Collards and $ense

Here we are, beginning another autumn week. I was excited to receive my weekly circular from Key Foods last Friday, because they have two deals that are perfect for me to take advantage of:

Folgers coffee (including my favorite, French Roast), 10-11 oz can, $1.99
Muir Glen Organic Tomatoes (crushed, etc), 34 oz can 2 for $4.00 (must buy 2)

I’ll pick up 2 cans of coffee along with my 2 cans of tomatoes since the price is so good. I won’t start using the coffee until next week because my beloved bag of Eight O’Clock brand ($5.59) hasn’t run out yet. The Folgers will last me about 2 1/2 weeks and the tomatoes 2 weeks (I like to use them in place of tomato sauce).

To the roundup. I made my grocery list for this week literally 5 times. There were some luxuries I really wanted, and I had to keep rearranging and making compromises in order to get all my wants and needs to work together.

Here is what I purchased:

Whole Foods:

Meyenberg Low Fat Goat’s Milk $3.79 (oops, forgot my coupon! Will use it next week. I should mention I typically buy whole milk because I like undoctored foods, but I am going to make high-calorie pudding with this milk. Low fat works to lower the overall ‘calorie expense’ of the pudding, which I’ll be enjoying daily)

Whole Foods Market raw shelled pistachios, 9 oz $7.99 ($2.66 counting for this week since I will use about 1/3 of the container)

Whole Foods Market cage free extra large eggs $2.89

spreadable goat cheese, 6 oz (1 oz per remaining days)$4.99

3 4-slice packages of Eli Zabar’s pecan raisin bread $8.97 (I know! Like I said, I really wanted some luxuries and I didn’t have time to go Zabar’s on the Upper West Side to buy this in a cheaper full $7 loaf)

3/4 lb Applegate Farms deli roasted organic chicken breast $7.59 (processed, but not very much as deli meats go)

-0.10 Go Green bag refund (because I shoved everything in my giant purse and my empty-post-work lunch bag)

Whole Foods total: $33.46

Fruit & Vegetable Market

4 N.Y. State Cortlandt apples $1.67 (I have a couple left from last week too)

6 large plums $3.02

8 bananas $2.19

Fruit & Vegetable Market Total: $6.88

Have already from last week:

avocado
the apples I mentioned

Still need to buy:

2 bunches of spinach or 1 package baby spinach (est. $4.00)
Muir Glen tomatoes ($4.00, $2.00 counting for this week)
Folgers coffee ($4.00, $0 counting for this week)

Tally for the week: $46.34 (under my $50 budget!)

Here is what I am planning to do with all of it:

Menu Plans (incorporating staples and leftovers):

Breakfast: oat-yogurt pancakes with goat cheese, pistachios, and sliced bananas; coffee with milk and sugar

Lunch: chicken and avocado sandwich on raisin pecan bread

Snacks: plums and N.Y. State Cortlandt apples

Dinner: polenta with olive oil, poached egg, crushed tomatoes, and spinach

Dessert: chocolate chocolate-chip pudding (homemade, using – among other things – cornstarch and goat’s milk butter

What’s on your menu this week?

Tania

Just don’t do it the way the owners of “cookie diet” companies encourage you to.

NY Times writer Abby Ellin and I must have been on the same wavelength Wednesday night. After I posted my last entry, on working ‘temptation’ foods into your diet, the Times ran an article questioning the efficacy and safety of so-called “cookie diets.” Based on my own approach to nourishment and weight maintenance, I located the following problems in the ethos of “cookie diets”:

1. Lack of balance! Cookie diets supposedly integrate a “forbidden” food into one’s everyday diet–which is what I recommended re: chocolate-chip pancakes for breakfast. Severely restricting your consumption of other foods, though? Where’s the nourishment (which I am foolish enough to think is the purpose of food)?

2. The cookies on these diets do not seem to qualify as food. Made of distinctly non-cookie-like ingredients, and engineered to absorb water in the stomach and create a sense of fullness, they are what Michael Pollan refers to as “food-like substances.” (The United States threw out a law many years ago that would have forced companies to label foods with lots of additives as “imitation”; too bad for us, since now most supermarket “bread” contains 30+ “ingredients.”)

