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I think I temporarily forgot I have a food blog. I promise, I have a few posts ready to go when I can get the motivation to edit the photos and write down the recipes. Which I’m hoping will be tonight. In the meantime, I am happy to report (well, happy is probably the wrong word) that after all my whining, it turns out that this July will have been the hottest month on record in New York. EVER. I feel vindicated, but it doesn’t make me want to turn on my oven any more…
OK, OK, I know the last like, 3 months (oh god, has it been 3 months? almost.) have proven to me that blogging is hard. When you also have to, like, do stuff and work. But frankly it’s made me a bit sad to see it fall by the wayside. I have completed a dreaded move (though my new oven is…touchy) and am ready to jump back in. Or so I hope. Perhaps this weekend I can make it to the farmer’s market and create something tasty that does not involve baking. In any case. I’m baaaaack!
I love this time of year. New York has come through with phenomenal weather this past week, that crisp, cool weather that seems so rare. Fall obviously means “back to school”, and although I am not heading off to class tomorrow, there is a sense of newness and anticipation that fall brings no matter what. Melancholy usually accompanies it, but I like that too.
It seems appropriate then that today I made graham crackers. They seem like such a school snack, and not something you’d really think to make yourself. But I’m making cheesecake bars for my bake-off in October, and thought making my own graham crackers for the crust would be stepping it up a notch. I won’t repeat the recipe here, you can find it at Smitten Kitchen — I made one mistake of using all “white whole wheat” flour instead of part all-purpose and part whole wheat, so I think mine came out a tiny bit tough because of it. But these are super tasty and crunchy, and with some peanut butter on them, they’re a perfect snack, whether you’re headed off to school with your backpack or just off to another day in the rat race!
I’m not gonna lie. I’m distracted this week.
But somehow I managed to make a decent cold noodle salad and passable lemon bars last night. Sounds exciting, doesn’t it? Well YOU TOO can make said dishes, hopefully with a little more enthusiasm than I did. Really what happened is that in a moment of weakness, I went into Barnes and Noble. I should know better. I am queen of 1,000 unfinished projects. I have two scarves, half knit, sitting in a box in my room. I need to reupholster and paint chairs in my apartment, organize the closets, learn how to make jewelry. But instead of doing these very tangible things, I pile on new projects! Back to Barnes & Noble. So the problem with the books I bought is that they are on 2 very specific topics: canning, and making cheese. These activities require planning, time, and special equipment. I am going to do both, to the detriment of my other projects and responsibilities I’m sure, but when I’m fantasizing about making my own farmhouse cheddar, it’s hard to focus on the task at hand, i.e., dinner.
So far, so good. Well, except for the fact that Key Foods doesn’t carry BUTTERMILK. Or I should say the Key Foods closest to my apartment. I hate that grocery store. Truly, Key Foods sucks. However, the incident pointed out one of the pitfalls of budgeted eating. Sometimes the cheapest solutions take the most time. And time is definitely worth something.
Instead of walking all the way to the Trader Joe’s and potentially waiting in a long line just for some butter and buttermilk, I went to the pricey grocery store up the street. I payed at least double for the butter as I would have at Trader Joe’s, but the 30 extra minutes for the cheap option wasn’t worth it, partially because the sky looked like it was about to open up. So unfortunately the cornbread I made was worth a little more than I thought it would be.
I also have to admit a little pang as I walked by the Haagen Dazs, because it is about 100% humidity in New York and there were so many happy people eating ice cream. But I figured if I bought some I would have to cop to it here, and I’m sure enough transgressions will come over the next few weeks. Day 2 didn’t seem the right time to throw one in!
So, official Day 1. My daily allowance for 2 people is $7.14 to equal $50 for the week.
Breakfast: Brown Bread = $.23 x 2 servings = $.46
Lunch: Leftover Arroz con Pollo = $1.58 x 2 servings = $3.16
Snack: Orange (already accounted for cost in scone recipe)
Dinner: Black Bean Soup = $.74 x 2 servings = $1.50
Total: $5.12
The Arroz con Pollo recipe, which I made for dinner Sunday, was supposed to serve 4, but definitely came out to 6 servings (and I think I put in 1/2 the chicken it called for!). So that brings my per meal price down significantly. Here are the recipes and prices:
So I’m using my time on a slow Friday to plan meals for next week. Alexis suggested I do this for others for pay, so any takers? Ha! I didn’t think it would be that easy.
