The Yin and the Yang of Home Cooking

 We all know (or should know) that eating at home is cheaper and also nutritionally sounder than eating out all the time.  Yet, why is it so hard to plan menus, shop and prepare the food?

If we had unlimited time, budget and calories, then no problemo.  But who does?  Anyone who has time and budget constraints and a desire not to increase in girth has some real juggling to do. 

At Chez Cheeseparer, we have all these limits, plus we love food.  If you “ate to live” there would be one less ball to juggle.  Here’s how we go about it the process of shopping and cooking.

First, I pore over the weekly specials in the flyer of the stores where I shop most.  This helps with menu planning and money saving, because you can center your menu around the produce and meat sale items.  This week, for example, whole chickens and chicken breasts were on sale, as well as cranberries, all varieties of squash, pears and apples.  Oh yes, and avocados. 

Southern Cornbread

Puerto Rican Rice and Beans - yum!

I decided to roast a chicken on Sunday, and save the leftover for chicken enchiladas on Tuesday.  On Monday, we’ll have curried butternut squash soup.   Maybe on Wednesday, too.  An omelet on Thursday and I can scrounge in the pantry (always well stocked) on Friday.  Keep your eye on the calendar for nights where time is short (for us that’s Monday) or you’ll be eating out.  None of the my selections are complicated, and they are all tasty.  A cinch, right?

Wrong!  The store has no poblano peppers for the verde sauce for the enchiladas.  I make some substitutions but when I arrive in the Mexican aisle there are neither canned tomatillos and nor verde sauce.  I will have to go to another store.  On Tuesday, I’ll be in Wellesley and can stop by Whole Foods which will likely have poblanos, maybe even tomatillos and/or some canned tomatillos or sauce.  By now, I am mentally committed to enchiladas verde, one of my faves in the world of Mexican food. 

Tomorrow we will trek to Walmart before my soup coupons expires.  They sell for $1.50 per can what everyone else sells for $2.38.  Plus I can save 25 cents off per can with the coupon.  We had an expiring coupon for cat food at Petco today, too.  Thisbe is diabetic and has to eat “Atkins for kitties” food, low on carbs, high on protein.  I jump through hoops to get it.  

So what we have this week is a shopping time suck, a decent budget and moderate calories.  I have done pretty well, and we have replenished the pantry after a) Hurricane Irene and b) a two-week vacation.  The larder was pretty bare when we got home.   

Tonight we are eating the pictured meal, Puerto Rican rice and beans and homemade Southerns corn bread with stone ground corn meal, no white flour, no sugar.  So good, so healthy. No problems with that meal except I almost burnt the beans.  Did not set the timer, always a mistake.  A portable kitchen time can save you endless headaches and burnt food.

Eat hearty and well,

The Cheeseparer 

 

Couponing

Today's Boston Globe had beaucoup coupon sections in the Sunday supplements, but out of 4 sections, I only glommed on to 10 - 12 coupons. Most of them are not for food. Lots of vitamins and health "stuff," cosmetics, weird things I would never buy. And the food coupons are invariably for the most processed of foods. No one ever has $1 off on a bag of carrots, although I did have one tomato coupon this fall.

Sometimes you find canned soup or cleaning products, and some paper and plastic. Yogurt is often available by coupon. Haven't seen cat food for ages. It's not on sale either, but we did buy 24 cans and get $1 off on Fancy Feast. Such a deal. One kitty is diabetic and we try to buy cat food without glutins. It's weird standing in the cat food aisle looking for specific flavors (each with its own color). Kitty doesn't care.

The best deals, food-wise, are the BOGOs. Buy One Get One in retail parlance. Chickens and pork tenderloin are particiularly coveted, but just about anything I regularly buy is welcome. Of course bottles of Tabasco would be useless. We are entering a 5 Tabasco bottle marriage. That's a lot of years.

Most weeks I'm too lazy to shop the 3-5 supermarkets and cherry pick specials. I stay with my main store and bop into the others if I'm driving by or in the neighborhood.

We had a half-ham over Christmas and the bone with plenty of meat clinging to it will be utilized for bean soup this week. From scratch with the soaking of the beans. I add lots of onion, and some garlic and carrots. Always yummy. Don't forget the herbs.

Some recipes call for a Parmesan Cheese rind, but that implies that you buy a big mother of a Parmesan Cheese, not exactly a frugal purchase. (See Photo).

The Cheeseparer, paring away