Potatoes Anna

This five-ingredient potato dish turned out quite well.  I got it from What Einstein Told His Cook, but I had to change a couple things.

First, clarify some butter.  I did this the day before.  I only clarified a half pound.  Just toss some butter sticks in a pot on the lowest possible stove setting.  When it is all melted, spoon off the top foam (and keep it as a flavorer for popcorn or potatoes), then pour the center clarified butter into a storage container.  On the bottom will be some white milk solids, and I don't know what they're good for.  It may be easier to separate the layers if they are cooled and solidified, but I didn't do that.  The reason to clarify butter is that it raises the smoking point by about a hundred degrees F, so you can cook things in butter at higher temperatures without burning it.  It also removes a lot of lactose, which you care about if you're lactose-intolerant.

2 lbs white potatoes (Yukon golds, whatever)- ~$1.20
4 Tbsp melted clarified butter - ~$0.35
salt, pepper, garlic powder - $0.05

Slice the potatoes into 1/8" slices (just eyeball it or use a machine).  Preheat your oven to 450 F. Use about a third of the butter to coat the bottom of a cast iron skillet. Put down potato slices in concentric rings or a spiral in the skillet, slightly overlapping or not.  Brush with butter, then sprinkle with salt, pepper and garlic powder.  Repeat layers of potato/butter/seasoning until you are out of potato.  Pour on any remaining butter.

Turn a stove burner up to medium.  When you hear sizzling, turn off the burner and put the skillet in the oven.  Cooking time will vary.  Mine took about 70 minutes.  The potatoes will be golden on top, and make sure to use a spatula to check that the bottom later is crispy and brown.

Ideally, you're supposed to be able to flip the whole thing onto a plate.  I don't have a plate that big, and it was not a big deal to cut into slices, spatula out, and flip the slices over onto plates.

This is a great side dish for six for about $1.60 and 1000 calories, or about $0.27 and 170 calories per person.  Very tasty.  Do NOT put ketchup on this.  It's great how it is, which is covered in butter.

The original recipe called for 4 medium potatoes in an 8" skillet for 30-35 minutes, but I used 4 enormous potatoes in a 12" skillet, and mine took twice as long.  The original also said to have the lid on, but this trapped so much steam from the potatoes that dripped back down that they were getting a little mushy instead of crispy, so I took the lid off.

Homemade Yogurt

I've mentioned that I eat Dannon Light & Fit yogurt pretty often, and I buy it only when it's on sale at $0.50/6oz. I came across instructions for making yogurt in a slow-cooker (one of my favorite appliances) and figured I'd try my hand at it.  It was remarkably easy.  I used a three-ply aluminum core stainless steel pot to speed things up, but you'll want something that holds on to heat well, not a cheap thin pot.  I found other information online (Wikipedia) to corroborate and refine the technique.  You will need a decent thermometer.

1 qt of milk at ~$4/gal = ~$1
1 Tbsp yogurt

Heat the milk to 180 F and maintain that temperature for 10-30 minutes.  A longer time should result in a thicker yogurt as the heating process makes the proteins play nicely with each other.  Let the milk cool to about 115 F, then whisk in 1 Tbsp of yogurt. The goal is to integrate the yogurt "starter" at 113 F, but adding it in will reduce the overall temperature of the mixture.  So, if you're adding cold yogurt, maybe do it when the milk is at 117 F, but room-temperature yogurt can be added at 115 F.  I don't remember enough from physics to figure it out exactly.  There are 64 Tbsps in a qt.  Ideally, you will hold the temperature at 100-110 F for the next four hours.  I just put the lid on my pot, wrapped it in a towel and put it in my oven.  Every couple hours I turned the oven on low (170 F) for twenty seconds.  Since I wasn't maintaining the right temperature, I left the pot in for six hours, and some people leave it for 8-10 hours.  Then I moved the pot to the fridge.

