Feb Challenge

Not much cooking today either since I still had some leftovers. I did
however brought freshly homemade chicken liver mousse to the office to
share with my friends. I made the mousse last night and it was chilled
overnight. Although chicken liver mousse does not sound appealing, it
tastes quite delicious and has tons of minerals and proteins for
health benefits. We snacked on chicken liver mousse with homemade
Jersey sourdough all day long in our office and I was quite full by
the end of the evening.
 
Chicken liver mousse is quite cheap to make. The only "extravagant"
part of the dish is adding brandy or cognac. I spent 10 dollars on a
bottle of brandy, which was the cheapest I could find. There goes
almost half of what I can spend this week on food and drinks...guess I
will have to go really really really cheap on Valentine's day dinner,
say fried rice with chicken gizzards?
 
Here's the run down of what I ate today:
Breakfast: banana bread (1 more slice left) with Kate's homemade
butter and granola cereal
Lunch: chicken liver mousse with Jersey sourdough and chili bean stew
Snack: baked apple with oats and butter and more chicken liver mousse
Dinner: butternut squash with sourdough float and creamy grits

         

Click here to download:

Day_10_Chicken_Liver_Mousse_Ta.zip (9801 KB)

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Breakfast: bread pudding with muffin crumbs and creamy grits.
Lunch: chili bean stew with white rice, and butternut squash soup (not shown)
Dinner: stuffed chicken breast with butter braised pearl onions, and
butternut squash soup (not shown)

     

Click here to download:

Day_9_All_Day_Leftovers.zip (5386 KB)

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Breakfast: PB&J sandwich and coffee
Lunch: Leftover pasta with cheese, green peas, and tuna
Dinner: Chicken noodle soup

Wouldn't mind a cold beer right now.

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I've been below my budget for the week so I decided to splurge on some ground beef for chili tonight.  As a side note, I noticed that C-town prints on both sides of their receipts (nice way to save paper!).  For my chili, I used an onion, can of crushed tomatoes, a cup of black beans, cup of pinto beans, and around a pound of ground beef. The quantity of chili I made should be good for around 4-5 more meals. Here's a recap of the past week:
 
Pasta dishes: ~$1.00 a meal (5 times)
Fried rice: ~$1.10 a meal (4 times)
Free meals: 5
 
Ingredients remaining:
1 carrot
3 sticks of celery
2 small onions
1/2 lb of pinto beans
1/2 lb of black beans
1/2 bag of rice
1 bag of pasta
 
-----------------------------------------
Remaining budget: $77.08

     

Click here to download:

Day_8_-_Chili.zip (1134 KB)

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I guess this meal can be considered as the weekly splurge!
 
Chicken breast is stuffed with ricotta cheese, sage, and pistachios,
and then wrapped in bacon.
 
I made enough for 3 meals.
 
Total estimated cost: $1.55 each meal.

       

Click here to download:

Day_8_Dinner_Stuffed_Chicken_B.zip (7330 KB)

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Today, Pete and I went out to Sands Point Preserve in Long Island to enjoy the uncommonly good weather.  I quickly cooked and packed cheesy pasta with tuna and peas to take with us (perfect example of how this month has changed our thinking--normally, we would have just eaten out in Port Washington after our walk along the beach).  Last night, I prepared chicken noodle soup for tonight, which is always yummy sick food (Pete's sick).  And lastly, I made cupcakes from Jiffy yellow cake mix.  I would have made the cupcakes from scratch, but we're running out of butter (and, admittedly, there's something about the taste of Jiffy that reminds me of childhood birthday parties, ha).

Pasta with tuna and peas (~$2.50, enough for 4+ servings)
Chicken noodle soup (~$5.79, I had to go free-range with Murray's chicken legs, even though it's 3xs more expensive, enough for 4 large servings)
Cupcakes with vanilla-coconut frosting ($0.75 for the mix + 1 egg, we had the icing ingredients and coconut)

     

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Day_8_Preparing_for_the_Road_a.zip (523 KB)

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Soup sounded great this afternoon after I came back from running (I
was partially dehydrated as you can see). I also made "egg in the
nest" by using a slice of banana bread (it just doesn't go bad!). Easy
and un-adorned lunch...
 
currently contemplating about what to make for dinner...

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With 1 week of cheap eats behind me...I am ready to take on week 2
(ok, I admit that I do still have a very stocked pantry and chill box)
 
At the end of week 1, I made some purchases to get ready for next week.
- 1/2 gallon whole milk: $2.09, and it turns out non-organic whole
milk tastes 99.9 times worse than organic ones, never again.
- 1 cucumber: $0.75
- half-dozen eggs: $2.59, which I already used for chocolate
souffles and Neoguri ramen and rice. These two dishes fed 4
people...not bad at all!
 
Total spent: $5.43
Money left: $91.09 (my goal is actually to complete this challenge
with only 50 bucks, considering the fact that I already have a well
stocked kitchen.)

   

Click here to download:

Week_1_Purchase_Part_II.zip (3827 KB)

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Grits is rich and delicious...just the perfect breakfast item to be
served with coffee. I found a bag of ground coffee deep in my cabinet
yesterday. It was a gift from my brother after he came back from a
vacation to Dominican Republic two years ago. I was a little skeptical
about the quality of the coffee first, but the coffee was vacuumed
sealed. Therefore, I decided to try it. The coffee turned out decent -
dark and strong, just what I need every morning before my brain can
start functioning.

     

Click here to download:

Day_8_Breakfast_Creamy_Grits_w.zip (5305 KB)

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Not only does our challenge give us a chance to cook more often, but
it also helps us be creative and work with whatever ingredients we
have on hand.
 
We had Peter's Neoguri ramen noodles, some rice, frozen peas, and
Wook's chopped onions and carrots last night in the office; therefore,
we decided to make a pot of noodles and rice to share for dinner. We
had a lot of fun making this dish because of its simplicity (you just
can't screw up ramen noodles) and quickness, and the rice reminded us
risotto.

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