money matters

As anyone who has been paying attention knows, this month in my OCL (that's Operation Consumption Liberation, yo) is one of two months this year dedicated to curbing frivolous spending.  A quick review of my ATM-card purchases over the last year reveals that the highest percentage of those card transactions took place in restaurants and grocery stores.  In the month of October, for example, I made 48 card purchases. Eighteen of those purchases were made at the grocery store, in a restaurant, or a bar. Now, I'm not great at math, but I believe that's 37.5% of my monthly card purchases.  The category with more purchases during that month was "Miscellaneous," with 19 purchases for 39.5%.  (FYI, "Miscellaneous" purchases include iTunes, clothing, entertainment, haircuts, and non-med purchases at the drugstore--the things I'll be cutting from my spending during my second month of curbing frivolous spending, currently planned for May.)

Look, I finally got my cupcakes! Using my one No Eat-Out gimme: my soon-to-expire Groupon.

Watching my spending is pretty important to me at present.  Earlier this month, the department at Amazon that I've been writing for regularly since 2006 sent me a note saying that they would no longer be using freelance content for Home and Kitchen. Poof! There went a lot of income.  Suddenly, this whole No Eating Out thing feels kind of essential.  Reviewing my 2010 ATM purchases, I found that I spent approximately $130 a month eating out, and that's not including when I paid cash.  I don't know about you, but for me, $130 IS a substantial amount of money.  As long as I have so little income, I absolutely cannot spend that much money eating out.

Hard times requires frugal cooking: English muffin pizza

While I'm saving money from eating out, I'm curious to look at how much more money I've spent on groceries this month in comparison to a so-called regular month.  I like fancy food; I tend to gorge myself on Gorgonzola and Kalamata olives and pine nuts (Okay, not pine nuts.  Who can afford to snack on those?).  And meat.  When you host people for dinner all the time, you often want to give them meat. Where have all my vegetarian friends gone?  I'm getting a little off topic here, but I think I've made my point: my grocery bill could use a makeover too.  I'll keep you posted.

Chicken is expensive, but this chicken was AMAZING.

Anyway, I've been pretty lazy about taking pictures of the food I've made, or the food others have made for me (!!!).  I am also finding I am a lousy food photographer, though the fact that I'm using my phone camera may be half the battle.

No picture on Earth can capture how yummy that above garlic chicken was.  I made that for CI and ES a few weeks ago, and I can't wait to make it again.  Recipe here.  (Chef's note: I made this with skinless chicken breasts.  Also, if you love garlic like I love garlic, I'd use three heads of garlic instead of two.  We almost duked it out over the last few cloves, squeeze that roasted garlic directly out of the clove onto bread and smear it like butter.  True, the house will stink pleasantly of garlic, but the garlic wasn't overpowering at all to eat and I don't think we reeked of garlic for the next day.)

I have been enjoying lots of soup.  It is 30 degrees F in Seattle right now, so soup is good.  And a big batch lasts forever.  I think I still have some leftover pesto minestrone in the fridge from almost two weeks ago.  I made over three quarts of that stuff in the crock pot.  Pretty good, certainly fine for taking to the office for work.  Recipe here.  Also, my friend JM came over last week with all the ingredients for a warm and healthy miso soup, full of carrots, cabbage, turnips, onion, and ginger. I don't have the recipe, but it was good.

Pesto minestrone.

Miso Soup.

Chicken Enchiladas!

I've been treated to quite a few home-cooked meals at friends' this month, which is almost as lovely as cooking for them.  It isn't easy hosting: my friend MK invited me over for dinner last week and forgot to turn his crock pot on when he left for work, poor guy. SO he whipped up some Asian noodle dish for us instead, and then he dropped off a Tupperware container of the crock pot dish a couple days later--I'm lucky to have such good friends.  The other weekend, I got to enjoy TWO home-cooked Mexican meals: fantastic chili rellenos at CW's, courtesy of his friends I and Y on Saturday night, and then tasty chicken enchiladas at the house of SW and MH-squared on Sunday.

This week, I confess, I've been a little worn out on hosting and social activity, so I've only planned to host dinner one night.  It HAS been a fun month though!  I haven't missed eating out much.  There's only one night where I've really thought, "God, I wish I could just go out to eat" and that was last Friday when I had tickets to something on Capitol Hill that started at 7:30 and started cooking this on Queen Anne after 6. It is true, cooking at home can be time consuming.  But it doesn't need to be an all-day affair.

Oh, and remember my four-drink allowance for the month?  I haven't needed to use a single one.  Maybe I should let them roll over into next month, in which I will stop consuming alcohol....  Ack!  Stay tuned.