This is the most full my fruit basket has ever been. It’s holding up pretty well for a $2 basket. The oranges, apples and potatoes all together cost about $5 from great sale prices. Hooray! That’s not even all the potatoes. I used a couple to make oven fries. Anyway, I’m excited because not only are we getting to eat lots of fruit, but it’s a cheap way to be able to bring a bigger lunch to work and not be tempted to buy something if we feel hungry.
Eric is a major tea drinker. I like tea but typically prefer lattes or cappucinos, I want something with caffeine and protein in the morning. My current job is right near our favorite tea shop, Tea Madame, which sells good quality loose leaf tea. Eric’s favorite is Black Almond, so when he ran out I surprised him with 4 oz of last week. He was thrilled!
One of my favorite candies is Almond Roca, so I decided that I wanted to try making something similar to drink with his almond tea. I had milk, the almond tea, ghiradelli chocolate chips, and though I didn’t have any toffee I had some caramel syrup leftover from another recipe and thought that would be good. Oh boy was it!
Eric thought it tasted like hot chocolate. Good but nothing special. What’s funny is even though he couldn’t taste the tea, the caffeine definitely hit him! But I could really taste the subtle almond and thought it was great. I steeped it for about 15 minutes and I think if I did it for 30 the almond would be stronger. I also would like to try it with toffee instead of caramel, but I really liked it a lot, and found it to be a very comforting wintry drink. No pretending this is good for you, but boy is it good!
Almond Roca Milk Tea
Ingredients
2 cups milk (I used 2%)
1 1/2 TBS almond black tea
2 TBS caramel syrup
2 TBS quality chocolate chips
Instructions
Put milk in a saucepan over low heat. Place tea in an infuser ball and set in the milk.
You have two options for the heating of the milk. You can stir it regularly to keep a skin from forming, or (what I did, because we were watching a movie) leave it and skim off the skin. Let the tea steep in the milk (on LOW!) for 25-30 minutes.
Remove the tea, add the caramel and chocolate and stir until dissolved. Use a hand immersion blender to make it nice and frothy. Pour into individual mugs and enjoy!
Yum, Yum, Yum! I’m not really a sandwich person. I usually feel like they have too much bread for my taste. But I wasn’t sure what to make for dinner and had some yummy roasted garlic bread to use up. So I decided to combine some of my favorite food ingredients with our turkey lunchmeat to make a sandwich I thought I’d like. It worked so well I made another to bring for lunch the next day.
Eric really loved this. He’s a sandwich fan and was so excited. It was delicious on the roasted garlic bread, but also great on toasted sandwich bread. If you want it heated all the way through you could put it in the oven. You could also use a George Foreman grill instead of the stove, but I didn’t want to get it out of the back of the cupboard. 
I also made Herb Potato Wedges and mixed ketchup and mustard for dipping them. I made the wedges first and by the time the sandwiches were done, they were ready.
Turkey Sandwich with Balsamic Peppers, Onions and Feta
Ingredients
6 inches of an artisan bread loaf cut lengthwise into 4 slices (makes 2 sandwiches)
1 red bell pepper thinly sliced
1/4 red onion thinly sliced
1 TBS balsamic vinegar
1 TBS olive oil
1 clove garlic minced
crumbled feta
sliced turkey lunchmeat
thinly sliced roma tomatoes
dijon mustard
butter
Instructions
Sautee peppers, onions and garlic in olive oil until starting to soften. Add balsamic vinegar and continue cooking on low for another minute or two.
Use the crusty parts of the bread for the top slices of your sandwiches. Butter the underside of the bottom slice. Top with some of the pepper/onion mixture. Sprinkle on crumbled feta, pressing into place. Layer on turkey and tomato slices. Spread mustard on underside of top slice and place on sandwich.
Heat a skillet on medium high and place sandwich (buttered side down) in the skillet. Use the bottom of another skillet or pot to press down on the top of the sandwich. Press it several times for about 3 minutes until bottom is nicely toasted.
Herb Potato Wedges
Ingredients
2 red potatoes
extra virgin olive oil
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp italian seasoning
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Cut each potato in half and then cut each half into 5-7 wedges. Drizzle with olive oil and toss to coat well. Sprinkle with garlic powder and italian seasoning.
Spread out on a foil lined cookie sheet. Bake about 20 minutes or until golden and crispy on the outside, soft on the inside.
Neither Eric nor I work full time. We do a lot of volunteer work with students, and though we’re not opposed to working full time, the jobs we are currently in allow us an extra 10 hours a week or so for our ministry time. This of course means lots of penny pinching, especially with large expenses looming in our future like a new car.
God is so good to us and we’ve never had a need unmet, but we do have to budget pretty carefully. Eric works in the grocery industry and so we’re often finding interesting stories about grocery shrink, and the price of food increasing. Eric works in the dairy department and often sees the sizes go down by 1/2 oz or more with the prices staying the same or rising.
