100 DOLLARS A WEEK - Day 24 & I Have A Confession To Make...

...And the confession is that I have been watching way too much Housewives drama on TV lately.

No doubt I am indulging in some schadenfreude, but having somewhat interpersonally sequestered myself for the past few years while reassessing the kinds of friendships I wanted and needed, I find that I get some kind of weird voyeuristic fulfillment from watching these women interact like lots of women do.

Of course the fact that they are televised magnifies the drama, but the truth is that many of us who watch do because we can recognize the interpersonal dynamics on the shows to the ones in our lives. After all, these women are cast as the archetypes most of us are or know.

Don't get me wrong - I wouldn't want to be friends with any one of these nutty broads. But in that yin-yang way that all things in life have positive and negative aspects to them, two thirds of my brain is rotting as I watch, while the other third is taking notes on how not to relate with other women.

Since I haven't called any of my friends a *prostitution whore* in the past year, or told any of my girlfriends how to have class while talking about myself in the third person, or called any of them a slut for using the word *cock*, I think I'm taking away some really good lessons.

BREAKFAST

Exhausting weekend, so easy breakfast this morning of Honey Nut Cheerios and black coffee.

   2 bowls of cereal with milk $1.00
+ 2 cups of coffee $0.40

= BREAKFAST: $1.40 total, $0.70/person

LUNCH

As we didn't have any leftovers from the weekend, and as I'm suffering female type exhaustion, ramen with poached eggs garnished with some fresh cilantro and green onion. Zipped up with a squeeze of lime and some sriracha.

The Man, who works 5 minutes away from home, came home for lunch rather than spend 8 bucks for Panda again.

And the other half of that cantaloupe too...

   2 packets of Maruchan ramen $0.40
+ 2 eggs $0.35
+ misc. garnish $0.15
+ 1/2 a cantaloupe $0.50

= LUNCH: $1.40 total, $0.70/person

SNACK

The last piece of coffee cake and some coffee, shared.

   1 piece of coffee cake $0.50
+ 2 cups of coffee $0.40

= SNACK: $.90 total

DINNER

Angel hair pasta with a fresh tomato and ground beef ragu. Salad of romaine and sauteed mushrooms dressed with balsamic vinaigrette on the side.

   1/2 a basket of cherry tomatoes $0.75
+ 6 Roma tomatoes $1.20
+ 1 pound of ground beef $2.50
+ 1 head of garlic $0.20
+ 1 onion $0.20
+ some olive oil, oregano and crushed chili flakes $0.50
+ 1/2 a pack of angel hair pasta $0.50
+ a few leaves of romaine lettuce $0.30
+ mushrooms $1.00

= DINNER: $7.15 total, $1.80/serving (4 servings total)

SNACK

The Man wanted to test my poached egg instructions, so he poached two eggs for the first time in his life and was generally happy about it.

SNACK: $0.35

$11.20 spent today with leftovers for lunch tomorrow. YAYYY!!! I just hate myself when I don't have leftovers to pack for the Man's lunch.

Saturday:  $18.15
Sunday:  $17.30
Monday:  $11.20

$47.00 spent with 4 days left to go in this week and this project.

Now for a beer to take the edge off of dealing with things. You know, those *things* in life that come attached to people who create *things* that need to be dealt with.

Cheers.  :[

shinae

COOKING BASICS - How To Poach An Egg In Murky Water That You've Just Boiled Your Ramen In...

A while back, my friend Ikuyo suggested I post about poaching eggs. Given that poached egg with ramen is my go-to homecooked fast food meal, it makes perfect sense that I would.

While poaching eggs is really not that difficult a thing to do, I can see why the process is a challenging one for those who don't do it often. There are lots of dicey and iffy moments during that 3 or 4 minutes (depending on the size) during which the egg is reaching the right poachedness that make you think it's not going to make it. So you mess with it a little too much, lose even more of the white than you would normally lose, perhaps jiggle it before it's sufficiently set and pop the yolk, and when you do that, just forget it all and eat a bag of chips or something because who wants a well done poached egg???

This poached egg is not well done. :)

This reminds me of a conversation I had with the Boy yesterday about how sometimes, good cooking is as much about knowing when to be still as active. Poaching an egg requires:

- faith,
- patience,
- willingness to sacrifice, and
- restraint.

Faith as the whites are flailing in slow motion that they will come together at some point; patience to wait until they do just that; willingness to sacrifice the inevitable loss of white (and it looks like a lot, but it's not that much, really); and the restraint required first not to boil the water too, too hot, and second not to touch the egg until it's good and ready.

