What we bought and what we ate, 06-21-14

I picked up the following from QFC:

1 lb strawberries $1.88
8 oz reduced fat sour cream $1.25
16 oz. salsa $1.00 (on sale for $2.00, plus it had a coupon for $1.00 off on it)
8 oz. shredded fiesta blend cheese $1.99
bulk cinnamon $.84
bulk nutmeg $2.80 (@ $39.99 a lb. Who knew nutmeg was so expensive?! Geez!)

Total: $9.76

Jeremy also bought a 2 liter of Coke Zero, and a Mt. Dew Kickstart, which he said was four dollars and something. So for tracking purposes I'll call it $4.50. I asked him why he was buying energy drinks when we have 12 of them on top of the fridge already and he said, "Because your mom."

Here's what I ate today:

Breakfast: carrot cranberry granola with milk
Lunch: strawberry Greek yogurt and a banana
Dinner: pasta with white cheddar sauce, tuna and carrots
Snacks/Desserts: cherries, nectarine
Beverages: water, Coke Zero

Jeremy ate a tuna sandwich for breakfast and the last frozen entree for lunch. And presumably a Mt. Dew Kickstart and some Coke Zero. And some strawberries.

Pasta with white cheddar sauce, tuna, and carrots

the carrots are all hiding

I make some variation of this basic recipe on a regular basis. You can use pretty much any kind of cheese, any veggies, any meat (or none at all if you so desire), and any starch. There are infinite possible iterations, and it's fast, easy, simple, and tasty. Here's what I used this time.

3 medium carrots, sliced
2 cups dry shell pasta
4 oz. white cheddar cheese with black pepper in it
3/4 cup half and half
1 T corn starch
1/2 cup water, divided in half
1 5 oz can tuna, halfheartedly drained

Boil water for pasta, and add pasta when it's come to a rolling boil. Once the pasta is cooked to your liking, drain it and set it aside. If you're a good multitasker you can do this at the same time you make the carrots and sauce. Add carrots and half of the water to a non-stick skillet, turn onto med-high heat and cover. While your carrots are steaming, grate up 4 oz of white cheddar, and mix the corn starch with the other half of the water. Turn heat under skillet down to medium and add half and half and the corn starch mixture. Simmer until the sauce thickens, then stir in the grated cheese until it's melted. Add the tuna and mix in thoroughly, then fold the pasta into the sauce. Makes 4 smallish servings, 3 good sized servings, or 2 very large servings. The nutrition info is for 1/3 of the recipe.

Carrot and cranberry granola

doesn't taste like carrots

This pan of granola has two whole carrots in it. It tastes nothing like carrots. It really just tastes like granola. Heck, you can barely even see the carrots. If you have a kid who refuses to eat carrots, but for some reason they love granola, put grated carrots in their granola. They will never ever know.

This is the exact recipe I used, but I ran out of both cinnamon and nutmeg making this. If I had had any more I'd have used more. It's not bad as is though.

2 cups old fashioned oats
1 cup steel cut oats
1/4 cup whole grain teff
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 scant T cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 whole egg
5 T melted coconut oil
2 grated carrots
1/2 cup dried cranberries

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix all ingredients except for cranberries together in a large bowl. Spread mixture evenly on a cookie sheet and bake for 35 minutes. Allow granola to cool, then break up into chunks, and mix in dried cranberries. Makes about 6 cups of granola. Nutrition info is for 1/2 cup.

Meals and snacks for 06-20-14

My lunch salad. Hella good. 

Breakfast: leftover chili with muenster cheese and a fried egg
Lunch: strawberry Greek yogurt, and a salad with butter lettuce, strawberries, grilled chicken, gorgonzola, and raspberry walnut vinaigrette
Dinner: chicken fajita pizza
Snacks/desserts: banana, cherries
Beverages: Crystal Light, water

Jeremy had a frozen entree and a tuna sandwich earlier today, in addition to the pizza for dinner. He's feeling much better. No more puking. 

Chicken Fajita Pizza

I used this recipe to make the crust, but I put the bowl in a warmed oven while prepping the toppings so it could rise a little. I also reduced the salt to 1/4 t, and I used powdered sugar instead of granulated since that was what I had. The yeasts like it just fine.

For the sauce I mixed 1 T chili powder, 2 cloves of garlic, and 1/2 T cumin in with 7 oz of tomato sauce.