The yogurt was quite tasty.  I had a bowl for breakfast with Grape Nuts cereal and honey.  The yogurt will be thicker at the top, and will be much thinner and less sweet than grocery store yogurt overall because most American commercial yogurts add starches, sugars, and gelatin that thicken, preserve and sweeten it.  This picture was taken after half the yogurt was eaten.  You may see the difference in thickness between the glob of top-yogurt and the surrounding bottom-yogurt.

There are many things you can do with yogurt besides stirring in some honey or fruit jam.  It can be used in dips, sauces, and in some drinks and entrees.  I will try to find some good dishes to make.

Save a bit of the yogurt you make to be the starter for your next batch.  You can make as much as you want in a batch, but keep the 1:64 ratio of starter to milk.  The milk turns to yogurt as the bacteria from the starter eat lactose and poop lactic acid, which brings the milk proteins together.  The acidity helps protect the yogurt from unwanted bacteria.  The yogurt should keep well in your fridge for about 10 days.

Depending on what yogurt and milk you buy and what your price thresholds are, making your own could cut your yogurt expenditures to 1/2-1/6.

Food Stamp Nudges

Back when food stamps actually were stamps (they may still be in some places, but there has been a change to magnetic strip cards), I had an idea for a possible nudge.  I had read that there was a problem with people using too much of their allotment at the beginning of each month, then running short of food at the end of each month.  I thought that if the stamps were printed in four different colors, people would be subtly encouraged to spend them proportionally by week, with more stamps of one color for the extra days at the end of months over 28 days.  Of course, this wouldn't be applicable to cards.

Another problem with buying most groceries at the beginning of the month is that fresh produce and meats would spoil before the later part of the month.  The food stamp program, as implemented, encouraged people to buy processed foods that would last longer.  This is nutritionally sub-optimal, contributing to health problems that already plague the American poor.

Now, Western Massachusetts is doing an experiment to see if offering a 30% discount on fresh produce will encourage food stamp users to buy more healthy food.  That may be a substantial incentive, but it does not overcome the challenges of impulsivity and spoilage.  This plan may also have negative unintended consequences, as we already have evidence that making healthy food cheaper just encourages food stamp users to use the savings to buy more junk food, increasing caloric intake and not improving nutrition.  If this experiment reproduces the earlier findings that cheaper healthy food worsens obesity or health outcomes for food stamp users, we will have to consider other options, such as making unhealthy food more expensive.

Also, of course, there is the more effective paternalistic approach, which would be to only allow food stamps to be used for healthy foods.  Food stamps can be seen as an investment that taxpayers are making into the overall health and well-being of citizens, and indirectly into productivity.  If food stamps are being used in such a way that increases health care consumption, such as treatments for diabetes, heart disease, etc..., also on the taxpayer dime through CMS and state-reimbursed uncompensated care as well as increasing health care costs for everyone as hospitals shift costs to other payers, then we are all seeing a smaller and smaller return on the investment.  If food stamps were used to help people be healthy, and minimize health care consumption, we are all getting a better return on the investment, and the people using food stamps will have better lives, even if they complain about not being able to buy the junk food they want.

A Real American

This has been a great year for gastronomical innovation.  KFC really threw the gloves down when it came out with the Double Down, a sandwich that uses fried chicken for the bun, with bacon, cheese, and sauce inside.  Though initially subjected to ridicule, the DD has endured well by being tasty and healthier than much of its competition (unless evaluated per calorie).  Eventually, more sandwich innovation appeared.  Friendly's introduced a hamburger with grilled cheese sandwiches for buns, the Grilled Cheese BurgerMelt.  Denny's now has a Fried Cheese Melt, a grilled cheese sandwich with fried Mozzarella sticks in it.  At some fairgrounds you might find a cheeseburger topped with chocolate-covered bacon in a Krispy Kreme donut bun.  Inspired by all this inventiveness, I decided to build an homage to the American spirit of sandwich creation.  I give you the Real American:

What you see here is a burger with cheeseburgers for buns, and each cheeseburger has bacon for buns.  Yes.  Go ahead and read that sentence again.


