A Dessert Blitz!

Today I learned that Brits use the term "blitz up" in their recipes like we use "blend." It comes from the "blitzkriegs"--the Germans' bombings of London during WWII that left so much of the city in rubble. That satisfies both the food nerd AND the history nerd in me!

So here's our favorite Blitzed Dessert: the Smoothie. Our typical one always starts out the same. Pile into the blender:

- two heaping T of plain yogurt
- pineapple juice (I always save the juice from the cans of pineapple chunks I put in our girls' lunches)
- a frozen banana or two (buy the cheap, overripe bananas at the grocery store. Peel them and freeze them and voila--smoothie fodder!)
- some frozen strawberries (I haven't bought them in years due to this little trick: When I buy them in season and serve them fresh, I pluck off the green stem, and when I slice the top off the strawberries, I save all the tops and freeze them, using them throughout the winter to flavor smoothies! I've got four containers of strawberry tops in the freezer as I type.)
- anything else you like: applesauce (used this tonight!), peaches, apples, pears, blueberries, etc. Remember that the firmer fruits will sometimes make your smoothie have a slight grittiness to it.
- Our favorite add-in is KALE! Yep, just cut the leaves off the stem and pop a few into your smoothie. It will make it the most brilliant green (unless you've used a LOT of strawberries, in which case it will be more brown and not so pretty), and I've always thought they would make great St. Patrick's Day drinks although I've never actually been organized enough to make it happen.

This recipe (give or take) makes three or four 12 oz. glasses, or you can stretch it into more using smaller glasses.

How nice to drink a glassful of as many as six or seven fruits (and even a vegetable!) as one dessert. Makes a great breakfast drink, too, as the yogurt adds protein. Note--no added sugar!! Pineapple juice (or mandarin oranges & their juice) is very sweet. We actually add no sugar to ours even when we have no pineapple juice on hand. The bananas and strawberries are sweet enough.

So...grab your blender and blitz away!

Goodbye, Summer. Hello, Autumn Soups!

Sometimes, in the name of simplification, you have to stop paying attention. I didn't track our food spending at all this summer. We just kept on shopping at the Farmers' Market, eating fresh food as much as possible, and getting our regular stuff.

I confess I make too many stops at convenience stores. Even if I'm only buying powerbars, pretzels, and Diet Coke, it's still unnecessary spending. Today I bought a Starbucks regular coffee and a bottled mango juice for my girls. Still ran me over $5 and we skipped the sweets.

Fall is officially here. Over the weekend I made the first of my autumn soups, Butternut Squash Bisque. We were in Ocean City (I had a conference Th & F, and we piggybacked a little weekend away onto it!), and I brought the squash with us. It can be a challenge to cook in a rental kitchen--especially when it's a trailer on the bay side with fake wood paneling and a mustard-colored, leaky gas stove. But I persevered. I roasted the squash in the oven because I wasn't up for the workout required for chopping it raw. But roasting takes a LONG time.

Here's my basic recipe without the roasting part:
- Cut the squash into small cubes. Good luck not chopping off a finger--squash hides are tough!
- melt a stick of butter into a pot (indulgence!!) while you chop a large onion and a clove or 2 of garlic
- add the chopped onion and garlic, and cook until soft
- chop any additional root vegetables (I've added potatoes, turnips, and other kinds of squash)
- put all veggies in pot & barely cover with water or broth
- add marjoram, thyme, pepper, and sea salt (I am particularly generous with everything but the pepper. Do lots of tasting.)
- simmer until a fork goes easily through the veggies
- use an immersion blender to smooth the whole thing
- add some cream at the end and stir in.

(If you roast the squash ahead of time, all you have to do is add it at the blending point, although you'll want to simmer it with the herbs for a bit.)

Yum, yum, and triple yum. It's honestly our family's favorite soup, and making it just says "Fall is here!" to me.

