Unit Cost Breakdown

Posted on by Jordan

Heather and I were trying to decide how economical the cooking we did on Sunday was. Fortunately I hadn’t thrown out the receipts yet, so I did a little spreadsheet work.

Let me explain a few details here, some things I had to estimate the price of, because we didn’t use the entire package. The “Mexican Blend Cheese” comes to mind, although I think there were some others. Some things, like the fresh parsley, I just counted the entire cost, because we didn’t save the rest. There is also a question of how much the seasonings for some of these items cost, but I didn’t think that was worth the effort to try and figure out.

(Editors note, I just let Excel generate these tables, and they are really ugly, probably shouldn’t look at the source on this one)

Chicken and
Potatoes
Item: Price:
Boneless Chicken Breast $17.40
B Size Red Potato $3.96
Total Price: $21.36
Servings: 10
Unit Price $2.14

Enchiladas:
Item Price
Whole Grain Total Shells $3.19
Ground Beef $2.05
Cream of Chicken Soup $0.88
Enchilada Sauce $1.20
Mexican Blend Cheese $1.84
Refried Beans $1.32
Total $10.48
Servings: 7
Unit Price $1.50

Lasagna
Item: Price:
Ground Beef $2.05
Ricotta Cheese $2.35
Sliced Mozzarella $4.72
Red Sauce $3.46
Egg $0.08
Parsley $0.99
Noodles $1.75
Parmesan cheese $2.00
Total: $17.40
Servings 12
Unit Price $1.45

The conclusion is, not too shocking, but we do in fact save quite a bit eating stuff we pre-made. The challenge is having enough variety that we don’t feel like we are eating the same thing every day for two weeks 🙂

-Jordan

Bikes And Food!

Posted on by Jordan

I think this blog may be more of a weekend thing for a while, as very little post-worthy happens during the week it seems. On that note, this weekend was rather full:

  • Hit the Old Market farmers market
  • Finally managed to see the Con Agra park in the daylight
  • Bought Bikes
  • Rode ~10 miles on the local trails
  • Cooked something like 44 servings of food
  • baby sat for Heather’s cousin

In the expanded view:

The farmers market, every Saturday for the rest of the summer in Omaha’s old market area, was surprisingly active. I was expecting a bit of a slow start considering there aren’t many vegetables ready to eat yet. As it turns out, there were a lot of people selling green onions, green garlic, asparagus, and hothouse tomatoes. Also there were fresh bread and summer sausage type vendors as well. they easily managed to 100% fill the little quarter-block area setup for the market. Heather and I purchased a few things, most notably some amazing multi grain bread. After some time gawking at the different things in the market, we headed a few blocks over to the park.

ConAgra park was beautiful! Heather and I have had the pleasure of walking through the part of the park that is always open during the twilight / dark part of the evening, but never before have we been there during the day. The fountian isn’t quite as amazing in the daylight, lacking its colored lighting effects, but the park itself is really pleasant. The half of the walkway that is on the ConAgra campus was open, so we got to see that area for the first time as well. We spent quite a while setting on a bench beside the lake, watching the fountain and enjoying a beautiful morning.

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Once we left the park we headed back to the apartment for a quick lunch, and then headed out to Bike Masters, a bike shop recommended by my uncle Bill. They were really helpful, and had Heather and I both riding around the parking lot trying out a few different bikes. Sadly I was so occupied trying out the bikes I forgot to get any pictures, but you will just have to take my word for it. We had a lot of fun with that, and finally settled on a bike that each of us liked. Or rather we each found one that we were happy with, we didn’t get matching bikes. I then discovered that my Escape is kind of small inside, and ended up having to make two trips to haul the bikes home, but the shop was only a few minutes away from our apartment.

After hauling the bikes home, and changing into somewhat more appropriate clothing, we headed out to give our new bikes a try! The “Big Papio Trail” runs within a few blocks of our apartment, so we headed to intersect it. Riding on the trail was wonderful, we rode for miles without even noticing the distance we covered. I checked a map later, and we went out about five miles before we stopped in a little park near Center street. The ride back was slightly uphill, and into a slight breeze, making it somewhat more noticeable. It wasn’t painful though, our pace just wasn’t quite as fast.

