Jun 24: Gyro Wrap; Spring Gnocchi

Lunch

A repeat of the gyro wrap using the balance of the meat from Trader Joe’s.

  • The fully cooked sliced gyro/yeros meat is $3.99 per 10oz pack. There are really four serves, so each serve is very slightly cheaper than the chicken, at $1.00 per serve.
  • The flatbread is 50c
  • Hummus is $3.99 per container and we used about 1/6 or 33c per serve
  • We served 1/4 of the tabouli salad or 67c per serve.

Lunch today cost $2.50 per serve.

Dinner

The semiSerious Foodies were in different places. Foodie Philip was out at the Alpha Dog’s Editors’ Lounge and pizza was supplied free. Foodie Greg stayed home and had the balance of the Spring Gnocchi.

  • The gnocchi was $1.69 or 57c per serve
  • The half pint of cream is $1.99 or 67c per serve
  • The asparagus was $2.99 but we only used half, or 50c per serve
  • The crumbled blue was $3.49 for the container. We used half or 58c per serve.

Dinner tonight cost $2.32 per serve, without the steak.

Jun 23: Smoked Salmon Bagel; Grilled Rib Eye with Spring Gnocchi

Lunch

With no chicken this week, and not wanting the gyro meat wrap two days in a row, we opted for smoked salmon on an onion bagel, with capers, tomato and cucumber as a closed sandwich. The tomato makes it a little wet, so we’ll likely drop that in the future.

  • Smoked salmon $5.99 for the 4oz pack or $3 a serve
  • The pack of six onion bagels is $1.99 or 33c per serve
  • Cream cheese is about 60c a serve
  • We split 1/6 of the $3.99 pack of kumato tomatoes, or 33c per serve
  • 1 lb of Persian cucumbers was $1.99, of which one went into this meal, or 12c per serve
  • Add 5c for capers.

Lunch today cost $4.43 per serve.

Dinner

Thursday night steak night! Tonight a Prather Ranch Rib Eye with a Creamy Gorgonzola Gnocchi, although we substituted Trader Joe’s Crumbled Blue Cheese for the Gorgonzola, because we couldn’t buy any at the regular outlets today.

The Rib Eye was grilled to perfection (well, blue for us) on our cast iron griddle on the induction cooktop. That’s a perfect combination.

The creamy blue cheese sauce with asparagus and peas was pretty damned good!

  • The Rib Eye was $18.79  or $9.35 a serve
  • The gnocchi was $1.69 or 57c per serve
  • The half pint of cream is $1.99 or 67c per serve
  • The asparagus was $2.99 but we only used half, or 50c per serve
  • The crumbled blue was $3.49 for the container. We used half or 58c per serve.

Dinner tonight was definitely restaurant worthy and cost $11.67 per serve.

Jun 22: Gyro wrap; Pizza

Lunch

Instead of chicken wraps this week, we decided to revisit the Trader Joe’s gyro meat for a wrap. Heated quickly in a pan on the regular cooktop. We’ve found electric to be generally faster and more controllable than gas, which is a surprise.

  • The fully cooked sliced gyro/yeros meat is $3.99 per 10oz pack. There are really four serves, so each serve is very slightly cheaper than the chicken, at $1.00 per serve.
  • The flatbread is 50c
  • Hummus is $3.99 per container and we used about 1/6 or 33c per serve
  • We served 1/4 of the tabouli salad or 67c per serve.

Lunch today cost $2.50 per serve.

Dinner

It’s LACPUG night followed by pizza at Palermo’s in Los Feliz. We all put in for pizza.

  • Dinner tonight cost $5 per serve.

Jun 21: Supermarket Sushi; Watermelon Salad

Lunch

Another serving of sushi from Whole Foods, who seem to have changed provider since our last visit.

  • Spicy Tuna Roll: $8.69 or $4.35 per serve
  • Cucumber Roll: $6.39 or $3.20 per serve

Lunch today cost $7.55 per serve.

