Sometimes Things Just Aren't What They Seem

A quote from Mark's Daily Apple:
"...where I come from bunk is bunk, however you spin it. And selling out is selling out, however you justify your deal with the devil in a red can."

I'd like to believe that health-conscious consumers can think for themselves. But there is an issue of validity that just doesn't sit well with me, I guess...

Eatin' on a Busy Day

Lots of big projects around the house right now. And today's lunch was my weekly splurge meal, although I measured so it would be 50gN of carbs so not really all that bad. My daughter and I were working around the house and she said that she wanted some buttered rice.

During the painfully frugal days after my divorce from her dad when she was little, a staple of our diet was rice with butter and salt. Just white rice (neither of us likes brown very much), boiled in salted water with butter added at the end. It's been years since we've had any, but she went and got some from the shop (where I keep the organic bulk foods that I use to make food for my parrots, I mill rice flour for certain recipes for them), I took my white kidney bean extract, and we thoroughly enjoyed it! And it's about as CnE as it gets!

By suppertime I was exhausted from the busy day and just wanted something quick. I had a pound* of ground beef thawed, so I sliced up half an onion and browned it in a little bacon fat. Then I split the beef into 2 large burgers, seasoned them heavily with garlic powder and salt, and put them in the pan on top of the onions. Reduced the heat and covered. After about 15 minutes I flipped the "burgers" and put a can of drained mushrooms on top, covered it for another 10 minutes or so. Meanwhile I just made some green beans from frozen, buttered of course. And that was supper. Not fancy or complicated at all, and definitely not much time involved.

The ground beef was bought in a 4.5# package for $1.49/lb. I separated it into 5 almost-one-pound pieces before freezing. The onion was 49¢, and I used half. The can of mushrooms was 59¢, and the half-pound of frozen green beans was 50¢ (99¢ for the whole bag). Supper for both my husband and me was under 3 bucks.

The Butternut Experiment

Having a couple of lovely butternut squash sitting in my kitchen I've been trying to think of different ways to prepare them. Previously, I've usually just cooked them, mashed them, and mixed them with butter/cinnamon/SF brown sugar sub, or cut them into bite-sized chunks, tossed them with olive oil and sea salt, and roasted them in the oven. I have also used it in a dessert dish...

This week I read in HungryGirl's blog about butternut french fries, so I thought I'd try those. And Jamie VanEaton does the olive oil thing but uses cinnamon and a little nutmeg before roasting. I was intrigued by the fries, so I decided to try some of those in the turbo oven. HG has written that it's tough to get them crispy, and I figured the turbo would crisp them up nicely. So I did half the squash as fries, salted/set/rinsed (to try and remove excess moisture and increase the chances of crispness). Then I tossed the other half with the oil, and decided at the last minute that I wasn't in the mood for the sweeter cinnamon-y flavor with beef. So I just put those in the turbo oven with the oil and salt.

The fries were good, but dry and a little boring, although of course sweet/salty. And they did crisp up but not until they were browning, so there wouldn't be much time between "soft" and "burning".

The olive oil/sea salt tossed fries, though, were amazing! I've roasted chunks in the oven before, but not in the turbo - and the turbo makes ALL the difference! They crisped up around the edges, had a little bit of crusty skin over them, and very sweet and tender inside. I am hooked.

The next time I make pork I will definitely be doing these with the cinnamon and nutmeg and I see now that they will be totally AMAZING!!!

Hash!

Tonight's supper was hash, low carb style. Browned some ground pork sausage ($1.27 for about 1.25#), added 1/2 of an onion (was 49¢ for the whole thing), coarsely chopped, 2 yellow squash (99¢ ea), diced, and a box of mushrooms that were on the "last day" rack for a buck, sliced.

A nice, CnE, "pile it on your plate and pour some ketchup on top" kind of meal. I used 2Tbsp. out of the $2.29, 14 oz. bottle of lowcarb ketchup, 16¢. Pete used some out of the big huge Gordon Foods bottle, so his was less. Anyway, still under $5 for all we could eat (there are leftovers), for both of us.

Mmmmm...lunch!

The first rule of saving money on food: Don't throw anything away! If you aren't a fan of leftovers, then make sure you only prepare enough for a single meal.