Sunday, after church, Bethany came over for lunch. I grilled chicken, and we sort of broiled some sliced red potatoes. Counting what we ate at lunch, and what we froze there were ten servings of that meal. We did a large portion by choice just to replenish our stock of quick lunch items. We have been meaning to do a better job of pre-planning the weeks food, and actually got to it this time. Heather and I made up a shopping list, hit the store, and then proceeded to make a pan of enchiladas, a pan of lasagna (we didn’t bake that until Monday) and a big pot of vegetable soup. Needless to say our freezer is very full right now, but we have a variety of lunch options ready to just grab and go for a few weeks.

Baby sitting was interesting, in part because it came at the end of a rather long weekend, and in part because our charge can now walk. He’s still not what you would consider confident on his legs, but being able to pick what part of the house to be in certainly changed how he interacts with the baby sitters. By 8:30pm we had him all changed and put to bed, by 9:00 pm Heather was out cold on the couch. I put a major dent in my book before we were relieved, and I guess did a good job of keeping an eye on the house while everyone else slept? 🙂

I don’t know if we can fill every weekend quite this full, but I think we did a pretty solid job this time around!

-Jordan

Mishaps With Sharp Things

Posted on by Jordan

This post started out as just talking about a knife from last week, but my slow posting rate mixed with a slip over the weekend has expand today’s topic.

First off, the knife! Heather and I got a lot of really nice things as wedding and shower gifts. One of those things was Pampered chef knives. Well technically, the knives weren’t a gift, the gift money from the shower paid for them… but yeah, close enough.

I should start off by saying I really like the knives in general. They are really nice! Very sharp and the handles are, for the most part, comfortable in my hand. The problem is with the parring knife, the blade is extremely fine, so thin its like having a handle on a cut down razor blade. It’s so sharp it kind of made me nervous to begin with, and for some reason the thin sharp blade seemed hard to maneuver. I was cutting the eyes out of a potato, and really not too happy with the knife, somehow the balance felt wrong, and it was hard to control. Instead of cutting neat circle-plugs around the eyes I kept having the blade gouge out across the potato as I was trying to turn it. I suppose it didn’t help I was a little unnerved by the fact I was so tired I hurt, and I knew how incredibly sharp the knife was.

I did, however manage to finish preparing things to go into the crock-pot that night. I was washing up the parring knife it slipped out of my hand, fell maybe four inches tip first into the steel bottomed sink, and bent the leading 1/8th inch of the blade.  It was a sad moment, I was somewhat glad I hadn’t tried to grab the knife or something… As tired as I was right then my reflexes would have been bad enough to probably make a real mess of my hand trying something like that. On the other hand I was pretty mad at myself for dropping the knife. In hindsight I am kind of annoyed that the knife could destroy itself that easily.

My second great mishap, again came from a shockingly sharp new kitchen implement. I was peeling potatoes Saturday night, and somehow let my left index finger slip up into the path of the peeler. A few seconds prior to that I had been really enjoying how amazingly fast and easily the peeler was going over the potato. I was thinking to myself “wow I guess peeling potatoes isn’t so bad when you have a nice sharp peeler.” Then it took a bite out of my finger!

I now have one of the deepest cuts I have given myself in years, and from a very sharp implement! It managed to cut its way out as I was reflexively pulling away, so there wasn’t any flap of skin, just a bite gone out of my fingertip. Every time I changed band aids it was still bleeding profusely, even 18 hours later.  It did eventually stop bleeding, but it was a really clean, deep cut.

-Jordan

Its Been A Little Over A Week…

Posted on by Jordan

And…

  • Heather and I are home
  • The apartment is 99%  cleaned up
  • We have unpacked and stowed every gift and item that recently entered the apartment.

