40$ alla settimana

The title of my post is the same as Cady's blog: '$40 a week', where she posts about how to plan meals so that you can eat good food throughout a week and spend less or equal than $40 a person. Cady is hosting the 'Weekend Cookbook Challenge' this month, and she invites us to try the same experiment.
To be honest, at the beginning I didn't think I would participate to the event. I really don't like meal planning. What I usually do is: I go to the grocery store and buy the most inviting vegetables and fruits I see, and then pasta, rice, and canned goods which are running low in our cabinet, and tofu, eggs, milk, yogurt (and sometimes meat) which we'll need for the week. Then, during the week, Lucas and I alternate and make up a dinner which will have enough leftovers also for lunch, and that's it. I plan meals only if I know I'm going to have guests over, then I buy the ingredients I know I'll want to use for that special meal.
But, in the end, almost every week we spend $80 or less (for the two of us and sometimes this includes some guests), so we're always within that '$40 a week' that Cady is inviting us to try. So I decided I'll do a sort of flash-back post: instead of writing about the plan, and then go grocery shopping and cooking for a week, I'll tell you what we bought last weekend and how we ended up using this week. Hopefully Cady will accept this 'reverse' post!

So here is what we bought at Berkeley Bowl last Sunday, and their price in US$:
pinto beans 1.75
long grain rice 1.32
roasted sunflower seed 1.07
sugar 1.07
organic rolled oats .24
short grain rice 1.46
soy sauce 3.19
organic sweet potatoes 2.13
bakers chocolate 3.25
candles 1.35
flour 1.76
portobella mushrooms 4.60
cucumbers 0.79
chinese eggplants 0.99
yellow corn 1.18
mandarines 1.17
red bell peppers 1.39
avocado 0.99
tofu 2.50
long choy sum 0.80
zucchini 2.21
parseley 0.39
wine grapes 1.59
apples 1.22
fettuccine de cecco 1.89
eggs 2.19
cereal 'heritage' 3.75
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total (- 3 bag bonus, + tax) 46.13

Interesting bill: the most expensive item were the mushrooms (still below $5, they were on sale), as one may expect. Then, the cereal box. I really don't like the fact that they charge so much for morning cereals, as I already expressed in a few posts. So, while in the past I was baking bread and having it with jam for breakfast, I recently decided to make my own cereals. I'll start the experiment next week with the sunflowers seeds and rolled oats I bought, plus sliced almonds, which I'm going to mix with a little cocoa powder.
To this bill, you have to add the stuff we bought in the shop close to our place ('Derby store'), not to have to carry it by foot from the Berkeley Bowl (it's a 20 min walk, which is fine if you don't have also milk and heavy stuff):
1 gallon milk 2.99
sparkling wine 7.99
chips 2.99
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total 13.97
So, real total is $60.10. About $30 per person per week.

Here is what we ate during the week:

Monday
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lunch: leftover from Sunday dinner (wild rice+beans+homini).
dinner: actually went out for dinner. But, after dinner we gave desserts and drinks to 6 people, with the chocolate cake that I described in this post, made with ingredients bought from the previous list + butter and some rum that I already had. The wine was the one mentioned above, bought at 'Derby store'.

Tuesday
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lunch: still leftovers from Sunday (there was a lot of the rice and bean soup)
dinner: Lucas made a delicious pasta with whole wheat tagliatelle (we had a packet open at home) plus some of the peppers and zucchini we bought and some onions we already had at home. Too bad I didn't take a picture of it, it was the most delicious pasta I had in a while. We grated some of the parmigiano cheese that my mom gave us from Italy and that was a meal.

Wednesday
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lunch: leftovers from Tue dinner
dinner: I made a Tofu/eggplant/long choy stir fry with rice. I'll give the recipe for this below.

Thursday
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lunch: leftovers from Wed dinner
dinner: leftovers from Wed dinner (there was a lot of the stir-fry too) plus a cucumber salad and some cheese and crackers we still had in the fridge from Italy

Friday
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lunch: provided for both Lucas and Marta at two different meetings
dinner: tagliatelle ai funghi / mushroom tagliatelle (see recipe here). We had our friend Sonya over, too.

Saturday
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lunch: tagliatelle leftovers
dinner: we were invited at Yusra's. I brought a dessert made with apples, pomegranade (left from last week grocery) and amaretti (we had it at home) - I'll probably post the recipe in a future post

Sunday
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lunch: a few more tagliatelle leftovers (could have made a frittata but I was lazy), plus some of the delicious rice that Yusra let me bring back.
dinner: guacamole and chips as appetizer (made with ingredients from lists above), and pinto beans, mashed sweet potatoes, corn on the cob (see lists above) and a tiny piece of chicken we still had in the freezer (a thigh), cooked with the rest of the peppers that Lucas didn't use on Tuesday. This will be enough also for tomorrow lunch and we'll have some more cooked beans to make something else.

