use real butter

Recipe: stir fried rice

NaBloWriMo day 16 (we’re over the hump!)

Eat on $30 day 6

Today was so wacked out. You see, we are having a dinner party on Sunday and I went into town to purchase groceries for the party. I can’t tell you how nice it was to comparison shop, but not have to worry about a decisive budget like last week! I bought a lot of very very nice seafood. Oh! and vegetables – gorgeous gorgeous vegetables and fruits and cheeses and wines (so many lovely wines). All the while, it made me a little sad because you see, I can step out of this self-imposed challenge whenever I want to. It ends Saturday and Jeremy and I can resume eating. What about people who have to stress over their food – and I mean really stress, not “Oh, what shall we serve our guests? Sancerre or Chablis?” – day after day, month after month. It never ends.

We’re coming to the last day of the challenge and while I love love love my readers for their insightful and thoughtful comments, observations, suggestions, while I love that we ARE raising awareness, I can’t help but feel a little helpless. A lot helpless. Sure, I made the $60 challenge for 2 people. We ate well. It would be folly for me to assume that because I could do it, people on food assistance can too. It’s not a level playing field. I don’t even want to begin describing the cooking equipment I have at my disposal, the culinary knowledge and experience, the desire. We are also assuming that we all love to cook and that doesn’t apply to everyone. Others doing the Eat on $30 challenge have touched on it too. There are many more factors than just money that are stacked against the hungry: time, equipment, math skills, transportation, knowledge, access. Most businesses locate where they can maximize profit, not where they can help the most people.

So I was in Boulder all day Thursday and I had $1.69 burning a hole in my pocket. I wandered into another grocery store, Sunflower. I forgot about them during my aggregation of groceries for this week’s challenge. I also got tired thinking of visiting a fifth store to price things out (at some point, you just scream “stop!”). But Sunflower has a great bulk section and I wandered about looking for some sweet treats to nibble on in the evenings. Can I just bitch for a(nother) moment? Why can’t I find a scale in the bulk section of Whole Foods? Apparently, they don’t want me weighing what I decided not to buy… Sunflower did have a scale – a crappy analog scale. When buying quantities on the order of a couple of ounces (remember, the $1.69 budget) those analogs are useless. I wound up purchasing the cheapest (on sale) item: gummy bears. I got about 20 of those colorful, sugar-filled, deliciously fruity little guys at $1.99 a pound.

psst! see fred passed out over there? too many appletinis…

I figured I could also get a few banana chips – less than a handful at $2.49 a pound. The whole bean coffee was $6.99 for any type of coffee. I know nearly nothing about coffee but decided to get some. You see, a few days after our challenge began, Tami said she had the worst headache ever because she didn’t have coffee in her budget. If you will recall, Jeremy opted out of coffee because I couldn’t find any decent coffee (he’s a picky one) at Safeway (running something like $11.99 a pound for the whole bean coffee). When he came home Tuesday, I said, “Tami said she’s got a horrible headache because she hasn’t had any coffee.” He looked at me and pointed at his left eye, “I feel like there is a needle behind this eye. It’s been like that all day.” I asked if it was because of the lack of coffee and he nodded. I should also point out that Jeremy has been getting up at 3 am and observing on the telescope for several hours each morning and then going to work for a full day, then coming home and working all night – all without Precious Coffee. I felt so bad about that. You can just imagine when I saw the $6.99 per pound sign I scooped what I thought was about an ounce of beans into a bag as a surprise for my guy. A reward for his good efforts in the last few days of the challenge.

1.92 ounces of coffee beans!

I wound up paying $.28 for the gummy bears, $.20 for the banana chips, and $.84 for the coffee! Then I got a $.10 refund for my shopping bag. My total: $1.27. I have $.42 left! When I walked to the register to pay for my snacks, I spied the free coffee station with those cute little 3 oz. cups. I was about to pick Jeremy up from campus to go home, so I filled a little cup with their organic dark roast as an extra bonus for him. As soon as he got in the car I handed him the little cup. You should have seen the smile on his face! He had some interesting observations on his reaction to the coffee:

I am convinced that I get an anticipatory high from the caffeine before I taste it much less digest it. I smell the coffee and hold a warm vessel in my hands and my personal internal pharmacy injects some goodies to give me a warm glow, positive outlook, and energy boost. ~Jeremy

Here’s what we had today (day 6): oatmeal for brekkie (Jeremy), bagel for brekkie (jen), beef stew for lunch (jeremy), soy sauce egg for lunch (jen), the remaining soy sauce chicken noodle soup for dinner, apple turnovers for dessert (which we ate BEFORE dinner), the last of the gummy bears and all of the banana chips. Jeremy has been enjoying coffee in his French press for the past day.

