The aspect of Project: Food Budget that has been the most revelatory for me is that creating menus really helps with shopping and saving money.
So it’s something I’ve been working on. When I see a dish I think I would like to try, I try to think about what would go well with it (soup? salad? some other type of appetizer?). Then I start a shopping list, and think about other things that I can incorporate into a meal plan with leftovers, and usually in a bit I have a plan for the week.
I’m still practicing, but I’m going in the right direction.
Last night, I made “Chinese” food for dinner — baked spring rolls with dipping sauce, steamed brown rice, and stir-fried Morning Star chik’n strips and broccoli. I used tofu instead of pork in the rolls. Dan ended up really really liking the spring rolls — I didn’t tell him they had cabbage in them — and asked me to try making other versions. Since I have lots of eggroll wraps and cabbage left over, and they aren’t too difficult to make (time consuming, but not difficult), I plan to accommodate his request. I think I’ll add baby shrimp for Dan and add bean sprouts to the cabbage and carrot mix.
Next Sunday, I’m having two other couples over for dinner, and I was completely stymied as to what to make. I solicited Twitter, and got a lot of ideas: baked pasta (which I love, but Dan is very “meh” about), lasagna (which I had toyed with as a plan, but Dan is a total fuss ass about lasagna), roasted chicken and potatoes (the roasted chicken part scares me a little) (okay, a lot).
My favorite idea came from @goob: polenta with blue cheese and beef stew. Obviously, as two of us are vegetarians, I’ll have to think of a good alternative that’s easy. I am leaning toward beef stew (done in the slow cooker), baked polenta, green salad, and creamy mushroom sauce for us vegetarians.
Now I just have to decide if I’m making the Tuscan Beef Stew or Beef and Mushroom Stew for my omnivorous guests. Which one would you pick?
Red Pen Mama 
Roasted chicken is crazy easy. Get a roaster chicken, rub her down with a mix of olive oil and herbs (anything works, really). Then cut a lemon and an onion in half, and stuff them up her crotch, with a lot of garlic cloves. Truss her legs together to keep everything in. Pop her in the oven for a while. I would check a cookbook for roasting time and temp.
And mashed potatoes. With a lot of butter. Yum.
It’s a ridiculously easy meal that seems like it should be a lot more work than it is.
That’s a lot of handling of raw chicken, which I confess I find the grossest thing to touch. Ever. But it sure does look easy. Could we say “it” instead of “her”? 😉
Can I send you one without the little cans of sodium? I have one that’s super easy and doesn’t have canned soup in it. But between the two, I like the second one. Beef and mushrooms are such a natural, lots of umami.
I would love a recipe without the canned soup, actually. that’s my hesitation about the first recipe. Since I’m serving it over polenta, I thought something with a little more of an Italian flavor would be good. I was going to add mushrooms. 🙂
[…] are rolling right along! I wrote on Monday about menus, and I stand by the point I was trying to make. Having a menu leads to having a reliable list, […]
One more idea, instead of roasting a chicken, it’s so easy to just stick the whole chicken in a crock pot and slow cook all day. no need to add anything, but a few carrots if you want, to the bottom of the pot.
It also works in a cast iron dutch oven in a low & slow oven temp at about 250 degrees, if you are home.