All the breakfasts involved milk, cereals and apples or grapes. Snacks included the mandarins and some oranges we still had in the fridge from last week.

So, basically, we still have some zucchini, parseley, a lot of rice and pinto beans, and a lot of eggs and chocolate, which will go for some of next week meals, and should balance out the fact that we used some pasta, onions, cream and butter bought in some past weeks.
Also, as you can see, some of our meals were given by either our work or friends, and one was bought at a restaurant. But on the other hand, we also had people over and brought stuff at dinners. So, all balanced, I think we still are within the $40 a week required. This happens almost all weeks for us (some weeks we spend less, like in the present case, some weeks more because we also buy olive oil, or vinegar, or some other staples). I'd say the most important things that factor in this 'achievement' are:
- buy a lot of fruit and vegetables that are in season
- keep an eye on things on sale
- eat what we prepare most of the time
- not buy a lot of meat, or pay attention to the type of meat you buy
These things altogether are not only good for your wallet, but for your health as well. Also, cooking is for me a lot of fun, and having people over and going to other friends for dinner is an essential part of our life.

Ok, so in order to give a recipe specific for this event, here is the dish I made on Wed dinner.

Tofu con melanzane cinesi e long choy in fiore / Tofu with chinese eggplant and blooming long choy
This is one of our standard week-night-stir-fry. This week, the ingredients were Asian-inspired, simply because the Chinese eggplant and the Long choy looked really good at the Berkeley Bowl. Here is how they look like, in case you don't know what they are:
Chinese Eggplant









Long Choy - I must admit, I bought it because the one they had was blooming and so pretty! So we had also some yellow flowers in our stir-fry :)








To make the dish, heat ~2 tbsp olive oil in a large pan. Cut 1 lb of tofu in small pieces and fry in the oil for a few minutes on high heat. In the meanwhile, cut the Chinese eggplant in small pieces, and add to the tofu. Cook on high heat for ~ five minutes, then add ~1 tbsp soy sauce, and ~1 tbsp vinegar. Cover and cook for another 10 minutes. In the meanwhile, cut the long choy. Add the pieces to the pan, some salt, cook for another few minutes without lid, then add 2 tbsp light sour cream (and if you're lucky, you can use an onion-flavored version such as the one Lucas made as a dip some time before this dinner), let it melt and coat the veggies and tofu, adjust salt and pepper, and serve over hot steamed/boiled rice. Simple, quick and very good!

L'importante e' variare

For some reasons, I've been receiving "Newsweek" in the mail box at my name for the past two months. Not sure how it happened, or how long it will continue, but so far, I kind of like it :). I like to read about the main news of the week, they always have reports that seem to be quite balanced. Moreover, they often have more "society/health" related things, which are interesting too. In their last number, they have a long article that I didn't completely read yet, about science and the media talking about food. They show how confusing it is for people to understand what's "good" or "bad", if they want to follow the suggestions that scientific studies find and media report. Basically, in the course of the past ten years, it's been said every possible opinion about every class of food: eat more carbs than fats, then the opposite, fish is good, but then, it's also full of mercury, eggs have too much colesterol, but at the same time, one egg per day is supposed to be good according to some other studies.. recently, on NPR I heard an expert discussing how soy products are bad for you - so, forget about proteins taken from something different than meat..
In summary: just a crazy mess. In my opinion.. everything is good if you eat a little bit of everything. Obviously, I have some favorite ingredients, but maybe it's more a cultural thing than anything else. At least one of these ingredients: olive oil, garlic, onions, tomatoes (and recently, yogurt) is basically always present in my dishes.
For the rest, I try to vary. Also, I try to make both me and Lucas happy.. he seems to need more meat and proteins than I do, so I make meat at least twice per week, and then we alternate that with fish, eggs, pasta, seitan, tofu, cous cous and so on.
So, I collected a few pictures from last week dinners.

