9/12: This Week in Food

Menu:

• Monday: chile rellenos w/ smoked chicken, shiitakes, spinach
• Tuesday: black bean burgers / sweet potato fries
• Wednesday: tacos / refritos
• Thursday: Night of Shame
• Friday: breakfast for dinner (Max's choice)

Total: $42, and that's counting stuff for Max's lunches this week. In reality, dinner planning only cost me about $28, and only that much because we were out of all possible Tex-Mex ingredients: cheese, sour cream, tortillas, beans, cilantro, limes, you name it. These are pantry staples for us, so it's weird that we ran out of all of them at the same time--especially since cheese is another one of my Derrida items.


Thoughts: I KNOW. I still haven't made the damned black bean burgers. They really are delicious, and easy, and fast, and cheap. But they also require only pantry staples, so they are the first thing to be jettisoned when I'm too tired to cook. This week is going to be their week. I will do it, I swear. (1)

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(1) Yeah, right.

9.6: This Week in Food

Menu

Sunday: leftover Chinese food
Monday: holiday picnic
Tuesday: steamed shrimp / Caesar salad
Wednesday: grilled mahi / sweet corn / mashed potatoes
Thursday: n/a (working late)
Friday: black bean burgers / sweet potato fries

Grocery total: $26 (!!! #Win. Because I still hadn't cooked the mahi--which was frozen--or the green beans--which got all slimy--or black bean burgers--which ingredients are fine except I bought new cilantro.)

Thoughts: I felt good about our total, until I tallied up the money spent on take-out over the extended weekend, when Dorian and I sat on the couch and worked for three days straight and couldn't face cooking. Plus take-out on Thursday because it's Parents' Night at my school. (1) Oh, and I have to do that again next week for Parents' Night at his school. WTF?? Could we have a little sympathy for parents on Parents' Night, please?

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(1) Ironically, I can't bring my son to Parents' Night, so I have to pick him up from school, drive him 45 min. home, then turn around and come back. And drive back home at 9pm. I love meeting my students' parents, but this makes for a looooooooooong day.

8.29: This Week in Food

Menu

• Sunday: butternut squash soup / turkey sandwich
• Monday: black bean burger / sweet potato fries
• Tuesday: scrambled eggs / bacon / toast
• Wednesday: steak tacos / refritos
• Thursday: night of shame (aka, Take Out Night)
• Friday: grilled mahi / green beans / brown rice

Grocery total: $80 (rounded up, not including household items and kid-lunch food)


Thoughts: I spent more than intended at the grocery store, but we were out of a lot of staples, like milk, eggs, and beans; also, I bought a few things that I forgot we already had, like canned chipotles. (1)

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(1) Seriously, chipotles are my Derrida Item--I "always already" have them, but I buy them every time I'm at the store. As my family well knows, my grandmother's Derrida Item is Jell-O. Mine used to be coconut milk, and said Item's supplanting by chipotle peppers is an interesting snapshot of the globally-southward migration of my meal preferences.