The Film Noir Experience

So, I'm watching CNN, waiting for the last of the home grown sweet potatoes to finish roasting and I'm watching this piece of Victory Gardens and how people are growing their own veg in an effort to save money. I think they were trying to connect this to Michelle Obama's brand new kitchen garden (Which is obviously where they got the "victory garden" nomenclature as the First Lady's is the first working food garden at the White House since World War II.) I've been thinking about growing some of my own veg this summer. A friend of mine suggested that since I already have the grow lights (for my orchids) I might as well make it an indoor/outdoor garden. This isn't a bad idea. I need to ask my building manager if she'd mind if I had large potted plants (in the corner of the parking lot, maybe?) The large pots would be so that I could move them inside and outside.

There are a number of things that can be grown on a shortened season so that you have a rotating crop that is replanted every three months or so. Many lettuces can be grown this way.

Its a good budgetary thing, being able to provide some of your own produce, because here's my thing: Money should never be a factor when it comes to getting all the nutrients you need. I know that it is, world wide, a phenomenon that people who can't afford to eat, don't. But, at the moment I'm more concerned by being able to afford to eat, just not being able to afford to eat right. That sounds stupid, right? But, when you can get all kinds of crap off of Fast food dollar menus, why spend the money on the fresh broccoli or fish or other lean meat. Especially since the things that are typically better for you are also typically more expensive. Which makes me think of the KFC commercial that says, "Hey, you can't make our bucket meal for what you'd pay for a bucket meal." They show a family flitting around a grocery store adding up the cost of a flour, spices, chicken, corn, potatoes, etc. I think this is a little unfair. I'm a baker. I'm on my second five pound bag of flour. And, with that I've made my own chicken strips, I've made a dozen cupcakes, 2 dozen scones, a dozen blueberry muffins, and lavash. King Arthur (an amazing company) sells their unbleached bread flour in a five pound bag for $4.95. Maybe I'm underselling KFC, maybe they do the math right, but I still think there's something wrong here.

Although, honestly, I have a feeling that the problem I have isn't that the better food is more expensive, but rather that I don't know how to shop to minimize spending and maximize the use of what I've got in my kitchen. Maybe this isn't a good food being expensive problem. Maybe this is a shopping/cooking knowledge problem.

Posted by Kate at 11:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It is Yom Kippur and I do not have class tomorrow. I had a fabulous plan for this evening. After Speech Perception Lab and UB Knitters, I was off to the grocery store to get a frozen pizza, some mozzarella, and some mushrooms. I was going to tart up the pizza (with the mushrooms and mozzarella) more myself a glass of wine and watch me some Spooks. (Its on Netflix under MI-5). But, I can't just buy one meal whilst at the shop. I have to get meals for at least three days. So, I did. And, when I grabbed the bags out of the car, the bag with the eggs in it slid out of my hand and introduced itself to the ground.

Swell.

Now, this really isn't that big a deal. I bought the eggs so that I could use the leftover mushrooms to make a tasty egg omelette. I just wasn't planning on doing it tonight. Or, doing it on a nine-egg scale. That's right, I bought a dozen eggs and had to cook three-quarters of them tonight because they were already broken inside their lovely little insulated case.

The good news, I suppose, is that I got to watch the Spooks episode from the first season with Hugh Laurie in it.

Posted by Kate at 07:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I had a list of things that I was running low on, so I killed two birds with one stone. That's right, I went on a grocery shopping study break. The things on my list were simple: yogurt, veg, fruit, fake lunch meat...you know, stuff. I was only intending to get lunch box fruits and veg. That is, until I saw the wide array of just-now-in-season squash.

Oh, squash, how I love thee.

I did what any squash-loving human would do. I remembered that my parents, on the recent whirlwind visit (that's right, they were here and you missed them. Now they are not here, and I miss them.) had brought me a stack of cookbooks including the weekday-vegetarian's best friend: 5 a Day cookbook. (Even if you are an everyday meat eater, I highly recommend checking out this cookbook. It is incredible and has a number of tasty,meaty recipes like Pork tenderloin in orange-basil sauce and catfish with tropical salsa. Yum.) And, instead of making note of the lovely and delicious squash that is now in season, I decided to wing it and buy what I thought went into the recipe for their "South of the Border Squash Soup". I bought vegetable broth, one large and lovely butternut squash (I had to go back out for tomato puree and a carrot). I was sure that the recipe also included garlic and onions and I had both of those at home. And, peppers. The recipe called for jalapenos, but I was in the grocery store milling around the produce and therefore was not looking at the recipe. I went for the lushest-looking local peppers I could find. I bought three of them. The sign said they were Hungarian hot peppers. Well, that's not quite right. It said they were Hungarian HOT peppers.

I used all three of them in the soup. My lips are still red from last night's feasting. To had injury to injury, I thought this lovely soup needed to be served with chicken nuggets. I selected Quorn's Southwestern Chik'n wings which have a lovely chipotle and lime coating. Dipped in the soup they added fire to the FIRE. It was awesome, in that what-kind-of-an-idiot-would-intentionally-set-themselves-on-fire sort of way. Although, I did end up dropping a dollop of sour cream on the top, which mellowed it out a little.

In case you needed more incentive to check out the cookbook, this lovely soup (is not as spicy when made correctly, but still packs a punch) has something like 126 calories a serving (it makes 8 of those) and provides you with two servings of vegetables and 5 grams of fiber. How awesome is that?

