Filed under: Restaurant
And now for a break from the “budgeting” focus of this blog, in favor of extravagance. For Brian’s birthday, he asked that his gift be a tasting dinner @ Gracie’s. Ah, that is why I love this man.
You can choose from a 5 or 7 course menu, with or without wine pairings for each course. We chose the 5 courses with wine. The pours weren’t full glasses, they were more like half or 3/4 of a normal glass and it was mostly white wines. The food is a surprise until it comes to the table, but they do ask you if you’re allergic or strongly dislike anything. I didn’t take any notes, so I’m just going from memory here:
Filed under: Life
I’ve neglected this blog for months, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been eating and cooking. Where have I been lately? Conquering the internet, mostly: My blogging/content-producing energy is being sucked up by school duties and my social media job, and most exciting news is that I’m on my way to Washington DC to do work on internet policy.
The cooking situation in DC is going to be a little strange. I’m living in a dorm that is equipped with a minifridge and microwave, and my kitchen will be a communal kitchen on my floor. And I’m only bringing one small frying pan, a rectangular cake/casserole pan, a small pot, and a small santoku knife. Oh, and the Magic Bullet blender. Plus, I’ll rely on public transportation, so my lazy ass isn’t carrying anything too heavy. It’ll be like a little experiment in what kinds of half-decent food I can make under these conditions.
Filed under: Shopping Day
Last week, we spent $60 @ Whole Foods and it lasted us exactly one week. I made beef stew, bean & cheese enchiladas, and something else I don’t remember. This week, we spent $57 @ Whole Foods and I’m very excited about this week’s menu. They are all new recipes to try, except for the stir fry of course. The plan is:
Tuesday - Mussels cooked with white wine and chorizo, Italian bread, arugula & beet salad
Wednesday – random veggie stir fry, rice
Thursday, Friday, Saturday – Roasted vegetable stew, spinach salad; maybe dinner out on Friday?
Sunday & Monday – mushroom-pea risotto, some kind of vegetables
We have consistently been spending $60/wk shopping @ Whole Foods, which I didn’t think was much until I added up that it’s $240/month, way up from the $160-ish/month we spent when we were on food stamps. But the food stamps shopping was split with some shopping at the conventional grocery store, which saved a lot of money. So I guess we are eating better, if you count organic and better quality produce as “better.” Our wallets aren’t really hurting from the increase in grocery budget so I guess those two things are all that really matter.
We’ve been trying to tighten up on going out to eat and money spent at bars. It’s only been like 3 weeks, but man it feels like *work*. School has been in session for almost 2 weeks, and I resolved to spend less on buying food during school days. I have not bought a single cup of coffee! I’ve been sticking a tea bag in my purse just in case I need an afternoon caffeine fix. I was so proud of myself when I thought I was doing well, but it hasn’t even been that long. Still, I’m pretty sure I might have saved at least $20 per week, maybe even $30, when I stayed conscious about buying food on campus. Yeah, I’m pretty sure that I was spending about $10-$15 lunch once a week, then around $15 on coffee spread throughout the week. Yikes.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Want! A 10-week online course dedicated to Food Writing. I was thinking about taking a Continuing Ed class at RISD, which costs about the same amount, but maybe I could do this instead…
Then again, I might be able to use my AmeriCorps Education award to pay for the RISD class but definitely not the food writing thing.
Filed under: Tips
I always have problem with using up veggies that only come in big quantities – carrots & celery for example. Only once in a blue moon can I find single stalks, and I can never use up a whole bag. I tried freezing extra vegetables before, both raw or cooking first then freezing but it never worked out.
It never occured to me to blanch the vegetables first, then freeze. I even found these guides with instructions for all different types of vegetables. This will also make farmer’s market shopping easier if I can preserve the veggies for just a bit longer.
After holidays, over two weeks of vacation at the in-laws, and an amazing culinary visit to Seattle I’m now ready for “food detox.” Mom cooked meat every day, and we indulged way too much in deliciously rich restaurant meals. It will be lots of low fat and veggie eating for the next couple of weeks.
