Money Where Your Mouth Is: February 2012

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It’s update time.

Just to re-cap, I started the new year with a goal: I wanted to learn just how I spend my money on food. Do I trade it with local culinary artisans? National corporations?

After some debate over which delineations mattered, I made a list of categories into which I would divide my purchases —  both for groceries and for restaurants — and began the semi-tedious task of tracking every single receipt. My first month of tracking gave me some results that were expected, and some that surprised me.

Here are the results for February:

On this front, the numbers are almost identical to January. I did have a few extra runs to the big box grocery store close to my apartment this month, and to be totally honest, I’m not exactly sure why. Other than I must have really planned meals poorly that week. My goal for this month is to only hit the grocery store once a week, which should save food dollars, gas dollars, and time dollars. Yes time dollars.

But look! Grocery dollars may have been the same, but restaurant dollars show major improvement! I had friends in town one weekend and my parents in town for almost a week, which gave me opportunities to go outside my normal restaurant box and show off Durham’s local flavor. We’ll see how it keeps up when I am not entertaining guests…

So on goes the tracking. And finally, as promised, if you want to track as well, I’ve uploaded the spreadsheet I’m using. You can download it at the link below… it’s pretty smart and makes all your numbers turn into graphs. Poof! Time to get excited.

Food Dollar Graphs

Happy tracking!

Rich Chocolate Cake with Raspberry Buttercream

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Here’s the thing.

Most of my choices of meals to make revolve around what I want for dinner, what features a local ingredient at the peak of its season, or what has been leering at me the strongest from my list of recipes to try.

But sometimes I just want to make cake. Unnecessary, frivolous, decadent, indulgent, cake.

I don’t often make desserts, partially because we rarely have more than the two of us at dinner. But when I threw my pizza party a couple weeks ago, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to make something fancy.


Both the recipes and the inspiration for this cake came from a blog I recently stumbled across (and have subsequently become obsessed with) called Sweetapolita. These cakes are something. else. Miracles of butter and sugar. They are simple yet stunning, classic yet unique.

And the best part? This particular chocolate cake recipe is, hands down, the easiest cake recipe I have ever made. Many cakes recipes have intricate patterns of adding dry ingredients, folding in damp ones, carefully mixing until consistency is just so… not this one.

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Community Garden: Seeds

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Our planet is home to some truly incredible things.

Wide, wild oceans full of life both familiar and mysterious. Weather as balmy and blissful as sliding into sleep, and weather more destructive than any machine conceived by humans. Lush forests, scorched desert sands, and iced peaks extending to the very limits of our reach.

But despite these mighty landscapes, I am equally, or perhaps more, impressed by seeds. These tiny, humble vessels of plant life hold within them delicate flowers, towering trees, and of course, the many many many foods we eat.

Our February community garden meeting hailed the arrival of the seeds ordered in bulk by our garden coordinator. Just a fraction of the order was put on the table; the seeds ready for planting, both indoors and out, as the weather in North Carolina begins to warm. Each gardener took a turn examining the varieties available and carefully pouring their share of seeds into tiny envelopes, and a sense of anticipation filled the room.

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Favorite Pizza Crust + Chicken Spinach Alfredo Pizza

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Remember a week or two ago when I made fresh mozzarella cheese? And I said I was gonna tell you what you could do with the 1/2 gallon + of whey that results from the cheesemaking process?

I’m here to fulfill my promise.The promise of pizza.

It’s a lovely thing when completion of one kitchen project leads inexorably to another. What better way to use a pound of fresh mozzarella than to throw the old pizza stone in the oven, pull out the pizza cutter, and have yourself a pizza feast? And this pizza crust? THIS one uses up the whey from making mozzarella. Some of it. Or if you’re moderately obsessive me, it uses all of the whey.

I’ve used several recipes over the last couple of years for homemade pizza crust. Sometimes thick and fluffy, sometimes thin and crispy, sometimes in that strange place in between. This crust is simple to put together, has a short list of ingredients, and can go from disparate ingredients to rolled-and-ready-for-toppings in less than 30 minutes.

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Potato Cheddar Soup

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Yesterday was dreary. And lazy. I got up at 11:30 and did approximately nothing until 4:30. Nothing. It. Was. Glorious. Lazy days like this come rarely. I can normally talk myself into doing something moderately productive, even on the weekends: errands, cooking projects, editing photos, planting seeds, writing posts. But yesterday, for five surprising hours, nothing.