The process of cleaning up and putting away everything did cause some stress between Heather and I. As much time as we were spending together before the wedding, we somehow never really came to terms with our approach to planning chores. We both just took care of things like cleaning and laundry when we weren’t together.

In the end, it was a great week, and everything that we wanted done got taken care of. The process though… 🙂 I don’t want it to sound like we had huge fights over anything, we just had to figure out priorities and planning styles some. I can’t imagine what it would have been like having to move one of us into the apartment over the weekend, much less moving both of us into a house.

Thank you writing will be a challenge we have to tackle soon, and we are just starting to address how meals get taken care of. Laundry and managing the budget are still in there too… Lets just say we still have things to figure out, but the first week has been really great! Not always easy, but not hard ether, just felt like something that took a little thought and effort.

Speaking of food, one of the many great items we were given was a crock pot. I have all kinds of plans for that puppy, and happened to have stumbled upon some fairly straightforward “quick” recipes for them today. Posting them here so I can find them again:  (All shamelessly stolen from The Simple Dollar)

  1. Combine all of this into a crock pot.
  2. Add salt and pepper to taste.
  3. Turn it on low and walk away for eight hours.
  4. Add a quarter of a cup of water for every additional two hours you intend to cook it.

Creamy Chicken Casserole

1 can condensed cream of chicken soup (chicken & herbs if you can find it)
1 small can mushroom pieces (a 4 ounce can, drain off the water first)
1/2 chopped red onion
1 1/2 pounds skinless, boneless chicken breasts (cut into strips if you’d like)
1/4 cup white wine (optional)

Crock Pot Chili
1 large can tomato sauce
1 pound lean ground beef
2 cans beans (kidney beans are fine, but you can use whatever you like)
2 tablespoons chili powder
1/4 cup diced onion (or onion salt)

Simple Pot Roast
1 2 to 2.5 lb. roast
2 cups chopped carrots
2 cups chopped potatoes
1 cup chopped celery
3 cups beef broth or beef stock

Ham and Potato Casserole
4 red potatoes, sliced
2 red onions, finely chopped
1 1/2 pounds cubed ham
1 can condensed cream of celery soup, diluted according to can directions
2 tablespoons flour

(This one is very good with cheese on top just before you serve it.)

Shredded Beef Sandwiches
2 pounds beef brisket
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 1/2 cups beef broth or beef stock
2 cloves minced garlic
1 chopped red onion

(Serve this on buns – magnificent!)

Breakfast Apple Cobbler
4 medium-sized apples, peeled and sliced (try Honey Crisps)
1/4 cup honey
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 tablespoons melted butter
2 cups granola cereal

I hope to try one or two of these, there are a ton of recipes for slow cookers / crock pots out there, but fast and simple are really good attributes!

-Jordan

Lasagna Update

Posted on by Jordan

I mentioned a day or so back making lasagna, only I ran out of time to actually bake it. Wednesday night, I went to Blair to visit Heather and her Grandmother. Heather had taken the uncooked pan out to Blair the night before, so they baked it for that night.

the recipe is called: “World’s Best Lasagna.” I don’t know if it lived up to that claim, but it was very good. I have also had it twice as re-heated leftovers now, and its still very good. It takes way to long to make, and I don’t know what changes like using a canned sauce would do to the quality of the dish…. It was a  fun thing to try, but the prep time is a little over the top.

Just thought I should follow up on that 🙂

-Jordan

Pumpkin Pie

Posted on by Jordan

This post is a few days late in coming, as Heather and I attempted the pies over the weekend.