Step 1: Construct the buns
I cut Tyson hardwood smoked thick-cut bacon in half (use any kind you like, I just got what was on sale for under $3.50/lb and looked meatiest), then wove the halves together.

Step 2: Cook the buns
I microwaved the buns between paper towels for 6 minutes, two buns per plate.  I have experimented with many ways of cooking bacon, and microwaving is fast and easy to clean up while producing evenly-cooked, flat, crisp bacon.  These buns held together great, were nice and crisp, and not too greasy on the hands.

Step 3: Make burger patties
I used Laura's 92% lean ground beef because it was marked down for sale before expiration.  Of course, use whatever you want.  I mixed in garlic powder, pepper flakes, and Worcestershire sauce, then hand packed the patties to be thin and fit the buns after cooking shrinkage.  The Worcestershire sauce added a really great flavor.  These patties are about 3 oz each and some change.

Step 4: Cook the burger patties
They cooked up great in my cast iron skillet, and I thought I took a picture, but it looks like I forgot.

Step 5: Assembly
Assembly was a piece of cake.  First sub-bun:

Bottom "bun" (Colby-jack cheese):

The burger, topped with sautéed mushrooms, caramelized onions, and chevre:

Top "bun":

Step 6: Eat that mammer:

This was absolutely delicious, and I will make it again.  Worcestershire sauce, caramelized onions, and goat cheese rocked out on this sandwich.  The Real American was dinner for two people.

Broken down:
6 slices of bacon - about 240 calories - about $2
10 oz of lean beef - about 400 calories - about $3
1 oz Colby-jack - about 110 calories - about $0.25
a mushroom - negligible
some onion - negligible
.5 oz goat cheese - 35 calories - $0.25
seasoning - negligible - about $0.10
7 paper towels - about $0.10

Total: about 800 calories, about $5.70 not including utilities or equipment.

Coupons

Coupons seem like they would be a major part of grocery gaming, but they really haven't managed to become a significant factor for me.  I only end up using coupons a handful of times each year.  Coupons come to me in my primary grocery store's weekly flyer and in an envelope and a magazine of coupons in the mail aggregated by a third party company.  Newspaper subscribers typically get coupons on Sundays, unless that's changed over the years.  I've looked into websites such as coupons.com, but I just do not find enough useful coupons to justify the time it takes to find them.

On these internet sites, which typically require registration with some personal information that they will sell in exchange for giving you access to the coupons, I find many coupons of negligible value for products I don't want.  Sugary cereals, heavily processed foods, total junk I don't buy.  The coupons provide savings along the lines of $0.75 off if I buy 3.  So, not only do shoppers only get about $0.25 off each item, they have to buy three items to get the discount.  Lame.

In our modern information age, as newspapers lose readership and grocery stores use membership cards to track shopping patterns and direct incentives, I get good prices for the things I buy due to periodic store discounts without coupons.  For example, Dannon Light & Fit yogurt is usually marked as $1.05 for 6oz.  That is a crazy price that I will not pay.  But for about a week each month the store marks down the price to $0.50 for 6oz.  Then I buy 20 of them.  When I see coupons for that product, it's remarkable for them to give me $1.00 off for buying two 4-packs.  The 4-packs are priced differently than individual cups, and even using the coupon when the 4-packs are on sale rarely brings the price down to $0.50 per cup.

What cognitive phenomena go on when we see coupons?  Anchoring is definitely taking place, in which the regular price (artificially inflated) serves as the anchor to which we compare the discounted price so that we feel like we're getting something for a lower price than it's worth even when the discounted price is higher than the product's worth if we stop to really think about it.  I think also that the coupons serve as advertisements that cause us to think more about the product than regular advertisements do, and that thinking activates more parts of the brain that contribute to purchasing decisions.  It has been found that we get more neurologically excited (dopamine in the anterior cingulate cortex, for example) at the expectation of how satisfying a product will be than when we actually have it.  It takes a lot of mindfulness to recognize that you won't really be as happy as you expect you will if you buy a freezer-full of frozen pizzas with a dollar coupon.  Off the topic of coupons, this is a contributing factor to obesity as people try to eat until they are as satisfied as they expected they would get.

