Planning your meals and not wasting food

Design*sponge grocery planner

Bon Appetite 7 habits of highly effective grocery shoppers

I'm getting ready to head to Brooklyn, I have a bit of food that I brought from Ithaca but really I want to start over. I want all new spices except for the newest spices I have. I have some flour and basics, but really I just want to treat it like I'm living in Italy again. Buy food, cook it. Buy food, cook it. make left overs, have some pasta. Buy food, cook it.

I will be much more active in this job than my past jobs, so I need to account for that when bringing lunch. I also will be working in areas that will most likely not have salad bars and delis with tasty sandwiches... so I really need to make sure I bring hearty foods that keep me going. I'm a little concerned about getting bored (food wise). I may end up getting a microwave for th job site if there isn't one there, so I can eat warm food. I'll try the food thermos again but it doesn't stay HOT it ends up being just warm. Cheap foods are beans and rice... together they create a complete protein... cheaper than meat! Salads will be good too. I will be packing lunch everyday, dinner 2 days a week and a snack everyday. I'd like to go to some yoga classes, trying out different studios. With my classes 2 days a week it doesn't make sense to get an unlimited pass for any yoga studio because there are at least 2 days a week I won't be able to go. For now I'm going to try to stick to a few classes a week.

My new job starts Monday, and I have class that night. We are being fed lunch on Monday which means I don't have to figure out lunch until Tuesday. It's hard to plan a meal when I don't know when I'm moving in (Sunday night, tomorrow, hopefully). And I have nothing in the fridge :P

Cheers to a new job, moving forward and personal growth. May this be the best year yet.

Meat on the cheap

Sometimes you just need to do a little reading to realize the strange sounding cut of meat is totally edible and worthy for more than feeding to the dog.

Check out this NY Times article It May Be Cheap, But it's Also Tasty

I don't cook much meat and I tend to stick to chicken and fish, but in preparing my mole dinner I compared prices and while I like getting chicken breast fillets, the cost difference for thighs (which the recipe called for anyhow) was about 2$/ pound in savings! Next time I want to try something new perhaps I'll peruse the cheaper cuts of meat.

Slow times for blogging

In the throes of packing (yes KE, throes) and getting ready to move. My kitchen is packed up in part so that I can make sure that all my stuff is clean when it goes into boxes for 3 months. I'll be staying with my mom for 1 week then with KE for 3 weeks then I will be in Vermont, using a shared kitchen with unknown amenities. I plan to live off things from the farmers market cooked in an Alice Waters sort of way. I am bringing the following cookbooks to Vermont:


I will be on a 3 month hiatus from baking. It will be rough but I mostly have faith that I can handle it! I will also be training to run because I am going to sign up for 2 races in Ithaca int he fall (a much better time for races than the February one I flaked out on because it was like 2 degrees and I knew I'd hurt myself if I breathed in that temperature air. So KE stayed in bed - he was supposed to run too!).

I hope you look forward as much as I do to my baking free summer of fresh food experimentation! I think it will be a tasty and exciting time. I will probably bring my blender/food processor thingy too, for the making of smoothies and pestos. Fingers crossed for garlic scapes!




Get ready for a link to purchase chocolates as well, Brooklyn Homestead is almost up and running for our first batch of handmade chocolate truffles. This along with moving has been quite the busy time. Tonight is of course seafood night (Wednesdays for me and KE for the past 2 months). He has been kind enough to take the wheel of making dinner while I pack, so I don't know what we'll be having! Last week it was bay scallops!

Mexican Dinner for 6 Part Three (making the meal)

First comes the mole, then comes the guacamole then comes the tortilla chips then comes the souffle, Easy! (right?!)

I hopped (actually it took way longer than a hop, more like a bus a walk and a schlep and a bus!) to Target this morning to pick up a coffee grinder in order to pulverize my whole spices.

First step in the mole!
Boil the chicken thighs (calls for turkey but I didn't see turkey thighs at the market) in the chicken broth with 2 bay leaves and for 1 hour. During that hour, make the rest of the mole ingredients! Good luck!


Just kidding. :)


In 2 Tbsp of canola (or vegetable oil) toast your peanuts and almonds; at the last second toss in the sesame seeds to be lightly toasted. Don't over do it! burned nuts are no good! Set aside.

