The Pig and I

This was a pretty good week for me. I ate mostly a lot of leftovers, plus venison sausage. Thus, I wasted: NOTHING!

It was kind of chilly, and I wanted soup. Plus, I wanted to use some of the bulghur I have for something other than tabouleh or mujadarra. It's a pretty easy recipe, taking about an hour to make (and most of that is just letting it sit there while you wander off and get the laundry done). It's also got a clean, fresh taste with just a hint of spice. Hope you enjoy! 1 tablespoon each: butter (I used samneh here, but whatever), olive oil 1/4 onion, sliced 1/2 teaspoon salt splash rosemary vinegar (to make this, stick some rosemary sprigs in some vinegar and let it sit at room temperature a couple weeks) 1 teaspoon each: minced garlic, sumac , marjoram 1 15-ounce can stewed tomatoes, cut up a bit in the can dash cinnamon 1 14-ounce can chicken broth (use vegetable broth if you want this to be vegetarian) 1 8-ounce can tomato sauce 1 large handful bulghur (or 2 if you have baby hands like I do) 1 teaspoon salt Melt the butter in the oil over medium-low, then add the ...

Here's what I used up for the week. Not a lot of stuff, but that's okay. This is probably more typical for what I'll use each week, given that some days I spend the night with friends, and other days I'm home. 1/4 pound white, long-grained rice spelt some bulghur 1/2 the golden raisins

I hope you all are having a happy Christmas. I actually didn't do any shopping this week. There's nothing I needed, plus I knew I was going out of town (which is where I am now; out of town). This also helps compensate for the overage from last week.

This was a really bad week for me, in terms of waste. I wasted: 4 clementines (I went to open the 5 pound box so I could turn it all into juice, and 4 were rotted) 1/8 watermelon (this fermented before I got to it, which has no excuse other than laziness on my part)

I wanted to use up the last of the spelt today. Mostly because it tastes good, but secondarily because I'm trying to work through the stuff in the Cave. I wasn't really looking for a meal, so much as a filling snack, which meant that a salad was the way to go. By the way, is it helpful to you all when I put links that describe what might be considered exotic ingredients? Or do y'all not care one way or the other? You could use regular whole wheat in this in place of spelt, if you wanted to. I don't think there'd be a significant difference of any sort. Also, you could add some grilled chicken or tuna if you wanted some meat in it. Hope you enjoy! 1/4 pound spelt 1 teaspoon each: vinegar (I used tangerine-basil vinegar), orange blossom water water 1 carrot, diced 1 tablespoon capers 1/2 cup diced quick pickles 1/4 cup shaved onion juice of one lemon 2 tablespoons olive oil 2 teaspoons za'atar 1/2 teaspoon each: harissa , tomato paste 1 teaspoon pom...

I think I might not be getting enough protein lately, so I decided to get into that bag of chicken to work on the problem. I also have some pesto left over from when Sarah and I made it at her house, and it seemed like a good idea to use the pesto as a sort of paste to marinate the chicken. I had this with rice, but I think it'd be equally good with pasta. Mainly I had it with rice so as to be able to use even more pesto. :) Once again, this is a pretty quick and easy meal. You could put the pesto on the chicken, then go to work and it'll be ready to cook when you come home. I just let it hang out in the fridge while I got some work done here at home. I had a lot of research to do in a pretty short period of time (because apparently I've turned into a massive procrastinator), so it was a good work day meal for me. As an aside, I cannot figure out if my neighbour's kid is taking singing lessons, or if they just listen to really bad music. A lot. Like, the same three s...