3. Starving yourself all day and then indulging in cookies, even if they are real cookies, is not a sustainable lifestyle. Attaining and maintaining a healthy weight is very important to overall health, but adopting habits you can’t sustain yields temporary results. It may also make you miserable.

I speak from experience: not too long ago I was relying on processed ‘diet foods’ to get me through the day. I gave them up slowly and reluctantly, helped along by the observation of a caring and brave roommate that my irritability had increased proportionally with the frozen meals in my diet.

It was only after a recent trip to Bulgaria that I realized food culture in the U.S. is particularly focused on “food” that isn’t really food. The moment you get sick of the cookie-and-starve cycle (I’m guessing quickly), you’ll be back where you started: in need of a strategy that works long-term.

I am glad that the Times put a spotlight on the importance of moderation and the dangers of going to extremes where diet is concerned. The question: is America listening?

I am a stereotype. 10 days or so out of the month, I am a raging lunatic for sweets. Undeniably, part of a healthy lifestyle is fulfilling your desires. Another part of a healthy lifestyle is not consuming too many calories or overeating. When your hormones step into the driver’s seat, it’s hard not to give up, plop down in the big chocolate handbasket, and go straight to you know where.

Noting the date, and realizing the strong possibility I would inhale the bag of Snickers bars that was the sole chocolate item in the house, I needed a plan. It had to be cheap, because I splurged on produce this week. Enter: Whole Foods 365 brand chocolate chips. Remember the pancakes?

hm, pancake, there's something different about you. wait, don't tell me...

Even better with 2 teaspoons of creamy chocolate nuggets each. Yes, that’s me you see on the subway at 8:30 AM, savoring a tablespoon of peanut butter–or goat cheese–and half a sliced banana between recently reheated, fluffy, oaty, chocolatey clouds.

choco-mergency preparations: don't you love my blurry camera skills? yeah, me neither.

The ingredients are cheap and natural; per 2 pancakes, it’s 1 egg white, 3/4 oz yogurt, 1/2 tsp oil, flour, oats, and negligible amounts of baking soda/powder and salt. The bag of chocolate chips (safe in the freezer from hormonal hands) cost $2.99 and will last several months.

Chocolate chip pancakes work because they are built right into my existing grocery list and also my daily allowance of calories. Were I to go for a Snickers bar each day, I’d be adding over 200 calories of sugar and fat to my diet without adding much nourishment. If I ate the chips by themselves as dessert, I’d be left feeling deprived: only 2 miniscule teaspoons! .

Working them into breakfast makes the whole meal seem like a big treat. And what fun it is to eat one of those to start your busy day–rather than late at night, half-secretly or else unwisely brashly, when you’re feeling crabby or upset.

treat = breakfast; no willpower required

Pancakes may not be the answer for you, but permitting yourself to have a little treat, and building it into your days, might be just the helping hand you need to pull yourself out of the basket.

The thing about bringing your breakfast and lunch with you every workday is that you start using, and throwing away, an awful lot of ziploc bags. Realizing that my thriftiness might be costing the environment extra, I headed to my favorite source for unique and useful things: Etsy.

For the non-Etsy-versed, a summary:

www.etsy.com is a hub for craftspeople of all kinds–and people, like yours truly, who love owning handmade items. The wares are myriad, from the utilitarian (cleaning cloths) to the fun and fanciful (greeting cards, clothing) to the purely decorative (sconces, paintings). You name it, and it can probably be found on Etsy. Because sellers set the price, costs range from dollar-store all the way up to boutique-where-you-have-to-ask. No matter what you choose to buy or how much you spend, you can feel good about buying something made by hand, by an artisan.

Back to lunches. Greeny-crunchy people tend to flock to Etsy, so when I searched for “reusable sandwich bag,” literally hundreds upon hundreds of items popped up (a search today yields 2,789 results). They seemed to come in every conceivable print, and a little research proved many of them similar in quality. I tagged several sellers as “favorites” and kept shopping around.

In the end, I kept coming back to the same seller: BleuRoo. Her bags had everything I wanted: they were sizeable, they were thick, they were machine-washable, they closed with velcro, and they were lined in food-safe nylon that I could easily wipe down. The clincher: they were simple. I tire of wacky patterns pretty quickly. The price was right, too: a set of three would cost me $17.00 or a little under $5.70 per bag with shipping. After a couple weeks of deliberation, I hit the order button.