So, my experiences trying to find a good source of useful coupons have led me to generally avoid such a waste of time.  I tend to rely instead on the grocery store's weekly sales.

Love Summer

From June to October each year you will probably find that prices drop radically for whatever produce is ripe at the time.  A local farmers' market should not be necessary to enjoy the low price result of massive spikes in supply, but it might help.  Each week's shopping brings me delicious, healthy, and inexpensive treats.  Last week saw cherries for $2/lb.  Blueberries have been $5/qt, sometimes dipping to $4.  Strawberries have been $2-2.50/lb.  Watermelons are $4-5.  A head of romaine is $0.69.  Tomatoes, usually quite expensive because they are costly to ship safely, are getting cheaper, and it will soon be the time when people put bags of them out in front of their houses with collection cans for money.  Corn on the cob is popular now.  I always look forward to September when the orchards give us over a dozen kinds of fresh apples.

Do not be afraid to buy produce that is almost too ripe.  My local non-chain market has an area for "seconds", and I have gotten some real bargains.  I just bought four acorn squash for $0.50 together, and made a 10-bowl batch of squash soup for $3 (halve and bake the squash for 40 min at 350 F, then peel; add a pint of chicken stock from the last chicken you cooked, a half-pound of cheese (I used colby-jack), two onions, and some spices, then puree in a food processor (adds maybe $0.25-50 amortized depending on how often you use your processor)).  I also get piles of tomatoes on their way out, and make fresh salsa (great for chips, chicken, or fish) and gazpacho.  When November rolls around, it'll be applesauce time!  Also there will be more squash in the fall.  Overripe bananas are present all year, and can give you a quick and cheap banana bread.  I also got a big bag of discounted but delicious grapes just because they had fallen off their vines.

Cold Winter leaves us with roots, old gourds, a pantry of cans and bags of grains and nuts, but Summer is a wonderful time for a rolling variety of inexpensive and healthy fresh fruit and vegetables.  My only food complaint about Summer so far is that the heat ruined the sourdough starter I had out.  Sourdough seems to just be my Spring treat.

Pad Thai

This quickly became a favorite in my home, and I am asked to make it when we have guests.  I am sure that this only vaguely resembles an authentic pad thai, but I use what is easily available and we enjoy it.  This is easy to make, but can take some preparation.  I find white rice noodles at Trader Joe's for $1.39/12oz, and brown (whole) rice noodles at the regular grocery store for about $4.  It's an uncommon enough item that there's little selection or competition.  Use a big saute pan or a wok.

Base:

Rice noodles, flat like fettuccine - 8 oz - 800 cal - $0.92-3.00

Eggs - 3 - 210 cal - ~$0.36

Scallions - 4 - 30 cal - $0.46

Bean sprouts - 1 can or a handful - 80 cal - $1.00 

Peanuts, maybe chopped - 1 oz - 160 cal - $0.16

Oil - 1 tbsp - 100 cal - $0.03

Sauce:

Ketchup - 3 tbsp - 45 cal - $0.06

Sugar - 2 tbsp - 120 cal - $0.02

Vinegar - 3 tbsp - ~$0.05

Lemon juice (or lime) - 1 tbsp - 5 cal - ~$0.05 (from concentrate)

Worcestershire Sauce - 1 tbsp - 12 cal - ~$0.10 (supposed to be fish sauce, but I have none)

Meat (pick one or more as you like):

Chicken, diced breastmeat - 8 oz - ~400 cal - $1.00 

Tofu, diced - 8 oz - ~340 cal - $0.90

Shrimp - 8 oz - 240 cal - ~$3.00-4.00

I like to slice my scallions longways so that they match the beansprouts, but it's more work than necessary if you don't mind them chopped.  Saute your scallions in the oil.  Start a pot of water to boil for the noodles.