Here's another simple meal. I got home recently after a long night, and needed some nourishing, filling, excessively salty and somewhat fatty food. So here's what I had. Hope you enjoy! 1 russett potato, peeled or not, but cut into cubes 1/4 large onion, sliced 1 tablespoon olive oil (mine was rosemary infused) 1 1/2 teaspoons rice wine vinegar (or any other sort you like) 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon harissa (or other hot sauce) 10 ounces chili, homemade or canned (I used meat chili but vegetarian chili works too) cheese (optional) Heat oven to 350F. Combine all ingredients but the chili (and cheese), and bake for 45 minutes. Add chili (and cheese) and bake another 10-15 minutes. Serves 2. Also, I ate this with chopped pickles on top.

This week was not really good in terms of using food storage for me. I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I had so much food outside the house that I didn't get the opportunity to cook a single thing (between eating up my leftovers so they wouldn't go to waste, and the actual eating out). So I used up... Nothing.

Oops. I went over this week. Only by about 3 dollars, which is fine since I'm usually under by more than that. But nonetheless, it still happened. Mostly because I decided I wanted some meat in the house, in the form of a large bag of chicken breasts. I like to keep those bags of chicken around because when I want meat, it's very convenient to just take a little out and go from there. Then the fruit section captured me. I had already mango and pumello so watermelon and blueberries seemed like the perfect way to round out the fruit salad I wanted to make. I used to always eat a bowl of fruit salad for breakfast, and I'd like to get back to doing that. But okay, I'm lying. The chicken isn't the reason I went over. The reason is that I had some potatoes and I wanted to bake them and put chili on them (and then I saw the least expensive can of palm hearts I've ever seen in my life). THAT is really how I went over. Regardless, here's the spending for the week. :)...

This week I wasted: radishes Not really sure what happened here. I started with best intentions to make that wakame salad, but then life got in the way. When I went to do it, the radishes had turned into this sad, shriveled little mass of red and green. :(

Okay, I'm kind of a liar. This isn't really a cholent. I mean, I didn't add any rice or barley, and there's not much by way of meat. But whatever. It's close enough and was cooked the same way. I'm not really even sure why I was craving cholent, though I suspect it happened the moment I read "low 29F" on weather.com. Did you guys know I used to hate beans? I mean, seriously; I hated them like Pythagoras hated them (okay, that's kind of a lie too since I never thought they were evil). I'm not entirely sure what happened to me to change my mind, since I suspect the beans haven't changed a bit. But as you know, I've been sitting somewhere near 30 pounds of beans, this seemed like a good way to use up a bunch. I didn't have any raw meat in the house, so I just cut up some jerky instead. Plus, I could eat it for days and not be sad. 1 cup dry adzuki beans (little red ones) 1 cup dry lima beans 1 cup dry black eyed peas 2 carrots, ...

My second half of avocado survived long enough for me to make spring rolls. Are you proud I didn't chow it down without doing anything with it? These are really easy to make, and are perfect for on the go eating. I would normally serve these with a peanut sauce, but strangely I have no peanut butter. You can make a peanut sauce if you like for them, though. Then I thought I'd just make a quick sauce with hoisin and sriracha, but I was too lazy so I just ate them all plain. Hope you enjoy! 1/2 package rice or tapioca vermicelli, broken in half water salt 2-3 tablespoons sesame oil 1-2 tablespoons rice vinegar 1/2 sweet potato, roasted and sliced thinly 1/2 large avocado, sliced thinly and sprinkled with the lime juice juice of 1/2 lime 10 spring roll wrappers large bowl of very cold water Boil water with salt, then add vermicelli and cook for 3-4 minutes. Drain and add sesame oil and vinegar to noodles and mix well. Soak one sheet of spring roll wrapper in the cold ...