My bags arrived Saturday(!) I gleefully opened the package, and I wasn’t disappointed.

I have used them for two days now, and I am very pleased. They have held PB&Js, carrot pieces, beautiful yellow wax beans, and shiny N.Y. State apples. Tonight, I filled one with crunchy vegetables and another with sweet luscious fruit. Yum! (And a conscionable yum, as cannot be said for my ill-fated cheap chicken.)

Reusable bags aren’t any cheaper than regular ziplocs, at least not until a while after you start using them. According to a collaborative estimate by me and Dima, it will take 30 weeks (7.4 months) before mine start paying for themselves. I do see myself bringing lunch for that long, and longer, so I feel good about my purchase despite the lengthy budget payoff wait. In the meantime, I can feel good about the number of plastic bags I am not discarding. As I like to tell myself, I can have it all–just not necessarily all at the same time.

On the day I bought my fabulous BleuRoo bags, I did get everything I wanted at once. One click later, I ordered a sandwich wrap from another seller. I tend to bring big, messy sandwiches (whether bookended in pancakes or bread), and they need a wrap-type package to hold them together. I’ll review it as soon as I can test-wrap it.

Next on my Etsy wishlist, whenever I have the cash: a set of reusable produce bags from seller ecofriendly4u (I’m a bit tired of wasting all those pull-and-tear bags in the produce section). Not that I wouldn’t accept them as a very, very early Chanukah gift. Til next time, be well!

Tomorrow, Dima and I will be reaping the fruits of our $60 challenge: that is, $20 for each of us to spend out with our friends. How did we do at budgeting in this city of luxury?

GRAND TOTAL (accounting for groceries that will last longer than a week): $66.42

We went over. Mea culpa. I didn’t leave enough room in the budget for fresh produce and we got hungry for it: extra produce was procured. We also both ended up borrowing a few dollars from next week’s budget, finding ourselves stranded at work (me) or school (Dima) without enough snacks.That’s okay, because this was our first try at such a constricting weekly budget. We’ll know more and be able to plan better next time we want to eat out.

Reviewing receipts isn’t just about individual weeks. It allows me to make sense out of broader, formerly vague spending patterns. I now know approximately how long my bag of coffee lasts me (13 days), how long a quart of milk lasts me (7-9 days), and how often I need to replace my sugar (2 months) and flour (1 month). These expenses vary, just like our gas and electricity bill, but tracking allows me to set aside enough money for them. If push came to shove, I’d rather go without coffee than electricity–but I’d really kind of like to always to have both.

Hi all. Thanks for your patience! I am carving out some time tomorrow for my first Receipt Review. Please stay tuned to find out whether we stayed within our budget and how we (and our appetites) fared during our $60 challenge.

I knew 39 cents a pound for chicken leg quarters sounded like a ridiculously low price, but I was focused on staying within our budget while still having enough to eat. I asked Dima to spend up to $8.00 on the chicken. Smooth move: he spent under $6.00 and came home with two huge packages, containing 4-5 legs each. One package went straight into the freezer.

Ordinarily, I would celebrate such a bargain. When I started skinning the legs, though, reality set in.

like a science project, only it ends up in your stomach

There were: grainy stray parts of organs; frozen blood snaking out of a few veins; an unusual amount of fat (I’m guessing from the birds’ being crowded into miniscule cages); even a few feather tips still stuck in the skin. Seeing how carelessly the chickens seemed to have been butchered, I could only assume they were treated with equal negligence in life.

This I knew about ‘conventional’ chicken before I made my grocery list. I have bought the $1.99-a-pound variety countless times before–but I didn’t really understand the impact of my choice until the 39-cent stuff made it, in scores, into my kitchen sink.

conscience vs. hunger: you can't see it in the small image, but my tongue is poking out in mild disgust

I did manage to turn the bony, pink, fatty chicken legs into neat tupperwares of tasty, cooked, relatively lean chicken pieces. They are feeding us well in terms of protein, but I can’t help factoring a dose of antibiotics – and guilt – into the nutritional value of each portion.

cleaned, looking much better

just like the chicken in tacos; on that note, restaurant chicken is probably all 39-cent chicken

It’s free-range chicken for me next time, or I risk serious injury to my green psyche.