Zuppa di tofu con contorno di insalata di erbe al vapore / Tofu soup with steamed creasy greens on a side
The recipe is quite simple (this was for a night were we weren't too hungry): bring some water to boil, dissolve a vegetable bouillon in it, add the tofu cut in cubes, some spinach, seasonings (olive oil, salt, pepper, curry if you want it more indian-like) to taste. Serve with some rice or cous cous. If you want it richer, add an egg or two in the soup and scramble with a spoon. It will give a nice thicker consistency to it and it will make it more chinese-style.
For the side dish: I bought these 'creasy greens' that I had no idea what they were. I looked for them on the web, and found out that they're very popular in the South, and apparently really easy to grow..and I agree, they're really good! I just steamed them and tossed them with some olive oil, salt and lemon juice. They tasted very nice, kind of like collard greens but less strong. :)

Pollo e patate al forno / Baked chicken and potatoes
This dish is really easy and Lucas likes it a lot - me too.. :) It also reminds me of an old Italian song that my dad used to song, so it makes me happy to remember about it. :) (The song is really silly.. spaghetti, pollo, patatine, una tazzina di caffe'.. a malapena riesco a mandar giu'.. :) ).
I think you can easily guess how to make it, but just a few details: I like to make the potatoes in a different pan than the chicken, so they don't get greasy, but I guess if you don't care you could, so they would taste more like chicken. I just toss them with olive oil, salt, garlic powder and oregano or rosmary. Also, if you put salt and rosemary or oregano on the chicken before putting it in the oven, it takes a nice taste. It does take a while to cook this dish, but you don't need to take too much care of it. Basically, you flip the chicken legs and you mix up the potatoes every 20 minutes - it usually takes 2-3 flips before the chicken is done.. for the potatoes, it depends on how big you cut the pieces.

Uova all'occhio di bue con fagioli e sedano/ Sunny-side-up eggs with beans and celery
Isn't this dish pretty? :) I like to make colorful dishes. :) It's also very easy... and it made me happy that I could make a good egg dish different from frittata (my typical way of using eggs, I'll talk about it another time). Eggs were always related in my mind to those evenings when we didn't have anything else in the fridge, and my mom made them with some ham that wasn't good enough anymore to eat by itself (not to criticize her, it was actually a good idea :) ). This dish, though, was quite good and merry - and as easy to make. :) Basically, I sauteed some onions and pieces of celery in olive oil, added canned tomatoes and canned mixed beans, spiced it with salt and pepper. After the sauce was thickened a bit, I broke the eggs in it and covered. The only difficulty of this dish is to get the timing right for the eggs. In fact, if you do, you'll get a wonderful crispy white and a tasty liquid yolk, that spills out as soon as you hit it with a piece of bread to eat it.. But if you overcook it, the yolk becomes solid, and if you undercook it, the white is slimy (better the first than the second one). To get it right, you need to help the white cook fast enough.. since the part that doesn't touch the pan and is on top of the red tends not to cook.. so you'd better pour some hot olive oil or sauce on top of it, so it gets cook by the heat of it. But other than that, the egg 'all'occhio di bue' (look for 'occhio' and 'bue' on wordreference.com to understand how we call the sunny-side-up egg!) is easy, quick and good! If you like, you can add some cheese on top of it before removing it from the pan (in the picture, you can see some melted cheddar cheese).
And if you don't use all the bean and celery sauce, you can use it the day after for a good pasta dish! Just dilute it with yogurt and spice it up with a little curry or curcuma or something similar.


Pesce al forno con barbabietole e kale/ Baked mackarel with beets and kale
Usually I make fish in a pan, but today I wanted to try to bake it. I just made a bed of greens, cut some beets and put the makarel on top of it, with some garlic, salt, olive oil, and white wine. You can see the picture of the preparation above (I didn't take a good picture of the cooked dish :( ). I cooked it for about 40 minutes at 350F, flipping the fish once. The result was good, I especially liked the taste and consistency of the fish better than when I cooked it in a pan. The greens were a bit too crispy, though, in particular those that were on top. Next time I'll try to cook it in a smaller pan, so that the greens are completely covered with the fish fillets and are not exposed to the direct heat of the oven. I served it with whole basmati rice.

Una cena 'wrap'

A few days ago I decided that my next dinner would have been a 'wrap-dinner'.. The idea was that I would put a lot of different things on the table, some tortillas, and everyone would make his own wraps. Then, I thought that I could not only make the different fillings, but.. the tortillas themselves!
So, I looked online at various recipes. There are a lot. I ended up choosing the recipe from epicurious.com for the basic dough. Then, I decided I also wanted to make some spinach wraps, so I looked for a recipe of spinach tortillas.. and I found this one. Go look at it.. the idea of making bicolor spinach/beets tortillas obviously attracted me and I decided to try.