HOW TO POACH AN EGG

A pot with a thicker ply of insulation on the bottom is best for poaching eggs as thin bottomed pots put the eggs in closer contact with too much direct heat, resulting in the egg sticking to the bottom and being much more likely to break when you try to remove it. How thick do I mean by thick? At least a quarter of an inch. How thin do I mean by thin? I mean those really inexpensive stainless steel or nonstick pans where the bottom ply is an eighth of an inch or so. The kind that are so thin and light you can twirlspin them by the handle.

Sorry the water isn't clear in these pics. I poached the eggs for ramen after boiling my ramen noodles in the water first. This, by the way, is my most common use for poached eggs.

Some people recommend using vinegar or some other acid to help the protein seize/solidify faster. I tried it once and didn't care for the very subtle difference in the texture of the egg that I can't articulate at the moment.

1) Fill your pot with about 4 inches of water and bring up to a gently rolling boil over slightly higher than medium heat. The gently rolling part is important because if it's so hot that it's spit/splatter or even rolling boiling, the initial disturbance to the egg hinders proper poaching.

2) Crack the eggshell, and holding it as close to the water as you can without hurting yourself, gently open the shell and release the egg into the water. If you don't have asbestos hands like me and are generally very sensitive to heat, you can crack the egg into a bowl and then gently pour the egg into the water from a safer distance for your hands.

Those pesky flailing whites that make you mistakenly
think your poached eggs are going to hell...

3) Don't touch it. At least not for a good two minutes depending on the size of the egg. The ones pictured here were jumbos straight out of the fridge and they took about 4 minutes total cooking time. During this cooktime, some of the white will separate from the rest of the egg. This is to be expected.

4) After 2 or 3 minutes (again depending on the size and temperature of the egg), when it appears at first glance that all of the white has turned opaque, take a spoon or spatula and stir very gently in a clockwise circular motion along the outer edges of the pot, using the actual pot as a guide for your spoon or spatula, and being careful not to disturb the egg(s).

If the egg is done, it will usually separate from the bottom of the pot by itself, and when you lift it out of the water, you will see that while all the white is opaque and cooked through, the yolk is still runny and jiggly underneath.

Sometimes, the egg gets stuck to the bottom of the pot. In which case, you take a spatula and swiftly scrape it off the bottom of the pan using one quick motion, holding the scraping edge of the spatula down along the bottom surface. This makes sure you get as much of the egg as possible while not disturbing the yolk, which should be closer to the top than the bottom.

If you wanna get all chi-chi-foo-foo about it, you can trim the thinner outer edges of the white, but I leave them on because I figures that's just more food for me. :)

shinae

100 DOLLARS A WEEK - Day 23 & Something About Looking Sassy While Grocery Shopping...

"Babe, where are you going in that outfit? To meet your other boyfriend??"

"If by *other boyfriend* you mean the little Mexican lady who rings up my groceries at Earthgrown, then YES."

Sometimes I think it's a little pathetic that I dress up to go grocery shopping, but I have this closet full of clothes, see. And if they don't go with me on my weekly grocery run, they may never see the light of day again before I get too fat to wear them.

Yesterday, it was a dusty rose cashmere sweater with jeans and these little retro black heels with tiny single bows on the outside and a pair of faux pearl earrings. Hair down, face put on, and a spritz of Bulgari Omnia Green Jade on the wrists and behind the ears.

Clacking around in my heels in a market made for hippies wearing Jesus sandals, did I look and sound a little ridiculous?

OF COURSE I DID.

But you only live this life once, and when you leave it, you can't take your cute clothes with you.

BREAKFAST

As the kids were still stoked on their chocolate Cheerios, those for them.

For the grown folk, honey turkey ham & Monterey Jack croissants.

   2 bowls of cereal with milk $1.00
+ 2 croissants $0.75
+ 3 slices of turkey ham $0.30
+ cheese $0.60
+ 2 cups of coffee $0.40

= BREAKFAST: $3.05 total

SNACK

Never one to go too long without eating, the Girl asked for a snack, so half a Honeycrisp apple (which are really good, btw - they're new to me) and some cheese.

This week, it seems I can't go too long without another cup of coffee so another two 6 oz. cups for me.

   1 Honeycrisp apple $0.30
+ cheese $0.30
+ 2 cups coffee $0.40

= SNACK: $1.00

LUNCH

With brew day commotion and so much else to do and with kids clamoring for brownies, I decided to do brownies a la mode for lunch for the four of us plus a regular brew buddy, and the Girl thought this was *The Best Lunch Ever*.

