Eat This for This

Tonight the beagle and I are home alone- the boyfriend is in San Diego for a couple of days on a work trip.  Last weekend he was away for work as well.   We always go grocery shopping and cook on Saturday or Sunday so the last two weeks I've been cooking myself.  I miss having someone to do my least favorite parts- chopping chilis and onions but I also have been remembering how much money I spend on groceries!

Brief grocery budget self-history: Grew up at home (didn't buy food), went to college (ate free food, money went to clothes and beverages), became an AmeriCorps volunteer (enough said), and then got a job and house!   So finally having a budget for food was exciting.  I've always eaten well and buying my own food at first was almost my whole budget.  Then I met you and he taught me how to cook the best food I've ever had and I spend almost nothing.


Here is this week's menu (which I shop and cook for in one day) as a sample:

• Breakfast: Asparagus, scallion, low-fat cottage cheese quiche with besan (split-pea) flour
• Work Lunches: Spinach and Arugula salad with an avocado, homemade vinaigrette, and mixed with "fridge veggies" (this week that is extra scallions, chopped cilantro, and maybe a pickled vegetable).
• Dinners: Keema Bhare Bandh Gobhi....yea, I don't know what that means exactly except for meat stuffed cabbage rolls.  I just make myself call Indian food by its name so I can learn words.  So far I know keema is meat.  That's all.  
• Extra/Snacks: Bag of pistachios, homemade quick pickles, and low-fat cottage cheese

So, all of that cost $48.34 at Aldi and $11.11 at our favorite international grocery store.  That's a total of $59.45 for all the above meals.  Oh and by the way, at Aldi, 13.45 was spent on five bottles of Winking Owl wine and $5.28 was spent on laundry detergent.  So, food total for the week (I count wine as food but for this count I am not) is........$40.72.  So each day that is about seven dollars.  

When my boyfriend and I split I pay less!  So I think we have the cooking budget down.  And I actually need to stop typing so I can make the stuff cabbage rolls- with dry, spiced Indian meat made from lean Aldi ground beef and a two dollar cabbage boiled in salt.  

I'll post recipes and pictures tomorrow, goodnight!