Last week it was pancakes; this week, turnovers are greeting me and Dima each morning. In case you missed my last post, we are trying to make it from Monday through most of Sunday on $60 of groceries. My breakfast choice for the week was apple and cheese turnovers with walnuts and cranberries.
 

yes, I have a pink rolling pin

I adapted a recipe from epicurious.com and used a lowfat pastry dough recipe I found online a few months back. I ended up with 25 pastries, but I’ve halved the recipe for those of you who are not living with Him of the Incredible Metabolism.
 

The turnovers are quite tasty. That said, CAVEAT: lowfat pastry dough is very difficult to roll out due to the lack of luscious, lubricating butter. If you want an easy baking experience, go with a full fat pastry dough. If you want to build your biceps, try this one!
 

Apple and Cheese Turnovers with Walnuts and Cranberries
 

Makes: 12 medium-sized turnovers
 

What you’ll need
 

for the dough
 

2 1/4 C whole wheat flour

3/4 C all-purpose flour

2 Tbsp sugar

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp table salt

3/4 to 1 C cottage cheese

3 tsp mild-tasting oil (canola or coconut)
 

for the filling:
 

3 medium apples, cored and chopped into small pieces (I used golden delicious)

2 3/4 C shredded cheese (I used 2 1/4 but I would have liked a little more)

1/4 C maple syrup (I used agave nectar because I had it handy)

1/4 C or more chopped walnuts

1/4 C or more dried cranberries (sweetened or unsweetened)

1 egg white beaten with 1 tsp water for glaze – optional
 

What to do:
 

You are supposed to make the dough in a food processor. Since I don’t have one, I mixed it by hand; it turned out fine. Combine the dry dough ingredients well, then add the oil and cottage cheese. Mix well. Add the water and stir until just combined.
 

The dough will be crumbly but moist and you should be able to pat it into a disk. Do that, and then bundle it in plastic wrap. Place in the refrigerator for 30 minutes or until well chilled. (Tip: when the time comes to roll out chunks of dough, keep the part you are not working with in the frig so it stays cold.)
 

The filling is simple: just combine everything and mix it until the ingredients are evenly distributed.
 

On a floured surface, roll the dough out until it is thin but strong enough to fold. Use a 5 to 6-inch plate or bowl as a guideline to cut circles from the dough. (You may want to roll the circles a little thinner after cutting them out: more room for filling, but stronger since you’re not rolling the whole big sheet of dough that thin.)
 
Place a couple large spoonfuls of filling in the center of each circle and then fold it in half, making a half moon. Press down the edges with a fork and gently cut a small slit in the center. Transfer to greased baking sheets and brush with the egg white glaze (you’ll need a pastry brush for this part).
 

Bake at 400 degrees for about 25 minutes or until just browned. Cool on a wire rack (or if you’re like me and lack one, a couple big plates will do fine).
 

Two days later, I can confirm the turnovers are a success. They reheat very nicely. Dima is enjoying them, as am I, and I have gotten more than one curious glance on the subway from (probably hungry) fellow riders. The sweetness is nice, but I am currently dreaming up a savory variation, like a calzone: salami, anyone?
 

Tania

We don’t eat out. We don’t order take-out. We are alien New Yorkers.
 

It’s not that we loathe the myriad cafes dotting our Astoria neighborhood; we love them. There just isn’t room in our budget. Most of the time, eating home-cooked just takes a little extra work: pack lunches, make dinner, mix the occasional gigantic vat of pancake batter (see post 1). Then there are those moments when a small budget limits your social life. Going out with friends as a single person on a small budget is no easy feat, but multiplying the fun x 2 also doubles the challenge.
 

Next Sunday happens to be the birthday party of one of our very close friends. In the past, we have found ourselves at bars or restaurants with grumbling stomachs or just wishing we could order a drink. It’s not fun, plus it can be a little embarrassing, in this city of going out, to explain we’re not ordering because we’re “saving up” (read: broke). Oh, and the waitstaff doesn’t enjoy it either! Before I cut my credit cards into little shards, it was easy to just say “screw it” and break our budget.
 