Throw your meat in with the scallions and get it cooked.  Cook the noodles according to the package.  Mix up the sauce and set it aside.

Scramble your eggs and fry them up with the scallions and meat.  Add the bean sprouts.

Add the noodles when they're done and drained.  Add the sauce.  Mix everything up and cook for a few minutes.  

Serve onto plates and garnish with peanuts.  Shreds of purple cabbage are also good.  Rooster sauce (Srirachi) is a nice topper for those who like the heat kicked up a notch.

This easily serves four at about 500 calories (with chicken) and $1.60 per person if you get the expensive noodles, and $1.06 per person if you find cheaper noodles and use tofu.  I usually make a 1.5x batch so I'm using a whole package of noodles.  Smaller portions work well too, combined with a vegetable soup appetizer. 

Kitchen Staples

There are some things that I try to always have on hand in my kitchen.  Sometimes there are no exciting sales, or I find myself cooking for guests on short notice.  By keeping a few things constantly stocked, I give myself some flexibility to make a decent variety of dishes with whatever other random ingredients are lying around.  Some of these are generally inexpensive, and others I buy piles of when they're on sale.  They also tend to have decent shelf-lives.

* Mirepoix is the fancy French word for chopped carrots, onions, and celery.  These are three good veggies to have around, and are commonly tossed into soups, salads, stews, roasts, and stock.  Carrots and celery are also good alone as a snack.  Onions are very versatile and fit in fresh or sauteed with meats or grains.

* Potatoes are easy to bake, roast, boil, or microwave, and go well with most meats.  Sweet potatoes are even better.

* Eggs are versatile and necessary for most baking.

* Rice

* Cheese

* General baking supplies: flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, oils, butter, salt

My pantry is full of other things, canned veggies, dry beans, pasta, tuna, but I don't consider those essential, and I do not necessarily rush to replace them when they run out.  I do not even have milk most of the time because of its relatively short lifespan.  I usually have some chicken breasts in the freezer, but not always.  Between my staples and whatever else is lying around, I am generally equipped to feed people easily.

Sourdough

Sourdough is a tasty, interesting, and fun food.  It's a great project for kids, like a Tomagochi, except cheaper and edible.  All purpose flour is $1.59 for a 5lb bag right now, and whole wheat flour is maybe $4 for 5 lbs.  There are many resources online for learning about and how to make sourdough.  I've tried a few, and I'm writing about what has worked well for me.  I encourage you to delve deeper.

Quick Explanation: Naturally occurring yeast and other wee beasties are in the air around us all the time.  If you create the right environment, the ones you want will thrive and the ones you don't want will die.  The process takes a while, but a good strain can be maintained indefinitely.  Some bakeries have strains over a century old.  Use this instead of store-bought baker's yeast for your baking, and enjoy a slightly sour flavor unique to your location and technique.

Finicky Stuff: Sourdough has some weird rules to follow to foster your organisms without screwing anything up.  I don't know which are strict and which are lenient, and I'm really just repeating what seemed to have convergent validity from what I've seen.
* Use a glass bowl or jar for your starter.
* Keep the lid loose (or else gas will build up and pop the lid off for you).
* Avoid metal utensils (lenient, but avoid extended exposure to metal).
* Keep the temperature generally between 70 and 80 F.
* Throw it out and start over if you see mold.
* A mix of rye or whole wheat flour with all-purpose flour may result in better flavor or development due to organisms that come in the flour.
* Sourdough starters tend to produce hooch, which is a slightly alcoholic brown liquid.  It is totally harmless; you can stir it back in or throw it out depending on how you feel.  I wouldn't drink it.
* Spring might be the best time to make a starter because there's so much stuff in the air.
* Different factors will affect the consistency of your starter.  Typically, it should be slightly thinner than pancake batter, but at different stages as it fills with bubbles it can resemble a fluffy sponge.

