea if a cold egg can result in a difference in result in pan-frying.
• I used a microplane grater on fresh Parmesan cheese. My grater, depending on how you hold the cheese, often results in much longer pieces of parmesan than you would find in the green Kraft package. (Side note: grating hard cheeses is much easier when the cheese is cold.)
• We don't use non-stick pans, and I used olive oil to fry. My husband has had problems with straight olive oil resulting in food stuck on the pan, so next time I might try adding in a little vegetable oil or maybe some butter. 
• Husbands that clean the parmesan-encrusted mess of a pan are super cool.

Any other thoughts?

Dinner on Wednesday: Tinga

Just another day with another boring meal. We are in a serious rut and had tinga last night. My husband makes an excellent seasoned shredded chicken that one of our friend's Mexican grandmothers taught him to make. We usually make big batches when we make chicken stock and freeze them to meal sized portions. He wraps a tortilla around the chicken and shredded cheese, then grills it in a skillet. Lately he's been using the griddler/sandwich press, which has made clean up easier. Dipped in salsa as we eat them, this is a tasty meal that's super fast to make because the chicken defrosts so quickly.

Since we just had them last week, we actually ended up using all the tortillas in the package over the two meals, which we almost never manage to accomplish. That said, we've had a lot of it lately and we have made all our recipes ad naseum. We just don't seem motivated to try new stuff (although I did have the last of my potato salad last night and still really liked it--the lime makes a big difference and the peppers are tasty. Definitely going to make that again next time we need potatoes for another meal. I splurged on some inexpensive bell peppers at CostCo, so we may try a stuffed pepper recipe tonight.

Dinner: Rotisserie

We frequently rely upon Publix rotisserie chickens to do the cooking for us. This was not always the case, but lately, it's been a lifesaver. Maybe we'll start saving the other parts every once in a while and make chicken salad or throw it in the stock pot. I pretty much only eat white meat, though, so rotisseries present a consumption problem for me. Maybe I can mix the rich dark meat with some kind of meatless product to make a lunch meal.

So tonight was rotisserie chicken and frozen broccoli (bought at 50% off on Sunday, and when I mentioned we had it, husband was visibly happy). Chicken kept warm in the oven, and broccoli seasoned and cooked briefly in the microwave, one of the few dishes we use a microwave for. All around delish. Can't wait to stock up on veggies when on sale and use the new freezer.

We even cleaned the kitchen after dinner.

Dinner: burgers

We were lazy, and did burgers. Again. What can I say? Husband makes a rad burger, and ground chuck is on sale. I also had some of the leftover SW potato salad when I got home from work. The snack made all the difference, I think I'm going to start trying to have one every day when I get home to stave off hunger pains. The potato salad is pretty good. I'm actually having it as part of my lunch right now. I think it helped that I portioned it out when I put it in the fridge. I also think I used too much onion powder, and the extra salt isn't bothering me as much.

Dinner: Tasty stir fry

Sundays mean lots of lovely coupons and sales fliers, and thus large shopping trips. These trips are usually only at one store at a a time, and we've gotten very good about only buying with a coupon when it makes sense. We have one main store, and lately , about every two weeks, they're doing $5 of purchases of $35 or more. That's a big chunk of our grocery budget, $35, especially if we want to take advantage of the coupon multiple times. Usually I can time other regular buys, but only if I'm careful. I've missed many a possible discount, but what can you do?

Back to topic: This was one of the weeks with a $5 off coupon, so I felt a little freer to spend on staples (not really consulting the actual budget). Boneless skinless chicken breast was on sale for $2.49/lb., which is pretty inexpensive for that cut. So we bought a tray, eating two tonight, two in the upstairs freezer and and two breasts downstairs. We're still stocking the deep freezer, and we have agreed to get one honk of meat each pay period. We're well-used to using frozen meats to cook in a pinch, and I'm looking forward to expanding that.

Husband had a marinade ready when I arrived home from the store. He used some tamari sauce in the marinade/cooking sauce and decided that a teriyaki would do much better--the tamari is too strong, more suited to tuna. I agree, it almost takes over your mouth.

The chicken was very nicely cleaned and cut into large chunks. A great way to avoid gristle is to, well, cut it clean when you begin. Keep your cooking method in mind, though, sometimes you need the fat and skin to cook in if cooking slowly and at low heat. In this case, it's very quick cooking, 10-15 minutes once everything is rocking. We used leftover corn, red and green bell peppers from the potato salad and he threw it into the wok with the sauce, green onions and the chicken. Meanwhile, we made potatoes (well, he made them), from a Real Simple recipe that I have used over and over. Thinly sliced potato, cooked on a baking sheet at very high temperature for about the same amount of time as the wok (10ish minutes). Oil non-stick pan, oil, salt and pepper slices before cooking. Go easy on the salt, you can always add more later. We almost always oversalt this dish.