new project underway

the new project is underway, and boy does it need a name. i have decided to try to cook/feed ray and i spending about what my co-works spend on food. (in case you are new to my blog, ray and i try to eat more local and organic foods, while trying to avoid over processed items that, at one point, were food) when i got to work on wednesday i set about figuring out what do my co-workers spend on food. i was going to ask each of them to give me a rough estimate on how much they spend at the grocer store, but i had only asked a few folks when i got to robin. robin is originally from vermont (i think) and is my SURVIVOR!!!!! buddy. after i explained to her my new experiment, she became quite interested herself in what others spend, and quickly had every one's estimated cost in a matter of minutes. go robin! after some monkey math calculations, i established that on average people spend $30 per person a week on groceries. holy crap!!! what are these people eating!!! i couldn't decide if that was high....or low. i did a little research, and i do mean little, and somewhere read that the national average for a family of three is $100 a week. so my co-workers are pretty much right on target. that leaves me and ray $60 a week for food. which may or may not be a change/challenge, since until now, i haven't been paying attention to what we spend. i've heard all about the rising cost of food over and over again, but still never paid any attention. here's why. we don't spend a lot of money on clothes, shoes, shopping at the mall, purses, going to concerts, going to the movies, electronics, household nic knacks, fancy cars, running the ac or heat, turning on lights, running water while brushing teeth, makeup, hair cuts, dye jobs, or vacations. that allows us, well me, to spend what i want on food. which is good, cause i LIKE food. but, for this experiment i WILL have to pay attention. i will continue to buy the food i like, but will try to do so with a $60 a week budget. there will be no pop tarts, snack packs, low cost high sugar cereals, commercially made over- processed bread, factory farmed meat or dairy, and NO hot pockets (sorry brit) entering the house. the point is that eating healthy/local/organic does not equal expensive. but/if you do buy expensive items, there is a way to do it on a budget. i don't know what that way is yet, but hopefully in the end, i will know. maybe the key is to participate more in the making of your food. we'll see. now with every thing in life there are some exceptions.

1. dog food. this may come into play later since most everyone at work has pets and probably buys their dog food at the grocery store.

2. beer and wine.

3. eating out. except for thursday SURVIVOR pizza night, we really don't eat diner out during the week. and on the weekends we eat out once, maybe twice, and that is generally bbq (which has recently come into question). ray eats lunch out everyday, but come on folks, he eats the same thing every day from the same place and i bet it doesn't cost more than $7. and, well, this is MY experiment, as ray pointed out earlier today at the farmer's market. i, however, will try to curb my eating out at lunch to 1-2 times a week, which is probably in line with the average of my co-workers.

4. i can still use and cook with anything i already have in the pantry/freezer/frig or garden.

so this might be really cool. at some point it will force me to be resourceful and hopefully use up a good portion of items that have been patiently sitting in the cupboard waiting to be eaten. every week i will post a picture and list of what and where i bought our food that weekend (most shopping is done on weekend) which will include description of food purchased with price paid. i will try to keep track of the food i cook to feed us, which will mainly consist of our weeknight supers and weekend fair. just to clarify now, ray eats a shake for breakfast EVERY weekday morning. shake = yogurt, milk, almonds, apple, frozen fruit. healthy, but....gross!!! fruit smoothie shakes in general are tasty, but ray's are pretty gross. so no posting will be done about his breakfast and lunch. but i will try to keep everyone up to date on my breakfast, snack, and lunch. speaking of posting about food, i don't think i've talked about any of the cooking i did last week. enough of my new experiment (which still needs a name), let's see some food.

here i'm starting monday night dinner. we had roasted root veggies. turnips, sweet potatoes, a few white potatoes, and onions coated in olive oil, salt, pepper, and fresh rosemary from my garden.

roasted root veggies served with scrambles eggs and pork sausage.

tuesday night dinner. crowder peas cooked with onions.

harvested some lettuce from the garden.

again, served with scramble eggs with pork sausage.

i also made a loaf of bread on tuesday. to the dough i added a little bit of wheat flour and some spelt flour i had hiding in the back of the frig.

since we have a surplus of apples these days. i made an apple sour cream cake.

paired with ice cream. yummy!

on wednesday night, i went walking with valerie and then went to check in on her horse, so i didn't do any cooking. ray had a pb&j sandwich and i had a glass of milk and apple cake. thursday we had SURVIVOR pizza, and friday (last night) we oddly enough, went out for a movie and dinner with sandra, who works with ray, her son ethan and his massive amount of facial hair. we went and saw "W" and had pumpkin pancakes after the movies at mimi's cafe. a very very rare outing indeed.