Making the Starter:
Day 1: Mix 3 Tbsp water with 1/4 cup (4 Tbsp) flour in your glass container.  Keep a loose lid on.
Day 2: You probably won't notice anything neat yet.  Throw out half.  Mix in 3 Tbsp water.  Mix in 1/4 cup flour.
Day 3: It may start to smell bad.  That's okay.  It will eventually smell like vomit, but only for a few days.  That is a normal part of the process.  Throw out half.  Mix in 3 Tbsp water.  Mix in 1/4 cup flour (see a pattern?).
Day 4-6: You should see bubbles a few hours after each feeding.  Ignore bad smells.  Each day, throw out half, mix in 3 Tbsp water and 1/4 cup flour.
Day 7 and beyond: Your starter should be good by now.  It should have a slight sour smell, and not smell like vomit.  Now, instead of throwing out half, you can store that half in another container and keep it in the fridge.   This will add up over the days and let you make some good stuff later.

Sourdough Bread:
I love that the ingredients are just flour, water, and a pinch of salt.  I've had great success with the 1-2-3 recipe for sourdough bread.  The trick is that those are the ingredient ratios by mass, not volume.  Use 1 part starter, 2 parts water, and 3 parts flour.  I have a small scale, and I make small loaves using 2 oz starter, 4 oz water, and 6 oz flour (2/3 whole wheat).  What the volumes look like are 1/3 cup starter, 2/3 cup water, and 3/2 cups flour.  That is 1/3 of a recipe I found for a 2lb loaf.  Below is the full recipe:
* Make a "sponge", which is just starter you're going to use for your bread.  The night before the day you'll bake, mix 1/3 cup starter, 1/3 cup water, and 1/2 cup flour.  Those are approximate volume measurements.  You will find what works best with experience and experimentation.
* In the morning, use the 1-2-3 ratio (starter-water-flour by mass) and a bit of salt to make your dough.  Mix the ingredients in a bowl, then leave the dough to sit for half an hour.  If I had to guess on volumes, I would say 1 cup starter, 2 cups water, 4.5 cups flour.
* Kneed the dough for five minutes or so.  Maybe you have a stand mixer.  I use a wooden spoon and keep the dough in the bowl.  I don't kneed by hand because it takes extra flour, makes a mess and throws off the ingredient ratio.
* Let the dough sit in a loosely covered bowl for about 8 hours (like while you're at work).  If you're around, use a silicone spatula to gently fold the sides of the dough onto the top after a few hours.
* When you're done letting the dough rise (it should have at least doubled in size), gently fold the sides up, shape into a loaf, and put it with the "seam" side down on a baking stone or sheet.  There are videos online showing how to do this far better than I will describe here.
* Put your loaf in the oven. Bake at 400 F for 30 minutes.  I spray a little oil on the loaf to brown the crust.  When it's done, it should sound hollow when you tap it, and crackle a little when you take it out of the oven.
* Let it cool in the open for a couple hours.  If you put it in a container right away, steam will condense inside and make the crust soggy and increase the risk of mold.

Sourdough Pancakes:
These are DELICIOUS!  This will use up all the starter you have collected in the fridge over time.  They are extremely light and fluffy, and will be thin like crepes. This makes about 15 pancakes; good for 2 people for about $1 total and 450 calories each.
* In a bowl, mix 2 Tbsp sugar, 4 Tbsp oil (or applesauce), 1 egg, 1/2 tsp salt
* Mix in 2 cups of starter
* Get your griddle up to 350 F
* In a cup, mix 1 tsp baking soda and 1 Tbsp warm water, then mix it into the rest and wait a minute
* Pour 1/4 scoops of batter onto the griddle.  They will spread a lot because the batter is thinner than for regular pancakes.  When bubbles stop rising, flip the pancakes.  They'll take maybe 2 minutes on a side.

These are extra good with 1 mashed banana and 1/4 cup chocolate chips added to the batter.

