Sorry to keep you waiting, friends.
Sunday night we had those frozen potstickers. I'm okay with it, though, because we made it all the way to the end of the week without relying on convenience food, which I consider a major accomplishment.
We stepped it back up on Monday night with the fantastic Hot Pasta with Cold Tomato Sauce, a recipe from Craig Claiborne that is so delicious that you will drink the leftover sauce off the edge of the plate and dribble a little down your chin and onto your white shirt, because of course you are wearing a white shirt when you eat this liquidy red goodness. (Ahem) I mean you would do that if you were not a classy broad like me.
Basically, you take a whole lot of very ripe, fresh tomatoes (preferably grown by you, a family member, or a friendly organic farmer) and blend it in a blender with garlic, parsley, olive oil, and salt and pepper. This is one of those recipes you just keep tasting until the flavor balance tastes right to you, but you won't mind because it is so easy and good. While you (or your cooking buddy) adjust the seasonings, throw some pasta into boiling water. When it's done, strain it, put it back in the pot and stir in some olive oil. This is one recipe where I don't like to mix the pasta and sauce before serving because contrast in temperatures is rather refreshing. I don't recommend skimping on the salt; I do recommend a bit of crumbled blue cheese on top.

Tuesday night...
Well, some may call Tuesday night cheating. I went to the grocery store on Tuesday night after yoga and wrote a check for the groceries. I just couldn't quite handle waiting one more day. The thrill of shopping wore me out so much that I had a peach and cottage cheese for dinner. It was actually quite tasty.

I sometimes wish we had spent hours and hours poring over our cookbooks and cross-referencing them with our pantry list to create fabulous five-star stone soup. But it's just the two of us, and we both work outside the home, which often means we lack not only the time but the energy to be fabulously creative in the kitchen during the week.

We made a few trips to the grocery store in between, for the bananas (medicinal purpose!!) and also for milk and cereal (I am even less capable of creativity in the morning.). I'm fairly proud that we made it through the week without dying of hunger or ordering take-out.

An Update and a Recipe

I’m sorry, I cannot tell you why the fonts are so funny on that last post, and I cannot seem to fix it. Please post a comment if you can help me.

We left off at dinner Thursday. Friday we went to my cousin’s for a splendid dinner (we grilled our eggplants there), and Saturday we went out of town for the wedding. My parents reminded me the bride might take it amiss if we asked for a doggie bag, but they did arrive to pick us up with a bag full of reinforcements: canned salmon and tuna, raw sunflower seeds, a little tomato sauce and a hunk of real Parmesan. (That’s right, not even Pecorino, but Parmiggiano Reggiano!) Nothing too obvious, no meal in a box, but raw materials to challenge our creativity. They dropped us off with a box of peaches, too. Hurrah for parents!

Wednesday is payday, so we’ve got three more nights until we go grocery-shopping (unless we break down and put it on our credit card, which might make my thrifty Dutch/Irish/Louisiana French heart stop ticking).

Before I forget, here’s the recipe for the lovely and versatile black bean spread. It’s like hummus, except it’s made of things you’ve always got on hand. Sometimes we mere mortals run out of tahini or even garbanzos. If you don’t have a pantry full of black beans and all-natural peanut butter, I probably don’t know you well enough for you to read my blog. I suppose I should be a bit more welcoming though, and relish the chance to expose you to the rabbit food I so dearly love (a label my co-workers attached to my cuisine, and one I won’t deny, as the my auto-spellcheck underlines every third word in my postings. Someone needs to expose these poor computer programmers to the healthnut foodie side of life.)

Black Bean dip
16 oz.-ish can of black beans or 8 oz. dry beans, cooked overnight
½ cup lime juice
3 cloves minced garlic
½ c. chunky peanut butter (fresh or all-natural nothin’ but peanuts is best)
2 jalapeno chilis (I use a honkin’ tablespoon canned
½ c. cilantro (or parsley)
salt to taste
2 Tbsp. olive oil to top

Drain the beans. Blend lime juice, garlic and peanut butter in the processor. Add beans and process until smooth. If it is too thick, you can add a little warm water at this point, but I never seem to have to. Add the chilis (You could probably do the recipe without these. I’ve never tried, but I bet you could use crushed red pepper.), Add the greens and pulse. Taste and season with salt and more garlic or lime juice, according to your preference. Drizzle olive oil on top.

I like to roll it up with fresh vegetables in a tortilla for a wrap sandwich that will not go soggy in the work fridge. It’s also great as a condiment for sandwiches or for dipping tortilla chips, crudités or toasted pita.

The First Forty-Eight Hours

Tuesday dinner went much as planned, except my husband had cereal.