The fried rice we had on Thursday was a combination of leftovers. That’s why I love fried rice, you can put anything in it. I used a third of the rice to eat plain with the beef stew, and the remaining two thirds to make fried rice with a whole yellow onion, a third of the beef kielbasa sausage, four eggs, and four stalks of celery.

ready to cook

hard scramble the eggs

**Jump for more butter**

NaBloWriMo day 15.

Eat on $30 day 5.

Last day to enter for the Macy’s gift card giveaway!

Remember when I started the Eat on $30 challenge and I mentioned a local spice shop? Several friends of mine had recommended it to me before, but I never set foot in the store until last week. In need of small quantities of nutmeg, cinnamon, and whole star anise for Eat on $30 (because I couldn’t afford whole jars in the grocery store), my brain did me a solid and remembered Savory Spice Shop on Broadway just north of Pearl Street. I was greeted by the warm smell of spices on the air and a very friendly and knowledgeable staff.

dan hayward: owner of the boulder savory spice shop

spices, blends, gift sets and more

For my immediate needs, Savory Spice Shop worked. The minimum amount you can buy is a half ounce of any spice or seasoning. That cost me $3.45 for the ground cinnamon, ground nutmeg, and star anise pieces. If you have ever had to purchase spices in an “emergency” at a typical grocery store, you know they are not only inferior in quality, but really bloody expensive. I only needed a half teaspoon or a quarter teaspoon, but since I had extra, the cinnamon and nutmeg have livened up my otherwise lifeless oatmeal during this week’s challenge and they came into play for a last minute snap of brilliance on day 4 (see after the jump, yo).

paprikas (top left), so many lovely salts (bottom left), great staff (right)

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: vietnamese beef pho

NaBloWriMo day 14. I’m blogging daily and trying not to lose it.

Eat on $30 day 4. I’ll cover what we ate on day 4 tomorrow since the Daring Cooks challenge usually goes live at midnight. This posting date was set in stone millennia ago, but I made it (and we ate it) last week, so it isn’t part of the Eat on $30 challenge.

It’s my Dad’s birthday! Happy Birthday, Baba! I hope you have an awesome day. Love, JenJen.

Did you see the giveaway for 2 $25 Macy’s gift cards? Go! Go enter! Then come back because this recipe RAWKS!

daring cooks – we slice, we dice, we sizzle, baby!

It’s time for the Daring Cooks again after last month’s hiatus. Let’s pay proper homage to the ladies of the kitchen… the DARING KITCHEN, that is: lovable Lis of La Mia Cucina and irresistable Ivonne of Cream Puffs in Venice. Our hostess this month is one of my favorite chicas of the food blogging world, Jaden from Steamy Kitchen. I had the pleasure of meeting her in person last month at the BlogHer Food conference in San Francisco – such a sweetheart.

Here’s the official line: The October 2009 Daring Cooks’ challenge was brought to us by Jaden of the blog Steamy Kitchen. The recipes are from her new cookbook, The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook.

The challenge for October was Vietnamese pho. Jaden gave us a lot of options to choose from, but I went straight for the long version of the Vietnamese beef pho recipe. I have been wanting to make beef pho for years and this was the kick in the patootie I needed. I only made a half recipe since we had to empty our fridge of perishables before starting the Eat on $30 challenge. The first step was to roast the ginger and onion in the oven. While that was roasting, I parboiled the beef bones ten minutes for the precious broth then drained them and cleared the pot of scum.

halved onion and ginger

beef bones

I’ve never made broth with this combination of spices before and I was so excited! The parboiled bones went into a fresh pot of water and were brought back to a boil. I placed the spices in a little mesh pouch and chucked those in with the ginger, onion, fish sauce, sugar, and salt.

spices

my favorite brand of fish sauce (oddly enough, three crabs)

into the pot the onion goes

**Jump for more butter**