Cooking on a budget!

I'll stop posting pictures of her when she stops being cute

I'm finally all unpacked and LOVING it here. New roommate is pretty awesome. The friends I'm making at work are pretty awesome. Being less than 15 min from school and less than 20 from work is the most awesome. Life is good.

What I am finding though is eating well on a budget is super tough. In April, I paid the security deposit for this place, rent to nasty people that I didn't live with, then moved home and paid for gas to commute from waldorf to baltimore every day. Needless to say, finances are a little tight but now that May is here and my commuting costs have cut drastically, I'm hoping it'll all balance out soon. In the meantime, I'm finding ways to eat cheaply

but not have it be packaged $1 soups (although don't get me wrong, I still eat those often).

I work for a grocery store, so I get a discount, but paying attention to our sale prices mean extra savings for me. And using coupons. And using/stretching everything in your fridge/pantry. I did that today with this awesome and filling lunch: roasted sweet potatoes and broccoli.

Bbq sauce goes with everything. EVERYTHING.

We had a sale on Japanese sweet potatoes which became my new favorite thing. I had a small one left that I cut up, sprinkled with salt and cumin and roasted with left over frozen broccoli cuts. Seriously, if you haven't tried Japanese sweet potatoes, go get them before they go out of season. They are amazing. Total cost of lunch: $1.25 for the sweet potato and $.75 for the broccoli. More than the prepackaged soups but definitely more nutritious and will hold me over longer.

New home

Just wanted to say that we are in the process of moving and getting everything settled but doing well! Extremely happy so far! This place has such happy positive energy. And by we, I of course mean Whitney and myself.

Doesn't she look comfortable?

Just wanted to say

Mandy is pretty awesome. That is all.

Big Pot O' Soup

So as I said yesterday, I had a day off which was a wonderful surprise. I was feeling a little under the weather, so I decided to put everything I had left over into a crockpot for a soup. The above pot has a japanese sweet potato, half a bunch of kale, carrots, some white beans, tomatoes, an onion, garlic, vegetable broth, cumin, salt, pepper, cayenne, and because I love it and saw a can while getting oil for my car at target, pumpkin. It was awesome. Savory, warm, comfortable and hearty. Plus the cumin added this Indian spin I wasn't expecting.

The other thing I want to mention is this: Japanese sweet potatoes. HOLYCRAP. They look like a giant red potato but are sweet and need nothing when you make them. I am not a sweet potato fan typically but these are outstanding. Bake and add a little salt and you are good to go. I am thinking about making a root vegetable mash with vegan butter next week and will probably use them with parsnips and turnips if I can find good parsnips.

Kale chips

I'm not feeling well today, I think because I've just burned myself out a bit. Between work, moving and the semester approaching an end, I haven't had a day off. Until today! I slept 14hrs last night and just taking it easy, giving my body a chance to recover and prepare for an insanely busy week/weekend ahead.

For the next two weeks I'm in Waldorf at my parents' house because my living situation turned sour. Or rather, a "friend" that people talked about being a bad person and I ignored because we seemed to have fun together turned out to be a horribly disgusting person, so I'm in Waldorf until my lease at a super cute new place in Brooklyn Park starts on May 1st. Seriously, the place is adorbs and I can't wait. Anyways, so I'm in Waldorf and right now it works out because my family is on vacation for the week, so I can watch the place while they're gone. I say all this because as they were leaving, I noticed my mom had a huge bunch of kale in the fridge that she never ate. Since she was leaving, I asked if I could have it because I have been DYING to try kale chips.

Holy.

Crap.

These things are amazing. And super easy. I was never a sweet tooth person, always preferred salty, and these did me in. I made a baking sheet full and that was only 1/3 of the bunch. The other 2/3 is for the next post.

But yeah, super easy and awesome as a lazy day off, staying in bed lunch. The pictures do not do it justice!

Kale Chips

Kale

salt

garlic powder

2tsp olive oil or cooking spray

Preheat oven to 375. Break off kale from stems to bite size pieces and place in a single layer on a cookie sheet. Drizzle with the olive oil, then add salt and garlic powder to taste. Bake for 10-15min, checking for the edges to be brown and the kale to be crisp. Enjoy!

Cooking fail

Seriously, when am I going to suck it up and cook more? Never. Yesterday I ate leftover vegetables from Tuesday night's awesome birthday dinner for lunch and for dinner it was seaweed snacks, a banana and a bowl of broccoli.

Today's lunch was this:

V8, vegan jerky and an organic apple clif bar. Pros? I got three servings of vegetables, a serving of fruit and some healthy nuts for about 250calories. Con? This all cost me $4.27! I could have eaten healthier and fresher for much cheaper. One of these days I'll stop complaining and actually cook.

Soup Time

Last week I hung out with some friends that reminded me the importance of cooking. Yes life is crazy busy and yes I feel like I have better things to do, but honestly, taking 2 hrs on a free afternoon to cook meals for the week saves time AND money. Plus my body thanks me for it later. Soo Friday before work I did another fridge cleanout and made soup. AWESOME soup, if I might say so.

I really need a new camera. Or a phone from this decade. Anyways, the soup has everything in it. I started with water, then mixed in vegetable bullion cubes and some left over baby carrots that I chopped. Then I got creative and added my baby bok choy, snap peas and some quinoa I had in the fridge and was avoiding (too. much. quinoa). I then finished it with some white miso paste and curry powder. So good, so cheap and so filling!

So lesson is that I need to cook more often. This past week my lunches have been a larabar and an apple, which is okay when I'm out and really need to eat lunch, but it's not okay as a regular thing when I can totally prepare ahead.