In our house, I like to have minimal leftovers, so I have something for lunch. Hubby and daughter seem to fend for themselves at lunchtime (or do without, I don't know because they're usually not here), but I'm busy during the day at home, and I want something not only CnE but also quick!

Today I had a leftover smoked sausage ($1.00) in the fridge, so I diced it up and fried it. When the pieces were brown, I scrambled 2 eggs (22¢) and poured them over it, then piled the last of my spinach leaves (about 50¢) on top, and covered it until the spinach was cooked. After pouring off the liquid in the pan, I tossed it together, and sprinkled parmesan cheese (a Tbsp maybe? Let's call it 10¢ worth) on top.

Huge lunch, I'm only eating half of it and will have the other half tomorrow. About a buck and half for lunch.

Sunday Dinner

Lunch was just a burger on lowcarb bread with SF ketchup. We were busy, had the time change, some of us are still sick, etc...and putting a few frozen burgers in the turbo oven makes a quick lunch.

For supper Pete put a package of chicken thighs into the turbo oven, and just roasted them plain until the skin was good and crispy (the best part, I think!). I made some asparagus with butter (large portions, from frozen), and a cucumber for me. Here is a photo of my supper.

Cost: The chicken thighs were about 40¢ each (9 in the package that was just over $3.00); I used about 1/3 of the bag of asparagus, which was $2.59 on sale at Gordon's last summer, so we'll call that 86¢. 2T of butter (@ $1.79/lb) for 11¢. About $2.00 each - and I'm figuring high, as usual - plus 25¢ for my cucumber and maybe a dime for the ranch dressing for dipping, negligable cost for the paprika I sprinkled on my cuke, and my supper was a little more than Pete's. But I just LOVE cucumbers and chicken together!

Pete and I ate for <$10.00 today. The burgers are pricey, from Gordon's but they are the pure-angus-beef burgers, and so cost about a dollar each. We don't buy them all year but in the summer when I'm working at my seasonal job we do; these are the last of those. And low carb bread is about $2.59/loaf. So our burgers are rather expensive for this time of year when we're down to one paycheck but they're so quick and good and I'm glad that we had them, especially on a day like today!

Late Lunch/Early Supper: Leftovers

So today I had a little bit of leftover meatloaf and was really hungry, but so was hubby. As I reheated it I layered some packaged salad mix and some spinach leaves on plates (35¢ total). Crumbled the meat loaf and put it on top, with some shredded cheese (33¢) sour cream (39¢) and salsa (50¢). The entire meat loaf cost about $3.50 (rounding up) originally, and we've had, now, 4 meals out of it - today's portion was MAYBE 1/10th of the whole thing, but probably not even that. So for 2 huge taco salads, our meal cost about 2 bucks. For both.
(NOTE: I was too hungry to bother prettying up this photo, or removing that piece of lettuce in the upper left corner that was losing its color from the shot...but this is how we eat, folks! *G*)

A Quick Post About Today's Lunch

I won't do the math for this one because it's easily <$1.00 for the whole plate of food (plus what's left over in the kitchen that didn't fit on the plate).

These are crackers (grated swiss & ground sesame seeds, spread in a pan, melted in the oven, scored, cooled, & broken into crackers), each topped with a spinach leaf, a teaspoonful of tuna/mayo, & a little paprika and dried parsley on top because I was going to take a picture :). Usually I wouldn't bother with the fancy stuff.

My daughter has my camera, so this was taken on my cell phone. Poor quality, but you get the idea.

Smoked Ham Casserole

Today I haven't gotten hungry, although I did have a cup of coffee this morning with heavy cream, and a tall glass of diet Vernors with a splash of heavy cream in it - I'm thinking the fats have kept me from wanting food. But now that supper is done, it's great!

Tonight's supper is a Smoked Ham Casserole. I started by coating a 9x13 glass casserole dish with bacon drippings (negligible cost). In the bottom I put 1# of frozen/semi-thawed brussels sprouts ($1.29), cut in half, and a half-cup (one serving) of Dreamfield's penne pasta (40c worth); to this I added about 2c of water, covered it with foil, and put it in a 350 oven. (NOTE: Do not overcook the pasta, as overcooking will cause the carbs to become digestible.)