   1 package of Betty Crocker brownie mix $1.80
+ 2 eggs and some oil $0.45
+ ice cream for five $2.50 (There was a twofer sale on Breyer's this week)

= LUNCH: $4.75 total, $0.95/person

DINNER

I think I've mentioned before how brew days can become social events. Another friend whom the Man hasn't seen in a while dropped by to participate in brew day, so chicken teriyaki and garden salad meant for 3 adults and 2 kids became chicken teriyaki and garden salad plus some tamagoyaki (rolled omelettes) for 4 adults and 2 kids.

And more brownies for all because, why not?

   chicken $3.00
+ soy sauce, rice wine, sugar $1.25
+ garlic & ginger $0.20
+ 4 eggs $0.70
+ 3 slices of ham $0.30
+ 2 cups rice $0.80
+ half a head of romaine $0.50
+ half a carrot $0.10
+ half a basket of cherry tomatoes $0.75
+ half a cucumber $0.30
+ a little red cabbage $0.10
+ mayo, ketchup, oil, vinegar and some other seasonings for Thousand Island dressing $0.50

= DINNER: $8.50 total, $1.45/serving (for 6 modest servings)

$17.30 spent today, and the Boy is back at his other house this week. I'm going to miss both my goobers.

All the more reason to start up that new blogging project, I think!

Saturday:  $18.15
Sunday:  $17.30

$35.45 spent with 5 days left to go. Tomorrow will probably have something to do with ground beef.

I think it's time for a beer.

shinae

100 DOLLARS A WEEK - Day 22 (What We Ate) & Something About Cooking In Vs. Dining Out...

The other day, I told you about how the Man ended up having to go to Panda Express for some guai lo Chinese-y food for lunch and how that lunch cost $8.00. That we spent 8 bucks on a 2-item combo didn't bite as much as the realization of how much more food at how much better a quality we could have made with 8 bucks' worth of groceries at home.

To further illustrate, in the past couple of months, we've gone out to eat on our own dime just a handful of times. And in that handful (something like 4), we have spent more dining out ($400+) than we do for the groceries that feed us, and pretty well I think, for the entire month.

And let's be real - I love Oceanside, but Oceanside is no fine dining haven. Which is to say, we're not eating at places where we can get better food than we get at home. And when we stay local, we're dining out for one of two reasons: variety sushi and a break from the kitchen.

I understand this is a Red Delicious to Fuji comparison.

When we dine out, each person gets to order what they want, and there is no cleanup. I hesitate to include the notion of service in that equation because frankly, what we get for service most days in casual dining environments lately, I'd rather take a number and go pick my food up at the pass-through. (Lest I should be taken the wrong way, it's not that I'd rather that server be out of a job. I'm just looking at it from a bang for my buck perspective. And maybe I think that server needs to brush up on their notions of good service, too...) Further, if the reality for some of us is that almost all restaurant food looks and tastes better than what we can produce at home, all I can say is, practice makes perhaps not perfect, but eventually, definitely better than what you can get at most restaurants.

When we eat in, the whole family *has* to eat the same thing, and someone's gotta wash or at least load the dishes. But let me reframe that from a perspective of a mother who has two pre-teen children with very culinarily doting grandmothers who don't seem to mind making one thing for one child and one different thing for the other. While it is absolutely a grandmother's prerogative to dote, it is not good for children to grow up thinking they can have whatever they want at every meal. It spoils them in a bad way for this little reality of life we try to instill in them from the time they're old enough to be fixated on a big amorphous purple blobcreature that is supposed to be a singing dinosaur:

You get what you get, and you don't throw a fit.

I'm not trying to get anyone to stop eating out. I enjoy a good dining out experience as much as the next gal. But clearly, there are advantages to eating home-cooked meals most of the time, and not all of them have to do with saving money.

BREAKFAST

For me, the Man, and the Boy, coffee cake and a hot beverage:

For the Girl whom we picked up later in the morning because she had a Father-Daughter dinner with her dad on Friday night, a bowl of chocolate Cheerios:

   3 pieces of coffee cake $1.50
+ 2 cups of coffee $0.40
+ a cup of coconut vanilla latte $0.25
+ a bowl of Cheerios and milk $0.50

= BREAKFAST: $2.65 total, $0.65/person

SNACK

A fruit and veg platter for all.