So, Saturday morning I dedicated about two hours making multicolored tortillas. The white ones are actually very easy, once you get confortable with it. You can easily do the doses by eye, in the end: just put some flour (I tried with both white and whole weat flour), and add some salted warm water to it until the dough has a nice workable consistency. In the original recipe, they add some shortening to the flour.. In the first batch, I added olive oil instead, and then I decided to just go without any fat, and they seemed to be quite good. With olive oil, they also had a nice taste, but a bit too 'aggressive'.
For the colored ones.. at first I tried to make the green dough, with spinach. These are not too difficult, but they require a bit more patience because you have to incorporate the flour to the spinach slowly, until the dough has the right consistency. I made some tortillas just with the spinach, and they were really good. So I tried to make the red ones. These were the most difficult ones, basically because I didn't have the right tool to puree the beets. So, the beets were just finely chopped, and the little pieces remaining in the dough were difficult to work with. They also made the dough a bit too moist, and more difficult to roll. I tried to cook some red tortillas, and they were good, but the beets were hard to taste. So I went for the bicolor-spiral ones, according to the recipe cited above. Obviously, the red dough being so annoying, I couldn't really get nice spirals as they show in the pictures of the website.. So, they were just bicolor. Not too bad, though, being this my first trial, I decided.

In the afternoon, I prepared the fillings. I made
- beef: cut into small pieces, sauteed in some olive oil, then cooked in some yogurt, red wine, honey, rosmary and sage, for a long time (about one hour). It was really really good.
- chicken: similar to the beef, but with white wine and no honey and rosmary and sage. Quite good too.
- seitan: sauteed with onions, cooked with corn and little pieces of sage.
- black beans (from a can): sauteed in olive oil with some onion, then slowly cooked for a long time in their own sauce and some maple syrup.
- green bell peppers: sauteed with onions in olive oil, then cooked with some nutmeg.

For appetizer, I prepared a salad with cabbage, olives, oranges, fresh mozzarella (ciliegini), carrots (cut in small round pieces), avocados, seasoned with olive oil and salt. Also, I prepared some mini-wraps: I took some of the bicolor tortillas, spread some mayonnaise on them, put some slices of Salame di Genova, slices of mozzarella, then I rolled it tightly, making like a 'cigar', and then I cut the rolls into small pieces, that I held together with some nice colored toothpicks. So, they were bite-size mini rolls.. They were finished quite soon. :)

I served all the tortillas and the fillings together, with also some steamed rice and some salsa (salsa=pezzettini di pomodoro, peperoncini piccanti e altre spezie, per gli Americani. :) E' usata appunto per tortillas/burritos, o per pucciarci dentro delle patatine di mais).

I think it was a lot of fun. I decided that in the future I want to have some more of these 'interactive' dinnners, where people have to put together the things by themselves. It's a little bit like making them cook, and maybe some of them will be interested and will try themselves with some variations once they're at home..

Unfortunately, the batteries of my camera decided to stop working right after I took the picture of the wine that we had for dinner.. so I don't have pictures of my wonderful mini-wraps, or of the stack of tortillas that I prepared, or of all the fillings on the table.. :(

Well, here is the wine at least :)
It was really good - a Portoguese wine brought by Filipe and Vlasta.

The day after, we had a few leftovers, so I have a picture here of an example of a possible wrap made with them.. but the wrap is one of the commercial ones that we had in the fridge.. no homemade tortillas were left. :) (also the beef was quickly finished, so you can't see it in this wrap). The commercial ones taste really bad, now that we tried the real ones. :)
Per i miei lettori Italiani: considerate la possibilita' di prepararvi questi wraps... sono molto buoni, e in Italia non ero mai riuscita a trovare le tortillas, per cui non avevo mai potuto fare tutti questi piatti buonissimi tipo fajitas.. non sono difficili, in realta', soprattutto se non ci si avventura in quelli con le barbabietole.. :)

Uno dei molteplici usi del Seitan

I once made a very simple soup for a friend of mine, and she was surprised about how good and simple it was.. so, I decided I will just post here and there some super easy and quick recipes - nothing special, but maybe if you don't think about it, you don't know how to make it.

This is a version of soup similar to the one that my friend liked. Basically, the idea is that you boil some water, put some vegetables into it, depending on what you have in the fridge/freezer, add some spices and then, the important point is to add something nutritious into it.
Last night I used Seitan.

Credo che i miei lettori Italiani non sappiano bene cos'e' il Seitan.. e' un sostituto della carne, fatto di glutine, che qui vendono a pezzi immerso in acqua. L'ho scoperto grazie al nostro amico Portoghese, e da allora ho provato a prepararlo in molti modi. Daro' altri suggerimenti in futuro.
Una zuppa e' un possibile uso.

In last night's soup, there was also pasta (a mixture of shells,
conchiglie, and pieces of lasagne), and hot paprika, and some basil leaves. It turned out quite good and it was perfect for my sorethroat. We also added some pieces of Asiago cheese, which was really nice.



To give more taste to the soup, one can add some Vegetable bouillon (dado vegetale), or before adding the water, stir fry some onion and add some canned tomoatoes.