Dried guava Dried papaya Dried mango 1 package rice vermicelli lima beans 1/2 pound small red beans

It's a little weird when you realise you've got a house full of exotic ingredients but you're missing basics such as peanut butter. Does that happen to you guys ever? I'm glad I was made aware that I was missing this, though. Next time I make spring rolls I'll be able to make a proper sauce. This week's spending involved missing staples, stuff to make stew and a lot of junk food. On to the spending. HEB : $1.19 - eggs $2.99 - shelf stable milk (4 little ones, since I rarely need more than a cup at a time to make stuff) $2.07 - kosher salt $2.48 - triscuits (I was really craving triscuits with banana peppers again) $2.50 - ding dongs $0.69 - large mango (seriously? awesome deal) $1.45 - creamy peanut butter $0.69 - 1 can crushed tomatoes $0.68 - crystal's hot sauce $1.02 - salad mix $0.50 - cucumber $0.84 - potato Total: $16.41

Okay, so if you're anti-hunting, or sensitive about animals, this might not be the post for you. Just sayin'. Today is a special day, since you get two posts today ;) Over the summer, my friend Daniel walked into our class and said, "Hey Allie. How do you cook squirrel?" And there it started. A friend of his was moving and didn't want to move all the meat in her freezer. In this batch of meat is what he thought was 2 squirrels but which we now know was actually 4 of them. We had some discussion on the various techniques for cooking squirrel meat (I did actually have to research this, since it's not a game meat I'd eaten before), and then I forgot all about it. Until a week or so ago. For the final project in one of our classes, we were also having a potluck. Squirrel stew was brought up, and we went for it. Daniel came over and we made the stew. It made significantly more than either of us expected, actually filling the 6-quart crock pot. The broth we ...

This week, I wasted: 1 spring roll - Despite my best efforts, I just couldn't eat 10 of them. But now I know, and I won't make quite so many without planning to take them elsewhere for sharing.

You guys remember Presto Pasta Nights ? It's one of my favourite challenges, because it's so non-restrictive. The best challenges for me are the ones that leave you free to be as creative as you like. So this here (I have no idea why I wanted to say "so this here," but I just really wanted to) is my submission for the week (I know; it's been a while since I last did it). PPN is being hosted this week by Rachel at The Crispy Cook . She's got some tasty-looking stuff over there, so y'all should go check her out. So, you know those little pastas? The stars, and the ones that look like rice, and the mini-wheels? I really love those pastas. How I most love to make them, though, is like they're risotto. It's a lot faster and everything gets done in one frying pan. Which basically means a lot less dishes for me (especially when I just eat it while it's still in the pan). Anyway, I have a couple cans of clams, so I figured I'd use one for this si...

I just can't seem to eat enough avocados for my happiness right now. Mostly I love to just mix them up with tomatoes, as you know, or eat them with a spoon straight from the shell. But sometimes I like to poke around in my fridge and see what's in there that might be good with the avocado-of-the-day (speaking of which, if enough of the avocado makes it, you'll be seeing some in spring rolls soon; if enough doesn't make it, you won't be). Today I found some beautiful artisan salami tucked in a bin in the fridge, and of course I always have several kinds of pickled foods. So I made this. It's really nice with the creamy, sweetness of the avocado, the firm-but-yielding fattiness of the salami and the salty crunch of the pickles. All made better with a little lime. Hope you enjoy! 1/2 large avocado, cubed 1/3 cup diced salami 1 pickle, diced (I used Arabic pickles this time) juice of 1/2 lime salt if desired (I didn't use it since salami and pickles are bo...

This week, the following were used: Dried figs 5 pounds pasta (don't get used to this; it'll never happen again since I don't typically have athletes in my house)

Has anyone noticed that the new way of drafting posts on Blogger is a little spotty and weird? Or is it just me? I preferred the way it used to be set up. I know. Off topic. Turns out there's a Save-a-Lot by my new apartment, so I went in there to check it out and pick up some stuff. I like that things are quite inexpensive there, but I'm not fond of the severely limited choices. So I'm not sure if I'll keep shopping there, since I feel like I can get comparable prices at other supermarkets (so long as I pay attention to what's on sale and stuff) without relinquishing my ability to have more than one option for each item. Usually during my summer challenges (where the budget is far lower than it is now), I include eating out in my weekly money. Which basically means I don't really get to go out ever, unless someone is feeling generous enough to feed me in exchange for my company (which does happen, but not often enough for me to actually get to see my friend...