Individually, we spend $50 or fewer per week on groceries, keeping our food money separate so we each get what we like. We used to keep the grocery budget at $35 each; our income hasn’t changed, but we reorganized things in order to be able to buy more organic, free-range, additive-free and otherwise greener food. Given our wish to have fun and to toast our friend next Sunday, I came up with a plan. We’d put $40 towards fun ($20 each, enough for a couple drinks or a drink and an appetizer) and combine our remaining money ($60) towards a week of communal meals.
 

Step 1: which separate groceries are absolutely necessary?
 

Him: bread, cold cuts, and mustard for lunches
Me: goat milk for my coffee
 

Step 2: what do we both like that’s balanced and healthy?
 

Dima is a big fan of cheese and meat (I think it’s the y chromosome). I enjoy them too, so we’ll build our meals around whole grains, cheese, and meat.
 

Step 3: what’s on sale at the 3 supermarkets, natural foods store, and produce stand we frequent?
 

Thank goodness for the internet age; I didn’t have to step outside my apartment to access the online circulars. Key Foods even emails me the weekly ad.
 

I heart convenience

The Whole Foods ad isn’t too impressive this week, but between Key Foods and C-Town, these sales looked good to me: quartered chicken legs for $0.39/lb, 32-oz can of crushed tomatoes for $1.49, 5-lb bag of baking potatoes for $0.99, 16 oz of cottage cheese for $1.19, 2 8-oz cracker barrel cheeses for $6, and store-brand sandwich cookies for $0.69 a package.

C-Town is my friend

Step 4: what’s on hand?
 

flour and other dry baking supplies
squash and lamb soup from last week (in the freezer)
olive oil and coconut oil
pasta, some whole wheat and some white
garlic
salt and spices
polenta (corn grits), barley, rice, dry beans, 1 can of beans, a couple cans of tuna
 

Step 5: what fits with the store sales and is relatively easy?
 

I just found a great recipe for apple and cheese turnovers, and a while ago I found and filed a low-fat pastry dough that uses cottage cheese in place of butter. (I love me some butter, but goat butter is outrageously pricy and also, the cheese is going to make the recipe fatty from the start). Missing ingredients: cottage cheese (on sale!), eggs, 6 apples, walnuts, cranberries.
 

Remember those $0.39/lb chicken legs? I think they’d be great roasted and sliced up in pasta with crushed tomatoes, dark leafy greens, garlic, olive oil, salt, and maybe some oregano. Missing ingredients: dark leafy greens, chicken and crushed tomatoes (both on sale!)
 

That takes care of breakfast (turnovers) and dinner (pasta). Dima has his lunch sandwich fixings planned into the budget. For me? I have access to a microwave at work, so I can always defrost some of the soup in our freezer. That $0.99 5-lb bag of potatoes could provide a cheap, filling carb. If I’m feeling souped out, I can cook one up and/or raid our small stash of dry and canned goods. Prosaic, but wholesome.
 

Step 6: what compromises are we willing to make in terms of organic/free-range/additive-free?
 

Well, we’ll have to compromise on almost everything; the eggs will be free-range and that’s it for the week. Not our favorite solution, but something’s gotta give if we’re going to have fun and stay true to our finances.
 

Step 7: make a shopping list and stick to it
 

Whole Foods
 

goat milk
unsulfured dried cranberries (the sulfur additive is bad for asthmatics; I raise my hand)
 

Sai Organics
 

eggs (cheaper at Whole Foods, but it’s located near my office and I need eggs today)
walnuts
 

Key Foods
 

32-oz can of crushed tomatoes
2 8-oz cracker barrel cheeses (one cheddar, one swiss to keep it interesting)
 

C-Town
 

$0.39/lb chicken legs up to $8.00
5-lb bag of potatoes
16-oz cottage cheese (whole 4% milkfat to cut down on additives, which abound in low-fat dairy products)
sandwich cookies
 

Produce Stand
 

6 apples
dark leafy greens
bananas and other produce up to our $60 mark
 

Step 8: send Dima on the great gathering mission while I work
 

This is when I usually get phone calls 5-10 minutes apart about ‘they didn’t have the sale item’ or ‘what do collard greens look like?’ I may roll my eyes after the third call, but communication is important for us to stay on track and on budget. Dima did a great job: he was able to find almost everything we needed at the prices I wrote down.
 