Heat up a dry pan on medium heat, toss in the anise seed, cinnamon stick, whole allspice and whole black peppercorns and heat- stirring until fragrant. Use a coffee bean grinder or mortar and pestle and grind up the spices until very fine.

The chicken has been cooking for almost an hour at this point. Remove form the heat and let the chicken cool in the broth mixture for 30 minutes. Set the chicken aside and keep the broth handy.

While the chicken is cooling, now is the time to prep the chips! Take your corn tortillas, smear a little oil on them (I don't have a pastry brush so I used my fingers) then cut the stack into quarters or sixths. Lay on parchment paper lined cookie sheets and set aside.








Chop tomatoes and combine with soaked chilis and onions (prepped the day before) and toasted nut mix and spices in food processor. Add some chicken broth from the pan and blend until you have a smooth paste. I probably could have blended longer for a finer texture, but I was more interested in being able to fit it all into my little food processor. Be sure you can fit it all if not divide everything into 2 and make 2 batches which you can then mix together.

In another large saucepan, pour some vegetable oil and dump the contents from the food processor in and sautee "until the fat starts rising to the top, about 20 minutes". I don't think I waited for that to happen. Then add in the chocolate, the most infamous ingredient in mole! Once the chooclate was melted, I slowly added chicken stock to the sauce then ignored my instinct and added all the remaining stock like the recipe said. I do not advise this! If you have eated something before that you are making and you are somewhat familiar with it... follow your instincts or look it up online! (I do that whenever I come up with something to cook, just to see if it's been done before). Once the sauce is well stirred and combined you can push it through a sieve for a smoother sauce, or line up your chicken thighs in a 9x13 and pour the sauce over the top. Put in the over at 325 for 1 1/2 hours.

While that is cooking, you can make your guacamole! I left the avocados double paper-bagged on the windowsill. I chose avocados as ripe as I could get the day before and they were perfect the next day! I scooped out the flesh with a spoon into a bowl and began mashing with a fork which proved difficult so I stepped up to a pastry blender! It worked wonderfully! Then I stirred in the previously prepped ingredients (sans chili pepper) and pushed a plastic wrap directly on the surface of teh guac and placed it in the fridge. Placing the plastic directly on (and pushing out air bubbles) prevents oxidization which makes your beautiful green avaocado turn brown.


When the timer on your dinner says 30 minutes, put your first tray of chips in on the bottom rack (or both if you have more than one rack) and bake for about 15 minutes- they shoudl be crisp rather than limp when you slide them off the sheet and sprinkle some sea salt onto them. Trust me, your guests wil be awesed that they are having fresh tortilla chips. And it is way to easy for you that have any excuse not to do it again. The tortilla chips cost $1.19. If I'd gone with the giant pack, Mexican brand we'd have had maybe 4 times as many chips, but I didn't want leftovers. It is a lot cheaper than buying chips that are already made- and you have control over how much and what kind of oil is used. Control is good when it comes to what you are putting in your body.

When there are 15 minutes left on the timer, it's time to prepare the quinoa, according to the package directions. Bring 2 cups of water for every 1 cup quinoa to boil (all at the same time) and cover. Let it boil for about 15 minutes (then take your chicken out of the oven! Dinner for 6 is such a choreographed dance.) Then serve!

Change the oven to 350 (whatever the souffle recipe says the temp needs to be)

About 10 minutes into dinner, remove the souffle form the fridge and put in the oven, set the timer for 25 minutes. The souffle was tasty, it wasn't cooked all the way through and it didn't rise very high but it became something like the combination of a pot de crem and a flourless chocolate cake. The souffle was served with a small scoop of vanilla ice cream. The spice mixture that was used was mostly tasted afterwards- a slight chili burning senesation that remained in your throat after you'd finished your dessert. That Dagoba hot chocolate mix was intense as a drink. I think it's an excellent concept for a souffle but the exact amounts of spices has yet to be explored.

Afterthoughts:

• Follow your instincts in the kitchen
• When a recipe tell you to put in all of something that's left, in particular after it's been cooking a while, question how much they expected it to reduce
• Don't make a souffle the night before if you want it to puff up. It might be possible to make the chocoalte portion and set the eggwhites and chocolate mixture in the fridge until the next day. Then you would take both out to get to room temperature, and then follow the directions from that point on.
  
