Menu: July 8 – 13

Going out of town for a few days always reinforces my reasons for cooking all the time:

1. Eating out is expensive. I usually manage to feed six people for an entire week for $150 to $200. We were out of town for five days and spent $250 feeding the two of us lunch and dinner. This does not include Starbucks, as we have loaded Starbucks cards that covered breakfast, coffee, and tea for our whole trip, and we were fed by lovely friends for three of our ten other meals. This does include eating at breweries and therefore having beer included in our expenses, but a taster in a brewery usually ran more than a can or bottle from the grocery store or our favorite bar/convenience store.
2. Eating out makes me feel gross. We did a better job of finding high-quality options than we usually do, but I still felt like my body was always mad at me after I ate and I’m sure we both gained weight over those few days.
3. Eating out is super hit-and-miss. I’d say fewer than 50% of the things I made were on par with what I eat at home. I’m more risky in the things I cook than the things I order at a restaurant as far as eating outside my comfort zone is concerned, and I’m much more consistently happy with how the food turns out.

So now that we’re back in town, I’m loading up on healthy food. It doesn’t hurt that Sean and I bought each other a bunch of cookbooks for our anniversary last week, and the vegan and superfood cookbooks were included. We went ahead and did ridiculous burgers tonight because ground beef was on sale, but otherwise we’re sticking to vegetarian and loading up on cauliflower because that is also on sale. Also, my sister bought too much bok choy this weekend and I didn’t want to see it go to waste, so that factored into Wednesday’s dinner.

Monday, July 8: All-in-One Burgers, Master of the Grill

Tuesday, July 9: Baja-Style Cauliflower Tacos, Vegan for Everybody

Wednesday, July 10: Mee Goreng, The Complete Vegetarian Cookbook (Plus attempting Chinese noodles from scratch from the internet)

Thursday, July 11: Mushroom Bourguignon with Cauliflower Puree, Nutritious Delicious

Friday, July 12: Edamame Salad with Arugula and Radishes, Nutritious Delicious

Saturday, July 13: Red Rice and Quinoa Salad, Vegan for Everybody