<>Wednesday night things got tricky.
(Aside: Does this sound familiar? You just got home from a good hard workout or a long day at work. You are jazzed to be home and your dinner starts out fantastic (at least in your head). You'll add a little of this and a little of that and throw in an extra somethin' somethin'. Then you start to get tired; your creativity fizzles into laziness and you forget to read the recipe or measure things and start to eat your half-cooked meal with your fingers standing up over the sink. At this point, put down the plate, have a big glass of milk and go snuggle your life partner/cat/stuffed animal. This will spare you a) having to eat anything as awful as a chopped beet, hardboiled egg, chickpea and peanut salad and b) the humiliation that you suffer when, in an attempt to prove to your husband that you do NOT need to go out to dinner and there is plenty to cook at home, you prove just the opposite.) We started strong with the appetizers. I sliced the leftover Italian sausage into discs, then sauted them in a nonstick pan until crisp. Seeing how many paper towels they went through when I drained them, I decided to forgo the goat cheese for something a bit lighter (husband, this is where you Stop! and Say No! to excess) and served them toothpicked onto little squares of bell pepper. Delicious. Next time I might add another layer in between. Like a bit of folded lettuce. Or a grape. Or something smooshy. Hummus?

Why didn't I quit while I was ahead? Or just make an omelette? The answer, gentle reader, is tricky and involves years of therapy to figure why I do not like deviating from written plans without several weeks notice.

<>I've included the recipe for chickpea cakes below (and to which you might consider adding a splash of soy sauce to heighten the savory side). I, for reasons both within and beyond my control, did not follow the recipe. All started to go downill when I realized I didn't have the cornmeal. This is a key ingredient I used at little flour in the mix to keep it from being to goopy, then tried to use breadcrumbs for the outside. DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME. Instead of tasting like the lovely little summery cakes they were upon their invention, they tasted like chickpeas and yogurt and lemon and parsley all mixed together with Panko smooshed in on top. (Note—these fancy Japanese breadcrumbs are delicious with fishcakes, but just do not get along with my friend the Garbanzo bean) I also forgot the garlic (I really was quite tired) and did not mash the chickpeas enough.

They didn't exactly taste bad. At least, they didn't make me gag (not a good sign, describing one' s dinner as non-vomit inducing). I suffered through a few bites before remembering: We have pesto! Not only do we have pesto, but we have some of the tastiest pesto I have ever had, thanks to my husband not listening to me when I tried to convince him not to make it (another long story for another day, or maybe never, as I am ashamed to recall it). I smeared a little pesto on the cakes and they were perfectly palatable. My husband had been exercising outside in the record-breaking heat, and, fortunately for him, I had thrown the remaining cakes in the garbage by the time he recovered. The lucky duck had a tomato/cheese sandwich.

Chickpea Cakes

1 can chickpeas
Juice of 1 leomn
1/4 large sweet onion
7 cloves garlic, minced
1/3 c. chopped parsley
1/4 c. plain yogurt
salt & pepper
cornmeal

Drain the chickpeas and mash them very well with a potato masher (don't puree them, though, just make sure you don't leave in hunks of skin). Saute the onions and garlic in a little olive oil. Mix with the chickpeas, lemon juice, parsley, yogurt, a little salt & pepper and a Tablespoon of cornmeal. Form into patties. It's okay if they are loose, but add more meal if they are liquidy. Should remind you of lumpy oatmeal. Dip the patties in a plate of cornmeal and fry in lots of hot olive oil until golden. Serve on a bed of greens.

Thursday supper was greatly improved (something to do with knowing our limits, I think. Don't get used to it). It was 99 degrees and humid when we got home from work, so grilling was out. My visually and culinarily creative husband made an appetizer tray of crackers with either blue or goat cheese and slices of fresh peach on top. Divine.
We then had a sage, basil and parmesan frittata with slices of fresh bell pepper on the side. Also lovely and simple.

In the interest of full disclosure, I now relate to you the following incident, by the end of whose description you will surely agree that we had little choice but to do what we did. Thursday night is Date Night, and we planned to have a non-spending date by going out for ice cream with a gift card we received for our wedding. When we arrived, we were horrified to see a note on the door that their card machine was down and they could not accept credit or gift cards. We remained horrified, pondering the sugar-free popsicles in our freezer, and chose to withdraw the cash to buy ice cream. It really couldn't have gone any other way.

A Pudding Cup Saved is a Can of Beans Earned

My regular boss is out of town. I have two other partners I help, but they generally don't have much for me to do, since the one who is out of town takes up all of my time. After checking the real news (NY Times), the fake news (The Onion), and the trashy news (gofugyourself, usweekly) online, I broke down and asked everyone in my department if they needed help. None of them did, so I balanced my checkbook. This is an activity I actually enjoy, especially at work, because a) there are always pencils with sharpened tips AND working erasers, and b) that’s where the good calculator is.
The cockles of my penny-pinching heart cooled, however, when I learned that, once outstanding checks are cashed and the gold dust settles, we’ll have $90 to spend until our payday eight days away. This is a particular challenge since we face it at the beginning of a week, meaning we have to make it cover two sets of groceries and dry-cleaning.

I acknowledge that I have lived on less than that, even less than half of that, but it was when I had no gas to pay, no insurance bills, did not require coffee (i.e. was not bored out of my mind at work) and lived in a country with socialized medicine ($45 for an overnight hospital stay!).