Rub 4 oz of chicken breast with chili powder, and grill for a few minutes. Let it cool, then shred. It's ok if it's slightly undercooked. It will cook the rest of the way in the oven, and you don't want it to overcook and get dry. Cut 1 bell pepper into strips. I used the other halves of one red and one yellow pepper used in last night's tacos.

Spread the sauce evenly over the pizza crust, and top with pieces of chicken and pepper, then cover with 1 cup of shredded mozzarella cheese, and a dash of red pepper flakes.

Bake for 15 minutes at 450 degrees, and allow to cool for 5-10 minutes before cutting.

I made this pizza in the morning before work, then covered it with plastic wrap and put it in the fridge, so when I got home we just had to toss it in the oven. That gave the crust time to rise a little more too, but it really doesn't need to. I've made this crust before and baked it immediately and it was good, just not as puffy.

I cut it into 12 pieces. Nutrition info is for 1/12th of the pizza.

Leftover chili for breakfast

This morning I heated up some leftover chili with a slice of muenster cheese, and put a fried egg on top. I do this with leftover beans as well. It's very hearty but still feels breakfasty.
For lunch I brought one of the strawberry Greek yogurts I bought yesterday, and made a salad with lettuce, grilled chicken, strawberries, gorgonzola, and raspberry walnut vinaigrette. I have bananas and peanuts at work if I need a snack.

Shopping trip + meals and snacks for 06-19-14

I hit up the grocery store after work today as we were getting pitifully low on fruits and veggies. Here's what I got:

6 bananas $2.06
Can of honey roasted peanuts $2.50
1/2 gallon 2% milk $1.79
1 head living butter lettuce $3.99
1 lb radishes $1.99
1 lb strawberries $1.88
2 lbs cherries $7.80
2 nectarines $2.07
4 lemons (reduced for quick sale) $.99
3 pears (reduced for quick sale) $.99
3 strawberry Greek yogurts (reduced for quick sale) $.49 each ($1.47 total)
3 yeast packet strips (9 packets total, clearance) $1.74 each ($5.22 total)

Total $32.75


Here's what I ate today:

Breakfast: French toast with peaches
Lunch: Liberte Mediterranee yogurt, hummus and cracker pack
Dinner: tilapia tacos
Snacks: banana, honey roasted peanuts
Beverages: Crystal Light, water

Jeremy had a team meeting at work at an Italian restaurant, which was paid for by his employer. He got spaghetti and meatballs. He skipped breakfast, but his lunch was huge.

His nephrologist called today and told him he should cut his intake of fruits and vegetables by about 25%. I suspect that most of his potassium is coming from dried beans/lentils though. He didn't say if this was supposed to be temporary or permanent. Jeremy will go in to see him next week, and ask him then. He was also taken off of a couple of his medications. His potassium levels were still a bit high, so he had to drink more brown chalky stuff.

Tilapia tacos

8 oz tilapia, cut into several pieces
1/3 cup oil
6 corn tortillas
1 bell pepper, chopped (I used half of a yellow one and half of a red one)
juice of one lemon
2 t chili powder
1 t cumin
6 T reduced fat sour cream

Add 2 T of the oil to a hot pan, and add fish, peppers, lemon juice, and seasonings. Sautee until the fish is fully cooked, breaking it up into smaller pieces as you cook. Add the remaining oil to another pan, and fry each tortilla for about 60 seconds on each side on high heat. Serve with sour cream. Makes six tacos. Nutrition info is for one taco.

Our little apartment

One thing we do, which saves us hundreds a month, and is probably the single biggest money saver we employ, is living small. Two bedroom apartments in our neighborhood, or anywhere near it, average over 2000 a month in rent. Instead, our family of 3 lives in a 600 sq ft one bedroom apartment. The rent is $1220 a month, which includes all utilities except cable/internet. We can walk almost everywhere and live a 10 minute walk from the Light Rail and the bus tunnel, so we don't own a car. The bedroom and living room are each 11 feet by 14 feet, and Winter's room is in the 19 ft by 4 ft walk in closet.

The living room and dining room as viewed from the bedroom

Better view of the dining room area

This is the right half of our bedroom. It's divided with a wardrobe and a dresser (the cats like sleeping on the dresser, and hanging out on the "cat terraces") on one side...

...and a shelf on the other side. The left side has a work table for painting and crafts, and on the opposite wall (not shown) is the computer desk.