Monday is almost upon us, and the challenge intensifies. Check back soon for my first Grocery Roundup, Receipt Review, and more Cooking Adventures!
 

Tania

It was Tuesday night. I had half a 32-oz container of yogurt in my frig and it was turning sharp. Breakfasts for the week were in short supply. This is the story of Operation Pancake.

the culprit that could have spoiled our week

Particularly when money is scarce, wasting food doesn’t make sense. This yogurt happens to be quite expensive, owing to the fact that it is made from goat’s milk. (Side note: for the lactose intolerant, like yours truly, goat milk products can be easier to digest.)
 

As you might guess, this yogurt is something I have to plan carefully into my grocery budget. I usually use it up in my morning kasha or oatmeal, but the previous week I’d taken egg sandwiches with me on the subway–sick of balancing the container, spoon, and travel mug. Okay, and maybe a little sick of the sideways glances. I’m just being healthy and abundant, people!
 

On Monday, I noticed the yogurt was souring. Tuesday night, I rushed home with a game plan. I tasted the yogurt. Success. Too sharp to eat as is, but not yet gone: perfect for baking.

pancakes to the rescue: trusty staple number 1

The brainstorm between Monday and Tuesday went something like this: what do I make that uses yogurt? what is breakfasty, filling, and portable? what do I already have the rest of the ingredients for? Pancakes it was.
 

I had a big tub of rolled oats and a huge bag of whole wheat flour. I had baking powder, baking soda, and salt, and the yogurt. All I needed was a carton of eggs, which there was room for in my budget. I stopped at Whole Foods on the way home and picked up their cheapest large dozen (more on how to budget shop at Whole Foods later).
 

Next, I used my kitchen scale (actually a postal scale) to weigh the yogurt. There were almost 16 ounces left: half the container! Good thing I came up with a use for it. That much yogurt meant multiplying my pancake recipe by 5: quite an operation, but it also meant almost a whole week of breakfasts for me and my husband, Dima.

yipes! 5 batches of pancakes took 10 egg whites. Since they were the only ingredient I bought, though, the total cost of the recipe excluding on-hand ingredients was barely $2.41 including tax.

I could have saved more money by using whole eggs, but considering that pancakes are already high in calories and I was planning to eat them daily, I stuck to my original recipe. Here it is for 1 batch, by the way:

Tania’s Super Satisfying Pancakes

1/2 C whole wheat flour

1/2 C rolled oats (old-fashioned oats)

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

2 egg whites

2 tsp mild tasting oil (canola or coconut works nicely)

1/4 C water

3 oz or about 1/3 cup plain yogurt

Heat a skillet or two on low and coat with cooking spray. Mix the wet ingredients in a small bowl; mix the dry (except oats) in a larger bowl, and then pour the wet into the dry. Mix until just combined and then fold in the oats. The texture should be thicker than normal pancake batter. These pancakes really puff up, so you may need to cook them a little longer than average to get the middle done.

vat of batter: what the recipe looks like if you make 5 batches

Boy did this whole operation take a while, especially with our small stove and limited pan collection.

yes, my pretties, get nice and brown

In the end, we had, count ‘em: 21 big, delicious, fluffy pancakes. Don’t they look glorious?

stacks of oaty goodness

oh baby

Of course, we weren’t going to eat 21 pancakes before they got stale, so most of them went in the freezer. Lacking storage materials, I ended up putting them all in the same freezer bag rather than wrapping them individually. Luckily, pulling them apart each morning wasn’t too difficult. Two minutes in the microwave et voila. I spread them with some peanut butter and added jam or sliced banana depending on the day.

chillin (ha) in the freezer. In evidence: frozen squash and lamb stew from last week, overripe bananas, coffee, and little bottles of vodka from my father in-law

Saving money sometimes requires some elbow grease, some patience, and rerouting your evening plans. I had intended to get in bed at 9:30 that night, but I stayed up until 10:30 because of the pancakes. A week of easy breakfasts was worth the hour of lost sleep.

serving suggestion: the second-to-last pair of pancakes spread with a tablespoon of 365 Whole Foods crunchy peanut butter and topped with a sliced banana; just make into a sandwich for take-along (these are also great with goat cheese, which I didn't have this week)

Mission accomplished.