Plus I have a week before classes start so I’m thinking of doing a round of food & freezer prep. I’m not sure what to call it, but it’s things I never get around to doing but are so convenient once I have done them. Make chicken broth with the bones and veggie scraps I’ve been saving in the freezer, make pasta sauce, make a batch of homemade veggie burgers to freeze, prepare & freeze dried beans, etc. Last semester I was really terrible about buying lunches & bad snacks during the school day, and I am going to change that. I am going to get a leg up by preparing lunch foods at the beginning of the week, and making small portions that I can throw in the freezer and pull out when I need them. I think I’ll start by making mini-burgers and mini-quiches.
Filed under: Uncategorized
After we were dumped with a foot of snow on Friday, we decided to truge over to Providence’s famous Al Forno restaurant. They only take reservations for parties of 6 or more, so dinner for 2 usually means waiting at least an hour. Thus we decided that the middle of a blizzard would be a great time to go without any wait. There’s a semi-outdoor garden area where you can eat in the summer, and we had to walk through it to get to the front door. It’s beautiful in the snow!
We weren’t the only ones in the restaurant, but we didn’t have to wait either. They are famous for their Italian-American style influences and wood-grilled pizzas and meats, and the smells that come out of that place during the summer are awesome. The owners even have two cookbooks out.
Brian started with a buffalo mozzarella salad. Slices of fresh buffalo mozzarella sitting on wafer-thin lemon slices, and with an olive oil-lemon dressing and a little salad on top. The flavor of the mozzarella and lemon dressing was beautiful. The olive oil taste was strong, and the lemon zest made it lemony without being tart, and each slice had the perfect amount of crunchy salt. And there must have been 8 oz of mozzarella there. No one should eat that much cheese! Lucky for me he shared.
For dinner I had roasted clams, spicy sausage, and onions in a light tomato sauce, with mashed potatoes and shaved endive. The clams were fresh and tender, no dirt at all. The tomato sauce complimented the clams perfectly; it had a tiny bit of creamyness but was very light and not too acidic or salty. The spicy sausage was really good on its own, but I thought it was too strong for the clams. The smashed potatoes were made with red potatoes, my favorite kind!
Brian had veal cutlets that were stuffed with fontina and scallions, then breaded & fried and topped with gremolata, which I later learned is garlic, parsley and lemon peel finelely chopped and sprinkled on top. It came with sauteed broccoli rabe. He ate one cutlet, and I just ate the other one for lunch. Both of our meals had really good “balance.” The rich veal cutlets with the simply cooked greens, with bitterness to cut the richness; the light sauce for the clams and the rich potatoes.
The restaurant had a really cozy feel. This was the view from our table:
The desserts are made to order, which is why you have to order them at the same time you order your meal. At other restaurants, the desserts are pre-made and they just drizzle some sauce on it before serving. So made-to-order means it actually gets made and put into the oven fresh for you. For dessert we chose the “double chocolate cake with fresh whipped cream.” And get this: For an extra $20, you can add a personal bottle (for 2) of tawny port. A genius idea! I thought the cake looked rather small when it arrived, but it turned out to be flourless and more like a ganache, with solid chips of chocolate hidden inside. It was very dark and chocolatey and rich, so it was definitely enough to share. Our entire dessert cost $30 which sounds like a lot, but the cost of 1 dessert + 2 glasses of port would be the same. This way, we each got almost 2 full pours of port. Obviously I’m not an expert wine taster, but this port was not as “thick”, and a little more red wine-ish than ports we usually drink. It was actually a great compliment to the thick chocolate, because a richer port would have been way too much sweet going on at the same time. Again, these folks really know how to balance tastes & textures.
When I read amateur reviews of the place, the first thing people complain about is it being super expensive. I was nervous about how much it would cost, since no one actually said what the costs were. Here’s a general rundown of the prices:
Appetizers = $15
Pizza and pasta entrees = $20
Meats & roasts = $30
Desserts = $15.
So I dunno, its a splurge for someone like me with little income but I don’t get why people complain sooo much. The prices are slightly lower than “upscale” and on par many other good places in the city.