• Keep track of spending and keep an eye on cheaper options for different ingredients. The bagged mexican spices are cheaper than the organic or small glass jar ones.
  
• If you have access to bulk foods use them. You ingredients will be fresher and you can only buy what you need/ will use in the nearby future.
• Buy a coffee grinder if you want the freshest spices possible. It was easy to crush the spices and they were very fragrant and fresh. Even after washing the platic lid though, it smelled of spices. So I wouldn't recommend interchanging coffee and spices unless you want them to all intermingle.
  
• Have more dinner parties and push what you try to make and keep track of recipes and the cost of ingredients. This meal was about $7.80 per person, (less if you count that there was once piece of chicken left over). For an appetizer, main dish and dessert.
  

Mexican Dinner for 6 Part Two (prep!)

Guacamole
Day before prep:
Chop finely 1/4 of a white onion, 2 medium tomatoes (seeded), approximately 1/4 c. cilantro and 2 (smallish) cloves of garlic. Add juice of 2 limes. Hopefully your limes have more juice than the ones I had. I scraped out the little football shaped lime bits that stick out like fringe after reaming and added them to the mix. I only just bought the avocados today so they are in a brown paper bag ripening as much as they can before tomorrow.



Day of finishing:
Remove flesh of 3 avocados in bowl, stir it all together add salt and a splash lime juice to taste.

Pause for banana bread:









Chocolate Souffles
I've read that souffles can be stored in the fridge for up to 24 hours- so I decided to make these ahead as well (after cleaning up the banana bread I made earlier this evening - a great way to use over ripe bananas! You can even get them for free :-) sometimes from your local health food store if they have brown banana on the shelf .)

To make these spicy I'm using some Dagoba Xocolatl mix in the souffle prep. The hot chocolate was too intense for me but if I use 1 oz of this mix as one of the 6 oz of chocolate the recipe calls for I think it will be a nice hint of spice instead of overwhelming burning spice. We'll see!

In a heat proof bowl set over top of a saucepan filled with water (double boiler)- don't let the water touch the bottom of your bowl!:
5 oz chopped 72% dark chocolate 1 oz Dagoba Xocolatl mix a dash of cinnamon 6 Tbps butter 2 Tbsp water ( or rum or coffee- neither of which I have on hand)

Turn on heat until the chocolate starts melting and the butter is completely melted. Remove from heat and let cool 10 minutes.

While that is cooling separate
4 eggs tossing (or saving for later) 1 yolk. Whip the egg whites in a clean and dry bowl until foamy. Add
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
and mix more. When you have soft peaks that aren't dry (this is something I think you learn from trial and error and carefully watching the sheen of your whites as you mix them) slowly whip in
1/4 cup of sugar.
(I used a little less sugar because the hot chocolate mix already had sugar in it.)

Smear butter on the bottom and up the sides (and inch from the top) of your 1-1/2 quart souffle dish. Sprinkle sugar in and swish around to cover all the buttered surfaces. (The sugar grains on the side of the pan help the souffle climb up the sides of the dish.)

Fold egg whites into chocolate mixture. You don't want to stir is because then you will pop all the little bubbles that give your souffle volume! (Or else you pretty much have a flourless chocolate cake and why would you go through the trouble of whipping the eggs whites if you wanted that!?) Be aure there aren't any (or very minimal) streaks of white and pour the souffle mix into your prepared dish. Cover in plastic wrap immediatly and put in fridge. We'll see tomorrow if the air bubbles actually stay! I've made souffles a handful of times before but never tried making it the day before.













It's been a busy evening, but it will make tomorrow less hectic while I'm trying to make mole!

**EXTRA UPDATE**
KE is running a bit late so I did a little more prep!
For the mole you get dried chilies which you remove the stem and seeds from and soak for 30 minutes, so I'm doing that now. I will pop them in the fridge after I drain them so they will be ready to go tomorrow. If I have more time I might chop some veggies but I want to be ready to go when KE gets here.