I just can't say this strongly enough. Having a cyclist in your house is the most amazing way to avoid food waste. They eat EVERYTHING. The more, the better. Thus, this week I have wasted: NOTHING!!!

Okay, so j. requested a rice pudding, and I figure that since she's off her budget right now, it'd be the perfect time to throw a little saffron into the mix. Also, I had some dried figs laying about that I really did need to use up, so here they are (and look at that - me using stuff in storage!). Sorry for my lateness in posting this; I've had a couchsurfer staying with me and my need to be an almost decent hostess has gotten in the way of me posting. Hope you enjoy! 1 cup rice 1 3/4 cups water pinch salt 1/4 teaspoon saffron threads 1/8 teaspoon each: cardamom pods; pink peppercorns 1 1/2 cups milk 1/8 cup vanilla sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (optional) 1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon rose water (don't use too much of this or it comes out tasting like flowers, and no one likes that sort of thing) 1/8 cup almonds, chopped 8 dried figs, cut into quarters Boil the water and pour it onto the saffron. Let stand an hour or so. Then combine it with the remainder of ...

I know that a small amount of accountability to make me get through all my food storage is a good thing. So Sundays are the day where I tell you what I've used up from the food storage. Also, I want to take this opportunity to let you guys know that if you have specific stuff you want to see me make, post it on the Sunday posts and I'll start doing requests for either Mondays or Tuesdays. I will not include standard canned goods in my list of "used up," since I have them in normal-person quantities rather than hoarder quantities. I'm also not going to include stuff from the fridge (unless it's staples I'm storing in there), spices, or anything that falls under normal-person quantities of stuff. But everything I consider to be part of my food storage will be listed as it gets used. I will not torment you guys with a list of precisely what is IN the food storage, since I think it's simpler to just put what I used and let you guys work out how much food i...

Like I mentioned yesterday, holidays make life a little easier for me. Most years I go somewhere for Thanksgiving, and this one was no exception. So I didn't have a lot of food shopping to do for the week, since I spent most of it out of town. I'll need a little produce and perhaps a day's worth of meat since I'm back home now, but that's not too bad. I wanted to mention also that I needed to add one more rule to the ones I posted last week, which is that I can't be buying rice either. I still have a massive amount of white, brown, red, jasmine and medium rices left. And, I wanted to admit I already broke one of my rules by buying a package of spinach noodles. I just couldn't help myself. So, on to the shopping. Normally I don't count the food that I buy while I'm in transit between one city and another, and I'm not going to count it now but I am going to mention it. Gas station : $3.29 for three bags of chips $1.50 for a Diet Coke To...

With it being Thanksgiving week, this was a pretty easy week for me. I mean, I was only in town from Friday until Tuesday. I'm still actually not back home, and I won't be until tomorrow. However, I was careful to eat up leftovers and perishables so I wouldn't come home to any waste, except one tiny thing. I just couldn't get that last one down, and it was too old for me to give it to someone else and feel good about it. So, for this week, I wasted: One maple bar. I know, I know. Who wastes junk food, right? How'd you guys do? Were you able to foist off holiday leftovers on others, or did you wind up wasting food?

And, this is back too. Obviously, it's not summer anymore. And also obviously, I'm not still on the $10/week budget. Also, I get to use the Cave again. But, now that I'm living on my own and my whole life is different, I wanted to lay out some new rules for my grocery spending. This week I forgot to save any receipts from buying groceries, but I'll be doing that from now on again so y'all can see what kind of stuff I'm up to, in terms of shopping and also in terms of keeping the new budget. So, the new rules: 1) My new budget is $20/week. I actually believe this is far more money than I need, but I wanted to make sure that if I go on an olive and/or cheese binge, I've got enough wiggle room to compensate for it. Also, I'd like to entertain more. This means, since I only have a two person table, that I'd have only one person over at a time (well, unless people want to eat on the couch and/or floor). But still, I want a little extra food monies f...