As we have been marching ever closer to Thanksgiving, and holidays in general, Heather and I had talked about wanting to try making a pumpkin pie. They seem like they should be fairly low in sugar, and pretty easy to make.

we shopped around a little for recipes, and got the advice “just use the one on the back of the can of pumpkin pie filling” so that’s what we did 🙂

The only problem was it called for a cup of sugar, shattering our hopes of a low-sugar pie. Our solution was to make two pies, one by the recipe, and one using splenda.

as you can see from the picture (click on the picture for a much larger version), the texture and color of the filling was drastically different using the two sweeteners. I know they sell a version of slpenda for baking that has some brown sugar mixed in, and I think this might be a domain where it would help out, darkening the color etc.

we tried the pies the same day we baked them, after letting them cool in the fridge for a few hours. They didn’t taste the same, but neither one tasted clearly better. I saved a slice of the splenda pie to try after 24 more hours, probably should have saved some of each to really compare. My theory is that splenda starts to taste stronger over time. With nothing to compare to, the slice of pie I saved for another day still tasted pretty good, and certainly didn’t leave any of that diet-soda esque aftertaste that splenda sometimes causes. (If you were wondering, the rest of the pies went to work with Heather).

-Jordan

The Day After Veterans Day

Posted on by Jordan

I had yesterday off, and that somehow translated into not getting anything posted.

What did I do with an entire day off?

Put new tires on my escape, and attempted to make lasagna from scratch! Both tasks took much longer than I expected. The end result was that the time from 1:00pm until 7:00 pm that I had 100% free was not sufficient to complete both 😦

I think the lasagna will probably be good, but I ran out of time to actually bake it, after making the sauce and assembling it in the pan. We are going to bake it tonight, so hopefully setting in the fridge over night wont hurt it too much. Alas, no pictures… I was going to shoot a few, but I was distracted worrying about time and never remembered to grab my camera (that was laying on my desk… mere feet away)

I should also mention that getting a Tuesday off really throws off your perception of what day it is… I still cant tell if its Monday or Wednesday.

-Jordan

Chicken, Noodles, and Biscuits

Posted on by Jordan

Oddly enough the fifth of November wasn’t really cold enough to create quite the mood that makes chicken and noodle soup ideal. Heather and I made some last night anyway.

as with every time I have attempted chicken noodle, I completely failed when it came to liquid management. Last time, I used 2 pints of chicken stock and it was too much liquid. This time I only used one pint of stock, and then took an idea from the Betty Crocker cook book, and added two cups of milk with some flour mixed in near the end of cooking. The problem was the noodles took up way too much liquid so it started to dry out and stick as soon as I added them.

I think the first thing I need to do is start measuring everything I put in, using some chicken, some random vegetables, a bag of whatever brand of noodles I grabbed this time isn’t helping any.

because the soup got too dry at the end, the celery never really got cooked, and even the noodles needed longer, but it was turning into a solid instead of soup so I had to stop cooking.

While I was doing that, Heather was working on biscuits:

(picture taken after we took a few off the pan)

She had much more success with the biscuits than I had with the soup, although they both were quite good. I think the only note there is that we could roll the dough out thicker and I think still be fine.

to recap, next time I try this I need to:

  • Measure, and write down how much of everything I used
  • Add the noodles last, after all the vegetables are cooked, or nearly cooked
  • Use the milk and flour to thicken approach again, that was working well before the noodles sucked out all the water
  • Leave myself more time, trying to rush meant we were eating crunchy celery

Now I Just have to remember to check for these posts before I try making something a second time 🙂

-Jordan

Brrrrr

Posted on by Jordan

Walking outside I start to think winter might be getting here soon. I am really not ready for that yet 😦

we might make it to November without snow, but its getting a lot colder all of a sudden.

Heather returned from her loooong trip to KC last night. She brought back all kinds of exciting things! Such as an example of our completed wedding invitations, and a really cool Nebraska Football themed quilt her mom made for me, given as a birthday present. I might get a picture of the quilt up at some point. The invitations you will just have to hope to be on the list to get one in the mail 🙂

I tried a recipe I found for some low-sugar peanut butter cookies yesterday afternoon. Had the dough all ready when Heather came back, and we tried a few fresh out of the oven. Sadly no pictures, but I trust you can all imagine a peanut butter cookie. The verdict? Splenda sweetened baking still tastes a little different than “normal” cookies, but they were really quite good.

-Jordan