Dinner

With the hot weather we’ve been having, it was a welcome return to a favorite: Nigel Lawson’s watermelon, feta and black olive salad. It’s a summer regular and very, very good.

  • At $4.99 the watermelon is more than enough for about eight serves, or 63c per serve
  • Feta comes in a $6.99 tub and we used half, or about 70c per serve
  • Pitted olives come in $2.99 jars and one quarter was used, or 38c per serve
  • The red onion is 52c or 13c per serve
  • About $1 of the $1.29 pack of mint was used, or 25c per serve
  • Olive oil and seasonings add another 20c per serve.

Dinner tonight (and tomorrow night) cost $2.33 per serve. It’s an excellent dish and every time we serve it for someone, they want the recipe.

Jun 19: Popeye’s Fried Chicken; White Bean Tuna Salad

Lunch

Another trip to a hardware store placed us near a Popeye’s so that’s what we had.

  • Eight pieces of chicken were $12.99, but that makes four serves in all, making each serve $3.25.
  • The large Red beans and rice was $3.99 and we shared that for $2 a serve.

In total, lunch was $5.25 a serve.

Dinner

Hot weather makes salads an appealing choice, but the problem is to find a cold salad that is also interesting. Tonight we tried Giada De Laurentiis’ White Bean and Tuna Salad, but made a half serve for the two of us.

Since most of the ingredients are stored at room temperature, we chilled down the can of beans before making the salad. We skipped the basil because Foodie Philip isn’t fond of it.

  • The Yellowfin Tuna in Olive Oil cost $2.29 for the can, or $1.10 per serve
  • The can of beans was 89c or 45c per serve
  • The pack of baby lettuce was $1.99 but we only used half, or 50c per serve
  • The grape tomatoes were 99c per pack and we used half, or 25c per serve
  • Add 20c for the onion and seasonings.

Dinner tonight cost $2.50 per serve. Frankly the salad is a little boring, particularly after the exciting dishes of the last two nights.

Jun 18: Country Deli; Red Curry and Pink Peppercorn Meat Sauce with Rice Noodles

Lunch

As we had to go to Lowes to collect some items for a home project, we decided to have brunch at the Country Deli because it was on the way, and we didn’t have any other plans.

As it turned out, three tips to Lowes and one to Home Depot were on the agenda for today.

The Country Deli runs $19 per serve with tax and tip.

Dinner

Tonight’s meal is a spicy, Peruvian inspired Spaghetti with Bolognese Meat Sauce, except it is about 20x better than the best Bolognese Meat Sauce I’ve ever had. Sorry to my Italian friends.

Having just planted a Pepper tree, we’ll have plenty of pink peppercorn in our future.

The ‘California’ Pepper tree, is really a Peruvian transplant, so a Peruvian recipe featuring pink peppercorns (the fruit of said tree) isn’t that surprising. What is surprising is how good this was.

We found it made three serves in practice, and again we dropped the cilantro. The recipe suggests serving with rice or noodles, so we chose rice noodles!

  • 1lb of Prather Ranch ground pork is $8.86 or $2.95 per serve
  • Limes were $1.56 and about half went into the dish, or 26c per serve
  • The can of coconut milk was $1.99 or 66c per serve
  • Red curry paste is $3.69 a jar and we used 1/4 or 31c per serve
  • The soy adds 42c per serve
  • Add 35c for the toasted coriander, pink peppercorns, rice wine and cornstarch
  • Rice noodles are $3.56 per 14oz box, we used about 1/3 of the box, or 40c per serve.

Dinner tonight was amazingly delicious and cost $5.35 per serve.19

Jun 17: Nearly Niçoise; Rib Eye with Vietnamese Grilled Eggplant Salad

Lunch

Take some leftover potato and green bean salad, add some canned tuna and an egg and it’s almost a salad niçoise.