I found this article interesting yesterday. It talks about why the price of food isn’t going down like the price of gas and other commodities that have started to go back down. Some interesting points:
-”Food prices do tend to move very slowly relative to the underlying costs,” said Tom Jackson, an agricultural economist with financial consulting firm IHS Global Insight. “People get upset when prices go up, and they don’t really appreciate it when prices go down, so in response, food producers input their costs very slowly.”
-As the price of oil ran up, many food producers purchased contracts enabling them to buy oil at a set price in the future. Had oil continued to rise, such contracts would have helped producers keep costs down. Since oil has declined, the contracts constitute an added cost burden.
-The prices feel upward pressure from other forces that are likely to remain steady. For one, global demand for food is increasing. Demand for meat has risen in countries with fast-growing middle classes that can finally afford it.
I don’t have an solutions for these problems, but I’ve definitely learned how to stretch our food. We live in a small apartment, with a tiny freezer, but Eric’s parents let us use a shelf in their freezer for extra storage. We buy our meat in bulk from Sam’s Club and store it in small portions that are easy to thaw and use. I use lots of produce and grains which are cheaper, and small pieces of meat. I also make larger amounts of dinner so we can bring leftovers for lunch (so much cheaper than buying lunch!). We also constantly check out the clearance rack of discontinued items, and shop the sales.
How do you save money on food?
Yes, I actually set my oven on fire last night. I was trying out a new recipe from Emeril. I had some salmon thawed in the fridge and really wanted to incorporate pasta. With the prices of food continually climbing I try to use less meat and more pasta, rice and produce in our meals to be able to stretch our grocery budget. I found this recipe and thought it sounded good.
Notice the instructions say to put the oven rack in the highest position and set it to Broil. The problem with that was when the oil all over the salmon and pan started popping and jumping, it would land on my extra hot heating element at the top of the oven. Fortunately, I was watching it since it was supposed to have such a short cooking time, and saw the flames start up.
Eric was at his computer and heard me calmy say “uh-oh” and saw flames shoot out as I opened the oven. He came running over but the flames died down quickly (as the oil burned off) and I moved the pan to a lower rack. Somehow, even though I set the oven on fire, it turned out incredible! Eric thought it was the most amazing salmon ever. (Actually this is the second time I’ve made a fire while cooking salmon. The first time was with my friend Hilary making blackened salmon at her house for Thanksgiving. She didn’t have a deep enough pan and thought it would be okay to melt two sticks of butter in her shallow one. When she flipped the salmon the butter splashed over into the burner and flames shot up to the ceiling! But it was great salmon)
This was a really great dish, the pasta is also great on its own, we both brought the extras to work for lunch today. A few things I changed: I used a sundried tomato spread instead of sun dried tomatoes (we got it for way cheap at Safewy because it’s being discontinued). I also used lemon juice in the pasta instead of lemon zest just because I didn’t want to wash the zester! Instead of “Essence” I used Tony’s Creole Seasoning which I LOVE on salmon. I forgot the parmesan, so it’s still good if you don’t have any, but I’m sure it makes it even more delicious. I also used marinara sauce from a jar I needed to use up, instead of plain tomato sauce.
Broiled Creole Salmon with Sweet Pea, Sundried Tomato and Lemon Spaghetti
Ingredients
1 pound spaghetti
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus extra for drizzling
1 cup diced red onion
3 cloves garlic, sliced, plus 1 tablespoon minced
2 teaspoons lemon juice 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 cup marinara
1/4 cup sundried tomato spread
1 cup frozen green peas
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 small salmon fillets
2 teaspoons Creole seasoning
1 teaspoon oregano
2 tablespoons fresh squeezed lemon juice
1/2 cup grated Parmesan, plus more for garnish
Directions
Adjust the oven rack to the top rung in the oven and preheat broiler.
Set a 6-quart pot with a pasta cooker insert over high heat, and fill with 1-gallon of water. Bring to a boil and add 2 tablespoons salt to the pot. Add the pasta to the pan and cook until al dente, about 8 to 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, heat a 14-inch skillet over medium-high heat, and add 1/4 cup of the olive oil to the pan. Once the oil is hot, add the onion and garlic to the pan and saute until the onions are translucent, about 3 to 4 minutes. Add the lemon juice, crushed red pepper flakes, marinara sauce and sun-dried tomatoes to the pan. Add about 1/2 cup of the pasta cooking water to the pan as well as the pasta and peas. Season with salt and cook, stirring often, until the pasta is fully cooked, and well dressed with the sauce. Keep warm until the fish is cooked.
Line a half-sheet pan with aluminum foil and drizzle with the olive oil. Slice each salmon fillet into several 1/2-inch slices, and season with the Creole Seasoning. Lay the salmon, shingled, in 4 portions on the sheet pan and sprinkle the oregano and lemon juice on top. Combine the remaining 1/4 cup of extra-virgin olive oil and minced garlic in a small bowl, and pour over the salmon. Set under the broiler and cook until the salmon is slightly caramelized on top, about 2 to 3 minutes. Remove from the oven, divide the pasta among 4 entree plates, sprinkle with the Parmesan and lay a portion of salmon atop each plate of pasta. Garnish with chopped parsley and more Parmesan if desired.
