Tools I use

Jeff and I are both travelling for most of this week so I didn’t plan a menu. Instead, I’m going to share some of the online tools I use on a regular basis to help plan our menu and stick to our budget.

Wesabe might not be as exciting for folks who already use some kind of personal finance software, but I’ve only recently joined the club; that’s why I thought I was spending only half as much as I really was at the grocery store! With Wesabe’s tagging feature I can easily track our grocery purchases. As soon as transactions from my bank are uploaded I can “tag” them as groceries. Since I’ve set myself a goal (to spend no more than $300/month on groceries) Wesabe automatically lets me know how much I have left to spend. I could write an entire post just to rave about Wesabe…maybe I will! (update: I did.)

Epicurious has been around forever but it’s still my favorite place to find new recipes. It’s been a big help with the goal to eat more vegetarian meals in particular. The browse feature lets me sort out all the recipes for meatless main dishes, then narrow my search down even further by whether the recipe is quick to prepare, has grains or beans as a main ingredient, and even which recipes are best for a particular season (I’m so glad spring is here!) I also love the technique videos; you too can learn knife skills on the internet!

Chowhound, as with any large group of highly opinionated folks, can be exhausting sometimes. Mostly though, it’s a great resource for both eating in and eating out. There are regional and international message boards for food-specific discussions plus a very active “home cooking” board. There are lots of folks ready to recommend their favorite Christmas desserts, Indian cookbooks, and crock pots.

MyGroceryDeals is a new addition to my weekly grocery routine. Since we don’t get the newspaper I was missing out on the weekly ads. MyGroceryDeals is a single interface where I can browse the weekly specials for almost all the grocery stores in town at once. The “make a list” feature is a little clunky and a few of the prices have been off, but over all I really like knowing prices around town. I don’t usually go to all the stores on my list, but it lets me comparison shop more effectively.

Does anyone else have favorite sites they use for meal planning, cooking and/or budgeting? Post a comment and let me know!

Menu & Grocery List (3/17-3/24)

Corned beef & cabbage: our second of the season. We’ll add carrots and potatoes to the crock pot near the end so they’re still edible.

Fish tacos: normally I’m a fish snob, but these will actually be made from fish sticks…sigh. They’ll use up some of the stuff (sour cream, tortillas, etc.) in the fridge plus some of the cabbage from St. Paddy’s day.

Mushroom quiche: Jeff’s request. I’ll use some combination of this recipe and this recipe, plus the pie crust recipe I discovered at Thanksgiving.

Potato stew: this should use more of the potatoes from our boiled dinner

Ricotta pasta with grape tomatoes, peas, and basil from Rachel Ray’s 365:No Repeats cookbook (find in a library):
Since we don’t have cable I’ve never watched RR on TV. I have the feeling that if I did I would have a hard time using one of her cookbooks….

Somehow we didn’t do much cooking last week so the Trinchado and the roasted chicken are still on the menu, plus the chicken soup we’ll make from the roasted chicken leftovers. Since we’re both going to be gone for spring break this means we might even make it to the end of the month without another trip to the store.

Grocery list: not much on sale this week (except potatoes and cabbage!)

Costco:
eggs
bagels
1/2 & 1/2
coffee

Anywhere:
milk
swiss cheese
queso fresco
ricotta
yogurt

basil
cabbage (.39/lb)
potatoes (3 lbs/$1)
mushrooms
green onions
cilantro
bananas
oranges ($1.29/lb organic)
grape tomatoes
avocado

ham
fish sticks
tuna
chicken broth

penne
crackers
corn chips
candy

pantry items: onions, lettuce, carrots, celery, parsley, frozen peas, garlic, sour cream, corned beef, peanut butter, jam, bread, cereal, tortillas

A kitchen garden–in my kitchen

I think normally a kitchen garden is a a garden for your kitchen, not in your kitchen, but gardening in Central Oregon is tough. Even in ideal conditions my thumb, like my plants, tends to start green then quickly fade to a yellowish-brown. My goal to eat better for less has inspired me to give gardening another try. I’m starting small though, with herbs in my kitchen window.

I seem to buy at least one package of fresh herbs a week. Fred Meyer sells packages of organic herbs from Snoqualmie River Ranch for $1.99 which normally fits into my budget. My favorites are the “medley” packages that include three different types of herbs for making salsa (oregano, cilantro, chives) or for preparing meats like poultry (rosemary, sage, thyme). Even when there’s a medley that matches my recipes for the week, though, the packages hold more than I need and some ends up going to waste. This is particularly true with the big bunches of cilantro and parsley; I’d like to say I’m really good about drying or freezing the extras, but so far that has not been the case.

Soon I’ll be able to snip a few stems of cilantro, a bit of basil, or a piece of parsley when I need it. I have little pots of oregano and Thai basil, too. I’m hoping my thumb stays green this year. I’ll keep you posted.