  • The potato salad is $1.35 a serve
  • An organic egg is 50c
  • The grape tomatoes cost 99c or 50c per serve
  • Canned Yellowfin tuna in oil is $2.29 per can, or $1.15 a serve.

Lunch today cost $3.50 a serve.

Dinner

While Thursday night is traditionally our ‘steak night’ this week it’s Friday and a Rib Eye steak from Prather Ranch was defrosted.

Served with a new salad for us: Vietnamese Grilled Eggplant Salad. The eggplant was grilled on the griddle on our induction cooktop until it was soft, then cut into the salad.

This salad is amazingly good. Would be an excellent meal choice for a vegetarian dinner. Although the steak was excellent – Prather Ranch meat always is – the Grilled Eggplant Salad was the best dish on the plate.

We halved the recipe to suit the two of us, and – since neither of us likes cilantro, substituted lemon balm, mostly because we have a very healthy pot of it, but it worked really well in this recipe.

  • The Prather Ranch Rib Eye was $20.47 for .8lb  or $10.24 per serve
  • Two Japanese eggplants $1.64 or 82c per serve
  • The mint was $1.29 but we only used about 1/3 or 25c per serve
  • The lemon balm was free
  • Add 35c per serve for the sauce ingredients.

Dinner tonight was amazing, and cost $11.66 per serve.

Jun 16: Summer Corn Chowder; Roast Chicken with Potato Salad

Lunch

Although Foodies Greg had some for lunch on Monday, there was still plenty of the Summer Corn Chowder for two lunch serves. We beefed it up with a little pickled red pepper. It did what we expected, and offset the sweetness of the dish. We will go further with the pepper next time.

  • The soup is $1.34 per serve
  • We used less than 1/4 of the $4.99 jar of roast bell peppers (a.k.a. capsicum in Australia) or 63c per serve.

Lunch today cost $1.97 per serve.

Dinner

Time to use the chicken legs – thigh and drumstick – from this week’s supermarket chicken. We served with a German-style potato salad with green beans and a mustard-based dressing and no mayonnaise.

Having no microwave we steamed the potatoes and beans, then used the same steamer to heat the chicken. For the record steaming the two chicken legs took eight minutes in the steamer. It would have taken at least six in the microwave.

  • One quarter of the chicken is $2.50 per serve
  • The beans were 99c which made four portions or 25c per serve
  • The $3.99 ‘Peewee Potato Mix’ from Whole Foods looks adorable and made four portions or $1.00 per serve
  • Add 10c per serve for oil and mustard.

We heaped on some of my brother’s home-made tomato chutney, which was the perfect accompaniment for the chicken. Dinner tonight cost $3.85 per serve.

Jun 15: Supermarket Sushi; Beef Stroganoff

Lunch

Since Whole Foods was on the shopping agenda, lunch sushi came from there. Not surprising, it was more expensive than sushi from Ralph’s (Kroger).

  • Kika Tsunami combo $15.99 or $8.00 per serve
  • Kika Sunomono (cucumber salad) $3.69 or $1.85 per serve.

Lunch today cost $9.85 per serve. The sushi was good, but definitely not twice as good as the Ralph’s supermarket sushi.

Dinner

Every month’s Prather Ranch meat delivery has ‘fajita beef’ included. Tonight we continued the tradition of using it for anything but fajitas!

Beef Stroganoff is a classic dish, so what better recipe to use than Martha Stewart’s? I remember my mother making a huge pot of it for pot luck style dinner parties. The beef broth was dropped to keep the sauce at a thicker consistency.

  • .7lb (just over 11 oz) of fajita beef is $9.79 or $4.90 per serve
  • White mushrooms $1.25 or 63c per serve
  • Other white mushrooms (for variety) $1.99 or $1.00 per serve
  • An onion is 10c per serve
  • The sour cream is $4.99 per pack, but we used about 1/8 or 32c per serve
  • Egg noodles are $1.99 for the pack, but we only used half, or 50c per serve.

Dinner tonight cost $7.45 per serve.