I crave soup on days like yesterday. Something warm, something filling, something that simmer and bubbles on the stove while the gray sky presses down outside. I have some old standbys, yes, but my friend Sara brought this one to my attention a while back, and let me tell you: it’s perfect for a dreary, lazy day because it’s super easy and comfort food to the max.

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Fresh Mozzarella Cheese

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Cheese.

I made some.

This cheese, to be specific.

It’s not like this is one of the most magical things I’ve ever done.

(It is. It is one of the most magical things I’ve ever done.)

A couple years ago, after reading — and being thoroughly inspired by — this book, I really wanted to to try my hand at making cheese. An ancient art, cheese making has sustained and entertained people across the globe for thousands of years. I wanted in. So my parents bought me this basic cheese making kit, which contains all the special ingredients and equipment needed to make both mozzarella and ricotta cheeses. Other than a really big pot, some spoons and bowls, and of course, milk.


Let’s talk about milk. I don’t think I’ve ever bought whole milk before, except with the intention of making cheese.  Because cheese is made up of the proteins and fats in milk, using a milk with higher fat content produces more cheese. Also, you can’t use “ultra-pasteurized” milk to make cheese (at least not this one). Why? The super-high temperatures of ultra-pasteurization denature the proteins in the milk, which means it won’t curdle. Regular old pasteurization is fine, but make sure your milk doesn’t say “ultra”.

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Homemade Sugar Scrubs, Two Ways

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I totally know what you should make for Valentine’s Day.

It’s not red. It’s not pink. It’s not even heart-shaped.

But this, this is pure luxury. And it’s not even for eating. (Shocking, I know.)

These sugar scrubs are amazingly easy to put together, and can be customized to smell like whatever you want. All you need is sugar, vegetable glycerin, and something to make it smell yummy. The sugar was, obviously, quite easy to come by. I found the vegetable glycerin and essential oil at a local food co-op, but I’ve seen them at Whole Foods, as well. AND. You can get the vegetable glycerin online for a really good price if you’re making this for all of your Valentines.

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Money Where Your Mouth Is: January 2012

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Fair warning: if you didn’t know I was a moderately obsessive, detail-oriented, and rather analytical, you certainly will be the end of this post.

I love cooking and baking. Taking photos of the process, digging through shots to find the best ones to tell a recipe’s story, and sharing them with you. I get a thrill from planting seeds that, after a few weeks of sunshine and water, will produce food. And my weekly trip to the farmers market is a cornerstone of every weekend.

But part of my intent in starting this blog was to challenge myself toward a lofty goal. I’ve spent the last couple of years trying to buy locally  (or grow myself) as much as I could, but I’d never really tracked how I spent my food dollars exactly.

The new year gave me a great opportunity to step. it. up.

I wanted to see just how much of my money I spent in a local food versus, well, non-local food. Easy enough, right?

Eh. It turns out it’s not quite so simple.

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Chicken & Cashew Lettuce Cups

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For the last couple of weeks, my Google Reader has been buzzing with “game day” recipes. Game day party decorations. And game day craft projects (which seems a bit bizarre, don’t you think?), all in preparation that un-official American holiday: the Super Bowl!


I must confess, (braces for judgement) I’ve never really watched the Super Bowl. Neither of my parents were ever particularly big sports fan, and more often than not, we would go skiing or see a movie on Super Bowl Sunday to take advantage of empty slopes and matinee tickets. In fact, I was in college before I sat down to watch my first Super Bowl work on a paper in the corner at my dorm’s game day party.

But the food, the food! Such a celebratory spread of mind-bendingly delicious snack food I’ve never seen! Wings and ranch and chips and dips and cookies and sodas and crackers and cheeses and and and and… it’s an ode to snacking as much as it is to football. And I’m not a hater. If I could live on chips and salsa, I would totally do it.

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Community Garden: Hearty Winter Plants

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It’s been over two months since I toted my camera out to the community garden for an update. The days have been short, the need for watering slim, and I’ve only marched into the garden with a harvest basket once every couple of weeks.

January is a quiet month for many gardeners. Even if snow doesn’t fall, the rich soils of most garden plots are firm with frost or support only cover crops. The relatively warmer climate where I currently reside, however, offers more fresh winter produce than I’ve ever experienced. I grew accustomed to seeing it at the farmers market last winter, but find myself astonished that with minimal gardening knowledge and care, I’ve been able to harvest lots of vegetables in the last few weeks.


I’ve been looking forward to harvesting these carrots since I left for my holiday vacation in mid-December. They won’t win anything at a county fair, but they taste phenomenal despite a their short, stubby appearance.

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