Also, something I rarely do but am learning I ought to do more often for dinner parties and gatherings. I made a schedule for meal prep! (This is a little post-it- yes I write small!) Based on the time it will take to cook things and including some prep time- I didn't account for the guacamole but that should only take 10 minutes or so which I can do while the mole bakes for 90 minutes!)

Mexican Dinner for 6 Part One

Menu:

Chips and guacamole
chicken thighs in mole
Spiced chocolate souffles


Part One: Ingredients

For Mole:
Chicken Broth - Low Sodium 2@1.89 $3.78
Bakers chocolate unsweetened $2.57
Blanched Almonds $2.37
Anise Seeds $0.48
Allspice - whole $1.67
Murray's Chicken Thighs (3pkgs) $7.58
Sweet Onion $0.45
Plum Tomatoes 1.2# $2.16
Dried Chile Mulatos $1.49
Peanuts $2.49
Quinoa $5.89
cinnamon stick (have)
black peppercorns (have)
Canola Oli (have)

For the Guacamole and chips:
Cilantro $1.09
Tomatoes 1.6#- a few too many $2.91
3 Hass Avocados $2.73
garlic $0.30
2 limes $0.53
White corn tortillas $1.19
White Onion $0.71
jalapeno (forgot!)
vegetable oil (have)

For the Souffles:
eggs (have)
dark chocolate (have)
spices (have)
sugar (bought in bulk.97#) $1.10
Vanilla ice cream $3.50


TOTAL spent $47.49

The recipes are from the following books but they are adapted based on availability of ingredients and personal preferences:
Mole: Starting with Ingredients
Guacamole: Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone (thanks dad!)
Tortilla Chips: Food Network Website
Souffle: The Joy of Cooking (75th anniversary)

Planning for the week

Trying this planning thing again...

Saturday:
grocery shopping, make cookies for Sun and fresh pasta for Wed
eat Pad Thai leftovers for lunch
for dinner grilled cheese and roasted pepper and tomato soup (pkg)

Sunday:
fruit and yogurt and granola
smoothie
snacks at party
make soup for the week
veggies

Monday:
cereal breakfast
Sandwich: deli meat (if it's still good), avocado, cucumber, mustard
bring apple snack and cookies

Tuesday:
yogurt and fruit breakfast
take soup for lunch
bring apple and peanut butter snack

Wednesday:
cereal breakfast
sandwich for lunch - chicken, avocado or cheese, cucumber, mustard
dinner: pasta with fresh pesto and smoked salmon (with KE)

Thursday:
smoothie breakfast with oats in it
soup for lunch
leftovers/ frozen stuff for dinner
plan meals for the next 5 days

What can I make when I don't want to buy anything? OR Pantry Fun!

My freezer is pretty full. In fact, so is my pantry. I always have stuff on hand which I think comes from having parents a) who grew up post depression b) aware that we lived in an earthquake zone (emergency supply) and c) who had a Costco membership. Since beginning to live on my own I've always stocked up on food. At the end of my home cooing challenge last week I realized this may be to my detriment, at least when it comes to produce. I bought the 1# bag of mixed greens because it was cheaper than paying per weight. However if I don't use all the greens then that's money I could have not spent as the price difference wasn't that great.

The thing that has saved me through this over-purchase of produce is these green bags I got at Whole Foods that apparently advertises on TV as well (I don't really watch V... I think I'm going to sell mine). So far they have worked really well compared to produce that can barely make it to the end of the week the fruit and veggies are still fresh. I failed to put the mixed greens in one of these bags,

I am heating up a cheese and spinach filo pie from my freezer which is from Trader Joes. I was contemplating cooking something else, however my kitchen ceiling began leaking again despite having the roof recently having been replaced and the temperature not dipping below freezing all day... Well... this is not a good development.

So, assuming I have an active kitchen in the next week without a puddle in the middle of my kitchen...

Wednesday:
B: yogurt and berries and honey and granola, oh my!
L: salad (if the lettuce is still good), with smoked salmon and peas
D: with KE, ginger chicken and yam fries and broccoli

Thursday:
B: cereal and smoothie
L: Left over Moroccan Chicken Soup with couscous
D: Make dinner with Erin (tbd)

Friday:
B: cereal and milk
L: sandwich (do I have bread? Hmm... figure out)
D: Heat up left overs before food co-op shift.


I'm distracted by the dripping in the kitchen.