So what is my food focus? What is it that I really want this website to convey? I am all about authenticity. I don’t want substitutions for the real thing…I want the real deal. Yes, I believe in good nutrition…but I also believe that it’s okay to have a little fun with your food, too. I have always described myself as ‘traditional with a twist’…a bit ecclectic. Well, the same holds true with food for me. I love to put a spin on my recipes and do so using real food, not artificial food colorings, HFCS, trans fats, etc. I don’t want genetically modified this or that, or meat that has been unnaturally raised to yield more muscle/fat/etc…those things ultimately detract from the true flavors of the food at hand. I don’t need to reinvent the wheel, but it’s okay to add some extra traction or fancy hubcaps to dress it up a bit. But at what point does a dressed up meal become a modified meal? Where does that line fall? When does the line get crossed into not being authentic anymore?

Thoughts, anyone??

I only plan to list my dinner menus for the month on the blog. Our breakfast generally consists of either cereal or eggs/toast…nothing too exciting or costly. And lunch usually includes some sort of sandwich or perhaps leftovers from dinner the previous evening.

Tonight’s menu is comprised of chicken breast (skin on/bone in) which I will bake in the oven after sprinkling each breast with garlic, olive oil and salt and pepper. I will serve brown rice with it, and plan to pour any pan juices over the rice for flavoring. To round out the meal I will cook some frozen broccoli and will use up some salad ingredients I have in my refrigerator. I have not accounted for the salad items in my budget yet, but it will deduct approximately $3-4.00 from this week’s remaining budget dollars.

As far as drinks are concerned, I am not including any alcoholic beverages, coffee or tea…I often have water with my meals, and if I were truly in need I would be more diligent about that. I will, however, include milk, juice and any alcohol I might cook with (as if!).

Finally, in an effort to make my meals as user-friendly as possible (for the time-crunched) I will record my cooking times. Tonight I began cooking at 5:40 PM. The brown rice will take the longest. To help out time-wise, I made enough to serve with my meal tomorrow night. If I truly wanted to help out for future meals I could make a large batch and freeze it in portion sizes. Cooked rice freezes very well, and since brown rice takes longer to cook than white rice (about 1 hour all said and done for brown vs about 20-30 minutes for white) this could be a huge time-savings that would also help with keeping meals healthy…

More to come….