Great Depression Cooking with Clara (season 1)
OK, my first meal comparison:
I cooked a pound of spaghetti noodles, topped with a gourmet sauce on sale for $2.50 and Parmesan cheese. Oddly, the thing that drove the price up was the four ounces of organic beef. The thing is, the take home message from one of those inspiring documentaries was ; Don't eat meat unless you like the taste of poop. Really the way meat is processed and handled can not be described on a pg blog.
On the side I warmed a loaf of plain french bread and gave it a roasted pepper and garlic spread made from scratch. I also served salad with vinaigrette dressing and sweet tea to drink. There was no high fructose corn syrup or artificial sweetener in any of the bottled products. The dressing did contain soy bean oil, but, baby steps.
The only ingredients listed in the sauce were tomatoes, olive oil, salt, garlic, onions, mushrooms and wine. The sweet tea contained tea, water, and pure cane sugar.
My total cost for the food and drinks was $11.05
I compared with a national Italian chain known for cheap food and big portions. For a similar meal minus the bread the total cost for spaghetti, salad and drinks was $33.88 for a family of four. They might throw in free bread sticks, but don't count on it.
So far, success! You can see from the picture there was plenty to eat. And before you ask, yes there was a fourth plate, but the babys food doesnt look as pretty on her plain plastic plate. I even had left overs that will be perfect reheated for dinner before school tomorrow.
My husbands only comment when I asked him if he could taste a difference was :
"I can't taste poop or corn, but otherwise exactly the same!" That's what I get for asking him I guess!
If you would like to know the brands I used please reply with e-mail and I will happily pass on my information!
Thanks and keep reading!
YUM! Looks great. FYI, this has also been Adam's big thing for quite some time now. He is very careful when shopping for food, reading the ingredients carefully before he buys anything, and putting back most things that have ingredients consisting of additives or preservatives. Soy seems to be in everything and he avoids it as much as possible. He is very focused on making healthy food choices.
ReplyDeleteTrish, thanks for looking! Yes I know we have been on a parallel path as Adam for some time now. I recall a conversation you had two years ago about hormones in meat.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite trick for brown-bagging lunch is to make 4 sandwiches all at once and bring them all to work on Monday morning. (Somehow, 5 sandwiches seems like just too many...LOL). It's way easier than making one sandwich every night. And, if you bike to work, you don't have to worry about carrying your lunch every day.
ReplyDelete(BTW, very nice photo of the spag dinner!)