Vegetarian Recipe Roundup #1

One of the ways we’re trying to keep to our grocery budget is to eat at least two meatless dinners a week. Since I grew up with a lot of vegetarians and was vegetarian myself for five years I didn’t think it would be much of a problem to come up with plenty of veggie meals. We’ve been eating more “South Beach Diet”-style for the past few years though; animal protein from the lower-fat end of the scale along with lots of vegetables and not a lot of pasta, rice, etc.. While it’s not impossible to translate the basic premise of the diet to vegetarian dinners, it takes a little more time for me to plan and prepare these meals than it does for me to grill some chicken and make a salad.

Of course there are lots more quick veggie options out there–we like lentil soup, black bean nachos, and quesadillas to name a few–but when you’re ready for something different, give one of these dishes a shot:

Zucchini Fritters from Claudia Roden’s Arabesque: A Taste of Morocco, Turkey, and Lebanon. (find this book in a library)
Oh these were good! We ate them with rice and plain yogurt–I’d probably add a salad with lots of dark colored veggies next time as the meal looked a little monotone on my celery-colored plates. I’m looking forward to trying more recipes out of this book after I have a chance to visit a Middle Eastern grocery store.

Spinach “frittata” from Jane Brody’s Good Food Book. (find this book in a library)
I don’t really follow the directions for this dish; the first time I made it I didn’t read the recipe carefully and had already mixed everything (eggs, spinach, cottage cheese, breadcrumbs) together before I realized there was more to it. I went ahead and baked it as-is and although I’ve made it according to the directions since, I prefer it all mixed together. This definitely makes it a casserole rather than a frittata. I’m more fond of this dish than Jeff so I usually end up with all the leftovers, but he’ll eat it the first night (and then make himself a snack an hour later, but that’s not unusual anyway….)

Spaghetti with cauliflower, green olives, and almonds: I use Epicurious regularly; their advanced search is pretty much the ultimate searching experience. I found this recipe while browsing through a list of meatless, quick recipes and was surprised how much we liked it (and how satisfying it was.) The leftovers were even better, but they didn’t last long!

I’m going to work on trying more whole-grain focused veggie recipes for the next veggie recipe roundup. I’ll keep you posted!

Menu & Grocery List (3/10-3/16)

Dinners:
Trinchado & french fries: not the healthiest dinner, but Leite’s Culinaria is the “cookbook” of the month on the Chowhound discussion boards and I wanted to play too. Plus french fries are a traditional accompaniment to this spicy South African dish and these yummy-sounding salt & pepper french fries are on sale at Fred Meyer.

Zuni Roasted Chicken & asparagus: another Chowhound suggestion–everyone seems to love this chicken. Whole chickens are on sale at Fred’s and asparagus is on sale at Safeway.

Pasta e fagioli: This is a quick & easy veggie dinner–’nuff said.

Lamb & eggplant crockpot dish This is someone’s personal recipe posted on Chowhound. I bought the ingredients last week but we didn’t get to it so it’s on the menu again.

Chile verde: I already have all the ingredients for this so it won’t be on the list (but we’ll eat it with rice, which is on the list).

Grocery list:
Costco:
bagels
string cheese
crystal light

Albertsons:
1/2 & 1/2 (bogo free)
pineapple (.99/lb)

Thriftway:
oranges (.59/lb)
romas (.99/lb)
cucumbers (2/.88)
asparagus (1.99/lb)

Fred Meyer:
chicken (.99/lb)
french fries ($2)
corned beef (1.48/lb)
cantaloupe (.68/lb)
strawberries ($2)
triscuits (1.88)
poultry herbs (1.99)

Wherever:
beef broth
16 oz. can tomatoes
can white beans

onions
garlic
black olives
carrots
lettuce
celery
red chilis (2-3)

rump roast (2lbs)
red wine

rice
elbow macaroni
ramen

sponges
toilet paper
comet

candy & snacks for Jeff

This title is temporary

WordPress makes you choose a title when you set up a blog; luckily it also allows you to change the title down the road. While this might be bad for search engine indexing, it’s good for me.

Bend Times popped into my head as a newspaper-y sounding title that is also a play on “end times”. When I mentioned the end times-connection to Jeff, however, he had no idea what I was talking about. I think it must be a Seventh-Day Adventism. I’m not particularly fond of the title though as I don’t plan to focus on Bend much and I’m not writing about religion at all.

I need a new title–any suggestions out there?

yet another blog….

I know, there are thousands on wordpress.com alone, not to mention all the others in places like blogger and blogspot (as well as all the self-hosted blogs). Oh well. This is mainly for personal communication to family and friends, but it is in a public space and anyone is welcome. If you find something interesting here, I’m glad.