To Thine Own Self, Be Food

I'm back!  Well, relatively speaking.  In three days, I will leaving for ten days as I vacation to Alaska with my entire family.  However, I will try to jam-pack the next three days with some culinary goodness for all my readers. Let's see.  School is now out, and I have not quite caught the cooking bug like I thought I might.  I attribute this to a general lack of ambition; with the impending trip, I am in "scavenge" mode...getting creative with the contents of my freezer and pantry items. In addition to the Memorial Day holiday, this weekend marks the last grocery shopping trip for this month...and you know what that means, end-of-month totals!! But, first, the weekly pie chart.  First of all, we did go camping this holiday weekend, and because of that, certain categories tend to be inflated, such as "Snacks" and "Beverages".  The meat purchased this week was only cold cuts, which will provide lunch for my children who are now home for th

I said I would post about my omelette experience, and I hate to let down my dear readers, so here goes. I don't remember my mom making them much when I was a child, and when she did, it seemed an arduous process.  She would lift one edge of the mass of coagulated eggs and tilt the pan, letting the uncooked mess spill underneath.  Then, she'd manage to tuck it nicely into a half-moon shape on the plate.  But, like I said, I don't remember her making them often...I mostly associate omelettes with restaurant breakfasts. For all my many kitchen successes, the omelette has been the one epic failure in my culinary repertoire.  In the recent half-decade, I can remember four separate attempts at omelette-making, and all resulted in my throwing in the towel and just scrambling them in frustration. Enter Julia Child.  I decided it was time to conquer my fear of omelettes. I read the passage in her cookbook about omelette-making, reread it again, and still didn't quite hav

This Week's Spending: $44.18   Total Grocery Expenditures for May: $267.16 Heather's Tip of the Week: Grocery shop on a Friday night when you are: a.) very tired b.) full from a great dinner c.) towing the entire family I guarantee if you do these things, your grocery shopping trip will be short, thus, relatively inexpensive.  Why?  Because you want to get things done so you can go home and take a hot bath, watch 'Glee', and read your copy of "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" before you collapse from exhaustion around ten o'clock.  You won't waste time deliberating over whether or not to buy lunchmeat this week...you just won't. Spending-wise, though, May is shaping up to be a pretty sweet month.  I really, really don't regret that forty dollars' worth of hamburger I spent earlier this month, because it's paying itself forward now. Again, dairy and produce account for nearly a third of the total - which I think is good. 

First off, let me just say that not even one week into the three-week No Restaurant Challenge, this family folded.  Like a fragile house of cards in a gentle breeze.  I've cooked decent meals all week long, and tonight I felt like being catered to...and I felt like a steak.  So, I got it, and I enjoyed it, and I'm not going to feel bad about it.  At all. Moving on.  Last weekend, I had the pleasure of watching the movie Julie & Julia .  Amy Adams plays Julie Powell, a 30ish something who seeks to find meaning in life by cooking her way through Julia's cookbook "Mastering the Art of French Cooking".  The parallel storyline is of Child's trials and tribulations in the 1950s. Anyway, enjoying food and cooking myself, I took a great deal of interest in this movie.  In fact, I was impelled to purchase the paperback version of Child's cookbook at the bookstore recently.  I have been content to read it over the last few days, and I am finding it very enjo

Now, this is what I'd like my pie charts to look like every week: Somehow, I just can't get around buying condiments!  That's been a slice in my chart the last several weeks...this week, it was jelly for my kids' lunchtime PB & Js. The snacks slice is a bit bigger than I'd like, but I took advantage of the 2/$4 deal on graham crackers (got some frozen homemade cream cheese frosting I need to use up - hence, improviso s'mores!).  Also, Ritz crackers to substitute in for the "Lunchables" my daughter wanted to buy for her soccer games on Saturday. But, fresh produce at nearly a quarter of spending?  Yes, that's awesome.  My cart was laden with watermelon, apples, oranges, and muskmelon.  YUM!  The significantly smaller 'Meat' slice is due to a small purchase of lunchmeat for weekly wraps and sandwiches. I am pleased with the variety of spending, as well as the low receipt total this week. Spending This Week: $60.86  -  Total Expe