It's back! In my effort to post more, I want to bring this back. Right now my cooking has been more related to comfort foods you guys already know about, but next week I'll start trying to do at least one new recipe per week. Anyway, back to the waste. As you might expect, I've created a lot of trash while I've been moving. But that's got nothing to do with food. This week, I wasted: NOTHING! Let's see how many weeks I can keep this up for!

When I was a teenager, my friend T and I used to slice up avocados and tomatoes. We'd put the avocados in a layer on the bottom of the plate, then top with tomatoes, then top with lots of salt and lemon juice. It always felt like a wonderful treat eating that (and drinking all the juices left on the plate). I'm all moved into my place. A few things are still at P's (mostly athletic gear), which I'll pick up as I can, when I'm visiting Francis. But other than that I'm moved and completely unpacked. I even managed to get all my art hung on the walls. My kitchen, however, is pretty small. It's a big transition going from the large kitchens I've used over the last 15 years to a little bitty kitchen. It's small enough that I'm using the dishwasher to store dishes rather than to wash them. Now, I'm not complaining about the size; it's cozy in there and it seriously limits the amount of kitchen stuff I can buy (i.e., I bought an old Oster blen...

Hi guys. I think I mentioned to y'all that aside from the health problems I've been dealing with, I've had some other major life changes underway. One of those changes is that P and I are not together anymore. I'm moving out of our house and into an apartment on Friday (well, I'm sure it'll take the whole weekend, but I start moving Friday), and I cannot imagine trying to get all my things packed and moved, figure out what P is keeping and what I am taking from the shared items, etc. while having to do the dishes after cooking. And while keeping up on my homework so I don't fail my classes. Moving mid-semester? Not something I recommend, so if you can avoid it please do so. My plan is to cook nothing until after I am done with the move and am unpacked. This, I think, should not take me more than a week or two. I'm moving into a really small place compared to where I live now. This means I have to think carefully about what I'm bringing. I will, ho...

Why aren't Dennis Haybert and Eric Balfour in more tv shows? I mean, at least with Haybert you can always refrain from fast forwarding through the Allstate commercials. But still. And why am I so equally fascinated with both actors that I can't help but alternate reruns of Conviction, The Unit and Haven? And why am I wondering about this when I should be reading my linear book? And what does this have to do with food (nothing)? Here's another quick and mostly health meal. I think given how little chorizo is in this, it might even count as healthy. Well, unless you have dietary restrictions. Anyway. I had cooked the last of the chorizo so I could make a pizza with it (pizza crust, salsa for the sauce, monterrey jack or cheddar, chorizo on top) and I had some left over. Not wanting it to go to waste, and also discovering that I like chorizo a lot less than I used to (or perhaps it's just the brand?), I figured if I put it in with some other stuff I'd get the lovely ...

This is really similar to the dish I made a while back, with the tilapia (incorrectly spelled, if I recall) and the spinach. The same basic principle is what I used here, cooking all the stuff and then throwing the fish on top to steam right before serving. This dish took me forever to cook, though, because I kept adjusting the heat to stall on the food being ready so I wouldn't have already eaten and set a plate aside for P. If I'm going to cook, I prefer everyone be home to eat it I suppose. So the times I put here are kind of a guesstimate based on how long I think this should have taken as opposed to how long it actually did take. Also, this meal was made entirely from food storage (including the freezer). I really don't want to go to the store. Hope you enjoy! 1 can sliced potatoes, drained 2 cups frozen and thawed pearl onions 1 cup frozen and thawed kernel corn 1 tablespoon each: schmaltz , olive oil, sesame oil, tomato paste, harissa , lemon juice, minced garl...

