Sunday: Grocery shop and meal plan

Grocery shop this week: I made a couple of trips to get various things.

This haul from the farmer's market: organic butternut squash, fresh sage and fresh thyme, a bunch of carrots and kale for $15.50.

At the grocery:

Hefty onezip freezer 18ct 3.49
Maxwell house original coffee 11.5 oz 3.99
Udis Whole grain GF bread 5.99
Turkey (deli) 4.85
Swiss cheese (deli) 2.08
Thai fish sauce 7 oz 3.49
Beef ribs w/ bone 9.44
Planters unsalted dry peanuts 4.99
Whole organic young chicken 15.30 about 4.25 lbs
Smithfield low sodium bacon 5.69

Plan for the week:

Saturday breakfast: eggs and bacon
Saturday lunch: leftover beef stew and chicken tortilla soup
Saturday evening: out!
Saturday cooking: chocolate zucchini bread for the week, chicken stock and cooked chicken for the week; frozen carrot, parsley, and celery in freezer plus beef ribs for beef stock.
Sunday: Out! Make beef stock overnight.

Meals for week:

• Thai chicken and noodle salad with peanut and cilantro
• Chicken and spinach salad with pumpkin seeds and olives
• Beef stew with zucchini, kale, broccoli, and carrots
• On-the-fly solo dinner: smoked salmon and scrambled eggs
• Baked butternut squash (??) Gotta figure out what to do with this guy. 

Low FODMAP Chocolate Banana Zucchini Bread

Inspired by this recipe from Rachel Ray.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups shredded zucchini (about 1 1/2 small)
1 overripe banana
1 1/2 cups gluten free flour (I used quinoa flour)
1/2 cup cocoa
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cup canola oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
(Optional: add walnuts, chocolate chips, etc)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 F. Spray with non-stick cooking spray and flour an 8″ x 4″ x 2 1/2″  loaf pan and set aside. Use a paper towel to squeeze the water out of the shredded zucchini. Whisk together the flour, cocoa, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Add the sugar, eggs, oil, and vanilla. Mix to combine. Stir in the zucchini and mashed banana, then fold in the chocolate chips or walnuts if you're adding them. Pour batter into the pan and bake for 60 to 70 minutes (probably closer to 70) or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool and serve. 

This was a little crumbly, and not very sweet, but still pretty good. I like that it's healthy. Should have been cooked a little more, and maybe brown sugar is the way to go (?)

Low FODMAP Chicken Tortilla Soup with Cilantro and Lime

This week worked out well in terms of all the food prep I did Sunday. On Monday we had chicken broccoli bake leftovers. Tuesday was beef stew leftovers. Wednesday was spinach salad with cooked chicken (from the stock-making Sunday,) olives, and pumpkin seeds. Thursday was the least successful - I made quinoa pasta and covered it with the faux celery pesto, olives, more cooked chicken, olive oil and parmesan. That was kind of meh. Celery leaves and parsley are VERY overwhelming-tasting, it turns out. 

So tonight I wanted to use some of that rich chicken stock as well as the rest of the cooked chicken.

I got my inspiration from this post on The Kitchn which features six easy ways to turn chicken stock into dinner. They all sound great, especially the rice and egg soup. But since I had all this cooked chicken already I decided to give this one a try. It's low-FODMAP and low sodium if you decide to keep it that way (if you have a light hand with the tortilla chips, that is.) This turned out great and I can't wait to try all the other chicken stock recipes.

Ingredients:

Chicken stock
Shredded chicken
16 oz can unsalted diced tomatoes
1/2 cup frozen sweet corn
Shredded cheddar or Mexican cheese
Chopped cilantro
Crumbled tortilla chips
Fresh lime juice
Salt, pepper, cayenne to taste

Heat chicken broth until simmering. Add shredded cooked chicken, corn, and can of diced tomatoes. Heat until hot. Pour into bowls and top with crumbled tortilla chips, shredded cheese, lime juice, and cilantro.

FACTS AND FIGURES 
  
Prep time: 10 min. Open can of tomatoes, chop cilantro, and slice and squeeze limes. 
Servings: 4.
Agony rating: 1/10. Super easy if you have the cooked chicken already.
Taste and stuff: 8/10. Delish.

*COSTS OF STUFF I HAD TO BUY SPECIAL*

Organic diced tomatoes, salt-free: $1.99
Garden of Eatin' Yellow Tortilla Chips: $2.99
Kraft shredded Mexican cheese: $2.50; about half a bag so $1.25
Frozen organic sweet corn: $2.99/10oz, so about $0.50 worth
Cilantro: $0.99 bunch, used about a handful so $0.25
Limes: 5 for $1, so $0.20
Cooked chicken: left over from last weekend, but probably around $14
Chicken stock: left over from last weekend

Total cost of stuff I had to buy special: $7.18 without the chicken; $21.18 with
Cost per serving: $1.80/$5.30

VERDICT: SUCCESS. 