Filed under: Life
Went to Chicago for Thanksgiving. I got to make pies in this amazing kitchen:
The turkey was beautiful, though I could not eat it.
I had to eat Tofurkey, because I’m allergic to turkey.
We met up with our friends, Nick and Phil, who live in the city and they brought us to a bar called Quenchers. Witness the Midwest-fabulous menu:
Nick ate this thing called “PB PB PB” – Peanut Butter, Pineapple, Bacon on Panini Bread.
I chose Frito Pie. Fritos, melted cheese, chili, a few marinated veggies – in that order.
Phil’s Tater-Tot Pizza. Tater tots, green onions, bacon, and sour cream.
Two weeks ago, I ran out of food and said to myself, “I need to go grocery shopping.” The week went by, and I didn’t have time to do the shopping, even on the weekend. The next week I thought “Damn, I have no food. Must shop ASAP!” And the week almost went by again with no new groceries. Finally I said I’d try out Peapod grocery delivery service since I’ve been busy with school, we only have one car, and our schedules haven’t been matching up.
This is the first time in a long time I shopped at Stop ‘n Shop, the big regular grocery store and not Whole Foods or the Marketplace. I was shocked at how much food I was able to buy. I have enough food for *almost* 2 weeks if I just grab a few more fresh vegetables.
The shopping: $63.25
baking soda
Puffins cereal
vinegar
1 dozen cage-free organic eggs
cream cheese
mozzarella cheese
deli chicken breast
frozen corn
frozen mixed vegetables
lasagna noodles
3 pears
Ground beef
1lb bag of carrots
1 bunch celery
1 bunch kale
1 lemon
2lb bag of onions
5lb bag of potatoes
1 butternut squash
tortilla chips, 2 bags
Mint Milano cookies
Stacy’s Pita Chips
Gingersnaps cookies
garbanzo beans
beef broth
chicken broth
(blue means it advertises itself as “natural”, green means organic)
The Menu
Beef stew, meat I have in the freezer – 2 days
Butternut squash lasagna and kale – 2 or 3 days; I loooove this recipe, and I get to use the new immersion blender that I got for my birthday!
Tofu curry, tofu from the freezer – 3 days
Shepherd’s pie – 3 days
Spaghetti, sauce from the freezer
Sesame beef & celery stir fry (lunch)
hummus
Delivery service costs $10 if you order $60 – $99 worth of groceries, or $6.95 if you order over $100. But I found a coupon code so for $10 off your first order, so I got the delivery for free this time.
$10 is definitely worth it if I’m in one of those periods where I’m just too busy. If our schedules don’t match up and I have to take the bus to the grocery store, it takes like two hours, I can only get to the very expensive market, and I can only buy as much as I can carry. I’d gladly pay $10 not to have to do that. I wouldn’t do it every single week though. $10/wk x 50 wks a year = $500. That’s more than one month of worth of spending allowance, or more than two months worth of groceries! Maybe I’ll get deliveries once a month to stock up on staples that I don’t need to go to Whole Foods for, and for heavy things. For example, I was happy to get cheap baking soda & vinegar (which I use a lot of for cleaning), pasta, onions, and potatoes – I don’t usually buy those organic and this way I’m not overpaying for them at Whole Foods.
Filed under: Uncategorized
We eyed these at Pottery Barn at the beginning of the summer. (The salad plates & bowls; the dinner plate is from their everyday collection) Kept going back to visit them, and finally in October they were on sale. All of our food looks so much better on the new dishes!
The curly-cues on the salad plates remind me of this club I used to go to in New Orleans – The Red Room. The outside was covered in steel that supposedly came from the Eiffel Tower. They let my 17 year old ass into that club my first few days at Tulane and the tone was set. There was one night of the week when it was “Ladies’ night” where between 10pm to midnight, it was a $5 cover but free drinks for girls, so there was a whole lot of drinking in two hours. And even though it was a club, I don’t ever remember it being really crowded, or ever being bothered by douchebag dudes that we might have run into across town on Bourbon St. Other people I knew claimed that fancy frat parties & public sex happened in the private rooms but my innocence kept me away from all of that. I just remember it as fun times with the girls and rum punch.
