cooked: monday

Now that Jeff and I are both students we have been trying to find ways to save money on a day-to-day basis. One of the ways that we've been savings lots is by planning our meals in advance and trying to only hit the grocery store once or twice a week. We're definitely not the first to do this, I think my friend Marigold has been up to it for years, as I can remember seeing meal plans and grocery lists on her kitchen blackboard when we were still in undergrad together...back when we went to the grocery store once a day (more when we forgot things due to a lack of a list). I can't tell you what a big difference this relatively simple change has made for us. Way less food spoils in our fridge, we are saving lots of money, we are eating healthier foods and only occasionally go out for dinner. Skipping restaurant meals has not been a big deal as a) the food we make is awesome, b) we are both committed to cooking at home, and c) we need tasty leftovers for the next day's lunch.

I thought that this week I would take you along on a day-by-day representation of what we're cooking, Monday-Thursday. Sundays are a guilty pleasure movie club potluck and Friday and Saturday can be a real jumble of activities and fun times. When we eat at home on weekends it's usually to finish off some leftovers.

This week's grocery shop was pretty minor. We've gone from $40/trip and about 4-5 trips a week in grocery spending (so, $160-200/week) to way under $100/week. Of course, the first couple of times were more expensive, as we had to stock up on some staples that we'd run out of, but now those staples fit right in with the rest of our groceries and we're down to about $60/week. That's huge! You'll notice that we're also vegetarian, which I really think saves us money and well, it's just who we are at this point. It's been 17 years for me and maybe a couple of more for Jeff. We don't even think about it anymore.

Here's a little tableau of the groceries that I bought for this week. The total was just short of $58 CDN. It was really inspired by the photos for What People Eat Around the World, if you haven't already seen these images, you must look at them right now! Which one do you think looks most delicious?

Monday's dinner was bok choy and country-style soft tofu with brown rice from one of my favourite cookbooks, Moosewood Restaurant Cooking for Health. Here's a .pdf of the recipe which I scanned for you, should you wish to give it a whirl. It's easy and I enjoyed cooking tofu in a whole new way.