Not that this is terribly surprising, but I am a cookbook collector.  Of course, I've had to exercise enormous restraints when it comes to cookbook purchases, because I am also the antithesis of a packrat...and if I'm not using something, I'm quite likely to give it away or pitch it. But, I found this little gem at a garage sale today that I could hardly pass up.  It definitely appealed to the kitschy in me. Pub. Date: 1950 Yes, indeed.  That does read "Creative Cooking for Cottage Cheese".  My husband expressed his amazement to me that such a cookbook could exist.  Fabulous recipes include: Blushing Pink Chip Dip, Cottage Cheese Straws, Up North Salmon Supper, Pinwheel Meat Roll, Spinach Pudding, Frozen Fruit Cheese Salad, Cottage Tuna Mousse, and Peach Snowballs. I know, right!?  Good thing our family loves cottage cheese - because we'll be trying some of these dandies on the dinner table this summer. This puts me in mind to inventory all my cookb

Can't believe I almost forgot this! This Week's Spending: $93.32.  Total Expenditures: $162.12. Fareway had an excellent sale on ground beef ($1.99/lb); however, the package came in ten-pound logs.  So, I bought two.  I figured with warm weather around the way, we'd be grilling a lot more.  Hence, burgers.  Twenty pounds of hamburger ran me at about $40...nearly half of my week's expenditures. Everything else is evenly distributed.  Aberrations include: Propel 6-packs and Little Debbie Chocolate Chip Cakes (both on sale for 2/$5).  Turns out we were in charge of snacks for my son's soccer team this week - so, we went cheap and nutritious (one of those anyway). Shockers (but not really) include: a bottle of A1 steak sauce (medium size) at $2.49...and that was with a $1 off coupon!  Also, Kraft grated Parmesan cheese - $3.19!  Egad!  I must find alternatives.  I suspect I could probably make my own steak sauce...the cheese may require more thought. We leave

Happy Mother's Day out there to all past, present, and future moms...not to mention those of you with maternal-type inclinations. Did I leave anybody out? Today I did a smidge of housework.  I also contemplated doing schoolwork, which I figured could wait until tomorrow. Instead, I spent the morning in the kitchen (naturellement!) and the afternoon eating food and drinking wine at a Mother's Day brunch held at the local winery.  I probably don't have to detail for you how *that* turned out.  Food, wine, my mom...it was like Margarita Garage Sales '09 all over again! Anyway, more about the kitchen bit. This week coming up is probably the busiest one of the spring. The hubs and I are in a community theater radio show that is happening on Friday night, so rehearsals all week long.  Then, three kids in soccer means practice on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and game on Friday.  However, this week, I am prepared!  By that, I mean: 1. Four pounds of premade

A new month, a new grocery budget. I really have no goals or expectations for shopping this month...save one.  Fifty dollars a week is not realistic right now (or at least, that's my take), so I am going for keeping the month's tally under $400.  Fortunately, I was able to do just that (by the skin of my teeth) last month...the only reason being was that I did not grocery shop at all the last week in April - we lived off of what was already in the pantry, freezer, and refridgerator. Total Expenditure for April's Groceries: $398.25 I should say that I am pledging to keep better track of my records, receipts, checkbook, etc.  Then, perhaps I will have a more acccurate picture of my spending. Anyhow, onto the next month. Grocery Expenditures - May 1-8: $67.97   *Here is the graphic: To be honest, this is what a normal, typical Nelson grocery shopping pie chart should look like.  Fresh produce (fruit and veg), dairy, and meat take up nearly three-quarters of the sp

May 1st!  It's May!  Yay! I think I am feeling so darned content today because I was able to spend time puttering in the kitchen. I made a batch of hummus, pizza dough for tomorrow, pork and pineapple kabobs for the grill, brownies from scratch... The best part, though, was my ten-year-old daughter Kirby asking (and then proceeding) to make cream cheese frosting for the brownies. Hummus was a gem I discovered when we lived in Minnesota - sixish years ago.  Since investing in a food processor, whipping up my own now is a breeze (not to mention cheaper).  Chickpeas, olive oil, lemon juice, garlic - all of which I usually have on hand.  I did invest in a jar of tahini a couple of months ago (found at local grocery store), and I'm just now getting to the bottom third of the jar (after five-six batches of hummus).  I prefer hummus to sour cream-based dips - I eat it with carrots, pretzels, and spread it on my lunchtime Flatout wraps. Pizza dough was quick and effortless in