I was poking through the freezer looking to see what might be in there that I haven't eaten in a while that might be good. I know I have the white board on it, but sometimes it's good to just get your hands in there and touch stuff to decide what you want. I had forgotten that there were some Anson Mills grits, which are super expensive (hence I don't make that often. Not that, in fairness, I've cooked a whole lot recently) but incredibly delicious (that's the company that made me stop hating grits). Their expense is probably why I forgot they were tucked in there anyway, but it seemed like a good thing to eat for dinner. With bacon. This is probably more of a breakfast thing than a dinner thing, but it's what I wanted for dinner. I like grits (when they're made well), but sometimes I like a little more textural variance in there. So I decided to add kernel corn. I've had grits made that way in restaurants before and I find it's a really nice touc...

I cooked something. I think that probably doesn't seem noteworthy, but I haven't cooked anything in over a month. Aside from one loaf of banana bread, which I gave to one of my doctors. And I only made that because I could sit on a chair while the blender did everything. I think I mentioned previously that I've had a lot going on. Aside from normal life changes that people expect (or don't expect), I've also had some health issues. It's made it nearly impossible to eat, and for a while I was subsisting on a can of soup a day and a few sneaked pieces of junk food. I lost 20 or so pounds. Finally, thankfully, I have an appetite again and I can eat without getting sick. So that's good. That doesn't mean I'll be cooking up new stuff and posting it daily, but it does mean occasionally I might actually have something to say. I'm kind of taking eating one day at a time right now, trying to get a workable appetite so I can eat more than an appetize...

I'm here, and I'm not here. There's a lot of restructuring going on in the house, so not a lot of actual cooking is going on. There's also a lot of restructuring going on in my life, which kind of makes me not want to cook. Among other things, I've got a new semester starting (and I'm trying to get ahead instead of the staying afloat I did over the summer) and I quit smoking. It's a lot of stress, most of which I don't really want to get into here. But I wanted to pop in and say hi, and let everyone know I haven't forgotten you (despite the fact that I haven't even been reading other blogs as of late). I've just sort of been in my own little world, and oddly, food hasn't even been part of my life outside of quick take-out for the most part. I haven't even been grocery shopping, other than to pick up some juice here or there. I guess it's a good thing I have a lot of food storage, so at least there'll be food to eat if I do win...

You guys know I'm going out of town tomorrow, and that's well and good. But what you don't know, is I might be gone from the blog for a couple weeks or possibly as long as a month. I have no interest in cooking right now, and I've got a lot to do to clear my head space so I can do well in the upcoming semester. I kind of feel like being responsible for anything I'm not truly responsible for (i.e., paying my bills) is a little more than I can handle right now. If I thought I wouldn't be lynched for tossing my phones in the Gulf, I'd do that too. I'm just not really in a people kind of place right now. So, I'm not ditching you guys, but I am ditching you. For a little bit.

We ate these when I was growing up, and I just loved them. I believe my mother learned to make them from her Depression-era parents (though I could be mistaken), but given the economy I thought it might be nice to recirculate this tasty breakfast. I'm just listing it as serving one, but you of course can multiply it to serve as many people as you're feeding. One of the best parts of this recipe, other than it being inexpensive and tasty, is that the egg and toast are combined. If you're a runny yolk kind of person, it's set up perfectly for the dipping. Hope you enjoy! 1 slice bread 1 egg salt and pepper to taste pat of butter (or you can use saved bacon grease or any other kind of fat) Heat up a pan. Melt the butter in the pan, then tear out a hole from the middle of the bread (ball this up and eat your bread marble, or it's a nice treat to appease the dog who is going to be angry you didn't make him an egg too). Put the bread into the pan and break the ...