I wrote my husband an e-mail warning him of the situation and asking him not to buy the pudding snacks I requested (it’s his week for groceries), intending to save us a whopping $2.08. I then erased the message and called him. I asked him what he thought of skipping the grocery store and getting as much as he could at the farmers’ market with the cash he withdrew for the purpose yesterday. He happily complied, as he prefers to live off local pork, cheese and vegetables. He also, like me, enjoys a challenge, so we decided to see how long we could go on goods from the farmer's market and the contents of our kitchen. And now we are officially committed, beholden to all two people who may potentially read my blog!

This what we have on the kitchen counter:
~Five tomatoes
~Two eggplants
~Two red peppers
~Eighteen peaches (I’m a bit of a fanatic)
~One lime*
~Two half-loaves of drying bread
~Three boxes of cereal in various stages of fullness**

In the fridge:
~One leftover Italian sausage
~Three cups leftover pasta
~Two cups leftover tomato sauce
~A few celery stalks
~Assorted condiments
~A little black bean hummus
~Various hard and soft cheeses
~Two dozen eggs
~Skim milk for me, whole milk for him
~3 pudding cups
~Two small flour tortillas
~A bag of pine nuts
~Other bits: some jam, half a jar of peanut butter, half a jar of salsa, cilantro, rotting hot peppers, wine.

In the pantry:
~Chickpeas
~Black beans
~Hominy (what is this? can I have it for dinner?)
~2 boxes of pasta
~2 of mac & cheese
~2 boxes of tofu (Cha-ching! Protein jackpot!)
~Powdered Gatorade, tea, cocoa and all the regular staples ***

The freezer:
~Sugar-free popsicles we accidentally bought and will never eat but will never throw out because one day we might eat them
~Other desserty things containing plenty of sugar, thus much more likely to be eaten
~A box of puff pastry that has been through at least one move
~Frozen potstickers (I’m going to try not to eat them in the first two days)
~A three-pound chuck roast
~A bit of raw frozen corn off the cob
~Edamame
~A Tupperware with heavily-freezer-burned chicken cacciatore (I’m guessing here. I’m also guessing we will never eat whatever it is, since I didn’t know what it was the last time I cleaned the freezer four months ago, and it will continue to take up ¼ of our tiny freezer and support the ice trays until we move out and have to de-frost the whole appliance.)
~A box of lima beans
~Plenty of pesto
~One small frozen tilapia filet

Joshua’s garden has:
~All kinds of herbs
~Swiss chard
~Lots of garlic
~Egyptian onions
~Peanuts
~Some other stuff, blah blah blah I’m a bad wife and never help so I don’t know.

MENUS
This is as far as I have gotten tonight. I didn't get too far on the lunches, but I am hoping for a burst of creativity tomorrow. Or help from my readers! Suggestions! Or a big fat check!

Tonight:
Toasted crusty bread with bean spread. Sliced tomato and peppers. Hard-boiled egg.
My husband will have leftover pasta.

Wednesday lunches:
My husband: leftover pasta with sauce
Moi: black bean hummus & vegetable wrap (ooh, I think I have a carrot at work!)
Wednesday supper: bits of toast with goat cheese and re-sauted sausage. Chickpea cakes with sliced peppers.

Thursday:
Grilled eggplants. Marinated, grilled tofu

Friday:
Mac & cheese? We’re usually pretty wiped out by Friday

Saturday:
We are out of town for a friend’s wedding. I wonder how big the pockets in Joshua’s suit are?

Sunday:
Lunch at a friend’s house. Maybe we can put on a little yellow face paint so we look sickly and she sends us home with lots of leftovers.
If not:
Sunday dinner
Modified Pasta Carbonara (sauted green onions instead of bacon)

Phew, I think I just wrote right through my usual post-yoga eating binge. Score! Money saved.

I’ll keep you posted.****


*All but the lime came from the farmer’s market, where today they were serving free hot dogs, chips and baked beans. He ate a hot dog but did not even think about filling his pockets for me. I’m going to line them with Ziploc baggies tomorrow in case he comes across any more free food.

**I refuse, however, to eat the raisin bran, it angers me more than any breakfast cereal should. It has twice the sugar of a serving of Lucky Charms. TWICE! Beware if you are trying to encourage your tummy to decrease in size. Fill up if, like my husband, you are trying to encourage your tummy to expand in size.

***I think this is key—we would not survive the week if we were out of the necessaries like soy sauce, olive oil, vinegar, sugar, and four kinds of hot chocolate.

**** After I finished writing, my husband called from the gym to say he’d gotten a Charlie orse and was going to buy a banana. I tried to talk him out of it (“Maybe you can borrow a banana! Gatorade has tons of potassium! [a lie-1% of the RDA] Not really! But you can’t buy any food because I just said on my blog that we weren’t spending any money on groceries and that would make us hypocrites! [another lie—I was still in the proofreading stage]” I finally caved and asked him to buy me one, too. He bought 2.83 lbs for 96 cents. Hey wait! Sounds like an emergency medical expense! We have a whole savings account for that!