Anyway! I have this sort of fantasy that every other Sunday I will roast a whole chicken and then use the carcass to make stock, and use the leftovers to make creative lunches and / or dinners for the next couple of days. What happens is I roast a whole chicken, and get tired of eating it pretty much immediately. But then I saw this recipe for chipotle chicken burritos, where the meat is slathered in a chipotle tomato sauce, and I thought – yes! It will cover up the day-old chicken flavor I loathe! So that set off my thinking for the week’s menus. What usually helps ingredient-wise is sticking to one cuisine, that way you can use up large bunches of herbs or other very specific components in multiple dishes. But I have experienced Asian-inspired cuisine overload this week, so I am going to attempt to mix it up without compromising the frugality of the dishes. Simple and flavorful. That’s what I’ll go for.
So I’m sure all 3 of you that read this blog so far are dying to know how I did with my week of food prep! Or not. Anyway, here’s what I ended up making & eating…I’ve learned that I actually have to make less things than I think I do because leftovers always last longer than I expect, whether I want them to or not. It’s really difficult to make true 2-person portions (x 2 for lunch the next day) because so many things come in pre-determined sizes, like canned tomatoes or beans and, um, vegetables (I always need half of a green pepper – so annoying. can’t they breed smaller peppers? just kidding!)
Monday
Lunch: Leftover Gumbo and Cornbread
Dinner: Black Bean and Tomato Stew with Sausage and Brown Rice
Tuesday
Lunch: Leftover Stew (this stew was surprisingly delicious the next day)
Dinner: Failed attempt at Bulgur Veggie Burgers
Wednesday
Lunch: Sandwich made from failed Veggie Burger paste
Dinner: Nothing special – a few yams and peanut butter balls (hey at least I’m being honest)
Thursday
Lunch: Sandwich from failed Veggie Burger paste + Yam medallions
Dinner: PIZZA!
Friday
Lunch: Pizza
Dinner: Who knows – I will be at a dance show tonight so probably just whatever is around when I get home.
This weekend I will be stocking up and planning for next week…hopefully I’ll get better at this as I go along.
This is the most cogent, pragmatic article I’ve read about the complexities of sustainability in food production. Michael Pollan did an excellent job of it in The Omnivore’s Dilemma, but Paul Roberts of Mother Jones has taken the thesis from that book and crafted it into a 3-page call to action that will make you rethink every food-buying habit you have – whether you are a consumer of organic and local by habit or not.
Here are a few choice quotes.
Regarding “local” food’s carbon footprint:
“In theory, locally grown foods have traveled shorter distances and thus represent less fuel use and lower carbon emissions—their resource footprint is smaller. And yet, for all the benefits of a local diet, eating locally doesn’t always translate into more sustainability. Because the typical farmers market is supplied by dozens of different farms, each transporting its crops in a separate van or truck, a 20-pound shopping basket of locally grown produce might actually represent a larger carbon footprint than the same volume of produce purchased at a chain retailer, which gets its produce en masse, via large trucks.”
According to a 2008 report from Carnegie Mellon University, going meat- and dairyless one day a week is more environmentally beneficial than eating locally every single day.
About local supply that exceeds local demand:
“Conversely, rural areas with good farm potential will always be able to outproduce local or even regional demand, and will remain dependent on other markets. “One farmer in Oregon with a few hundred acres can grow more pears than the entire state of Oregon eats,” says Scott Exo, executive director of the Portland-based Food Alliance and an expert in the business challenges of sustainability. “Attention to the geographical origins of food is great, but you have to understand its economic limits.”"
Best summary ever:
“We can’t wait for the perfect solution to emerge; we need to start transforming the food system today—most probably with hybrid models, like Fleming’s or Liebman’s, that take the best of both alternative and mainstream technologies and acknowledge not only the complexity of true sustainability but the practical reality that the perfect is often the enemy of the good.”
