Month: April 2017

Lunch

Back to our routine chicken wrap.

• The flatbread is 50c per serve
• The roast chicken is $9.99 for the bird, but we used 2/3 one breast, or 42c per serve
• We served 1/2 of the $3.68 edam salad or 67c per serve
• Hummus is $3.99 per container and we used about 1/6 or 92c per serve.

Lunch today cost $2.51 per serve.

Dinner

Last minute changes meant finding a simple meal at short notice, so we took a Trader Joe’s Quiche Lorraine and paired them with the remaining green beans prepared with butter and a lot of garlic!

• The quiche is $5.49 or $2.75 per serve.
• We used the remaining 2/3 of the $3.99 french beans or $1.33 per serve
• Add 10c for garlic.

Dinner tonight cost $4.17 per serve.

Lunch

Back to our routine chicken wrap.

• The flatbread is 50c per serve
• The roast chicken is $9.99 for the bird, but we used 2/3 one breast, or 42c per serve
• We served 1/2 of the $3.68 edam salad or 67c per serve
• Hummus is $3.99 per container and we used about 1/6 or 92c per serve.

Lunch today cost $2.51 per serve.

Dinner

Our Prather Ranch meat box included a bavette, which was new to us, although similar to flap steak we’d enjoyed when we lived in Woodland Hills. Paired with the very excellent Melting Sweet Potatoes this was an excellent meal.

The steak was perfectly cooked and flavorsome; the sweet potatoes just perfect, and the green beans were a good addition.

We served three.

• The Bavette (beef bottom sirloin butt) cost $25.09 or $8.36 per serve
• We used about 1/3 of the $3.99 french beans or 45c per serve
• Sweet potato was $1.37 or 47c per serve.

Dinner tonight included the best sweet potatoes ever, and cost $9.28 per serve.

Lunch

Greg went to Skewers Halal as part of a shopping trip. One chicken, one beef pita later, we were more than satisfied.

Today’s pockets were $9.60 each with tax.

Dinner

Still thinking about using up ham, we thought we might use it instead of bacon on a cobb salad. So we did.

• Blue cheese crumbles are $3.49 for the pack and we used about 1/3 or 58c per serve.
• You can tell by the deep gold yolk that these are pastured eggs: 50c each -one per serve – but worth it for the taste.
• Avocados are 65c per serve.
• The ham is $1.10 per serve
• The chicken breast came from our supermarket chicken, but there was only half a breast left and is 44c per serve
• The organic baby plum tomatoes were $2.79 for the pack, but we only used half, or 70c per serve.
• Add 10c for the greens.

Tonight’s Cobb Salad cost $4.07 per serve.

Lunch

Wild caught smoked salmon, with labné, tomato, capers and thinly sliced red onion on a toasted 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
• Labne is about 40c a serve
• We used one kumato per serve or 58c
• Add 15c for capers and shallot.

Lunch today cost $4.46 a serve.

Dinner

One of the common things to do with left over ham is to make mac ‘n cheese with ham and peas. Instead of using pasta we segmented then roasted an organic cauliflower. Our cheese ‘sauce’ is pretty much just cheese, grated and blended into a small amount of water with a little sodium citrate, which helps create an emulsion.

• An organic cauliflower cost $3.60 or $1.80 per serve
• We grated a 7oz block of New Zealand cheddar that cost $4.29 or $2.15 per serve
• Frozen peas are $1.29 per pack and we used half, or 33c per serve
• Ham was $1.10 per ‘serve’ but in the cheese we split it, or 55c per serve
• Add 10c for mustard and sodium citrate.

The cauliflower version of this dish has so much more flavor than plain pasta, and – thanks to the sodium citrate – being able to use real cheese with flavor instead of diluting the cheese into a béchamel sauce, elevates the dish. Dinner tonight was $4.93 per serve.

Lunch

Still using up the ham!

• Ham is $1.10 per serve, but we used a half serve each on the sandwich, or 55c per serve
• Par-baked roll is 63c
• The NZ cheddar is $5.99 for the pack of eight, one ounce slices, or 75c per serve
• Add 10c for your favorite pickle.

Lunch today was $2.03 per serve.

Dinner

For dinner we went to a friend’s place and had some very excellent beef spare ribs, Italian style, with Vienna sausage, noodles and an onion/carrot side.

Delicious and free for the Foodies.

Lunch

There’s a reason classic combinations are classics: they taste great! While bread and butter pickles, let alone picked cucumber, are not that common in the US they are very much part of our Australian heritage.

• Ham is $1.10 per serve, but we used a half serve each on the sandwich, or 55c per serve
• Par-baked roll is 63c
• The NZ cheddar is $5.99 for the pack of eight, one ounce slices, or 75c per serve
• Add 10c for your favorite pickle.

Lunch today was $2.03 per serve.

• Dinner

Apparently sheet pan meals are all the rage, so we revisited a favorite and served it with Trader Joe’s Bavarian Bratwurst. We took Nigella Lawson’s Double Potato Halloumi Bake but dropped the regular potato, which is bland compared to the rest of the dish.

• The bratwurst are $3.49 for the pack, or $1.75 per serve
• Halloumi $3.64 or $1.82 a serve
• We used peeled garlic, which is amazingly cheap or 12c per serve
• The whole red onion was roasted: 86c or 43c a serve
• Orange bell pepper four ways is 50c a serve
• Yam/Sweet potato was $1.03 or 52c a serve.

Tonights meal was excellent for $5.16. The bratwurst in the oven were crisp on the outside and a lot of fat had melted away, so it was the best these bratwurst have ever tasted.

Lunch

With lots of ham on hand, a sandwich on sprouted rye bread, with New Zealand Cheddar and tomato was on the agenda.

• Ham is $1.10 per serve, but we used a half serve each on the sandwich, or 55c per serve
• Par-baked roll is 63c
• The NZ cheddar is $5.99 for the pack of eight, one ounce slices, or 75c per serve
• Add 10c for your favorite pickle.

Lunch today was $2.03 per serve.

Dinner

A surprisingly ham free meal! We used the remaining mini ravioli that disappointed us recently, and surrounded it with a flavorsome Tomato Blue Cheese Sauce. Although the recipe is for six, we made just two serves.

• Canned tomatoes cost $2.19 or $1.10 per serve
• Organic baby spinach is $1.99 per bag but we used only half or 50c per serve
• Blue cheese crumbles are $3.49 for the pack but we used about 1/4 or 44c per serve
• Cream was $2.49 for a pint, or 63c per serve
• Add 25c for garlic, red pepper flakes and seasoning.

Tonight’s meat free meal was very tasty – the balance of acid from the tomato goes very well with the blue cheese – and cost $2.92 per serve

Lunch

Because Philip was home for lunch on a Monday, we had our version of a quesadilla.

• One flatbread (half of two) costs 50c a serve
• Half a can of refried beans, shared across two halves: 26c
• A generous splash of spicy sauce is 15c per serve
• 2 oz of cheddar split between two is 50c per serve.

Lunch today cost $1.41 per serve.

Dinner

As expected we reheated the cioppino from two night’s ago, and added the balance of the shrimp. We found two shrimp that had been caught in the reheat, and they were not good.

With bread the cioppino costs $8.03 per serve.