This is a view of the living room from standing in front of the window. The bathroom and front door are in the alcove to the left. The large door in the center is one of the entrances to Winter's "closet". The other is in the bedroom between the work table and desk.

The kitchen. It actually has a lot of cabinet space, which we use to store many non-kitchen things as well.

Opening the door to Winter's room. The bench is actually an IKEA coffee table which I added a foam cushion to, and covered in fake fur. It has a storage ottoman underneath.

The area under the bed is used for her closet space mostly. She also has her dollhouse there.

She made her dollhouse out of boxes and other items from the recycle, popsicle sticks, old clothing and fabric scraps, and duct tape. She also sewed and crocheted all those little clothes.

Her desk by the window. This window leads to the fire escape. We also made use of the big doors by adding hanging storage and a hanging laundry hamper. In a room this small and narrow, you want to keep as much off the floor as you can.

This is the view from the other end by the desk. My dad built the loft for her. It cost me about $75 in materials.

Up in the loft. I found those wall pockets on clearance at Target for $6. The light can be turned on and off with a pull chain.

This is right by the door that leads to the living room. The shelf on the right side is a repurposed aquarium stand. We weren't using it, and wanted to hang onto it since it goes with our aquarium, but we had no place to store it. So we used $15 worth of pine ply to make a shelf out of it.

And last, but not least, here is a video tour of Winter's bedroom!

French toast with peaches

I made myself French toast for breakfast. I used one egg, two T of half and half, a little cinnamon and nutmeg and two slices of buttermilk bread. For the topping I thawed out the last half cup or so of peach slices and put them in a saucepan with a dash of cornstarch and cinnamon. I also topped it with a heaping teaspoon of powdered sugar. Yum!

Update on Jeremy's doctor visit, and meals for 06-18-14

So, it turns out Jeremy was just in time in getting to the doctor. One of his kidney medications had been increased about a month ago, but the dose was too high. As a result his levels were seriously out of whack. Calcium and potassium levels were way too high. Of course he finds this out right after eating another big bowl of chili, with over 1000 mg of potassium per bowl. They sent in an emergency script for some foul smelling tan colored chalky liquid he had to take four tablespoons of. Tomorrow he will have more blood drawn to recheck his levels. He says he's feeling much better already.

I wound up buying an iced coffee, a banana, and two pieces of chocolate while working at the airport today. I spent $3.70 total. I can't really bring my own coffee through TSA, but I need to start bringing snacks with me. It's busy in the summer and I tend to burn through my lunch way too fast.

Breakfast: Liberte Greek yogurt with mango chunks
Lunch: strawberries and a salad with lettuce, leftover couscous, hard boiled egg, gorgonzola, jalapeno stuffed green olives, carrot, and balsamic vinaigrette
Dinner: leftover chili with sour cream
Snacks/desserts: banana, two pieces of chocolate
Beverages: water, Crystal Light, iced coffee with half and half and simple syrup

Meals and snacks for 06-17-14

The chili turned out great. I will probably reduce the amount of beans in it next time though, because it has a LOT of potassium in it. Jeremy has to be careful about getting too much potassium. I also spent 50 cents on two pieces of chocolate at Dilletante at work. I worked until 8 pm, which means I don't get home until after 9, and that is  long time to go before eating dinner.

Breakfast: Liberte Mediterranee yogurt with strawberries
Lunch: egg salad sandwich with lettuce, strawberries
Dinner: vegetarian chili with reduced fat sour cream
Snacks/desserts: dried cranberries, two pieces of chocolate, lime sherbet
Beverages: water, Crystal Light

Jeremy is still pretty sick. He skipped breakfast, ate a frozen entree for lunch, and chili for dinner. He's been vomiting more often than not for a week now. He has a doctor appointment today. It's troubling since he has kidney disease, but he believes it's related to a recent medication increase, and not the kidney disease itself. Here's hoping.

The cats also ate two cans of tuna yesterday because Jeremy forgot to pick up cat food.

Slow Cooker Vegetarian Chili

1 cup dried pintos
1 cup dried black beans
2 veggie burgers (or 1/2 cup veggie ground round)
14 oz tomato sauce
14 oz diced tomatoes
2 T chili powder
1 T cumin
3 T dried onion flakes
dash of red pepper flakes
4 cups water

Soak the beans in the water overnight. The following day tear the veggie burgers into small pieces and add all ingredients to pot. Top it off with a little more water if necessary. Slow cook on low for 7-9 hours until beans are tender. Recipe makes about 2 quarts. Nutrition info is for 1 cup.