Amortization and Utilities

You may be unfamiliar with the term amortization.  Its root means death, and the word refers to killing the cost of something on a balance sheet gradually over time instead of all at once at the time of purchase.  Amortization is relevant to our game when calculating true costs of meals.  So far, I have only included the costs of food in my write-ups, and this is typical of reports of the costs of meals.

Electricity and gas costs for cooking are not amortized.  They would be recorded in full at the time of cooking.  Unfortunately, you would have to know how much gas and electricity you use during cooking, and how much you pay per unit.  Electricity prices change according to time of day and your peak use, depending on your supplier.  I think I pay about $0.05 on average to run my microwave for 15 minutes.  You may also find out about how much water, heating, and soap cost you for washing dishes, since those costs are also related to your meals.

Electricity costs for refrigeration should be distributed.  Fridges use a lot of juice.  If you are really motivated, you can keep track of everything you refrigerate and figure out exactly what proportion of your fridge electricity cost can be attributed to each food, but that is a lot of work.  Maybe estimate the monthly cost of running your fridge and flatly divide by the number of meals you make that use refrigerated items, then add that amount to the cost of each meal.  A quick search suggests that a typical fridge costs $8-12 to run per month.  That adds about $0.10-0.30 to each meal.

Cookware!  Quality cookware, the stuff that turns food out properly, can cost piles of money, but lasts generations if you take care of it.  Non-stick cookware generally needs to be replaced every few years (or not used).  Investing in durable equipment that you will use more can result in lower per-use costs.  Suppose you drop $100 on a sweet stainless steel pot with an aluminum core.  That's a lot of money, but it makes nicer meals than a $20 pot (there is a significant difference).  If you use it once a week for 20 years, that's about $0.10 per use, which can be a fraction of that per meal.  Good, maintained cookware should last a lifetime.

Appliances are also investments.  A Sunbeam blender may only cost $15, but when it breaks after a few uses and has to be replaced, you'll realize you would have been better off with a $60 Oster.  A $20 slow-cooker may do bad things to your food that a $100 slow-cooker with a timer and higher-quality construction would not.  Whatever your decision, think about the amortized cost over the lifetime of an appliance.  Maybe you can look back on your buying behavior and realize that you have a tendency to buy things that you end up not using much.  In the store you think "I'll use this so often!" but things sit on your shelves while you eat frozen dinners and fast food.  Know yourself, be conservative, and think about how much you're spending on a per-meal basis.

You can see that the variance is very high among amortized and utility costs for your meals depending on what equipment you buy and how you use it.  Based on the numbers I threw together for this post, I estimate that these costs add an average of $0.50 each time I cook, which is about $0.10 per meal over all.  Seemingly trivial, but it can add up, and wise, big one-time equipment purchases can be daunting to someone with few financial resources, confusing the value of saving up for a purchase.

Gorgonzola Sauce

I found some reasonably priced Gorgonzola cheese, more expensive than my regular cheese threshold, but fine for a rare treat at $6/lb.  I've had good Gorgonzola sauce in a restaurant, so I decided to try to make my own.  My default source for recipes is allrecipes.com.  This means I tend to end up with a half dozen highly reviewed and widely different recipes.  Which is best?  I won't know because I am not going to try them all.  I just take a loose average adjusted to my taste.  I ended up with a good (and rich) dinner for two for about $3.50.

Gorgonzola cheese, 1/4 lb @ $6/lb = $1.50 (~400 calories)
Milk, skim, 1 cup @ $3.45/gal = $0.22 (80 cal)
Butter, 3 tbsp @ $2/lb = $0.19 (300 cal)
Flour, 1/2 cup = $0.08 (200 cal)
White wine, 1/4 cup, optional = $0.20-0.50 (45 cal)
Nutmeg, pinch, optional = ~$0.05
Spaghetti, whole wheat, 1/4 lb dry @ $1.29/lb = $0.32 (420 cal)

Served with 1/2 lb frozen green vegetables on the side @ ~$1.50/lb = $0.75 (50 cal)

Start boiling your water for the pasta.  Melt the butter in a quart pot on low.  Stir in the flour until it's foamy.  Add the pasta to the water when it starts boiling.  Stir in the milk to the butter-flour mixture (like a roux) and turn the heat up to low-medium.  Keep stirring the sauce as it gets warmer and thicker.  Add the wine if you are using it.  Crumble up your Gorgonzola and stir it gradually into the sauce the minute before your pasta is done.  Drain your pasta, put it on plates, and pour the sauce on top.

