Such a wonderful week!!! My son is home from college on Spring Break, and I am making sure to fit in all of his favorite meals. Last night we had a rack of lamb, roasted in the oven with garlic and onions, rosemary, thyme and oregano…I coated the outside with mustard and horseradish, then added a breadcrumb mixture containing garlic and herbs. On the side I served mashed sweet potatoes – mixed with butter, a little brown sugar, chipotle powder and salt – a green salad, bread (leftover rolls I found in the freezer from Thanksgiving – yum) and a sour cherry sauce to go over the lamb. As I told my boys last night: “That lamb died with purpose!” My whole house smelled delicious, and when I woke up this morning I could still smell the aroma from last night’s dinner. It made me hungry all over again!

Tonight I will be making another favorite I am sure I have mentioned on here in the past: Beef Short Ribs Braised in Porter – topped with a maple syrup-horseradish glaze. I will serve that with mashed golden potatoes and salad. He has requested Corned Beef for tomorrow night since he will not be here for St. Patrick’s Day. I anticipate serving that with mashed potatoes and glazed carrots. I make an Irish Soda Bread that I serve with ‘Irish Whiskey Butter’ every year on St. Pat’s, and I plan to make that to go with it as well. It’s the butter that makes the bread special…it is softened butter mixed with Irish Whiskey and brown sugar. Any leftover corned beef makes a delicious hash for breakfast the morning after. When served with a fried egg on top it is raised to a new level, and served with leftover Irish Soda Bread (including that yummy butter) it is just so very over-the-top!

To end I leave you with this Irish quote I found: “•A boy’s best friend is his mother and there’s no spancel stronger than her apron string.” It somehow seemed appropriate….

Last week was a devastating week for several friends and family members. One friend experienced a fire whereby the house they had grown up in was completely burned to the ground; another family member had a huge tree fall on her house, which destroyed the house, but fortunately no one inside was hurt; and the most devastating: a friend lost her husband, who she has been with for more than 25 years, in an automobile accident. Just tragic. This has left me in a state of shock, yet also has given me a renewed sense of gratitude for my family and friends, and a fresher outlook on what truly matters in my life. It is so easy to get bogged down with everyday life and get caught up in life’s trivial dramas. It is so easy to let the little problems of life take over and become large ‘mountains’. It is so easy to forget to say ‘I love you’ to our loved ones. And it is so easy to hide behind a computer instead of actually spending time with one another…

If you are reading this, please take a moment to acknowledge those in your life who mean so much to you – give them a hug, write a note, pick up the phone…anything. Just let them know how important they are to you. I hope that at the very least something good can come from all of last week’s tragedy…and I am pulling for a much brighter week this week.

This is the final week of the “Jewelry Diet”. I have not tallied all of the grocery receipts, but the last notes I made showed me coming in around $7 per person, per day. Definitely not my goal of $5, but also a pretty decent savings over what I typically spend per month. I briefly considered including my dogs – 2 chocolate labs – in on the total daily allotments when they ate a wedge of Parmesano-reggiano. I had briefly set it on my kitchen counter so I could answer the phone…that lovely bit of cheese was one of my indulgences, carefully budgetted into my menu, so I was not so happy with them that day!!

What have I learned from this experiment? First and foremost I have learned that with a little planning and some flexibility it is NOT difficult to eat good, wholesome food on a budget. We ate well. I know that if we were in dire need of saving I could have cut back even further…it would have taken a bit more creativity, but it could have been done.

Second, I have learned that when unnecessarily putting your family on a budget – especially when they are not used to being on one – DO NOT TELL THEM!! If I had said not one word to my family (one member in particular) they would never have known. I did well keeping the foods and portions the same…

Third: We did eat well; however, I discovered that despite the fact the foods I eat are ‘pure’ and wholesome and un-processed, I don’t eat enough vegetables. I do well with everything else. We eat whole grains (breads, brown rice, whole wheat pasta, quinoa, etc.) and plenty of fruit; the meats we consume are from grass-fed, humanely raised animals. We may possibly eat the minimum daily recommended amount of vegetables, but I’d say it’s borderline…this is something for me to work on.

Fourth: As much of a Whole Foods advocate as I am, they are not perfect. I was disappointed to find out much of their ‘365’ brand of frozen vegetables, which are labeled organic, come from China. I did a little research and discovered there really are farms in China classified as organic; however, I worry that with all of the pollution in China the acid rain negates a lot of the organic effects. I have not delved deeply into the matter, but I plan to spend more time researching and sorting fact from fiction. It is so convenient to stock up on frozen vegetables for those times I don’t have a lot of time to spare, and their brand was an inexpensive and good-tasting choice…

The big question: Will I continue my ‘Jewelry Diet’ in the months to come? This experiment highlighted the fact that we spend a lot of money on food. Being on a budget this month, I did not waste much food at all. And I ended up going to the store only once, at most twice, per week…this forced me to plan my meals, which is often the most difficult part of making dinner in the first place. My goal is to keep this going; however, I am not going to be quite so restrictive if I want to make a particular meal that happens to cost more.

With slightly less than half of February to go, I came really close to caving in to temptation tonight and ordering take-out for dinner. But then I considered what my choices were, which were even fewer once I limited myself to places that delivered. As we leaned closer to ordering Italian I thought of the whole wheat penne pasta in my pantry, the can of diced tomatoes – also in my pantry, and the chicken which I had defrosted and which was ready to be cooked into some delicious creation of my choosing. Then I looked in my refrigerator…I noticed the spinach which would soon expire…Dinner was suddenly and enthusiastically back ON!!!

The menu I concocted consisted of breaded and baked boneless chicken breasts (breaded with whole grain bread ground together with garlic, salt and pepper), whole wheat pasta tossed with a tomato sauce made of diced tomatoes, onions, red wine and garlic, and finally, the spinach sauteed with garlic and the few mushrooms remaining in my fridge. You know what? It was all ready within 45 minutes, start to finish…including most of the clean-up. The take-out place we would have ordered from would have taken about that long from the time we called in the order. Once the time to figure out what everyone wants to order is taken into account, it would be closer to an hour. The best part is that the meal I made was healthy and nutritious and delicious, and everyone left the table feeling sated and happy…and just in time to watch the day’s Olympic events coverage…

It just doesn’t get any better than that!

Every year for Valentine’s Day I make heart-shaped sugar cookie ‘valentines’ for my boys. I have done this for them since they were in pre-school.