Fresh ingredients, simple techniques and great food.
Lunch
Back to the Burbank Monday schedule, and with more time than normal, Philip enjoyed a leisurely Double Double at In and Out.
Double Double is $4.08.
Dinner
A second Burbank trip to meet with associates and discuss FCP X XML (our day job). Gordon Biersch is our go to venue, with Philip having the sausage platter and Greg a blackened mahi-mahi sandwich.
The meals came to $20.26 on average, with tax and tip, but none of the beers.
Lunch
A repeat of yeros wraps because we had some in the freeze from last year to use.
Lunch today cost $2.50.
Dinner
Home made pea and ham soup built on home made stock from the bone out of the ham from last weekend. The bone is pressure cooked with some aromatics and water, including a bay leaf because it’s easy to find in the clear stock, but much harder to remove from the resulting soup. Since this stock is destined for the soup, it makes life a little easier.
The soup is prepared by adding split peas to the stock and pressure cooking again. Our innovation is to blend in one pound of fresh (frozen) peas at the end. It lifts the texture and provides a bright note to the flavor. You can see the fresh peas in the photo.
The soup recipe makes six serves. We cubed some left over ham and put it in the bowl, poured soup on top and served with fresh baked bread.
For dinner tonight the soup cost $1.10 per serve with the ham. We chose not to do a roll or bread with the soup as it is very filling on its own.
Lunch
After a trip to collect – among other things cement – we stopped and got sushi from Whole Foods. It was pretty good and included our current favorite: firecracker roll with black rice.
Lunch today averaged out to $10.74 per serve.
Dinner
In order to use some of the abundant supply of meat in our freeze, we defrosted two thick cut pork loin chops at just over 12oz each. In the recent past we’ve sous vidé them and then finished in a pan. This time we cooked to 120 ºF in a low oven, then finished for 2 minutes a side in a hot pan to get a nice sear on the outside. We didn’t make the Serious Eats sauce.
Although it really isn’t salad weather, we cranked up the heater and enjoyed our Waldorf Salad. You can’t beat a classic combination!
Dinner tonight was simple, but delicious. The alternate cooking method works as well as souse vidé as long as you position the probe carefully. At $11.49 it wasn’t a cheap meal, but it was the equal of a $40 meal out!
Lunch
A shopping trip with a side trip to our favorite Mexican place for the first burrito since returning from Australia.
A burrito is $5.50.
Dinner
Time for another experiment, and an opportunity to use up some of the accumulating Prather Ranch meat in our refrigerator, even though we canceled the December delivery. Tonight we tried a variation on a classic with “ultimate” beef stroganoff with egg noodles.
This variation was pretty good.
Dinner tonight cost $9.87, was tasty and very filling.
Lunch
Another cold day and still withy left over ham, what better than a return to the warm ham, tomato and mustard rolls, with par baked rolls.
Lunch today cost $1.73 per serve.
Dinner
The foodies and friend went out watch La La Land, which we enjoyed greatly. Time wasn’t our friend so we ended up having a sausage and brioche roll – a.k.a a hot dog! Our friend paid.
Much later in the evening we revisited the Côte d’Azur or Cure-All Soup and shared the final serve.
We still didn’t do the oil, but a full serve is only $2.83 or $1.42 split between us.
Lunch
We were out helping a friend by shooting some video, so at the end of a cooking segment, we ate the results: flat egg noodles boiled below steamed broccoli and asparagus, with shrimp in a pot on top. Only one pot to wash up!
The meal was pretty tasty.
Dinner
Our plans changed at the last minute as it was raining when we arrived home, so a further shopping trip was unappealing! So Foodie Greg put together a meal from what we had on hand. Naturally it included some fried ham, with a fried egg ‘in-the-hole’, Trader Joes Jumbo Beans in tomato sauce and a fried onion.
In other words, a classic English breakfast, but for dinner.
Dinner tonight cost $3.50 per serve and came together quickly.
Lunch
With much left over ham and a cold day, what better than warm ham, tomato and mustard rolls, with par baked rolls.
Lunch today cost $1.73 per serve.
Dinner
Foodie Philip caught some bug on the aircraft home, so Greg found and cooked Côte d’Azur or Cure-All Soup. Garlic and chicken stock thickened with egg yolks it tastes a lot more interesting than the picture above.
The recipe made three serves.
Although we forgot the oil for serving, this was amazingly delicious for just $2.83 per serve. It seems to work as Philip is on the mend.
Lunch
Back to the ‘Burbank Monday’ schedule with time to stop in at In and Out Burger for a Double Double Animal Style.
With the sales tax increase, a Double Double is now $4.08.
Dinner
With ham readily available and another two serves of the baked winter vegetables it was an easy repeat of last night’s meal.
Dinner tonight cost $3.52 per serve.
Lunch
Back in our own kitchen we decided to create an interpretation of a traditional English breakfast, although our bacon had spoiled while we were away so it was a meatless version. Some of our inspiration came from Cafe Marmalade in Newhaven, UK. At the time we described our breakfast as “An English breakfast cooked by someone who cared about food.”
For two serves:
Total ingredients $7.98 for two serves, or $3.99 per serve. The roast tomatoes were excellent. The giant beens probably a little too big, but overall a very satisfying lunch.
Dinner
One of our annual guilty pleasure is a Ralph’s (Kroger) ham that we bake for Christmas. A huge shank end cost only $11.08. Baked to perfection and dozens of serves.
Paired with the double potato and halloumi bake it’s a great winter dish.
Along with the ham we created a sauce from pomegranate molasses, balsamic vinegar and dijon mustard, which was fantastic. Balance the balsamic and pomegranate molasses then add mustard slowly to bring it all in balance. It worked perfectly with the ham, giving a little acid to cut through the pork fat, along with some tart sweetness from the molasses.
The roast vegetables with halloumi totals $10.07 but it makes four serves, or $2.52 per serve. With the ham, that’s less than $3.52 for a very satisfying winter meal.
December has been the most atypical month yet. We travelled to Australia and stayed with various members of our family, so we rarely cooked and infrequently paid for evening meals. Because we were traveling we mostly ate lunch out. I have not included free meals in the averages,
The averages for this month:
Our most expensive meal was at Gordon Biersch early in the month at $25.15 per serve, but The Country Deli was next most expensive at $21.00 per serve.
Had we purchased every lunch and prepared none it would have cost us $265.05 per person in December. We actually spent $4.95 for lunches at home plus $145.27 for lunches purchased or eaten out: $150.22.
Had we purchased every evening meal out and prepared none at home, it would have cost us $651.93. We actually spent $44.84 for dinners at home and $63.10 for dinners out: $107.94, but our evening meals were heavily subsidized by our family hosts.
It’s hardly a typical month to base anything long term on, and there’s nowhere near the variety this month.
