Feb Challenge

Reggie recapped our meals in West Virginia pretty well, so i'll spare you the details. While in WV, I spent $3 on a half gallon of milk and $3.57 at Wendy's on our way home. I realized that I'm way under budget for the month, so I decided to splurge on making steak fajitas last night. The ingredients cost $14.70, all of which I used on making the dish. I followed this recipe http://blog.cooklikeyourgrandmother.com/2008/10/how-to-make-steak-fajitas.html, and although I would've appreciated the extra salsa or pico de gallo, the fajitas turned out pretty good. I should be able to get 3 meals out of what I made ($4.90 a meal, ouch).
 
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Budget remaining: $41.01

         

Click here to download:

Day_19_Splurge_on_Steak_Fajita.zip (1928 KB)

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After spending 3 days in West Virginia, I miss my kitchen greatly,
especially the familiar wooden spoon, which I can absolutely not live
without!
 
Breakfast: Oatmeal with chopped apples, dried cranberry, and toasted pecans.
Lunch: wild salmon sandwich with homemade Amish country white.
Dinner: kimchi turkey lentil soup with oven baked barley (kimchi
chopped very fine)
Dessert: homemade hot chocolate
 
Stay strong...we can do this!

       

Click here to download:

Day_19_Good_to_be_Home.zip (7424 KB)

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I am done...with money that is, if I want to spend only 50 dollars on
food and drinks this month.
 
I bought 5 bananas today, which will need to last until the end of the
month (not possible). The bananas cost $0.92 (yay for using a tote bag
that gave me 5 cents of discount). I am thinking of saving one banana
for baking a banana bread to stretch my banana (very needed potassium)
intake.
 
So here's the math: 1.45 - 0.92 = 0.53, which I will use for the last
onion of the month probably.

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Breakfast: pancakes and bacon frittatas with refried beans and
tomatoes (by Melanie and I) - yes, we went big on breakfast!
Lunch: Neoguri Ramen (by Peter)
Dinner: 1 baked potato (at Wendy's) and oatmeal with dried fruits and
nuts (after arriving home)
 
We started off strong...but didn't have enough food to sustain the
drive back to Jersey and New York.
 
Good to be home and have healthier meal the following day...

     

Click here to download:

Day_18_100-Dollar_Crew_to_West.zip (4510 KB)

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Breakfast: Pancakes with strawberry compote (by Melanie)
Lunch: Creamy split pea soup with grilled cheddar cheese sandwich (by Melanie)
Dinner: Curry acorn squash soup, cheesey fries, pupusas served with
baked beans (by Melanie and I)
 
And we brought some wines and other liquors to mix drinks for dessert!
(not so bad isn't it?)

           

Click here to download:

Day_17_100-Dollar_Crew_to_West.zip (3534 KB)

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We spent few days in West Virginia checking out a prefabricated house.
Melanie, Pete, Wook, and I contributed to our 100-dollar challenge by
bringing ingredients from home and cooking every meal, family style!
 
Lunch: Wild salmon sandwich with homemade mayonnaise and Amish country
white bread. (by me)
Dinner: Italian sausage with pepper and onion on freshly toasted baguette (by Melanie)

     

Click here to download:

Day_16_100-Dollar_Crew_to_West.zip (5603 KB)

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After watching last episode's Top Chef's quickfire challenge, cooking
eggs, I was inspired to perfect sunny side up egg. Although my own
version of sunny side up egg has runny yolk, it's always cooked a
little at the bottom of the yolk.
 
My new version of sunny side up has two steps of cooking (got the idea
from Carl's Dr. Seuss green egg). I separated the yolk from the egg
white and put a pinch of salt into egg white and beat it until foamy,
and then I cooked the foamy white on low heat until the edge was set.
I carefully dropped the yolk into the center of the egg white and
cooked the whole egg until white was fully cooked.
 
The verdict? 100% warm runny yolk!

   

Click here to download:

A_New_Way_to_Sunny_Side_Up.zip (2969 KB)

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I spent majority of Sunday preparing for my trip to West Virginia from
Monday to Wednesday. I attempted to make tortillas, but the result was
disastrous. I wanted press each tortilla dough into thin pieces of
tortilla with my own weight (pressing really hard on the dough with a
cast iron skillet), but the pressed dough was only as thin as 1/8 of
an inch, which is too thick to be made into a burrito wrap, my
original plan for our dinner in West Virginia. I needed to come up
with another plan to use my masa dough. I turned my dough into
pupusas, which I had tried last summer at Brooklyn Ball Fields, where
many Latin American dishes are served by street vendors (hmmm...that
is authentic!). I stuffed some leftover chicken into the dough and
fried each side 2 to 3 minutes until golden brown. Problem solved...
 
Breakfast and lunch were put together by scrappy ingredients found in my fridge:
Breakfast: bacon with bread pudding
Lunch: Swedish meatball penne with chopped olive and garlic and herbs.

       

Click here to download:

Day_15_Tortillas_Turned_Pupusa.zip (7579 KB)

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This is the second Saturday night I stayed in and shared another
office-made meal with my friend, Wook. Wook provided the curly pasta
and I dug out the left over frozen veggies from our freezer and made
another version of carbonara, without cream.
 
Estimate cost: 1.75 for two

   

Click here to download:

Day_14_Another_Cheap_Eats_in_t.zip (3590 KB)

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So, we are heading towards the second half of our 100-dollar
challenge. I gathered all the receipt this morning and calculated my
spending so far in our challenge. Situation looks kind of grim if I
want to do it with 50 dollars only...
 
Here's the list of items I bought in the past 10 days:
- Half & Half: 1.50
- Pecorino cheese: 4.29
- Frozen peas (2 bags): 3.58
- Frozen string beans: 1.50
- Anise: 2.49
- Flat leaf parsley: 0.99
- Lemons (2): 1.34
- Plum tomatoes: (3): 1.22
- Baguette: 1.29
- Potatoes (2): 0.61
- Bananas: 1.49
- 1 Bottle of Brandy (for cooking, which I only used $1 worth): 9.99
- Heavy cream (2): 3.38
- Chicken liver:1.18
- Onions (3): 2.59
- apples (3 lb. bag): 2.99
- Thyme: 1.99
- Eggs: 3.19
- Coconut milk: 1.50
- Semi-sweet chocolate chips: 2.49
 
Total spent: 49.60
Friends offered me 10 dollars to cook them two meals: - 10.00
Grand total: 39.60
 
Money left from previous purchases: 91.09
Total money left: 51.49

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