   2/3 basket of cherry tomatoes $1.00
+ 2 carrots $0.40
+ half a cantaloupe $0.60
+ some ranch dressing $0.15

= SNACK: $2.15 total

LUNCH

Club sandwich type dealies with bacon, lettuce, turkey ham, avocado and tomato on whole wheat.

    4 slices of bacon $0.50

+ 1 avocado $0.75

+ lettuce already accounted for

+ 1 tomato $0.20

+ turkey ham $1.00

+ 8 slice of bread @ $1.00

= $3.50 total, $0.90/person

KIMCHI

Made more kimchi.

   just under 4 pounds of Napa cabbage $3.80

+ half a head of garlic $0.10

+ a big knuckle of ginger $0.20

+ red chili flakes $0.60

+ some rice, sugar and fish sauce $0.20

= KIMCHI: $4.90 for a half gallon.

DINNER

Easy meals all around - instant udon for dinner. With a poached egg for me and the Man, and plain for the kids who don't like poached eggs.

Some button and crimini mushrooms sauteed in some of the bacon fat left from making the club sandwiches for lunch, and dressed with little lemon and wasabi.

And some fresh kimchi. :)

   4 packets of udon $3.40
+ 2 eggs $0.35
+ mushrooms $1.25

= DINNER: $4.90 total, $1.25/person

$18.15 spent on the first day of the last week.

The Man is brewing today. Some kind of stout, I think, but he is not awake to confirm.

This house is a disaster. I guess my day has been planned for me.

Off to assemble breakfast...

shinae

100 DOLLARS A WEEK - Day 22 (Shopping Day)...

It's the last shopping day of this project, and while I'm half sad to see it end, I'm kind of excited to take on a new blogging project. I like how the overarching theme of a monthly food budget has given me focus and motivation to post every day. After taking a week or so to focus on writing recipes, I think I'll start a monthlong series on cooking basics or something like that. I think that could be an enlightening endeavor.

Having entered all 4 weeks' data into the spreadsheet, here are some findings:

- I've spent $390 total on these weekly shopping trips.

- 25% of that has gone to produce, another 25% to meat (& poultry & fish), 15% to dairy (which includes eggs), 16% to pantry items, 5% to breads and cereals, 8% to indulgences like desserts and wine, and 6% to miscellany like paper, plastic, cleaning and toiletry items.

- I'm pretty sure I've spent no more than $20 for groceries that weren't included in these 4 shopping trips.

No doubt living in a somewhat densely populated and ethnically diverse area gives us access to a great variety of ingredients at pretty reasonable prices, but I think most places have their own advantages when it comes to food supply. Some parts of the country seem to have a better deal on certain kinds of meat, we here in California certainly have it good when it comes to produce, and when I hear about some of the deals on lobster and blueberries in the Northeast, I am mildly envious.

Besides paying attention to prices, I think a big money saver is cooking around your groceries rather than buying your groceries around recipes. And undoubtedly, that approach makes you a more creative, inventive, adaptable, and all around better cook over time.

There are lots of great resources on the web for recipes and food ideas: epicurious, allrecipes, cooks.com, and my regular hangout chowhound, to name a few.

If you're on my facebook page, then you already know that I am blessed with lots of friends who have great food ideas and who inspire me all the time. You probably have friends with whom you can swap food ideas. But going through the exercise of matching your on-hand ingredients to a good food idea is such a worthwhile effort that only gets easier with practice.

$66.00 at Fresh & Easy +

$54.32 at Earthgrown
= $120 TOTAL

And on to the last breakdown...

As predicted to the Man before I left the house to go shopping, I went a little produce happy as I tend to do from time to time. But the fact that we had to restock on coffee and TP ate up 20 bucks of the budget right off the bat, and I spent $120 today to make up for the shortfall of previous weeks.

PRODUCE: For onions, carrots, Napa cabbage, a honeydew, a bunch of green onion, a cantaloupe, a tray of button mushrooms, a green bell, a red bell, a head of Romaine, 3 Russet potatoes, some ginger, 2 bunches of cilantro, 5 Roma tomatoes, 4 Habanero peppers, some daikon radish, 4 Honeycrisp apples, 2 baskets of cherry tomatoes, 7 jalapenos, 2 lemons, 6 limes, and 5 heads of garlic, I paid $27.41, about 23% of the bill.

MEAT: For a 5 lb. tray of chicken quarters (thighs and drums), 2 pounds of ground beef, 1 pound of honey turkey ham, 1 pound of bacon, and a roughly 3.5 pound pork butt, I paid $22.05, or 18% of the bill.

