Month: November 2016

Lunch

For lunch today we had supermarket sushi from Whole Foods, which was pretty good. The Firecracker Roll is a favorite.

Lunch today cost $8.84 per serve.

Dinner

There was another pork shoulder (aka Boston butt) in our Prather Ranch meat delivery, so why not makes some pulled pork? We paired it with some apple slaw – basically a broccoli slaw with Granny Smith apple added.

The pork looks like it will make five or six meal portions, perhaps more as lunch wrap portions. The apple and broccoli slaw made four portions.

• The pork but was $20.77 or $3.46 per serve
• Chicken stock adds about 14c per serve
• Onion and garlic adds about 15c per serve
• The broccoli slaw was $1.69 or 12 oz, but we used only half or 21c per serve
• The Granny Smith apple was 82c or 17c per serve
• The onion cost $1.29 and the grapefruit $2.50 for 8 serves, or 48c per serve.

Dinner tonight was very tasty and cost $4.46 per serve. The apple slaw perfectly offsets the slight fattiness of the pork.

Lunch

Wild caught smoked salmon, with cream cheese, tomato, spring onion on an onion bagel. What’s not to like.

• Smoked salmon $5.99 for the 4oz pack or $3.00 a serve
• The pack of six onion bagels is $1.99 or 33c per serve
• Cream cheese is about 60c a serve
• 3 cherry tomatoes are less than 10c, or 5c per serve.

Lunch today cost $3.98 a serve.

Dinner

Gnocchi with Tomato-Blue Cheese Sauce makes a welcome return after being absent from the roster all year. A great meatless Monday dish.

• The half pint of cream is $1.99 or 67c per serve
• The crumbled blue was $3.49 for the container. We used half or 58c per serve
• The gnocchi was $2.79 or $1.40 per serve
• Fire Roasted canned tomatoes were $2.39 or $$1.20 per serve
• The wild arugula was $1.99 but we use about 1/3 or 33c per serve.

Dinner tonight cost $4.18.

Lunch

As part of a shopping trip, we picked up one Asada and one El Pastor burritos from our favorite place.

A burrito is $5.50 per serve.

Dinner

Time to revisit an old favorite: Alton Browns deconstructed Chicken Pot Pie, with a little curry flavor. It also used up the last of the chicken from last week’s roast chicken. The recipe makes four serves.

• The roast chicken is $9.99 for the bird, but we used  a breast, or 63c per serve
• The two packs of frozen vegetables were on a 10 for $10 special, or 50c per serve
• Chicken broth $2.29 or 38c a serve
• A pack of 12 sheets of puff pastry is $3.99 or 33c per serve
• Celery and onion add 35c per serve
• Add 30c per serve for the other ingredients.

We thought the recipe needed more curry as it wasn’t particularly noticeable. Otherwise this is a easy dish, easy to prepare (although over a longish period) and tasty enough for $2.49 per serve.

Lunch

There’s a big difference in the quality of airline food – on the same airline – depending where the flight originates. The food on the flight from Paris to Los Angeles was significantly better than the reverse. Something about the French and food?

Lunch was a decent Ham and Cheese quiche with a Scandinavian Style Smoke Salmon salad, which was really good. Again, included in the air fare.

Dinner

Back home and Foodie Greg had planned a celebratory dinner: duck breast on brown rice with a pomegranate slaw and pomegranate, ponzu and soy drizzle.

The duck breasts were scored and fried skin down to render out some delicious duck fat (saved for later use) and crispen the skin. A little sear on the other side, and into the oven to finish, before resting, cutting and serving.

The slaw was a supermarket broccoli slaw to which pomegranate pearls were added.

• The organic duck breasts were $14.23, or $7.12 per serve (expensive but comparable with our Prather Ranch steaks)
• The country rice blend was $2.63 for the packet but that will make four serves, so 66c serve.
• The broccoli slaw was $1.69 or 12 oz, but we used only half or 21c per serve
• The pomegranate seeds/pearls are $3.99 for the pack, or $2.00 a serve
• Add 20c for the drizzle ingredients.

Dinner tonight was superb, and cost $10.19 but would be at least three times that in a restaurant.

Lunch

Still in Barcelona and caught in setting up, there was no time to go out for lunch, so lunch was bought to us. Foodie Philip had a quite decent roll filled with pork and cheese.

Lunch was supplied by the Final Cut Pro X Tour organizers.

Dinner

Many hours later, after the event concluded at 10:00pm, the organizers, workers and presenters went out for dinner. We had an 11pm booking, which is not that unusual in Barcelona.

Food flowed, starting with tomato bread, parma ham and a cheese I didn’t catch.

Followed by two types of croquette: one fish, one mushroom. Both were great, but the mushroom one came out twice and Foodie Philip had three!

There was a large shrimp and an interesting combination of chorizo sausage (cooked of course, so it had a crisp shell) and hummus. Unexpected but very good.

After all this food, several glasses of wine and 1am rolling around, we got to the entree! We’d been asked for our selection of pork or tuna. I chose pork, not knowing the tuna was served as huge steaks just lightly seared.

The pork was delicious, and the padron peppers are a favorite. No hot one this time. The meal concluded with either dessert or cocktail. The cocktail was vodka based, delicious but otherwise unknown.

A delicious meal with great people that I reluctantly had to leave at 1:30am because my 7am alarm to catch the flight home was looming.

Dinner was also covered by the event organizers.

Lunch

Since it turned out our onion bagels had gone off while we were away, we used the last two par-baked rolls to support some smoked salmon, cream cheese, cherry tomatoes and capers.

• Six par baked rustic rolls were $3.29 or 55c per serve.
• Smoked salmon $5.99 for the 4oz pack or $3.00 a serve
• Cream cheese is about 60c a serve
• Add 5c for capers.
• The two cherry tomatoes have already been accounted for.

Lunch today cost $4.10 for smoked salmon!

Dinner

Because we were off to a movie premiere Foodie Greg cooked chili ahead of time, so we could simply reheat and eat.

The bacon, black bean and beef chili is great and makes five serves.

• Bacon ends cost $4.99 for the container, but this recipe used about 1/2 of that, or 50c per serve
• Onion and garlic – about 5c a serve
• The beef we used is expensive – pasture raised, dry aged ground beef from our monthly meat delivery – at $9.08 or $1.82 a serve
• Spices – about 12c a serve
• Diced fire roasted tomatoes are $2.19 the can, or 44c per serve
• Tomato paste was 89c or 18c a serve
• The beans were 99c a can, or 20c a serve
• Cheese was 55c per serve
• Sour cream cost $3.99 but we used 1/4 on tonight’s meal, or 50c per serve.

All up dinner cost us $4.36 for a very filling serve.