Oct 1: Chicken and Tomato Baguette; Beef Stir Fry

Lunch

A beautiful sunny day and a trip to Jon’s gave us one of their great roast chicken, a fresh baguette and some heirloom tomatoes. Add a little mayo and it’s a great meal. Simple, but when everything that goes into it is good, the result is always good.

  • The BBQ chicken is $6.99 or 88c per serve
  • The baguette is $2.79 but we used half for lunch, or 70c
  • Two tomatoes were $1.30 but we used only one, or 33c per serve.

Lunch today was very enjoyable and $1.91 per serve.

Dinner

Our Prather Ranch delivery always seems to include “beef for fajita” and we generally end up doing a stir fry. After having good success with the Foster Farms salad kits, we thought we’d try their ginger and garlic stir fry kit.

A big disappointment. It lacked flavor and the vegetables includes were such an eclectic mix there was no cohesion in the resulting meal. Including sliced, but not cooked, brussel sprouts was a fail because Foodie Philip hates them. All in all, a total fail. At least the beef was good!

  • The stir fry kit was, thankfully, only $1.79 or 90c per serve
  • The beef is $13.99 or $7.00 per serve.

Dinner tonight was, as I said, disappointing for $7.90 per serve.

September 2017 Summary and Observations

September is historically a travel month. IBC in Amsterdam is an essential stop in our business year, and we often head off on side trips to visit clients and do a little sight seeing. Therefore the absolute amounts we spent on food are a lot higher than when we spend most of the month at home.

The averages for this month:

  • Lunch prepared at home $2.47 ($2.72 in August)
  • Lunch eaten or purchased outside the home: $9.39 ($11.80)
  • Dinner eaten at home: $7.28 ($4.98)
  • Dinner eaten out: $15.05 if averaged with the $5 pizza, otherwise $16.72 ($19.48)

The averages are fairly consistent with previous months. With a variety of lunch and evening meals out, they balance out in the averages.

Our most expensive meals were paid for by someone else (thank you LumaForge and Ronny Courtens), but of those we paid for ourselves Eatcafe Koevoel was one of the two best. The other is Riva (hosted by LumaForge). These were two very different, but excellent meals.

Our favorite restaurant in Amsterdam is Dos, our local near where we stay in Jordaan.

Lunches out tend to be 4-5 times more expensive than those prepared at home, while evening meals run about 2.5 x meals at home, because this month we had two of the most expensive meals we’ve prepared at home: the filet mignon on the 30th.

Had we purchased every lunch and prepared none it would have cost us $281.70 per person in August. We actually spent $22.23 for lunches at home (because of the travel) plus $169.09 for lunches purchased or eaten out: $191.32.

Had we purchased every evening meal out and prepared none at home, it would have cost us $451.50. We actually spent $123.68 for dinners at home and $105.33 for dinners out: $229.01.

We saved $377.92 by preparing and eating most meals at home, plus we have better control over what we eat.

Over the month we prepared 12 different recipes for evening meals, because we ate out more in Amsterdam.

Sep 30: Supermarket Sushi; Filet Mignon with Melting Sweet Potatoes and Arugula Cherry Tomato Salad

Lunch

As we haven’t had it for a while, some sushi seemed like a good idea, and Whole Foods has our favorites. At $11.49 per serve it’s not the cheapest sushi in Los Angeles!

Dinner

We received a pair of filet mignon in our Prather Ranch meat box, and decided to pair them with an arugula and cherry tomato salad with a balsamic dressing and sprinted with feta.

We expected the Melting Sweet Potatoes to be good, and in fairness there’s nothing wrong with the recipe, but the sweet potatoes from Whole Foods were just mealy and ultimately not at all edible.

The filet was more flavorsome than most, probably because it is dry aged.

  • The filet averages out to $14.50 for an 8oz serve
  • The cherry tomatoes were $2.99 and we used half or 75c per serve
  • Arugula adds another 20c per serve
  • The sprinkling of feta adds 15c per serve
  • Balsamic dressing adds 20c per serve
  • The purple sweet potato were $2.79 or $1.40 per serve and were the worst part of the meal, mostly thrown out.

Dinner tonight cost $17.20 per serve, almost certainly our most expensive at home meal, but most of the meal was pretty good, and the steak worth it. (There were two smaller pieces per serve, double what’s in the photo, but one photographed better).

Sep 29: Bahn Mi; Smoked Salmon Cobb Salad

Lunch

During a shopping trip, bahn mi were purchased for enjoyment at lunch. An excellent bahn mi, although a little pricy at $8.50 each with tax and tip. In fairness, it’s a big serving.

Dinner

We’ve eaten very well during September and one of the meals from earlier in the month was worth repeating: smoked salmon cobb salad.

This was still an excellent salad.

  • Smoked salmon $5.99 for the 4oz pack or $3.00 a serve
  • A pastured egg is 50c (only on special)
  • Bacon end pieces were $3.99 and we used less than 1/4 or 50c per serve
  • The cherry tomatoes were $3.49 and we used about half, or 75c per serve
  • Add 20c for shredded arugula.
  • The avocado was $1.49 or 75c per serve
  • The feta in brine was $6.50 and 1/4 went into dinner, or 41c per serve.