FODMAP Free Sunday

This weekend I got busy in the kitchen making FODMAP-free foods for the fam.

#1: Whole Chicken Chicken Stock (adapted from here)

Ingredients:

Organic whole chicken including giblets
Handful fresh parsley from farmers market
3 stalks sad little celery from farmers market
2 bay leaves
2 tbsp rice wine vinegar
1/2 carrot from the farmers market

Put it all in the crockpot with a buncha water and set to 20 hours on low. Results TBD. I'll take the cooked chicken out tomorrow and use for salads/sandwiches.

#2: Chicken Broccoli Cheese Bake (adapted from here)

Ingredients:

1 cup brown rice
Organic chicken cutlets
Olive oil
1/2 head broccoli
Parmesan cheese
Cheddar cheese
Salt and pepper

Cook rice, cook chicken in dutch oven. Steam broccoli. Mix it all together and bake for 15 min. Went over well. But will it reheat? Probably four servings.

#3 FODMAP Friendly Pumpkin Bread (adapted from here)

Ingredients:

1 cup canola oil
2 cups granulated sugar
4 large eggs
2 cups canned pumpkin
2/3 cup water
3 1/3 cups quinoa flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice (cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, clove)
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Mix oil, sugar, eggs, pumpkin, and water; add flour, bp, bs, salt, pumpkin pie spice and vanilla; stir a little. Preheat oven to 350. For muffins, bake for 35 min. For bread, 50 min. These were DELICIOUS. Half the muffins are already gone. Probably all that sugar + oil! {NOTE: The bread was a little squishy near the middle. Might need to bake it longer at a lower temperature.}

#4 Fall Beef Stew (adapted from here)

Ingredients:

1 lb organic beef chunks
1/2 cup or so of quinoa flour
salt and pepper
olive oil
1 16 oz can salt-free diced tomatoes
2 carrots from the farmers market
5 turnips from the farmers market
5 red potatoes from the farmers market
1 tiny celery stalk chopped up real small
1 tbsp chopped parsley
1 2/3 cups water
1/3 cup dry red wine
1 tsp thyme

Coat beef chunks in flour, salt and pepper; brown. Add liquids and stir in the rest of the flour; add veggies and spices; bring to a boil and pop in the oven for an hour and a half at 350 degrees.

The beef was really tough, there were too many turnips, and while the carrots and potatoes were perfect consistency the turnips were very soft. But the flavor of the sauce was great. Wish I had beef stock and more wine on hand. Makes roughly four to six servings.

#5 Poor Woman's Pesto-like Power Spread

Is there such thing as a FODMAP-free garlic/pesto substitute? I made this one up. It's pungent and thrifty, but who knows if it will actually get eaten.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups turnip greens, celery leaves, parsley, broccoli
Olive oil
Lemon juice
Salt
Pepper
Parmesan cheese
Balsamic vinegar

Boil water. Dip greens into the water for 30 seconds. Blend in blender. Add olive oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper,  splash of balsamic vinegar, and parmesan cheese to taste/consistency. Apparently this is very nutritious, if somewhat overpowering, and I probably should have cooked the turnip greens. Will try on pasta or crackers (?) Maybe a sandwich spread? Next time add kale, spinach, basil. Call it Soylent...

FACTS AND FIGURES
 
Prep time: I spent about four hours preparing everything, but that includes chatting with a friend and doing all the dishes.
Servings: Hard to tell; probably 4 each of the entrees.
Agony rating: 7/10. Peeling and chopping; browning meat; measuring ingredients for pumpkin bread; ay ay ay.
Taste and stuff: So far, so good!

*COSTS OF STUFF I HAD TO BUY SPECIAL*

I tossed the receipt, and bought many other things at the grocery, but the cost of all this food probably came in around $70-$80. That includes the fancy organic meat and the organic farmer's market vegetables and eggs. So overall this will probably come in around $6-$8 a serving once I use all the chicken in the slow cooker, which while not stupendous is certainly doable.

VERDICT: A day well spent. We will have breakfast and dinner for almost a full workweek. SUCCESS.

Moroccan Chicken Crockpot Forever Stew

I call this "forever stew," because the answer to the question "how long are you cooking this?" and "how long will it last?" is the same.

Ingredients:

Lotsa chicken
Can of chickpeas
Onions
Zucchini
Cherry tomatoes
Raisins
Chopped green olives
Carrots
Green peppers
Spices according to this recipe
Couscous

Now I'm discovering it's totally full of FODMAPs and I shouldn't have served it, but maybe I can come up with an approximation using quinoa, diced tomatoes, carrots, green peppers, green olives, and something sweet (?)

 FACTS AND FIGURES

Prep time: About an hour (?)

Servings: Ten? Twelve?

