Tonight’s dinner: Mahi-Mahi (seasoned with salt and pepper and olive oil then baked at 350 for 12 minutes), pasta salad (leftover), and peas…Filling, delicious and nutritious! By the way, the meal was cooked and ready in about 20 minutes…

As I sit here, blog-blog-blogging away, there is the wonderful aroma of breaded pork chops baking in the oven, and my whole wheat-pasta is bubbling away on the stove. I have my broccoli ready to cook – with dried cranberries to be mixed in (leftover dried fruit from what I bought for my son’s lunch…). I’m not sure what to expect taste-wise with the broccoli/cranberry mix, but the green bean/raisin combo turned out delicious yesterday. And again I lament the lack of lemon, but I must work with what I have…and now that I think of it, I may just mix the broccoli and cranberries in with the pasta so the pasta isn’t quite so bland…

Later: Dinner was ready within 35 minutes, including clean-up on anything that did not go into the dishwasher (so take that Rachel Ray!!). And the dishwasher stuff…well, isn’t that what kids are for??? 😉

I’ll admit last night’s dinner (and tonight’s as well) wasn’t anything fancy, but it was delicious. The chicken was cooked perfectly and emerged from the oven very moist…by the time the brown rice was finished cooking (just under an hour), the chicken was piping hot from the oven, and the roasted garlic and juices from the chicken added some neccessary flavor to the otherwise bland rice. I served broccoli and a salad with the meal to round it out nutritionally. Also, I put aside half of the rice to use with tonight’s meal. So far I haven’t decided if I am going to leave it plain (not really my choice) or see if I can dress it up out of the ingredients I have on hand from my shopping trip yesterday. I will admit, it sure would be wonderful to have something as simple as a lemon on hand about now!

Tonight’s after dinner results: Wild-caught Sockeye Salmon (thawed from frozen) – delicious and so much cheaper than getting it ‘fresh’ from the fish counter; Brown rice: I added some salt, pepper, mustard (okay, I cheated here and used some I had on hand) and olive oil; Green beans: I cooked them in the microwave and added raisins for the last 30 seconds of cooking time, then I added a touch of salt and olive oil. Surprisingly delicious!!! I gave my son some grapes (leftover from the chicken salad I made for his lunch), and I had a salad of lettuce and radishes…

So…I am guessing that I will end up going over a little for this week’s budget to account for stocking up on a few staples and things I bought which will last longer than this week. Already I have a couple of areas I could cut back on if I was in dire straights. I made a chicken salad for my son’s lunches this week, and to save money I could have done peanut butter sandwiches instead (and saved around $6-8). But he didn’t ask to be a part of this experiment, so I am trying to make it as painless as possible for him…Also, I bought the frozen sockeye salmon, which was $2 higher than other frozen fish, and there was some that was even less expensive…So there is around $10 right there which could be used for fresh salad ingredients and/or items to make fish tacos (corn tortillas and a slaw mix).

And there it is in a nutshell (ooooh, nuts….yum…wish I had some of those!!) for your reading enjoyment…

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….