This is a great variation on a Cobb, and the feta was the right choice. A great mixture of salty, fresh, creamy and egg for $6.11 per serve.

Sep 28: Apple & Cheddar, Corned Beef and Labné; Rib Eye with Endive and Rocomoule

Lunch

Today’s sandwiches were a mix of village bread (corned beef) and toasted rye for the cheddar and apple. We melted the cheddar and it mixed with the apple much better.  The sandwiches were split and shared.

  • The bread is $2.99 for the loaf of 12 slices, or 25c per serve
  • The rye is 20c per serve
  • The corned beef was $14.99 for 1.2 lb, and we used about 2 oz in this sandwich, or 79c per serve
  • The cheddar is $3.99 a block and we used 1/3 or 67c per serve
  • The apple was 96c and we used 1/2, or 48c per serve
  • Add 25c for spicy labné and mustard aioli.

Today’s sandwiches were returning favorites for a good reason: they’re great and just $2.44 per serve.

Dinner

Thursday night is traditionally our steak (or other meat focus) night and tonight we grilled a rib eye. Greg was inspired by the blue cheese and endive we had at Dos, but used Nigella Lawson’s rocomoule recipe: avocado and blue cheese. Tonight we went with a creamy blue castello and two ripe avocados.

It was very good. The rocomoule is amazing and the bitter endive is a perfect balance.

  • The dry aged rib eye was $20.24 or $10.12 per serve
  • The cheese was $4.10 or $2.05 per serve
  • Endive was $2.49 or $1.25 per serve
  • Four avocados were $5.49 and we used two, or $1.37 per serve
  • The pomegranate adds 20c per serve.

Definitely not a cheap meal at $14.99 (possibly our most expensive at home meal since we started this blog) but a very tasty one. The steak was fully flavored and cooked blue (as we like it) and the rocomoule and endive as a perfectly balanced accompaniment.

Sep 26: Apple & Cheddar/Corned Beef and Spicy Labné Sandwiches; Thai

Lunch

More sandwich combinations on village bread (a dense grain bread we enjoyed a lot in Amsterdam). Today apple and caramelized onion cheddar, and a repeat of the corned beef and spicy labné sandwiches. The sandwiches were split and shared.

  • The bread is $2.99 for the loaf of 12 slices, or 50c per serve
  • The corned beef was $14.99 for 1.2 lb, and we used about 2 oz in this sandwich, or 79c per serve
  • The cheddar is $3.99 a block and we used 1/3 or 67c per serve
  • The apple was 96c and we used 2/3, or 32c per serve
  • Add 25c for spicy labné and mustard aioli.

Today’s sandwiches were returning favorites for a good reason: they’re great and just $2.53 per serve.

Dinner

A friend invited us out for Thai food  at Krua Thai and paid for the meal. We enjoyed Tom Ka Gai, eggplant with ground pork, stuffed chicken wings, and duck on rice. All were great.

Sep 24: Corned Beef Sandwich; Perfect Pot Roast

Lunch

Now that we’re home from traveling, it’s back to making our own lunch. Today we went simple and did corned beef and spicy labné on village (dense) bread.

  • Two slices of bread are 39c
  • The corned beef was $4.99 for 8 oz, and we used about 2 oz in each sandwich, or $1.25 per serve
  • Add 25c for spicy labné.

Lunch today was $1.89 per sandwich.

Dinner

As we had a chuck roast, the obvious meal is a pot roast. Slow cooked until tender, the perfect pot roast recipe has a lot of flavor, particularly when you ramp up the amount of mushroom in the recipe.

Unlike Pioneer Woman, we cook the potatoes in the flavorsome liquid.

  • The roast was $21.41 or $5.35 per serve
  • Onions are 20c per serve
  • The carrots were 69c or 18c per serve
  • One cup of red wine is around $1.33 or 33c a serve
  • Two cups of broth is half a $1.99 carton or 50c per serve
  • The mushrooms were $1.99 or 50c a serve
  • The Rosemary came from our own plant
  • Add another 15c for oil, seasoning and Thyme
  • Add 25c for potatoes.

Dinner tonight cost $7.06 for a hearty, warming meal.

Sep 23: Airport and Airline Food; Thai Shrimp Gyoza in Organic Chicken Broth

Lunch

Before heading to the aircraft for our trip home from Amsterdam, we stopped for a ham and cheese croissant. Approximately $7.15 per serve! Well, it was an airport.

We had two “other lunches” on board the flight home. Some decent chicken stew with rice, coleslaw and the world’s sweetest profiteroles, and our other meal was the most boring piece of “pizza” ever served. Fortunately we didn’t pay directly for these meals.

Dinner

We were back home for dinner and not wanting anything too heavy, so Foodie Greg picked up some Thai Shrimp Gyoza and organic chicken broth from Trader Joe’s.

Heat the gyoza in the chicken broth with some bok choy and a nutritious and tasty meal was on the table quite quickly. The gyoza were quite lightly flavored but tasty and with good texture.

  • The gyoza were $4.99 and we will get three meals, or $1.67 per serve
  • The chicken broth was $1.99 but we used half, or 33c per serve
  • The bok choy was $1.99 or 33c per serve.

Dinner tonight was quick, tasty and nutritious for $2.33 per serve.