DAIRY: For 1 gallon of whole milk, two 32 oz. containers of yogurt, 20 jumbo eggs, and a small slab of Monterey Jack cheese, I paid $14.19 or 12% of total.

PANTRY: For a 32 oz. canister of coffee, 11 assorted packets of semi-instant noodles, a bottle of soy sauce, a bottle of Tapatio hot sauce, and some crushed red chili flakes, I paid $23.21 or 19% of total.

GRAINS: For a 4-pack of croissants, 2 boxes of Cheerios, and a small loaf of whole wheat bread, I paid $8.49, or 7% of total.

INDULGENCES: For a tray of coffee cake, 2 no longer exactly half gallon containers of Breyer's ice cream (vanilla and Neopolitan), and a bottle of cava (Spanish sparkling wine), I paid $12.47, or 10% of total.

MISC: For a 12-pack of TP and a bottle of Vitamin B caplets, I paid $12.98, or 11% of total.

I've already used up 4 packets of udon and some of that deli turkey and wheat bread. For the rest of the week, I'm planning on:

- Teriyaki chicken and salad with some Japanese resto carrot ginger dressing

- Some empanadas de picadillo with half of the ground beef

- Maybe some angel hair pasta with marinara and meatballs with the other half of the ground beef

- split pea soup using some dry split peas I bought either last week or the week before that and some bacon

- some bun thit heo nuong (Vietnamese rice noodle salad with grilled pork) and pickled carrots and daikon

- possibly some egg salad sandwiches

As usual, we'll see how the rest develops.

And on to the meals I go...

shinae

100 DOLLARS A WEEK - Day 21 & Something About Dark, Leafy Greens...

Though I'm sure this is the case in many other places in the world, I know this to be the case in most of Asia: we eat crap that tastes bad because we know or think it's good for us.

From ginseng roots, to bitter melon, to dandelion greens, to alien looking mushrooms, to godawful black-brown and *mostly* herbal decoctions made of godknowswhat, if we think it'll help us live longer, *perform* better, poo easier, look younger, or prevent cancer, we will eat it, and not just when we're sick. 

There's probably a word in Korean for that trait, and I don't know what it is, but whatever it is, I think that's the thing that compels me to buy dark, leafy greens. Because I don't really like them. Kale, mustard greens, and tonight's collard greens - all tough, all bitter, all just *meh*. 

And yet there is a part of me that cannot resist them from time to time when I see them in the produce display. Like some ancient instinct bred into my DNA, I am compelled. And even as I'm eating them and thinking to myself,

Self, these are really meh and bitter, even though you've braised them for, like, a frickin HOUR, with bacon, even.

I cannot stop shoving the stuff down my gullet because there's some little pea in my brain that says I'm going to wake up tomorrow regular, cancer free and looking like a 20 year old.

So far, I'm 2 for 3. I'll probably throw some dandelion greens in the basket tomorrow.

BREAKFAST

As the Boy ate the last of the yogurt yesterday, I made cream cheese pancakes instead of my usual yogurt *buttermilk* ones, two for each of us, extra big ones for the Man.

   pancake ingredients $0.75
+ 2 cups coffee @ $0.40

= BREAKFAST: $1.15 total.

LUNCH

For the Man, leftovers from last night's yakisoba dinner, plus the last two eggs, hardboiled, and a Fuji apple.

Having done our Fresh and Easy trip today (which I'll report on tomorrow when I finish the rest of the grocery shopping), the Boy came home pretty darned excited about a box of chocolate Cheerios. It's nice to be a kid.

That, some deli turkey (I rarely buy coldcuts, but there are tomatoes, avocados and mayo in that fridge that are screaming to be made into a sandwich), and a Fuji apple for him.

A Nongshim kimchi ramen bowl plus two sweet, juicy, fragrant and buttery Bartlett pears for me. I love it when the growing season is kind to a crop of something I enjoy so well.