This was a really weird week for me. I broke down and needed some synthetic food, in the form of a Big Mac. So I got one. Then I went to a baby shower which was at a sushi restaurant. I didn't think I'd ever had food budget money again, but apparently the shower organiser had decided to cover the bill. So that was good and I was off the hook for another total potential fail this week. So, here's the business of the week. P gets back in town tomorrow. He tends to like for certain things to be on hand that don't necessarily fit into the $10/week budget. However, I'd intended to stay on this budget until the 21st. So what I'm going to do is reopen access to the Cave, in order to defray some of that increased cost, and also to try to stick with the budget. I'm not sure how well this will go, so it's possible I might go over. But I'll try not to. If it looks like going over is unavoidable, I might modify things to give me $10/week/person instead of just $...

This week, I wasted: Nothing!

So, mangoes. I think you guys heard about the mangoes in the freezer for like, 2 months. I actually managed to do something with them. I thought about mango quick breads and mango cupcakes and all sorts of other mango things, but at the end of the day, I mainly just wanted a smoothie. Kind of a creamy-ish version of pureed fruit. So, here it is. Hope you enjoy! 2 cups frozen mango 1/2 cup almond milk Put them in a blender, and blend, blend, blend. If you want to make it protein-y, add some protein powder. Serves 1 (2 if you're more polite than I am).

I wanted to eat some chicken recently, but I wasn't quite ready to eat the Italian dressing thing again (though there's no particular reason why I wasn't - I just wanted to do something different with it this time). I was peeking around in my Fridge-of-Holding, and I remembered I had some Caesar dressing in there. I probably should use that up, since I honestly don't remember when I bought it. If you want to make your own Caesar dressing, here's my favourite recipe for it (with the extra bonus of other dressings as well). Anyway, I really like chicken caesar salads, but I didn't actually have any romaine lettuce. So I decided to turn it all into a pasta salad. It's more filling and stretches further this way too, which is also an extra bonus. Aside from the addition of pasta and the lack of lettuce, there are a couple other deviations from the normal Caesar-type thing, since I wanted to have some variance in texture. Hope you enjoy! 1/2 pound pasta, cooke...

I mentioned yesterday that this was a really pedestrian version of Magnolia's Mud. That's pretty much true. I went the super lazy route, not bothering to buy a tomato to make a proper pico, using the last of the pickled jalepenos instead of ponying up the 5 cents for a fresh one, and using entirely less cheese than one probably should use. I also didn't add the fresh items (avocado excepted) to the mix after it was cooked - I just dumped everything into the saucepan at once and let it figure itself out. I was really hungry, what can I say? Though on the cheese front, I actually used less because I like my queso a lot more tomatoey than most people do. Given I'm the only one eating it (with pita chips!), I figured I should just do whatever I want. So, I'll put the normal person way in parentheses below. I ate this as a meal (okay, 2 meals), but mostly it'd be served as an appetizer to feed more people. Hope you enjoy! 1/2 pound Velveeta or similar (1 pound) 1 ...

This was an interesting week for me. I went to a birthday dinner, and got an $11 entree (and water). I figured this was going to put me way over budget, giving me grocery money of $8.88 for the next week (from the 12 cents of last week plus the dollar over the $10). But as an awesome matter of circumstance, I didn't actually pay for my meal. It was kind of neat eating out at a restaurant. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed doing stuff like that. One negative byproduct of doing a highly restrictive food budget is that unless you exempt eating out (which I don't), it's very isolating. Most of the time when my friends want to go out for dinner or do something that ultimately winds up resulting in eating out (such as going to the movies; because really, who goes to the movie and doesn't get popcorn?) I can't go. Well, I could, but then I couldn't buy food that week. It's a downside that anyone on a restrictive food budget is aware of, and I'm not convinced ...

This week, I wasted: Nothing!

