Author: Philip

Mar 2: Slut Spaghetti; Grilled chicken, lentils and sweet potato

Lunch

For lunch we had the remains of the Slut’s Spaghetti from Monday night.

As it did then, lunch today cost $1.76 a serve.

Dinner

A quick dinner because we were heading out to the Home Owners Association annual meeting. We used the leg and thigh from our Whole Foods organic chicken, left over lentils from Saturday night, and some baked sweet potato.

  • 1/4 of the chicken is $3.50
  • The lentils work out to 75c per serve
  • The sweet potato was 99c and we shared half at this meal or 25c per serve.

Dinner tonight cost us $4.25

Mar 1: Lavash wrap; Sausage, Potato and Kale soup

Lunch

Back to our roast chicken pattern, except we experimented with our local Whole Foods: our $6.99 chicken is now a $13.99 chicken! It’s organic, but I’m not convinced organic is right for chicken because chickens can’t be free range (which they should be) and have their diet controlled to be organic.

  • 1/4 of the roast chicken – breast, divided between us is $1.75 per serve
  • Five Lavash sell for $3.99 or 80c per serve
  • We added left over lentils at about 70c per serve
  • Spinach from the garden rounded out the meal.

Lunch today was $3.25: much higher because of the chicken and lavash.

Dinner

For dinner tonight we had the Sausage, Potato and Kale soup we cooked on Sunday.

As it did on Sunday, dinner tonight cost $3.70 per serve.

Greg used the induction cooktop to cook originally on Sunday, but also to reheat because the induction cooktop can be set to a temperature, and won’t exceed it. When set to 195ºF it won’t ever get higher, so the soup won’t boil when being reheated.

Feb 29: Take out; Slut’s Spaghetti (pasta alla puttanesca)

Lunch

Monday’s finds The semiSerious Foodies in different locations: Philip in Burbank eating In-and-Out while Greg has leftover Indian at home.

Averaging the two meals (there was only Baingan Bharta and rice with peas (peas pull0) left) gives an approximate cost of $4.15 each.

Dinner

Tonight’s Slut’s Spaghetti is Nigella Lawson’s translation and interpretation of the classic pasta all puttanesca, or whore’s pasta. The name is thought to have come from ‘working girls’ who did not have time to shop or cook, throwing together a pasta dish from pantry items. How scandalous!

The recipe makes a generous four serves.

  • Anchovies are $1.59 a can, or 40c per serve
  • Garlic and seasonings add about 10c per serve
  • The pasta was $1.29 or 33c per serve
  • Canned tomatoes were $2.19 or 55c per serve
  • A jar of pitted olives is $2.99 but only half is used in the recipe or 38c per serve

Dinner tonight cost $1.76 a serve.

Feb 28: Indian take out; Sausage, Potato, and Kale Soup

Lunch

In between trying to get some work done around the house, we had a side trip to Lowes, so on the way back we tried some local Indian takeout.

Generous serves of chicken tikka masala, Baingan Bharta, garlic naan and rice with peas (peas pull0).

With tax the total was $26.12, but we only finished the naan ($3.26) over two serves. The rest made up four serves for $5.71 a serve. Add half the naan to each serve, and lunch today cost $7.34 a serve.

Dinner

Another favorite makes a return appearance: Pioneer Woman’s Sausage, Potato and Kale soup. According to Pioneer Woman:

This is a make-at-home version of Olive Garden’s “Zuppa Toscana.”

It’s a generous recipe making at least six serves. For the protein we used ground pork from our monthly Prather Ranch delivery. Greg also uses half chicken stock and half ‘half-n-half’ instead of the more dairy focused version in the recipe.

  • 1lb Prather Ranch ground pork was $8.55 or $1.43 a serve
  • Chicken broth $1.99 or 33c per serve
  • Kale cost $1.99 for the bunch or 33c per serve
  • Tomatoes were $2.19 as weighed or 37c per serve
  • Half and half was $1.45 or 24c per serve
  • Roast garlic bread (five serves) was $2.50 or 50c per serve
  • Potatoes $2.40 or 40c per serve
  • Add 10c per serve for herbs and seasonings.