   2 Fuji apples $0.60
+ 2 hardboiled eggs $0.35
+ a bowl of Cheerios with milk $0.50
+ kimchi ramen bowl $1.00
+ 2 Bartlett pears $0.50

= LUNCH: $3.00 total

DINNER

Well, that salmon finally defrosted. So it was that with a homemade tartar sauce; aforementioned superamazing healthful wondergreens of the collard variety braised for an hour with bacon, garlic, chicken stock and apple cider vinegar, and sweet potatoes mashed with the last bit of cream cheese and some buttah.

mayo, celery, onion, sweet pickle, sweet pickle brine,
lemon juice, lemon zest, wasabi, and a little
black pepper

   a little over a pound of salmon $7.50

+ tartar sauce fixins $0.50

+ 2 bunches collard greens $2.00

+ 4 slices of bacon $1.15

+ 2 sweet potatoes $0.60

+ seasonings $0.50

DINNER: $12.50 total, $4.15-ish/serving (This reasonably served 3 adults, but we actually had a surprise dinner guest and ended up feeding 4 of us in total.)

Saturday:  $5.40

Sunday:  $16.00

Monday:  $12.40

Tuesday:  $12.60

Wednesday:  $12.00

Thursday:  $13.00

Friday:  $17.00

$93 in food spent for the week (if the math doesn't add up, it's because of the 4 bucks in snacks I added in), and just one more week left to go. 

Half of me is excited to get back to focusing on writing recipes over journaling my diet, but the other half of me is mildly concerned that I won't be so disciplined with posting. Hopefully this exercise has changed me for the better.

The Man is in the living room listening to the kind of music Dave Chappelle says white folk like to dance to. 

I don't like that stuff, but at least he ain't dancin'. Kekeke... :P

shinae

100 DOLLARS A WEEK - Day 20 (Thursday)...

Catching up is the problem with falling behind.

One all nighter spent subconsciously ruminating over a family matter, which then fries your brain for the next 4 days while your brain and body try to compensate for the fact that you're no longer a 20 year old who can bounce back from an all nighter with nothing but adrenaline and a Diet Coke. (They didn't have Red Bull back then, that's how long ago that was.)

This may sound kinda lame, but at Day 20, with just a week and a day left to go, I feel pretty good about the fact that I did something as mundane as keep track of everything I ate for the past three weeks even though I didn't have to. It doesn't sound like much, but when you grow up in an oddly Bohemian environment (Yes, Asian people can be that way, believe it or not. We just don't grow up thinking there's anything cool, hip or chic about it and instead opt to see ourselves as failures for our lack of routine and discipline.), it's a feat to get your teeth brushed by roughly the same time every morning.

But I won't lie. It does help to stay on task when you're getting feedback and encouragement. I don't get many *attagirls* for brushing my teeth.

BREAKFAST

How fried am I? I had to upload the pics to remember what I ate yesterday.

Half of the last bagel each for the Man and me, and a repeat of the vanilla yogurt for Joe. (I really can't believe how little that boy eats sometimes...)

   1 bagel with cream cheese and some jam $0.60
+ 2 cups of coffee $0.40
+ yogurt with sugar and vanilla $0.60

= BREAKFAST: $1.60

LUNCH

The Man was chickened out, and the Tandoori chicken with the aloo gobi was the only leftovers we had enough of to pack a lunch, so he bought lunch at Panda Express, and that lunch cost him $8.00.

GAH. Eight bucks for some breaded beef crap and some chicken crap with some rice. Is there any better argument I can make for cooking enough to have leftovers the next day???

The very last of the pernil and some steamed rice for the Boy.

The Tandoori chicken dealie for me. And you can totally see that we are getting to the end of the week. It gets dicey, folks.

LUNCH: $8.00 total for caca Panda Express food.

DINNER

Dinner was supposed to be salmon, but I decided I would put the salmon in my wonky refrigerator to defrost overnight. *FAIL.* That's why you buy instant or near-instant crap. Plan B food, I call it.

Yakisoba (yahkkeesohbah) with onions, carrots and cabbage. A most interesting Worcestershire based seasoning if you've never had it. I personally love the stuff, and all the more with a few dashes of Tabasco. I can't articulate what it is about yakisoba with that particular seasoning packet and Tabasco sauce that I like so well, but I like it. A lot.

Leftover kimchi soup and cucumber bahnchahn on the side.

   3-pack of yakisoba $2.50
+ 1 carrot $0.10
+ 1 onion $0.20
+ 1/3 of a head of cabbage $0.45
+ 1 green onion $0.10

= DINNER: $3.35 total, $0.85/serving (4 servings total)

I think we had some kind of a snack last night, but hell if I know what it is.

Saturday:  $5.40
Sunday:  $16.00
Monday:  $12.40
Tuesday:  $12.60
Wednesday:  $12.00
Thursday:  $13.00

$76.00 spent with one day left to go in the week.

Off to cook dinner and then hopefully back in a bit with today's meals so I can finally get caught up.

shinae