While the pasta and sprouts were cooking, I cut up about 2# of smoked picnic ham that I'd gotten on sale for 99c/lb yesterday. After 40 minutes, I removed the foil, stirred in the ham, and put it back in the oven at 375 until the remaining water had evaporated. Tossed with 1c (66c) of shredded cheese and returned it to the oven until the cheese melted over all. (Another note: I didn't add salt because the ham and cheese are both rather salty; I never add pepper to anything because I don't like it.)

4 servings (of which my husband ate 2) for about $1.12 each. I could have added a salad or rolls (oopsies or flax or whatever) but it was plenty hearty for a complete meal on its own.

SHOPPING!

After being down with the flu for 12 days, and only out of the house yesterday when I went to the doctor and the pharmacy, it was good to get out today and get some much-needed grocery shopping done. I don't actually plan my menus in advance; rather, I plan my menus around what is in the house - and that depends on what was on sale. (Remember as you're reading this that I don't serve desserts or sweets as a rule...once a week I might make a sweet dish or cookies or something similar.)

First of all, I already have some meat in the freezer from former sales, so I didn't have to buy much that way. I did purchase 2 packages of smoked picnic ham chunks (99c/lb), 4.5# ground beef (which is ground fresh at our store, for $1.49/lb), and 2# ground mild sausage for $1.00 each. In our freezer we already have pork (country ribs and/or roast and/or steaks), chuck roasts (which we slice and broil as steaks sometimes), and chicken - I don't typically stock up on chicken because I can almost always get it for <$1/lb. We also have salmon burgers (expensive but a nice treat once in a while!). I will add meat in larger quantities to the freezer as I find great sales on it; otherwise, our meals get planned around what we already have.

Shredded cheese was on sale also; 3c packages for $1.99, or about 66c/cup. (There is no point in figuring $/lb if you use it by volume rather than by weight, right?) So I got $10 worth. 2 heads of cauli for $1.25 ea on sale. A large but lovely eggplant (lasagna this weekend, I already have full-fat ricotta and sauce on hand!) for $1.49. A cuke for a quarter - will have tuna salad "boats" for lunch tomorrow, <$1.00 for the meal. Ready-to-eat salads for half off, or 65c/bag. Fresh spinach, half off, or 1# for 99c. Fresh mushrooms for $1/8 oz (and that's a lot of mushrooms!). Yellow onions for 59c/lb.

Staples: canned mushrooms (59c/can)...quarts of heavy cream ($3.12/qt)...canned tuna (59c/can)...parmesan cheese ($2.49/can)...a quart each of full-fat sour cream ($1.57) and plain yogurt ($1.82) - although the yogurt is for the dogs, not us ...and a loaf of lowcarb bread for my husband.

Obviously there are things I didn't have to buy, like low carb tomato sauce, SF peanut butter, lowcarb ketchup, mayo, eggs, and so forth, because I already have them on hand. But I will continue, of course, to post my shopping trips, since that's a big part of the reason for this blog - so that you can see that eating low carb doesn't have to be expensive - as well as the meals I prepare with the food that I buy - so that you can see that eating low carb doesn't have to be complicated or difficult :).

So what's tonight's supper? 1# of ground beef & 1# of ground sausage with an egg, 1/4 chopped onion, seasonings, and ground porkies for a meat loaf; fauxtatoes; salad.

Low Carb Pancakes - Video Link

I found this video on YouTube. They look easy and delicious, although I'd probably use coconut flour instead of soy flour, or a mixture of coconut flour/protein powder, or whatever. When I make them I will experiment. But don't they look really good?

Day 10, and...

...I don't much care if - or what - I eat. I'm so physically worn out from being sick, and still have no appetite. I eat because I know I should, but beyond that I don't much care. So today Casey got pizza and that's what I ate. For the most part though, through this worst-flu-of-my-life, I've eaten low carb because that's what's in the house.

Tomorrow, day 11, I see the doctor. This is getting ridiculous. After she gives me the magic shot (or pill, or whatever) and I feel all better, I will be back up and at 'em, cooking up a storm, having fun in the kitchen with all of my healthy vegetables and meats and seasonings and sauces, using my gadgets, and posting about it here :).