Accidental discovery

I made egg salad for lunch today. I don't normally put paprika in my egg salad, but it's good in deviled eggs, so I figured, why not? I was maybe a little heavy handed with it, and it had a familiar taste. I realized that it was the predominant flavor in some of my favorite Ethiopian dishes. I've never had luck replicating them before, even with recipes, but I may have to try again.

I've been making good progress into the things that needed to be used up. Out of everything on the original list there is just a small amount of lettuce left. I also need to finish up the carrots, mango, and strawberries soon.

Meals and snacks for 06-16-14

For some reason I was a bottomless pit yesterday. Maybe because I got up at 6 am. Who knows? We used up the frozen bagged meal for dinner. It had chicken, potatoes, broccoli, red pepper, and cheese sauce. We added a bag of mixed frozen vegetables in. It was ok, not super great, but we didn't have lots of time, and the bagged meal needed to be used up.

Breakfast: Liberte Mediterranee yogurt with mango and banana chunks
Lunch: Parmesan crusted Tilapia sandwich with lettuce
Dinner: Bird's Eye chicken potato and cheese skillet with added broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini, and carrots
Snacks/desserts: teriyaki jerky, Skittles, honey roasted peanuts, Lindt truffle, cherries, lemon ice cream
Beverages: water, shared fruitwater with Jeremy

Odds and ends

Somehow I missed the big bottle of BBQ sauce we bought at Grocery Outlet. That was 99 cents. Jeremy bought a bottle of orange juice  at Rite Aid a couple of days ago for $1.50 as well.

Yesterday Jeremy and I were in Ballard at five pm and weren't due to get back home for an hour and a half, but he was nauseated and I was starving. We stopped at 7-11 for snacks and a drink. I spent a little more  than I'd have liked.

Teriyaki jerky $3.29
Small bag of honey roasted peanuts $.69
Fruitwater $1.49
Lindt white chocolate truffle $.49

Total with tax on the drink was $6.22

We also had to pick up a couple of things at the grocery store on the way home, and I was STILL hungry!

Buttermilk bread $2.50
8 oz sour cream $1.25
Skittles $.50
Dried onion flakes $3.04

Total $7.29

Meals and snacks for 06-15-14

Breakfast: shredded wheat and milk
Lunch: tuna salad sandwich with lettuce, watermelon
Dinner: parmesan crusted tilapia, couscous, cherries
Snacks/desserts: frozen yogurt
Beverages: water, diet Dr. Pepper

Jeremy wasn't feeling too hot yesterday. He had watermelon, sorbet with grapes, and leftover bean and sausage soup with some couscous mixed in.

Lots of grocery shopping today, and frozen yogurt

Jeremy and I went to Menchie's for frozen yogurt today after I got done with work. I got salted caramel and dark chocolate yogurt with brownie bites, hot fudge, whipped topping, roasted peanuts and a maraschino cherry. Jeremy got watermelon and tangerine sorbet with green grapes. The total was $10.28. It was worth every penny.

We then took a bus to the Grocery Outlet. That store is always interesting because you never know what you are going to find, so it's hard to do any sort of planning ahead. I had to exercise a lot of restraint. They always have things that I really don't need to be eating at pretty incredible prices. I did buy a bag of those Hot Pockets Snackers macaroni and cheese bites though. I looked at the nutrition info and they really weren't all that awful, so I decided to go ahead and indulge on one thing.

Here's what we got:

12 sugar free energy drinks (fifty cents each) $6.00
Hot Pockets Snackers $1.99
18 oz. Craisins $1.99
2 bags organic frozen mixed vegetables (99 cents each) $1.98
8 oz. shredded mozzarella $2.39
7 oz. Lancashire cheese $2.30
3.5 lbs pearl couscous $4.99
20 oz Diet Dr. Pepper $1.09
18 white corn tortillas $1.19
1 can diced tomatoes $.59
4 Yves veggie burger patties $1.99
3 Liberte Mediterranee yogurts $1.00
2 Liberte Greek yogurts $1.00
1 quart organic half & half $1.99
8 oz black pepper white cheddar $1.99
3 7 oz boxes of tomato sauce 3/$1.00
7 oz jalapeno havarti $1.99
Yellow bell pepper $.99
Red bell pepper $.99
1 lb cherries $3.99
1 lb strawberries $1.99
1 dozen large eggs $1.69

That comes to a total of $43.13