The Gorgonzola should melt quickly, and also thicken quickly as it cools, so be ready to eat when the pasta is done.  I honestly did not notice the nutmeg flavor, nor the bottom shelf chardonnay that I used, but recipe comments suggested that the wine is added to keep the Gorgonzola from forming a bad texture, and lemon juice (something acidic) would also work.

About $1.75 and 750 calories for each person.  Takes less than 15 minutes start to finish.  Serves two Americans.

$3/day Diet - A Retrospective

I lived for years on a grocery budget of $20-21 per week, and it was not difficult.  It was also not terribly unhealthy, though not exactly healthy either.  My diet was heavy on carbohydrates and practically meatless.  I almost never went out to eat (and got the $2 chili when I went out with friends), and did not buy alcohol.  I was never hungry, and actually overate, maintaining an unhealthily high body weight.

In the beginning... there was ramen, and it was bad.  Those little packages of ramen noodles are just processed flour, salt, and fat, but they're six for a dollar.  I wouldn't eat them alone, though.  For the one year that I ate a package of ramen daily, I added a couple turkey-dogs (also predominantly fat and salt) and either three sliced carrots or some frozen broccoli.  Actually, it was just carrots for a few months, and I switched to broccoli when my skin turned orange.  Broccoli is maybe the second healthiest vegetable in the world, right after spinach, and may be responsible for protecting me from the rest of my diet.  Besides the big bowl of ramen'n'at each day, I also ate cookies.  Yes, store-brand cookies are a very cheap source of calories, and sometimes some nutrients.  A friend recently reminded me that I once figured out how to live only on lemon cookies, but, fortunately, I never tried.  I did not have any notable health problems during this year that I recall, but I was young.

The other years were better.  I typically had a bowl of cold cereal for breakfast, often corn flakes or frosted flakes with non-fat milk.  These were huge bowls, easily three servings or more.  I made myself two sandwiches for lunch, using whole grain bread, all natural peanut butter, and strawberry jam.  These sandwiches were maybe around 800 calories each.  Dinners were usually spaghetti with Prego sauce and broccoli, and when I lived in a place with a stove I often sauteed fresh onions and bell peppers in olive oil to add to the spaghetti.  I may have been cheap, but Ragu is just too nasty to eat.  My portions of spaghetti were also huge.  Depending on sales, I would sometimes buy Tropicana orange juice, bananas, or fancier cereals (Oatmeal Raisin Crisp, Honey Bunches of Oats, Life).  I no longer bought cookies or ramen, and I still did not buy meat.

I ate in the neighborhood of 3500 calories each day, and weighed 230-240 lbs.  Since then, I have significantly broadened the variety in my diet, and reduced how much I eat, with very good results.  I also spend twice as much on food, but because I can and I enjoy it, not because I have to.  But I still hold on to the gamer mentality at the store, follow my rules, and try to optimize my gastronomical enjoyment to cost ratio.

A huge problem with eating healthily on a poverty-level budget is not that healthy foods are too expensive, but that unhealthy "foods" (cookies, candy, frozen pizza, etc...) are cheap and easy.  Someone has to be knowledgeable and motivated in order to make healthy choices and do some preparation and cooking instead of taking the lazy and immediately gratifying road.  It would probably be good for national health to raise the prices of unhealthy foods, and not lower the prices of healthy foods, motivating the highest risk groups to buy better food, especially for their children.  Childhood obesity and type II diabetes are serious health and economic issues with some straightforward solutions.