You have no idea what that is, do you? Don't feel bad. I didn't either, until I made it up. It's a bacon, pita and tuna sandwich. If you think bacon with tuna salad is weird, you are not alone. Everyone seems to think it's weird until they eat it. But really, they're perfect together. Anyway, I have all this "new" pita, so I didn't see the point in taking normal bread out of the freezer when I could just make a tasty wrap instead. So that's what I did. Hope you enjoy! 1 pita 1 line of mustard (or I guess mayo if you're into that sort of thing) 3/4 cup tuna salad 1-3 slices of bacon (your call; I went with 1 slice this time, but sometimes I like as many as 3 slices of bacon per sammie) handful banana peppers (optional) cheese (optional) Lay out the pita. Put the tuna salad along the middle. Top with the line of mustard, then add the bacon and banana peppers. Roll up, like a wrap or like a burrito. Eat. Serves 1.

As I'd mentioned Saturday, I still had some beans left to eat, and that I intended to put them together with the tuna salad I wanted to make (the same salad, by the way, that caused me to go over budget). So, here we are. Makin' tuna salad. I did this one a little differently than I normally would, because I didn't want to lose the specialness of the beans in there. If that makes sense. I don't really know how better to express my thoughts on the whole, beans and tuna combination. Mostly, I excluded the majority of the spices I normally put into tuna salad, and swapped them out for the beloved za'atar blend. It perfectly accented the flavours in the salad. And, for those of you who don't think mayonnaise is disgusting and should only be used as a binder, feel free to increase the amount in there. Hope you enjoy! 2 cans tuna (I use water packed), drained 1 cup cooked white beans 1/3 cup red onion, finely diced 1 stalk celery, finely diced 1 pickle, finely d...

Okay, okay. I made the cheese breads. As promised. Here is the link to the recipe I used, but I will, of course, repost it here, as per usual (with my changes in italics, also as per usual). These things are just awesome. They chewy and happy and nutty and cheesy and just.. well, they just make me smile. Once they're baked, that is. Not while I'm making the dough. It's actually kind of difficult to stir the dough together, and I think the first time I made them I nearly had a bubble-over in the saucepan. Anyway, you need to make these. They don't require any particularly hard-to-find ingredients, and it's totally acceptable to use the cheap, green can cheese. I've done it with high quality cheese and with cheap and it doesn't make a bit of difference. Hope you enjoy! "1 cup each: water, milk (I used almond milk this time) 1/2 cup vegetable oil 1 teaspoon salt 1 package (450 grams) tapioca starch (Goya makes this and it's sold in the ethnic a...

Oh, the last of the white beans. How did I want to use them? I had a lot of ideas, but I'd already made pizza crust which meant for two days I would be eating pizza. As you might guess, I am not complaining about this fact. I would've used canellini beans, but they're in the Cave so technically I don't own them right now. Instead, I used the last of the navy/great-notherns/what-ever-they-actually-are. Now I have to decide if I am going to buy more white beans, or forgo this in favour of the beans I already have in the kitchen. I've got appaloosa, Anasazi, lima, black, pinto, adzuki, pinto and cagamananto. Possibly some other kinds, but these are the ones I'm aware of having. So I probably shouldn't buy more white beans. But I still might. Anyway, I digress. I used the same pizza dough recipe that's on the fridge - the one I normally tell you to use. But since P is gone, I swapped a third of the flour for whole wheat flour (see? I'm trying to use so...

This week was pretty good for me, in terms of using things up. I used up the blueberries (as you saw), and so my frozen fruit supply is dwindling. That's good; it means I'm making lots of progress there. I've still got the cranberries, the mango (which I just thawed, either to eat by itself or for mango muffins for my study group this afternoon), the mixed fruit bag, bananas and lemon rinds. I feel pretty comfortable with the way this has gone. However, it turned out I have quite a lot of canned fruit (I had completely forgotten how delicious canned pineapple is, by the way). Which I'm fine with, since I probably will not buy tons of fresh fruit as a result. Totally different animals, but that's okay. I put some fruit in the freezer, in the form of the grapefruit curd and blueberries. There's so much of it that there's no way I'll eat it all before it goes bad. So I portioned it out and froze the portions, leaving enough in the fridge for me to munch on ...