Tonight’s dinner cost $3.70 per serve. It’s an excellent soup and well worth the effort.

Feb 27:Smoked ham and gruyere melt; Pork belly with lentils

Lunch

Lunchtime found us in Santa Monica ahead of Philip giving a Lumberjack Presentation, so we ate Le Pain Quotidian where we both had:

PARIS HAM & AGED GRUYÈRE served with mustard trio

Served with an interesting green salad that featured shaved fennel, it was pretty tasty. At $18.06 a serve it wasn’t cheap, but then it is in Santa Monica.
Dinner
After a long day in Santa Monica and fighting traffic, there wasn’t the will to cook from scratch, so Greg took some partially prepared items from Trader Joe’s and made a meal of them: Pork belly steamed and fried off with ready cooked lentils that were reheated in chicken stock with onion and celery added to enhance the flavor.
The pork belly was steamed on top of the lentils while they were cooking, then fried off to get some crispness and mayard reaction on the surface.

Tonight’s quick, but very tasty meal, cost $4.14 per serve.

Feb 26:Ikea Meatballs; Mixed

Lunch

Because we were in Burbank returning the keys to our apartment and because we had to go to Ikea anyway, we had the meatball lunch including some pretty good soups: Turkey Gumbo and Split pea and kale.

The combo meal is $7.61 including tax per serve.

Dinner

It’s Alpha Dogs’ Editor’s Lounge night tonight and at least one of us eats free! The other cooked some pasta with a basil pesto, for under $1.75.

Feb 25:Steak and Ale Pie;Cobb Salad

Lunch

For lunch we reheated a Trader Joes Steak and Ale pie. It’s more of a British style meat pie, than an Australian one, but not bad anyway.

Today’s lunch cost $5.99 a serve.

Dinner

Dinner tonight was complicated by one Foodie collecting someone from the airport while the other stayed at home a little under the weather.

Ultimately we shared a Cobb Salad for about $7 a serve with tax.

Feb 23: Salmon Chowder; Wild caught Salmon, lemon risotto and brocollini

Lunch

Time to finish off the Salmon Chowder from the weekend.

Without bread the salmon chowder cost us $1.92 a serve.

Dinner

Wild caught Salmon cooked with crispy skin accompanied by a lemon risotto done in the pressure cooker with steamed brocollini.

To cook the salmon, heat a oven proof pan on the stove top with a little coconut oil (best for high temperature cooking because olive oil breaks down at high temperature). When hot, the salmon goes in skin side down for two minutes, before the pan goes into a preheated oven to finish the cooking. Do not turn the salmon or the skin will lose its crispness.

The pressure cooker is a great way to cook risotto because it doesn’t require the constant attention risotto otherwise requires.

  • The wild caught salmon was $10.01 or $5.00 a serve.
  • The organic baby brocollini was $2.69 or $1.35 a serve
  • The risotto rice adds around 40c per serve
  • The lemon came free from a friend.

Dinner tonight cost  $6.75 a serve.

Feb 22:Hamburger; Red Beans and Rice with fried chicken

Lunch

The foodies were in different places during lunch, and Philip had to get take-out as he was back Burbank during lunch. In and Out double-double animal style.

Today’s lunch was $3.40

Dinner

While Philip was in Burbank, Greg cooked up a batch of his home-made Red Beans and Rice to go with the leftover Popeye’s chicken. This is a repeat of our Feb 9 dinner

The semiSerious Foodies finally had our kitchen range installed today, and an electric convection oven is great for reheating fried chicken.

  • Chicken is $2.50 a serve
  • Onion, oil and garlic and seasonings about 15c per serve
  • Each can of organic beans was 99c and we used three, or 50c per serve
  • Instead of andouille sausage, we used a Kroger Simple Truth Lightly Smoked Sausage for $2.99 or 50c a serve
  • Chicken broth $2.29 or 38c a serve
  • And the rice: 33c a serve

Dinner tonight cost us $3.98 per serve.