Posted by Kate at 07:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Kohl's had a two day sale. And, I've been without a blender. I was just going to buy a twenty dollar blender at Wal-Mart, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to take a look. So, I was wandering through the store and I found a blender. But, not just a blender...a twelve speed blender with an extra attachment so that you can use the motor to run a food processor.

Have you ever tried to make squash soup without a food processor? Its a pain. Also, you can make salsa without all that chopping and hummus. I love hummus.

I took the blender out for a spin tonight. I used the last of the fruit salad that I made earlier in the week with a little milk and a little vanilla ice cream. It was delicious. And, purple. (It had the end of the blueberries in it.)

Posted by Kate at 11:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

All of this week I've been having chick pea salad for lunch. Don't turn your nose up at me, its good. Or rather, the idea of it is good. There is something about my implementation of it this time around that is a bit off.

For example, I used to be able to get this magnificent feta in oil. I would mix the feta with a whole mess of vegetables (grape tomatoes, cucumber or zucchini, onions, and peppers) a hard boiled egg, the chick peas and maybe just a little bit of bacon. I would then add vinegar, salt, and pepper to taste. It was always lovely. This time around, I couldn't find the feta and I decided to forgo the hard boiled egg. Without the feta, I didn't have the oil for a do-it-yourself vineagrette, so I bought a bottle of low-fat roasted red pepper salad dressing.

Yesterday, I had to break down and buy some (non-floating in tasty, tasty oil) feta to add to the salad. It livened things up a bit. Next time, however, I think I will stick to the plan and keep in the egg (and maybe just a small, small bit of bacon.)

Posted by Kate at 04:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Every now and then, reasonable and learned grownups forget about the food pyramid and/or the food groups and feed themselves like they would have if they had been in charge of dinner at the age of five.

I have an example.

Tonight, my friend E and I took a break from studying and went to Aldi. Now, there is a secret to shopping at Aldi. You can't go with a list. You have to go with fuzzy categories of things that you need/want. Like, "Meat for two or three meals" or "fresh fruit for lunches." If you go with a list that reads "two apples, one ripe pear, six ounces of Orange Roughy", you will be disappointed. That is just the way it is.

So, we went to Aldi with the fuzzy category of "something to have to eat for dinner" (and, I needed some sort of hard, crumbly, preferably low fat cheese). And, what did we get? A bag a stir-fry vegetables (not bad),grapes (pretty good), macaroni and cheese (not bad, but also not good), a box of scalloped potato mix (again, not bad but not good), and some oatmeal craisin walnut cookie dough. While any combination of these things probably would make a lovely meal, it was probably unwise to eat them together. But, we did eat them together. We had a grape course, followed by a pasta course, followed by a potato course and rounded off by a cookie course.

While there is part of me that is tsk-tsking about having pasta and a potato in the same meal, my inner five-year old is happy as a kitten with a new ball of yarn. And, I have to tell you, it is hard to complain about life when your inner child is that happy.

Posted by Kate at 03:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I have discovered that taking a number of snacks with you is advantageous if you are going to be gone all day. It doesn't matter where you are going, it is just a good idea to go prepared. And, one of my favorite things to snack on is fresh fruit. After you've eaten the piece of fruit you get a little sugar buzz, you're ready to go. (Plus, you're getting a whole mess of fiber and phytochemicals.) While there are some fruits that I find to be good a little under ripe, I've noticed that most fruit has about a forty-eight hour window in which it is perfectly ripe and entirely delectable.

However, this is problematic.

Traveling anywhere, even just to school, with a piece of perfectly ripe fruit is a recipe for disaster. Take the pear I had for lunch today. It was fine in the morning, lovely and firm and green with that lovely pear aroma wafting off of it. And, by lunch, it was a little bruised. Just imagine how it would have looked if I had kept it for a mid-afternoon snack. Its skin probably would have started to peel off where it had been bruised and that would have caused a sticky mess. I hate having to clean up sticky messes in my backpack.

So, while I was eating my pear today I brainstormed of ways to keep this from happening. The way that seems to be the easiest would be to put all future pieces of fresh fruit in its own tupperware container. But, that means that I'd have to carry around extra plastic all day. Perhaps I will try wrapping it in foil. While this won't stop the bruising, it will certainly help with the mess.

Posted by Kate at 09:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Last year, I participated in NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) and this year they have done something different. For every month, in order to encourage people to post to their blogs, they have suggested topics for every month. For the most part they haven't been things that I have been interested in or it hasn't been feasible for me to post. (I'll admit it, sometimes I'm just lazy.)

For this month, the good people at NaBloPoMo have suggested two things. The first is to write about things that make you laugh. This is an excellent suggestion but it was nowhere near as intriguing as the second option for this month. The second option is "five dollar lunch". They suggest that you spend five dollars on lunch for the first twenty-one days of the month and then blog about what you've been spending your money on. Five dollars doesn't go as far you it used to, but there are a number of places that have been offering five dollar deals (must notably places like Subway and Quiznos. Or perhaps, those are just the places that I have heard commercials for.)

Here is the problem: I am on a budget. And, spending thirty-five dollars of my food budget on just lunch is more than I'm willing to spare. Or rather, more than I'm willing to spend. I'm going to be telling you about the creative and wonderful things that I'm putting together for under two dollars and forty cents. This is going to be interesting.

Posted by Kate at 10:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)