Fresh ingredients, simple techniques and great food.
Lunch
Because of some odd scheduling, lunch was late today. Since we also had to drop off a FedEx package, The Country Deli seemed like a good choice. Both Foodies had their normal meals. Lunch at The Country Deli runs $21.62 per person (average) with tax and tip.
Dinner
Because of the late lunch, neither Foodie was particularly hungry. Foodie Philip finished the second half of the Pastrami on Rye from Foodie Greg’s lunch and Foodie Greg snacked on some melon.
Lunch
In order to use the last two hamburger buns we toasted them on the panini press, after using the press to fry off the remaining bacon. Basically, we’re doing a simplified do-over of last night’s burger, with the bacon, tomato and guacamole filling out the meal.
The hamburger buns aren’t our favorite sandwich bread but these wrapped good sandwiches regardless, for $2.90 per serve.
Dinner
A simple meal of the legs from our supermarket roast chicken, paired with a Vietnamese inspired salad.
A cool, satisfying meal for $2.66 per serve.
Lunch
For lunch we used the second chicken breast, some of the moon touched tomatoes we had on hand and Swiss. It made a decent sandwich, but chicken breast really doesn’t contribute much flavor.
A decent lunch for $2.10 per serve.
Dinner
With a guest over for dinner we grilled portobello mushrooms and bacon and toasted the buns. The burger was assembled with caramelized onion, Blue Castello cheese, bacon and watercress.
The mushroom provides great ‘meatiness’ to the burger and the other flavors combine into a rich sauce. An excellent meal for $4.05 per serve.
Lunch
We will need four hamburger buns on Saturday night, but they come in packs of eight, so we used up two at lunch.
The hamburger bun is not a good substitute for quality rye bread, but a good sandwich anyway for $2.42 per serve.
Dinner
The hottest day of the year called for a salad and what better than Nigella Lawson’s Watermelon Salad. It was way to hot to eat outside!
Tonight’s meal was as delicious as it always is for $4.35 per serve.
Lunch
Foodie Greg made a pilgrimages to Jon’s supermarket and picked up a fresh (still warm) baguette, fresh roast chicken and a couple of heirloom tomatoes, so that’s exactly what we had for lunch!
When all the ingredients are first rate, the result of even a simple meal is very good. This one was great for $2.60 per serve.
Dinner
It’s Thursday night – our “steak” night – and we have a rib eye defrosted, but we also still have half a baguette. We decided on a steak roll with sliced rib eye, roquamole, and grilled onions. Onions were grilled on our griddle over the induction cooktop.
The steak was perfectly cooked and the grilled onion and roqualmole added texture, salt and a whole heap of flavor for $10.68 per serve.
Lunch
As an excuse to get out of the house on a beautiful summer day (before it gets too hot) we checked out a nearby park as a potential “big thinking” location. On the way we picked up some In and Out Burgers: A Double Double for Philip, Cheeseburger for Greg. Both animal style!
The burgers average $3.50 with tax per serve.
Dinner
On the holiday evening we went non-traditional: no grill. Instead we put out a spread of grapes, Roquamole (Avocado & Roquefort), salami, chorizo, parma ham, paté, grapes and corn chips.
A veritable feast and we consumed almost all before heading off for a hike to an overlook to watch fireworks.
A relaxing graze while sipping a sparkling a sparkling Rose from New Zealand for $7.89 per serve, without the bubbly!
Lunch
Eating food prepared at home for lunch again, we reverted to a couple of favorite toasted sandwiches: a “sun dried tomato” tuna pouch with Swiss on one sandwich; and tomato and Swiss on the other.
A couple of decent sandwiches for $2.65 per serve.
Dinner
As we slowly finish the last of our Keller Crafted meat delivery, we decided to sous-vidé them to perfect medium rare, then a quick fry off in butter to color the exterior and give extra flavor from the Maillard Reaction on the surface.
Paired with the remains of yesterday’s lunch salad and balsamic macerated organic cherry tomatoes with burrata. The salad kit was a bit blah compared to the tomato, burrata and pork.
The pork chop was perfectly cooked. The fat was soft and perfectly rendered. The flesh was moist and tender with the light crust on the outside giving it a perfect finish. It was the best pork chop we have ever had. That it is a heritage breed, and therefore has the pork fat a pig is supposed to have!
The burrata and tomato salad was also good, providing a tart complement to the pork. All up an excellent meal for $14.04 per serve. I’d expect to pay more than $55 or more for a similar meal in a restaurant.
Lunch
For lunch we reheated the remaining Popeye’s Fried Chicken and served it with a Mediterranean Style Salad Kit.
Lunch today cost $3.98 per serve. The salad kit was kind of boring.
Dinner
For dinner we sliced the Red Wine and Mushroom Meatloaf and fried it in butter. Similarly we fried off a good portion of sugar snap peas in the butter and served it all with Trader Joe’s Marsala and Mushroom Sauce.
We both thought the meatloaf had improved since the weekend. Plus, frying it in butter always improves the flavor by amping up the Maillard Reaction on the surface. We liked the Marsala and Mushroom sauce and the sugar snap peas provided a freshness and crunch not present in the rest of the meal. A good meal for $8.95 per serve.
Lunch
The Bahn Mi today was exceptionally good. It seemed to be even more stuffed with ingredients than usual. A great sandwich for $8.75 per serve with tax and tip.
Dinner
What could be better than a salad featuring bacon, bacon fat and eggs! Nothing, which is why we had Salad Lyonnaise!
It was a particularly good example of a Lyonnaise, probably because of the extra bacon fat used. A highly enjoyable meal for $3.26 per serve.
June was the quietest month of the year with almost all evening meals at home.
The averages for this month:
Our lunches at home are consistent around the $2.50 per serve. Lunches prepared outside the home have skewed a little higher, largely because of lunch at Cafe Habana in the last days of the month and a lunch at The Country Deli.
Our most expensive meal was that lunch at Cafe Habana in Malibu at $23.58 per serve. Our evening meal out was less expensive than usual thanks to a discount voucher taking 30% off the meal at Gordon Biersch.
Our most expensive at home meal was Grilled Rib Eye Steak, with Cauliflower Gnocchi in Blue Cheese sauce at $13.39 per serve.
Lunches at home cost 23% of the cost of eating food prepared outside the home , while dinners at home cost 69% the average of dinner out this month.
Had we purchased every lunch and prepared none it would have cost us $338.40 per person in June. We actually spent $59.13 for lunches at home plus $78.95 for lunches purchased or eaten out: $138.08 in total.
Had we purchased every evening meal out and prepared none at home, it would have cost us $354.00. We actually spent $159.34 for dinners at home and $23.60 for dinners out: $182.94 in total.
We saved $371.38 by preparing and eating most meals at home, plus we have better control over what we eat.
Over the month we prepared 18 different recipes for evening meals.
