Last Few Weeks

I've finally started to settle in and accept my unemployed status.  It's tough being unemployed and yes I do realize that sounds ridiculous.  You go through so many different emotions.  At first I was sad to leave the working world.  The first week felt like a stay-cation.  I did as much and as little as I wanted to do and that brought me happiness.  Along comes the second week and reality set in pretty quickly.  There was anger (how come everyone else gets to work!), depression (I'm a sad, boring person now and I hate housework), and anxiety (am I ever going to work again?) all thrown into the mix..  And the BOREDOM!  Never in my life have I ever felt this kind of cabin fever before.  Now I get excited to run even the most mundane errands.  Currently I am in my third week of unemployment and I've dropped the anxiety and anger this week (had an interview Monday).  The depression has turned mainly just into boredom.   It's finally the time to get back to blogging.


Obviously I'm still trying to stick with making cheap yet delicious dishes.  Usually while I'm looking through my recipes I'll look at the ingredient list.  If I have a lot of ingredients on the list and the ones I have to purchase are inexpensive that recipe will make the cut.  Since I've been a bit of a slacker when it comes to blogging, I'm going to recap a few recipes I made.


Rachael Ray's Salsa Stoup and Double-Decker Baked Quesadillas:  I love soup and what could be better than turning salsa into a soup! The quesadillas are cheese and scallion; the scallions really gave these more flavor then you normally get with a cheese quesadilla. I will be adding scallions, leek, or shallots to my cheese quesadillas from now on.


Total Cost:  (I already had the oil, onion, garlic and omitted the cilantro and sour cream) $13.49

Mushroom and Sausage Ragu with Polenta:  Yum this was a great meal!  I added some sauteed kale to it because it needed more veggies and the kale was the perfect choice.  Total cost:   (I had the oil, onion, garlic, salt, and butter and substituted baby bella's for creminis)  $11.65

Both of these recipes had enough left over for lunches the next day.  

That's my update for now.  Next up:  Garlic and Bean Enchiladas and Sweet Potato Soup

Meatless Monday-Curried Lentils and Potatoes

Hope everyone had a great weekend!  I only have 3 1/2 more days of work left.  Then I guess you can say that I will be a full time blogger.  Due to the fact that I will be unemployed, I've decided to continue trying recipes that are budget friendly.  I've also decided that anytime I do go out to eat, I will be reviewing the food and the restaurant.  If my unemployment status continues for even longer than I anticipate, I might be changing things up even more.  For now these are the simple changes I will be making.  Nothing too drastic or different.     

Okay back to the food.  I tried another Mark Bittman recipe, Curried Lentils and Potatoes.  That's actually called Dal, in Indian cooking.  I have a new found love of lentils and could eat them daily or at least weekly.  They are also fairly inexpensive ingredient to cook with and are a good source of fiber.  They even have been shown to lower cholesterol and since I'm going to be eating cheaply this is very important to me.  Cheap sometimes means things might be higher in fat, calories, or lacking in nutritional value, and that's why lentils are going to become an even bigger part of my diet. 

Ingredients needed:  1 cup of brown lentils (I'm sure you could use any color you have on hand), 3 1/2 cups of water, coconut milk (my choice!), or stock, 1 tbsp of curry powder, 2 medium potatoes, and salt and pepper. 

Cook the lentils in the liquid of your choice seasoned with the curry powder.  Once you bring the liquid to a boil you bring it down to a simmer and let it cook for about 15 minutes or until the lentils have started absorbing the water.  Next add the potatoes (which should be cut into chunks) and cover the pot, and cook for another 10 minutes.  At this point you need to season it all a bit with some salt.  Then cook for another 5 minutes until everything is tender and add some pepper.  If you make some rice and pick up some Naan bread from Wegman's you have a substantial meal. 

Final Product:

                                         (sorry for the lack of pictures, I forgot to take more!)

My thoughts:  Easy recipe folks, put this one into your weekly rotation or at least your monthly rotation.  You can't go wrong! I'm going to be making this again next week, it's perfect for the Fall and Winter months.

Okay calculation time (remember all my calculations are rough estimates):
Ingredients I already had:  Lentils and Curry

Lentils/$0.75 (I just calculated for half of a bag)
2 Potatoes/$1.19
Curry/$1.50 (split one jar into 4 servings)
2 cans Coconut Milk/$2.78
Naan/$2.99
Rice/$0.20 (1 cup of rice)

Total/$8.66

After seeing the total of this meal I now know it will be used very often while I am unemployed.  We each had a serving for dinner and there was still enough left for us to both have it for lunch too! I love budget meals!! 

Next up:  Salsa Soup with Cheese Quesadillas