Agony rating: 5/10. Chopping, de-boning meat.

Taste and stuff: Pretty good.

*COSTS OF STUFF I HAD TO BUY SPECIAL* 

I basically had NO spices on hand so I had to purchase them all anew. I spent about $60 total on all this stuff. But since it makes so many servings, it probably works out to $5-$6 per serving, less once you take out the cost of buying new turmeric.

VERDICT: Pretty good. Not really that spicy, surprisingly. But I need to figure out how to make a low-FODMAP version if this is going to join the canon.

Dinner Under $2: Red Beans and Rice

The onion and red beans (and who knows what else they put in that Carolina mix) make this one bad for no-FODMAP folks, but it's otherwise a good bet.
The inspiration was a Hunts can of tomato sauce with onion, celery, and green pepper. These three ingredients, often known as the "holy trinity" of Louisiana cuisine, are the foundation of any good jambalaya, gumbo, etc.

Ingredients:

12 oz sweet Italian sausage
16 oz Hunts Diced Tomatoes with Onion, Pepper and Celery
8 oz Carolina Red Beans and Rice mix
1 tbsp butter





First, slice and brown sausage. I used butter.

While your sausage is cooking, make your rice & beans. Add tomatoes and sausage at some point near the end. It might be a little liquid-y.









Serve with hot sauce and smiles. It tastes just fine. I wish it stretched a little further, and also didn't contain enough salt - between the tomatoes and the red beans mix - to dissolve a football field full of slugs. But for a meal that took under 30 minutes to prepare, I'm not complaining.






FACTS AND FIGURES
 
Prep time: 40 min. Heat the pan, cook the sausage, cook the rice, etc ec.
Servings: 4.
Agony rating: 2/10. Really, just monitoring the sausage.
Taste and stuff: 6/10. Not bad.

*COSTS OF STUFF I HAD TO BUY SPECIAL*

12 oz sweet Italian sausage: $3.99
16 oz Hunts Diced Tomatoes with Onion, Pepper and Celery: $1.34
8 oz Carolina Red Beans and Rice mix: $1.19
1 tbsp butter: marginal cost is essentially free
Servings: 4
Total cost of stuff I had to buy special: $6.52
Cost per serving: $1.63

VERDICT: SUCCESS. Add hot sauce.

Crockpot Chicken Sausage Stew with Peppers, Potatoes, and Mushrooms

So this meal was kind of a fiasco. I made it like a week ago and just got crazed the whole time. Inspiration for this one comes from Stephanie O'Dea's A Year of Slow Cooking, which is an excellent blog that you should read.

OK. Start by going to the grocery on Sunday. Or sending someone else to go. Acquire the following:

Two 6-packs of healthy chicken sausage
Two regular old potatoes
Two green peppers
Two red peppers
One carton mushrooms
*One carrot (Leftover from another recipe)
*Two sticks celery (Leftover from another recipe)
Optional & not pictured: Onions, broccoli, salad greens on the verge

Here's where it started to go wrong.

Chop vegetables into hearty chunks. BUT: Don't do it the way I did it, which was to start with the celery and peppers and then do carrots and potatoes last.

Not like this!

I tossed them in olive oil and, it being a Sunday night, stuck the whole thing in the fridge so that the cooking could commence Monday morning.

Then I woke up on Monday, looked at the recipe again, and realized that I was supposed to layer the vegetables in order of density. Because this is how slow cookers work. So I picked out all the peppers and mushrooms and celery and put them in a bowl. Remember, they are still covered in oil.

First this.

THEN add these.

Then I sliced up the sausage, threw it on top, turned the thing on low for six hours and ran to work.

Four hours later, I realized that I forgot to add any liquid to the mix. (The original recipe calls for a few cups of wine or water.) I indulged a few fantasies about my house burning down and/or my dog being driven insane by the smell of scorched chicken sausage... but thankfully, that's not how slow cookers work.

I got home and dinner was more or less ready.

Before.

After.

Better yet, the veggies had so much liquid in them that they provided a cup of juice. Crazy.

I served this over rice, with salt and hot sauce. It was filling but unremarkable.

FACTS AND FIGURES
 
Prep time: 30 min. Peeling, chopping, fretting, re-sorting, rice cooking, etc.
Servings: 6.
Agony rating: 3/10. Peeling and chopping veggies takes time.
Taste and stuff: 6/10. Not bad.

*COSTS OF STUFF I HAD TO BUY SPECIAL*

Oh yeah, I also lost the receipt. So here is a guesstimate based on past prices/prices on label.
Chicken sausages: $6.99 ea x 2 = $13.98
Peppers: $3?
Potatoes: $2?
Mushrooms: $1.50
Celery, carrot: acquired earlier
Rice: $1?
Total cost of stuff I had to buy special:~$22?
Cost per serving: $3.67. Maybe.

VERDICT: SUCCESS. Add hot sauce.