Money, Money, Money...MONEY!

On Monday, I went a little nuts at the grocery store. I usually shop at a co-op store called Berkeley Bowl, where produce is cheap and abundant. Seriously, major newspapers have even done articles about the store. I don't know if I suddenly felt the need to buy the entire store because I was realizing just how much I'll miss this place when I'm in graduate school. That might have been it. Sometimes, though, I'll take it as a personal challenge to buy as much as I possibly can and port it back home without a car. So that might have been it. But more likely, I had been reading lots of other food blogs and seeing delicious looking dishes left and right. So, I decided to up my game and ended up spending $109.65 at the store! Gah! First time I've reached triple digits on a grocery receipt (not including at Costco).

However, considering how much I got, I think it might end up being a steal, or at least economical. The trick is I must not let food go bad! So, in order to avoid wasting, I'm going to try to plan my dinners. This way I'll know what food to use up more quickly and what to store/freeze for future use. I don't actually like being so rigid with my cooking and eating. However, I really want to save money. And truth be told, I kind of want to put my energies into this instead of stressing out about work, graduate school, and the future, which I tend to do.

Furthermore, it's the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, and cooking at home is better for the environment (provided you don't waste your food)!

Here is what I made Monday night from my groceries galore. I've tried also to calculate an average of how much the meal costs:

Monday Night
Baked trout with shallots and Pike Place fish seasoning
Organic green leaf salad with Mom's secret homemade dressing
Roasted potatoes with olive oil, Lawry's seasoning, salt and pepper

Cost:
Trout - $5.88
Potatoes - $0.65
Shallots - $0.25
Organic green leaf lettuce - $1.79
Plus $0.25 to account for the costs of olive oil, seasonings, and ingredients in salad dressing, which probably isn't even this much.
Total: $8.82 for two people or $4.41 each. Not bad. Plus doesn't it look good?



For the record, there was a massive bowl of salad next to this plate, so I had a lot more leaves than what this shows. I also had to surrender some delicious potatoes to Jeremy since I was so full.

I'll keep you posted on how the future meal-planning goes. If anyone has any tips about storing and preserving food or cheap recipe suggestions, let me know!