Lunch
One of the great things about cooking your own food is leftovers! There were two serves left of Friday’s Ham hock and lentil soup, and that’s what we had for lunch. $2.50 per serve.
We had an afternoon snack of half a meatloaf sandwich each. Only half a serve, split two ways, so $0.85 for the meatloaf, and two slices of multigrain bread, say 40c, split two ways so $1.05 for the half sandwich.
Dinner
We’re in what passes for Winter in California, so a pot roast is a wonderful dish for the season. The slow cook also fills the room with wonderful smells across a lazy Sunday afternoon. The recipe Greg chose is Pot Roast with Mushrooms from Serious Eats.
We went a little overboard on the beef. We’ve been getting a monthly delivery direct from farm, and haven’t been keeping up. The quality of the meat is very high – grass fed and organic – but so is the price. We used a 12 oz (350 g) chuck steak, which will give us a 6 oz serve each. Six ounces is the size of a typical protein serve in a restaurant.
Our steak cost us $7, but conventionally grown would run around $3.75-4.00 for 12 oz. Two 8 oz (250 g) boxes of mushroom were $6. The vegetable components ran to around $1.
A quart of beef stock is around $3 (depending on the quality) and half that was used in the recipe, so $1.50. I’ll allow 50c to cover the flour, salt and pepper.
Our organic meat extravaganza cost us $16.00 or $4.00 per serve. With more conventionally grown beef, the meal would have cost $12, or $3 a serve.
We served with left over cauliflower mash and frozen peas. The mash was 40c serve, and the peas around 50c serve.
The pot roast was amazing for such simple ingredients.