On the topic of food . . .
So, for the past few weeks, I've been involved in an on-and-off discussion about groceries, food, classism and other topics on a blog elsewhere. One of the claims that comes up over and over on that blog has been that you might as well go out to dinner, because making dinner for 4 costs $25-$30 in groceries. My mind boggles. I have no idea how making dinner for 4 costs $25 in groceries. Right now, my weekly grocery bill is about $110 and THAT includes wine. Drop the wine, and I could probably drop it to about $70-80/week. Those groceries are: every breakfast of the week, most lunches of the week for C and I (school feeds the kid) and every dinner of the week.
Six weeks ago, I bought a 4lb chuck roast, grass-raised and certified organic, directly from the farmer who raises the cattle, for $18. Now, that's like twice what you'll pay for a 4lb conventionally-raised black angus chuck roast and she kind of guilted me into it. Farmer's market guilt ;)
I got it home, and since I trusted it had only been once-frozen, thawed it just enough to chop it in half. I refroze half (~2lbs), and roasted the other half with as 90 minute on Sunday.
That day, we ate about half the roasted meat, with mashed potatoes (4 potatoes out of a $2.50 5lb bag), green beans (about $2) and salad (seriously, I purchase a head of variety greens for each week and a whole bunch of peppers and onions, each side salad maybe costs $1).
I put the other roasted half in the fridge, and later in the week, I served it sliced thin and reheated over toast/with a roux+sherry sauce, with broccoli (and salad, we eat salad almost every night).
This Saturday, I thawed/roasted the other half I'd frozen, and again roasted it with a 90 minute roast, served with potatoes + carrots that had roasted alongside it (and broccoli!)
Again, we ate about half of the roasted meat. Tonight I came home and chopped up the other half, chopped up two potatoes (heck, we're still working on that 5lb bag of potatoes from above), chopped up some carrots, and tossed them all into enough water to cover with paprika and garlic powder. Let simmer for 25 minutes, while I made baking powder biscuits. Mixed up about a tablespoon of sour cream + two tablespoons flour, poured in some of the broth from the stew, got everything to dissolve, dumped it in. Yum, beef stew and biscuits. With salad ;)
I'm not sure what the cost per meal was here, but I don't think it was $25. And since it all started with the $18 roast which was pretty expensive for my blood, these meals were probably about on the higher end of what I "pay" per meal. And yes, I'm feeding 3, not 4 here. But even with 4, I think I could have done about the same--both the secondary meals had enough leftovers to also serve us for lunch the following day.
But the secret isn't to buy meals, it's to buy food and figure out the best meal-usage to result in the least waste. I know how difficult that can be, and in some ways I'm still learning. But to just out-and-out state that making dinner for under $25 is impossible (especially for an omnivorous middle class family, not living in a food desert--the types of people who were making these claims) is untruthful.
And I'm ranting here, because I am sick of people calling me a liar there.
Six weeks ago, I bought a 4lb chuck roast, grass-raised and certified organic, directly from the farmer who raises the cattle, for $18. Now, that's like twice what you'll pay for a 4lb conventionally-raised black angus chuck roast and she kind of guilted me into it. Farmer's market guilt ;)
I got it home, and since I trusted it had only been once-frozen, thawed it just enough to chop it in half. I refroze half (~2lbs), and roasted the other half with as 90 minute on Sunday.
That day, we ate about half the roasted meat, with mashed potatoes (4 potatoes out of a $2.50 5lb bag), green beans (about $2) and salad (seriously, I purchase a head of variety greens for each week and a whole bunch of peppers and onions, each side salad maybe costs $1).
I put the other roasted half in the fridge, and later in the week, I served it sliced thin and reheated over toast/with a roux+sherry sauce, with broccoli (and salad, we eat salad almost every night).
This Saturday, I thawed/roasted the other half I'd frozen, and again roasted it with a 90 minute roast, served with potatoes + carrots that had roasted alongside it (and broccoli!)
Again, we ate about half of the roasted meat. Tonight I came home and chopped up the other half, chopped up two potatoes (heck, we're still working on that 5lb bag of potatoes from above), chopped up some carrots, and tossed them all into enough water to cover with paprika and garlic powder. Let simmer for 25 minutes, while I made baking powder biscuits. Mixed up about a tablespoon of sour cream + two tablespoons flour, poured in some of the broth from the stew, got everything to dissolve, dumped it in. Yum, beef stew and biscuits. With salad ;)
I'm not sure what the cost per meal was here, but I don't think it was $25. And since it all started with the $18 roast which was pretty expensive for my blood, these meals were probably about on the higher end of what I "pay" per meal. And yes, I'm feeding 3, not 4 here. But even with 4, I think I could have done about the same--both the secondary meals had enough leftovers to also serve us for lunch the following day.
But the secret isn't to buy meals, it's to buy food and figure out the best meal-usage to result in the least waste. I know how difficult that can be, and in some ways I'm still learning. But to just out-and-out state that making dinner for under $25 is impossible (especially for an omnivorous middle class family, not living in a food desert--the types of people who were making these claims) is untruthful.
And I'm ranting here, because I am sick of people calling me a liar there.