Fridge Pasta

Sounds super yummy, right?  I know it doesn't, but I entitled this post as such because I once saw an episode of Jacques Pepin's cooking show where he made something he called "Fridge Soup".  The soup was basically a vehicle to use up leftovers and odds and ends in the fridge - an "everything but the kitchen sink" kind of recipe, if you will.  Last night was my night to clean out the fridge (because today was grocery shopping day).  I had a package of bacon, about a pint of *about to start rotting* tiny Roma tomatoes that we bought at a farmer's market on Saturday, an onion and a 3/4 full package of organic spinach, plus a package of whole wheat spaghetti (that was supposed to be used in the spaghetti and meatballs that got bumped to another night). 

I rendered the entire package of bacon in my large dutch oven and, when the bacon was getting pretty crispy, I poured off all but about a tablespoon of the rendered fat and added the onion, which I thinly sliced.  I let all of that kind of confit together while the pasta cooked and, once that was done, I turned off the heat and added the tomatoes (which I quartered) and the spinach.  I seasoned with salt and pepper and added about a tablespoon of red wine vinegar (just to brighten up the flavors).  I tossed in the pasta, mixed it all together and viola!  Dinner was served....to a less than enthusiastic audience.  No one (under the age of 9) liked the spinach and even I had to admit that the bacon was a little overpowering...not to mention soggy.  Ew.  Now I know why you should always remove bacon once it has rendered and then add it back in later.  Duh.  It will stay crispy that way.  Oh well, this recipe did what I needed it to do - it used up all of my odds and ends in the fridge and it fed my family.  Done.  Not to be repeated in this exact manner, but done. 

Food Budgeting

"Budget" is the equivalent of a four letter word in our house.  Food budgets, in particular...you just go wash your mouth out with soap!  No, really.  I typically don't function on a food budget, but only because my husband and I (we will celebrate our 13th anniversary tomorrow, as a matter of fact) decided a long time ago that we would never, ever fight about spending money on food.  (Don't worry.  There is plenty of other stuff that we each spend money on that we disagree about.  If you know me personally, you know that my husband is a "collector" of "things" that "don't belong in either this hemisphere or in my house".) 

Despite my lack of a true "food budget", I do typically go to the store with savings in mind.  I clip coupons and I try to pay attention to those "daily deals" that the grocery store offers (buy this and get something else I would already have bought for free).  I am also planning to, today as a matter of fact, join a "buying club" that will hopefully allow me to purchase certain items (paper products, organic meats, etc.) in bulk, perhaps saving us a little more money.  I have just been feeling lately that we are spending massive amounts of money on food and I know I am not the only one.  Food prices are going up and as my children grow, so do their appetites.  My oldest daughter eats constantly (or so it would seem) and my son is literally going to eat us out of house and home by the time he is a teenager.  (Also, he eats fruits and vegetables like a fiend - not that I am complaining, mind you.  The girls will at least eat a fair amount of meat, but having a pseudo-vegetarian for a toddler is freaking expensive.)

I decided that the "buying club" place would be a good choice for us, in that I have also gotten pickier about the types of foods that I am willing to buy at the grocery store.  I have been buying organic meats (when I can find them at my local store) and the selection there definitely leaves something to be desired.  I decided that, in any given month, I am going to shoot for 50% of our meals being anchored by a meat dish of some kind and 50% of our meals will be vegetarian (or primarily vegetarian because I can think of a number of recipes right now that are vegetable based, but call for a small amount of pork products of one kind or another....bacon, pancetta, salt pork, etc.).  Planning for approximately 15 meals per month, I feel like I can go to the "buying club" store and purchase a 1/3 red meat, 1/3 chicken breasts and 1/3 chicken thighs with some fish (because my son can eat that now, yay!) thrown in.  (We are doing a shrimp food challenge the day after Memorial Day, so my fingers are crossed that we might be able to eat shrimp again after that.)  We will see if that kind of plan saves us any money, but at the very least, I should be able to find a wider selection of organic meats at this new store. 

So, we remain omnivores and I am unsure how this change will affect my "budget", but regardless, I am going to have to split my grocery shopping loyalties from now on. 

Grocery Store Nirvana

I am not sure I have mentioned this before, but I hate grocery shopping.  (I probably have since it is such a pervasive and all encompassing hatred, truly only surpassed by my hatred for another of my necessary evils: the local crafts store where I must frequently buy physical supplies for my cake business.  *shudder*)  One would think that, based on the amount of time I spend thinking about (that makes me sound like I have a problem), planning, writing about and actually cooking food, I would also enjoy buying it.  I don't.  I think I would rather do most other things than shop for our meals. 

So, today started off a little earlier than I would have liked thanks to my toddler sweetly crooning, "Moooommmmyyyy!" from his crib and I knew that I had my weekly grocery shopping chore ahead of me this morning.  I planned to hit the gym for a yoga class, with the primary goal of getting a good, restorative workout in before I tackled the supermarket on a busy Saturday.  My excellent yoga instructor started the class off by encouraging us to leave the stress of our outside lives, quieting the chatter inside our heads.  (I love that about yoga - that whole "silencing the mind" part is so appealing to me, even if I only do it for an hour a week.)  She went on to instruct us not to worry about our grocery list or what we thought we should be doing with our time...aaaannnnddd I remembered that I still DID have to worry about my grocery list.  Blerg!  I finished the class, enjoying the little bit of me-time that I still had left and, with a much more relaxed mind and body, headed off to the grocery store to do battle with my list and my fellow Saturday shopping warriors.

Rather than sighing heavily upon entering the store, I found myself looking forward to my shopping...just a little bit.  (If you watch "How I Met Your Mother", at one point there was a character that said that sentence repeatedly in some kind of Eastern European accent - "jist a leetle beet".  That's how I just heard that sentence in my head.  I digress.)  As I got my list out and realized that I was shopping by myself, rather than rushing through my list while tussling with an unruly toddler, I kind of slowed down and thought, with a tiny smile, "well, at least there's that."  I found lots of organic produce on sale - always a great thing - and found organic meats were suddenly, magically, available at my store when they had not been previously.  Yes!  I went down the "Healthy Living" aisle and was grabbing some snacks for my older kids when the staff member stocking the section asked me, "have you tried this other product?  I think I have some free samples in the back if you would like to."  Free food that my kids will like?  Uh, yes please!  She came back with four samples, plus some coupons for the other stuff I was buying.  Wow - seriously, I was starting to feel pretty good about this shopping trip.  I continued to make my way through the store (oddly stopping to answer a question from someone in the baking aisle who said I looked like I did a lot of baking...which I do, but still...odd) and continued to find deals and steals (in the case of a new, talking - for real! - epi-pen for my son.  A lovely little coupon allowed me to pay a pittance for the new device.  Yes!) the whole way.  Add to that the fact that the store seemed somehow quieter than usual (probably because I wasn't struggling with my son the whole time and listening to his repeated whines to get out of the cart) and I left that store feeling almost as light as I had when I left yoga.

I don't know what it was that caused everything to fall into place for my shopping trip today.  Maybe it was a brighter attitude for having practiced yoga first thing this morning.  Maybe it was the positive intentions I set for myself at the end of the yoga class.  Maybe it was just a lightening of my spirit after chatting with friends at the gym.  Whatever it was, the universe paid out for me this morning by making one of my most detested chores seem pleasant and I humbly appreciate it.  I am sure my family does as well - they do like to eat.