Evelyn's Get-Your-Own-Quart Brussels Sprouts

If you need some encouragement to eat Brussels Sprouts, take some from my 7 year old, who ate almost a whole quart with her fingers while standing at the kitchen counter last weekend. Here's the recipe that did it:

1 quart Brussels Sprouts

1 T olive oil

a few dashes EACH of dried basil, thyme, pepper

1/2 t salt

1/2 cup (or so) of water

Slice the bottoms off the sprouts, then slice them all in half longways. Save the loose leaves that fall off. Heat the oil. in a large skillet. (I love cast iron.) Lay the sprouts, flat sides down, in the pan. Sprinkle herbs & salt. Cook for 2 minutes or so. Flip them all over (they should have some brownish coloring before you flip them.) Add the water--enough to let them cook w/out sticking--add more herbs & salt, then cover for 2-3 minutes to steam. Add the loose leaves for the last 2 minutes.

Sprouts are ready when a fork sinks in easily (but not TOO easily. You don't want them to be mushy.)

Serve immediately--and take some for yourself before your kids gobble them up. My husband was bummed he only got one last weekend. I wasn't policing them very well, especially once I got MINE. :)

March Madness WEEK 4: $133.17

Seems our March Madness has included some side-trips:

Eating Out/Carry Out: $33.59

The girls and I enjoyed Panera Bread...while Alan was meeting with the tax man. Somehow doesn't seem fair, even if he DID indulge in some Chinese takeout earlier in the week.

His/Hers Acts of Desperation: $17.37

He bought a six pack of Dogfish Head's Raison d'Etre. I stopped at CVS for a bunch of chocolate. All of both...is gone. It's just been one of those weeks.

Regular Grocery Store: $52.46

This included paper towels and toilet paper, along with most of the usual fare. I'll admit it's the second week in a row that I've bought strawberries--grown in Florida (and not unnaturally gargantuan), but not organic. It's just so fun to slice them for the girls' lunches. Our kids are really so amazing about not having any pre-packaged stuff in their lunches. (Our youngest has begged for "Pirate Booty"--apparently the newest "healthy" version of a cheese puff. They cost almost $30 for a pack of 12 4 oz. bags.)

Farmers' Market Fare: $29.75

Our milk and cheese, sugar snap peas, broccoli, apples, some pastries, and this week our oldest BEGGED for Brussels Sprouts. Did I really say that? It's true. And she would have eaten every single one if I hadn't intervened. I'll have to share the recipe.

March Madness Totals: $339.01

March Madness WEEK 2: $159.05

We don't usually shop like this, but when we do, it sure tastes good! Here are the breakdowns:

Birthday Food Splurges: $47.90

After Alan picked up our kids from school on his birthday, he took them to Zeke's, our favorite coffee shop, and spent $10 on pastries and a latte. I came home from work, he left for work, and the girls and I walked to The Hamilton Bakery (somehow I never heard about the coffee shop run w/daddy--but our girls ARE only 5 and 7!) and spent $17.90 on a small cake, a huge rosemary focaccia bread, and pastries for the girls and our babysitter. Later that night, Alan and I met at Vaccaro's in Little Italy. He dined on a sandwich & soup, and I shared his free dessert & coffee--which anyone can get when ordering on his or her actual birthday. (We didn't know this when we planned to go to Vaccaro's. Bonus!) We ate out on the town for a cool $20, including tip.

Farmers' Market Fare: $35.75

It was a gorgeous day to shop outside for our milk, cheese, organic mesclun mix, broccoli, apples, strawberries (from Florida) and another splurge--sweet potato bread!! It's almost like cake, and I still had the mindset of, "It's Alan's birthday weekend, which I should of course celebrate by eating way too many carbs."

Health Food Store Fare: $12.45

I love this place. The owner's a little prickly, but she'll bend over backwards for her regular customers. I can get organic herbs, spices, and dry goods from her in bulk, which keeps the costs down. This week I needed popcorn, oatmeal, rice, basil, and got Alan some wasabi peas. He loves food that sets his sinuses aflame.

