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| Marble Cake from an old German recipe (Marmorkuchen) |
Considerations: store specials, weekly budget (ours always decreases as the month progresses) nutrition and weight control. Other considerations are food in the pantry or freezer and time. These considerations are always a balancing act. We shop mostly at two stores, the one where we shop weekly and the nearby one where we run into get bread and milk when running low.
Sometimes we make a run through Aldi, Walmart, Whole Foods or Trader Joe's. I like Aldi for it's excellent coffee, Walmart for its prices on granola bar and canned soup (Select Harvest is minimally processed and tastes wonderful.)
Whole Foods is good for hard-to-find produce and other items, and Trader Joe's for cheese, crackers and some produce. We also shop Ocean State Job Lot for pasta, jam, capers, and stuff like artichoke hearts. You can't be sure of finding what you need, but if you do, the price will be terrific. Ocean State always has the Red Mill brand at good prices. We also love the Danish reduced sugar jam when its available.
This week we needed to be frugal as well as weight watching. (The pictured cake is one of the reasons for diet week). I started Monday's dinner with a 12 ounce ham steak from the freezer with 1/2 head of caulifower and a nice salad. We kept a few ounces of the ham out for the next days breakfast of eggs, ham, tomatoes and onions all cooked up together.
The next night I made the South Beach Diet White Chili with on-sale chicken breasts. We had a big skillet of homemade cornbread which served us well for three days. In addition to corn meal, it had scallions, cheese, jalapeno and frozen corn in it. Made with buttermilk. Yum! I do love good corn bread. Always use stone ground corn meal and cut down or eliminate the sugar. Use more corn meal than white flour. Now you're cookin'.
We had a second meal of the chili, always better the next day. Salad of orange slices and avocado with the chili. Yowza! Have dropped 2 pounds already, what with 2 workouts and a walk.
Tonight we're having curried cauliflower (the other half) and garbanzo beans. Fried apples. The rest of the cornbread.
Tomorrow a Dr. Oetker's pizza, (from the freezer) so yummy and just the right size for two light eaters. Saturday I'll buy a few Asian veggies for a stir-try of steak and veggies. There is one small strip steak in the freezer. I always have rice and Asian spices around. I'll buy a few mushrooms and a broccoli spear or two. None of these meals are difficult or time-consuming. We like trying new recipes like the vegetable curry. Try to include one or two vegetarian meals into your week. And at least one "meat as flavoring" like the stir-fry steak.
If you shop the weekly specials with an eye to what is already on hand, you'll be surprised how some lovely menus can come together. The planning takes time, yes, but you can do it during commercials or while waiting for the soup to boil. Go thru your recipes. Try new foods with new ethnicites. Eat cheaply and well.
The Cheeseparer
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