And I shall call it my blue period, and it shall be good.
July 27, 2015
And I shall call it my blue period, and it shall be good.
July 26, 2015
A little morning traffic stop, courtesy of nonchalant geese.
Adventures In Budget Paleo Cooking – Week of July 20 – 26
This Week’s Menu
Monday
Breakfast: 2 fried eggs
Lunch: Pre-packaged salad from Trader Joe’s + grilled chicken breast
Dinner: Bunless burger with smashed fingerling potatoes
Tuesday
Breakfast: Green smoothie
Lunch: Romaine/red cabbage/grilled chicken/cherry salad
Dinner: Deli meat wrapped in a collard leaf + pop chips
Wednesday
Breakfast: Green smoothie
Lunch: Romaine/red cabbage/strawberry/grilled chicken salad
Dinner: Lamb blade steaks with corn/cucumber/pepper salad
Thursday
Breakfast: Green smoothie
Lunch: Leftover corn salad with red cabbage, chicken and fried eggs
Dinner: Pressure cooked pork ribs with corn on the cob
Friday
Breakfast: Green smoothie
Lunch: Collard wrapped deli meat sandwich with peaches
Dinner: Ate out
Sunday
Breakfast: Out
Lunch: Out
Dinner: Out
This Week’s Grocery List
Lunch salad for Monday ($3.99 @ Trader Joe’s)
Lunch grilled chicken breast ($5.49 @ Trader Joe’s)
Deli meat, 1/2 lb turkey ($5.00 @ Brooklyn Fare
Deli meat, 1/2 lb. roast beef ($4.80 @ Brooklyn Fare)
Buns for the DH’s burger ($2.49 @ Trader Joe’s)
Fingerling potatoes for a burger side ($2.29 @ Trader Joe’s)
Smoothie Supplies
Ginger ($1.39 @ Trader Joe’s)
Coconut water ($3.69 @ Trader Joe’s)
4 Apples ($3.16 at Trader Joe’s)
1 lb. limes ($1.99 at Trader Joe’s)
2 Avocados ($2.78 at Trader Joe’s)
Bagged kale (2) ($4.58 at Trader Joe’s)
Bagged spinach ($2.29 at Trader Joe’s)
Impulse Buys
Sliced mozzarella ($3.99 @ Trader Joe’s)
Pop Chips ($2.50 @ Brooklyn Fare)
2 peaches ($2.18 @ Brooklyn Fare)
1 Cubanelle pepper ($0.42 @ Brooklyn Fare)
Totals
CSA Veggies: $25.50
CSA Meats: $40.00
Trader Joe’s: $38.13
Brooklyn Fare: $17.89
Budget Breakout
This week, I spent $121.52; $21.52 over budget. Poooooooooooooo. I really thought I was on track this week, since I didn’t have to buy much – apparently not. I need to buckle down for next week. This could get interesting.
Leftovers From This Week
At the end of the week, I have a bunch of CSA veggies, some offal, and other meats left over. I need to incorporate these items into my menu for next week.
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Think eating healthfully is too expensive for you? Think again. According to the USDA, to ensure a nutritious diet as of December 2014, a family of two aged 19-59 years should spend between $388.90 and $776.10 on food per month, or $89.80 – $179.30 per week. Source
For my family of two adults, I spend roughly $400 a month on groceries or $100 a week – and we eat well. Not caviar and lobster well, but I do manage to serve a predominately paleo diet with little to no processed foods, and I get to throw in a few luxuries here and there (like expensive snacks for the hubbs and the occasional ridiculously expensive bag of coffee). We even manage to buy “good” meat (grass fed beef and free-range chicken) most of the time – and I make this budget work even on the weeks we pay for convenience by getting delivery groceries. I make: 10 breakfasts, 5 lunches, and 10 dinners a week – plus enough snacks to satisfy and fuel two active adults.
I’m hoping that this series will help shed a little light on the day-to-day things a “paleo” person really eats — and how that way of eating can work on a budget. I want to nudge anyone sitting on the fence right over the edge by showing that it *can* be done and that you don’t just eat meat, meat, meat and more meat.
July 25, 2015
A few shots around DC.
July 24, 2015
DC or bust!
Spicy Chard Salad with Sweet Miso Dressing
This is one of those crowd-pleasing, light and refreshing salads that makes the perfect thing to bring to a potluck. It’s vegan, gluten-free (check your labels!) and paleo-adjacent. It’s also sweet and spicy and interesting enough to warrant seconds on a hot summer day.
Vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free
Spicy Chard Salad With Sweet Miso Dressing
1 bunch Swiss chard
1/2 head red cabbage
1 pint cherry tomatoes
1 red bell pepper
1 shallot
2 Tbsp. white miso (check your labels!)
1.5 Tbsp. tahini
1.5 Tbsp. coconut nectar
1.5 Tbsp. coconut aminos
1 – 2 Tbsp. rice vinegar
Few cracks black pepper
Big pinch Kosher salt
1/2 tsp. ground coriander
Bare dusting ground ghost pepper
Wash and chop the chard, cabbage and peppers – add to a large bowl. Dice the shallot and add. Halve the tomatoes and add.
In a small bowl, whisk together the miso, tahini, coconut nectar, coconut amino, rice vinegar, salt, pepper, coriander and ghost pepper.
Pour over the salad and toss to combine.
Serves 6+, enough for a potluck
July 23, 2015
Blue skies
What To Do With A Box Of Vegetables: Brooklyn Beet CSA Box 3
Whoo hoo! It’s CSA time again! Time to shrug off winter’s recipe rut and reign spring’s exuberance with bi-monthly boxes of vegetables (and hopefully meat).
This year’s CSA is from Brooklyn Beet CSA. Brooklyn Beet provides veggie shares from Angel Family Farm, a sustainable farm located in Orange County, NY that was created with the support of GrowNYC’s New Farmer Development Project; fruit shares from Hepworth Family Farm, a 250-acre NOFA-certified seventh-generation family farm in Milton, NY; baked goods from Wild Mountain Bread based in Brooklyn; and a wide variety of grass-fed beef, pasture raised pork, and other products (like other meats, cheeses, bread, flour, grains, lax-fermented vegetables, pastas and other pantry goods) from Lewis Waite Farm, which sources from over 35 local family farms.
I purchased a half share, and will be getting a box containing 6-8 vegetables (about 2 bags worth) every other week from June – October (11 shares), and plan on ordering a carnivore share box from Lewis Waite (4-6 lbs. of meat) for pickup each veggie week. I also purchased a “Challenger Share” for the season (6 deliveries total) containing odd bits like animal fats, organ meats, neck bones, shanks, and rendered lard to stretch my culinary skills. The price of my CSA averages out to $25.50 per share for veggies, plus an additional $45 per pickup week for meat/offal. This total will be accounted for in my weekly Adventures In Budget Paleo Cooking posts.
You would think by now that I’d be used to flying blind when it comes to CSA season, since they rarely seem to post previews of upcoming shares, but I’m not. At least not going into this first week. Pickup this year is on Tuesday, so it looks like another summer of alltheveggies for half a week & utilizing the stragglers before they go bad on Mondays and Tuesdays. Such is the life of a CSA devotee. Boom and bust every week (or every other week, in my case).
Brooklyn Beets 2015 CSA Box 3
1 bunch English Breakfast radishes
1 bunch red mustard greens
1 bunch lemon balm
1/2 lb. yellow beans
1/2 lb. green beans
1 big bunch collard greens
1 head romaine lettuce
1 big bunch swiss chard
1 bunch basil
Lewis Waite Meat Share Box 2
1 lb. unidentified bone-in bird breast
1 lb. turkey breast
1 lb. ground beef
1 lb. pork ribs
I also bought: eggs and (aged) raw milk cheddar as treats
How I Used My Share
I roasted this week’s radishes + the balance of week 1’s radishes and beets with grapefruit juice and served with pistachio butter as a side dish for the pork ribs, which I slow cooked with roasted garlic sriracha BBQ sauce.
Half of the basil wilted before I got to it.
Most of the lemon balm wilted the day after pickup.
I used some lemon balm and basil to dress up: watermelon salad, water, and sparkling water.
It turns out the unidentified bone-in bird breast was actually half a chicken, and I roasted it with a little basil butter and served with roasted lemon green/yellow beans.
I made a spicy chard salad to take to a potluck.
I sautéed the mustard greens with bacon, olives and rosemary and served alongside the turkey breast, which I chunked and crusted with plantains and buffalo sauce.
I made the ground beef into burgers.
I used the romaine in lunch salads.
I used some of the collards to make wrap sandwiches.
Leftovers: 1/2 a bunch of collard greens, 1/2 a head of romaine lettuce
My Favorite Dish From This Box
This week, my favorite was spicy slow cooked pork ribs. The roasted veg side was so-so, but the ribs were frickin delicious.
July 22, 2015
Brews with a view.
July 21, 2015
Old & new.