Grocery Fare: $54.26

Two boxes of cereal, plain yogurt, butter, bread, pineapple, pasta, sauce, Italian sausage, chocolate chips, and some toilet cleaner. There were a few other items, too, but I didn't save the receipt--just wrote down its total. I also added the $20 we spent on 2 pounds of coffee and $3 for our 18 eggs we bought from the family at church that has chickens. GREAT eggs. I tell my kids it's because they were laid by happy chickens.

Miscellaneous: $8.75

Alan got a slice of pizza at the college the day he taught, and I had a powerbar and coffee on the road this week.

While the total would reduce by $50 or more if the b-day food & cleaning supplies were removed, I'm counting it all because that's what I normally do. I certainly didn't buy all HEALTHY food this week--but it was all made locally, and The Hamilton Bakery even grows its own organic wheat nearby. That's got to count for something on the healthy food scale. :)

Meals this week included pasta & sausage w/salad, cheese paninis w/salad, scrambled eggs & sausage, pasta w/broccoli, and a veggie & bean stir-fry over rice. The only complaint was from our oldest daughter, who said she didn't like having the same things in her lunch every day. I'll work on that for next week.

March Madness total so far: $205.84

March Madness WEEK 1: $56.79

It's week one in my experiment of seeing if you really CAN eat healthy without spending more money. Our basic guidelines include cutting way back on meat, processed/pre-prepared foods, and buying local.

So what did we spend on this week?

$21.50 @the Farmers' Market:

- $13 on 1 gallon of milk and 1 pound of cheese (I know, right?? But I love that the cows are hormone & steroid free and get to live outside!)

- $3 on a bucket of apples (more apple crisp, here we come!)

- $5.50 splurge on day-old pastries rounded out the Farmers' Market run. (I'm a softie when it comes to buying my kids treats at the market!! At least it supports local businesses!)

$27.07 @our local grocery store:

- 2 boxes of off-brand cereal, 1 box of hot cocoa packets, 1 box saltines (true health nuts would cringe)

- onions, potatoes, frozen peas, 2 cans of pineapple chunks (all non-organic)

- Branola bread, flour, and chocolate chips.

$9.22 on "special outings"

- my husband bought a $2.50 basket of fries on a gig this week, to which he added a tip. :)

- I took our 5 year old out for a one-on-one treat (true health nuts, prepare to cringe anew) at Dunkin' Donuts. I bought her a donut, gave a tip after the nice owner put an extra donut in the bag, and then bought a homeless man a cup of coffee. :)

- I bought myself a cup of coffee on Tuesday between work and my continuing ed course. A little get-me-through-the-rest-of-the-day treat!

Easily I could have trimmed $15 off the total by taking out the pastries, donut, fries, and chocolate chips (all of which are NOT healthy--hmmm...), and of course a lot of the food is not organic. But we're not going hard core austerity measures yet.

And keep in mind I'm not starting from scratch--there was food in our cupboards and frig when I went shopping this week. But I would think that applies to many of us. My recipes for the week include a vegetarian lasagna, jambalaya (using some sausage leftovers a friend gave us), and sweet potato chili that I made weeks ago and froze.

Week 1!

More March Madness Parameters

Since I'm a fan of keeping things simple, and there's no way I can do this if it's going to get at all complicated, there are going to be things on my "grocery" list that some people wouldn't consider part of their "food" budget.

Long ago, we had to simplify the number of line items in our budget, so our food budget includes anything purchased at the grocery store (toilet paper, cleaning supplies, etc.) I do try to do a lot of cleaning with vinegar solutions or diluted castille soap (find some that has peppermint in it--your house will smell ever so faintly like a candy cane!), but I still buy regular toilet cleaners and laundry detergents. Those transformations will have to come later as we go on this journey.

On and off, we've included eating out in our food budget as well, depending on how much of our "entertainment fund" we used up before the end of the month. So I'll make sure to be clear if we are adding those meals--we have a lot of March b-days in our circle, including my husband, so I'll be sure to say whether or not we add those costs as we go.

It is March 1st! Here we go. :)