Dinner for Two

If you listened to the NPR links I listed below you would have heard that the three biggest areas of expense for an individual/family are housing, transportation and food. If you can cut down on one of these three things, even if it is just a little, you’re bound to see big results.

In my previous post about our car buying/selling history, you saw that we already tried all we could to put ourselves in a financially sound auto situation. As for our housing, its a complicated situation, but I can let you know that I couldn’t honestly imagine finding a better housing deal out there, let’s just leave it at that. But when it comes to food, we really fall short. You might be thinking, my goodness what has it come to that I need to cut my food budget?? But we recently found very reasonable ways to cut back on the budget without denying ourselves much at all.

Several months ago we started doing some research on where the money was going and we found out that it was slowly walking away several times a day. Will and I both work fulltime and it doesn’t help that my office is located across the street from Whole Foods, let me explain…What I mean by slowly walking away is that we had several $5-$20 purchases a day between the two of us and it was certainly adding up. We kept the fine dining far and few between, but it was the breakfasts, the lunches and the dinners out that was getting us.

Part of the problem was we didn’t think we had the time to pack a lunch or cook dinner at home the night before. We are both fairly busy people and sitting around preparing food was one of the last things on our minds. The other part – the cooking part – was that I didn’t know how to cook, I didn’t like to cook, and with Will being Vegetarian, I didn’t know what to cook.

I don’t know what changed, but a few weeks after we pinpointed the problem, I realized that we had been gifted wonderful cookware that was wasting away in our cabinets and that I really did want to master the elusive dinner. I started small and got more adventurous each day and now coming home to experiment with a new recipe is one of the highlights of my evening. Looking back, I can now say that I think there was something in me that was exhausted by the idea of never being home to cook a meal. I felt like we were transients constantly running from place to place, scavenging for food with no thought to plan ahead. I was really longing to have that stable enviornment of a working kitchen.

Insert opinion here: There are several benefits to cooking at home – my top three are as follows. First, you know exactly what you’re eating. Looking back we must have been consuming an absorbent amount of sodium/fat/calories when we were dining out daily. You can’t be sure of those hidden ingredients unless you made it yourself. Save all those things for the 5 stars. Second, dinner at home usually leads to leftovers for lunch the next day. Will and I usually fight for them the next morning – thats a good sign. Lastly, dining at home provides much more of a romantic atmosphere than eating in your car on your way to your next event. I look forward to downloading the day with Will over two plates of something wonderful. Below is one of our favorite, more economical recipes. It’s based off a recipe I found on cookinglight.com For more veg friendly recipes click here. Enjoy!

Baked Vegetable Ziti

Ingredients
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup chopped onion
2 cup chopped red bell pepper
2-3 sliced Portobello mushrooms
4 garlic cloves, chopped
1 teaspoon dried basil
2 teasonpoons crushed red pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 jar of tomato based pasta sauce
7 cups torn spinach (about 1/2 pound)
3 cups hot cooked ziti (about 2 1/4 cups uncooked short tube-shaped pasta)
1 cup part-skim ricotta cheese
1/4 cup (1 ounce) grated fresh Parmesan cheese

Preparation
Preheat oven to 375°.

Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion, garlic and bell peppers, and sauté 5 minutes. Add mushrooms; sauté 2 minutes. Stir in basil, salt, black pepper, crushed red pepper and marinara, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer 5 minutes or until slightly thick. Stir in spinach; cook 1 minute or until spinach wilts. Stir in pasta. Spoon into a 13 x 9-inch baking dish coated with cooking spray. Dollop with ricotta.

Cover and bake at 375° for 20 minutes. Uncover; sprinkle with Parmesan. Bake an additional 5 minutes or until lightly browned.