New Twist

So, I've started grad school. This means that my salary has taken a hit, I now make about half what I'm used to. Of course so far its been pretty easy going, and I get an education out of it, so I'm not complaining, but I've had to tighten my budget a bit. Belts can stay loose. So, I think this blog might head towards the $/week variety. I'm trying to keep myself on $25-30/week, but of course I don't really count weekends since I sort of assume Ed won't let me go too hungry, although he did suggest that I go hunt some rabbits for us last night. We ended up eating pretzels instead. That is probably not a good thing.

Anyway, I think I'm going to blog about what I buy and what I make out of it. I might just revert again to using this as online recipes, but we'll see how it morphs.

I stopped by Sunset farm stand during lunch (ach, I should know not to go shopping on an empty stomach...), and then hit up the Big Y (local supermarket) to round out the week's goodies. It was kind of expensive because I'm bringing a salad to Ali's tonight, and I wanted to make an avocado-tomato-basil-mozzarella salad, and those are expensive ingredients. Oh well, its delicious and healthy, therefore worth it! Tasty, healthy, cheap - gotta get at least two of the three...

Sunset farm:
$3 - 3lb tomatoes
$1.25 - chard and kale
$0.50 - some sort of yellow winter squash
$2 - musk melon
$2 - heavy bag of small potatoes
$1 - two beautiful striped zucchinis
$0.25 - two cute little hot red peppers. They're round. Not sure what kind, or how hot they are.
Total: $10

Big Y
$3.00 - kalamata olives and marinated mozzarella balls for salad (~1/2lb)
$0.56 - 2 bananas
$0.34 - 1 lime
$0.69 - 1 cucumber
$1.44 - crimini mushrooms
$1.50 - bag of spinach
$3.00 - 2 avocados
$1.98 - a basil plant - I have high hopes for this little guy, I'm going to transplant him to a big pot, and water him, and put him in the sunlight, and not eat all of his photosynthesizing surfaces all at once, and I'll name him Barry the Basil plant. Usually I kill my basil plants early on in life by removing and eating all their leaves. Barry will live.
$1.39 - pumpkin muffin. This turned into lunch, with a tomato. Not so good on the healthy side of things... whoops.
Total: $13.90

Total total: $23.90

I suppose I should add another disclaimer which involves the stuff already in my pantry/freezer - that's getting used for stuff, and I no longer have any idea how much it cost. So, it'll bring the total up to some unknown value. But I think this is a good project. Lets see how long I keep it up!