week 4 $50.00 a week grocery challenge

well kids, this will probably be my last posting of our grocery challenge. while we fully intend to keep this going, i think i've proven my point. it's sooooo easy for two people to eat three meals a day for 7 days on $50 bucks a week. but there are a few things that i've learned along the way.

-the key to cheap home cooking is a well stocked kitchen. i've known this for years and still dream of a walk in pantry where i can store away everything i need to preform the ultimate magic trick. a trick i swear my mother can do anytime and anywhere....that's to make a meal out of seemingly nothing. she has always amazed me with this ability. i can open a cabinet and think we're doomed for dinner. give mom 15 minutes and she'll whip up something you couldn't have even dreamed of!

-MAKE A LIST and plan your weeks meals in advance. i feel like giving yourself 7 days worth of dinner options is sort of liberating. i know that no matter what, i have the ingredients i need to make something...and one of those meals will always sound good to me on any given day.

-visit the cookbook section of your local library. we're lucky to have a pretty good selection of cookbooks to choose from...but nothing's better than discovering a new recipe! it's free. use your library!  of course the interwebs are also teeming with awesome ideas and suggestions.



so here's this weeks recipes:

big batch vegetable soup with grilled cheese on homemade rye bread-
true to it's name, this recipe made a ton of soup. we had enough to freeze, to give away to a neighbor and still have plenty for ourselves. i still had some rye dough leftover from last week and it's flavor complimented this soup well.


homemade pizza & and bibb salad with red cabbage and green goddess dressing-
janel and anna joined me saturday night for some yummy homemade pizza....as i have mentioned before, the recipe for the dough comes from this book. i love this book. word to the wise on the dressing...it makes an obscene amount, so if it's just two of you or you don't want to have leftovers for 2 weeks...halve it!

curried cod with rice & red cabbage slaw
this was quite interesting...a quick and simple dish that seemed really versatile.  this particular evening we were starving of course, so it didn't leave me much time to tie it all together.  however, i did find that the slaw was a nice addition.  i'm still working on the recipe for that one, but i will tell you it involves using that leftover green goddess dressing and that it is DELICIOUS.  oh, and that it will be a recipe created by yours truly.

*serves 6- so cut it in half for 2!

3/4 cup flour
1/4 cup curry powder
2 pounds cod fillets cut into 2 inch strips
1/2 cup butter
chopped parsley

mix the flour and curry powder and dip the fillets into the mixture.  heat the butter in a skillet over moderate heat and brown the fish on both sides.  serve with chopped parsley.

this week we also painted and rearranged the living room, so we weren't as on top of things as we should have been.  i have a few more new recipes to try that i'll definitely share with you guys.  aaaaaaand, once i get those measurements all right on my red cabbage slaw ya'll can enjoy that as well.

one other thing i wanted to mention was a recipe i tried for a work meeting on wednesday.  i had offered to whip up a snack for a meeting that was to take place basically during dinner time and  i felt like it was important to skip the sweet stuff (cookies, etc) and feed us something with substance.  enter the greek style chickpea salad!  i found this one through google reader and thought it was a perfect candidate.  i served it with some warm pita points as well as a curry dip with carrots and cucumbers.  it was a recipe i had wanted to try but hadn't really had an excuse until then.  it was pretty easy to assemble and a big hit at the meeting.

oh, but one more thing!  while checking out the artisan bread website this week, i found a recipe for breakfast pizza
YUMMMMMMMM!  another quick, easy and f'ing delicious treat from zoe and jeff!!