So here I sit, almost a full year since my last post. I know, all 7 of you following have imagined the worst. Truth is, we've been cooking the last year, quite a bit actually. What used to be sporadic trips to HEB whenever food ran low has now become a weekly, planned, well organized and effective Sunday event.
The top 1/4 of a sheet of paper is devoted to the list of meals being prepared and the corresponding day. The rest is a list of ingredients grouped in a way that I go through each as I move across the store in sequential order. I'm not OCD, I just efficient, dammit.
What has changed, thanks to our now 2 year old daughter, has been time. I barely have time to get the meal on the table, much less take pictures of every step, before C morphs from cute toddler to raging hulk-smash-feed-me mode.
I've also begun to track spending a bit more than I used to, which has led me to the following blog-shift. There are hundreds upon thousands of food blogs out there with better pictures and recipes than mine. In fact, most of my recipes are rip-offs of other food bloggers (
DadCooksDinner is my hero). So, a majority of my posts are going to focus on the cost of each meal. I'm a stats person, I like numbers. This gives me a documented tally of what I've cooked, how much it has cost and how that compares to other meals I've done in the past.
A couple of small rules:
1. I don't count spices. Most of it I have on-hand and breaking down the cost of 3/4 teaspoon of cumin seems a little too detailed.
2. One of my dirty secrets, I'm not counting garlic either. I used to mock those that bought the pre-minced stuff. No longer. 90% of the stuff I cook has garlic, and it now comes out of a squirt bottle. Shameful, I know. But the time savings is worth it.
3. For now, I'll include the cost of herbs. We have flowerbeds, we have several potted herbs. Those will be migrating to the new beds and will be joined by a myriad of other herbs soon. However, if I have to buy cilantro at the store for turkey wraps or mussels with chorizo, it's included in the cost. If I'm making a mojito and the mint we have on hand is sufficient, it doesn't count. Hopefully, this drives me to get our herb garden going instead of throwing down 2.50 a pop for sprig or 2 of rosemary.
So, there you have it. This is as much for me as it is for anyone reading this, but I hope you enjoy it and it proves useful in some small way.
