What I’d Rather Be Doing

Managing My Food Spending & CSAs

Oops.

Every now and again I keep forgetting to use Mint.com to track my expenditures and my accounts, so it’s sometimes shocking to see what I spend on after I stop paying attention. The graph above is my “Food” spending for a month.

While I live with two other people (my boyfriend and my roommate), this total doesn’t include feeding them as well. Restaurant costs is nearly always split between Matt and myself, and we’re pretty good at pitching in our fair share for the groceries at home (Although, I cook the most at home so I may be feeding them more than they feed me, increasing my costs).

So, why does did cost me nearly FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS to feed me last month? Laziness. Restaurants, prepared foods at the super market… it’s rather sickening when I should be saving a lot more than I am.

So I’ve decided to combine my need to save money and my desire to eat better and locally by joining a couple CSAs. And I have to admit, before I looked at my spending for the last month, I thought that CSAs were expensive.

My plan:

1. Join Two Small Farms for vegetables. They offer half shares combined from two small farms (thus the name) near Watsonville. The biggest problem with this is that they take three months off in winter. As it’s late Sept. now, I may have to wait until March to receive my first shipment.
2. Join Marin Sun Farms for meat. I never realized you could get a meat CSA. I also don’t eat meat very often, so I wondered whether this would be a good choice. However, I figured that if I was to eat meat more often, I would rather it be the grass-fed, sustainably-farmed meat that Marin Sun Farms offers, and having the meat around will probably mean I would eat it more often as well (plus, protein!).

Combining the $77 monthly share from Two Small Farms plus the $75 share from Marin Sun Farms should provide me with enough edibles to last me through a month as well as keeping my costs down (since the additional benefit of fresh food at home means less time spent eating out).

I’m rather excited. Has anyone else considered a CSAs? Any thoughts?

Chocolate Chip Cookies of Awesomeness

I admit it: I am a bit of a food snob. My Dad raised me to be extremely particular about my food. This leads to problems since my food MUST be a certain way: my maple syrup has to be heated, my chocolate must be dark, and my cookies should be big, soft, and tasty.

Previous forays into the art of cookie baking left me unsatisfied. Usually my cookies ended up as small, brown, hockey pucks; tasty-ish immediately out of the oven but discarded once they cooled and solidified. But I continued to truck on, convinced that the holy grail of chocolate chip cookies lay just around the corner.

These chocolate chip cookies took every other cookie I’ve had and smashed them out of the park.

The recipe has an odd combination of cake and break flour rather than all-purpose, and an express order to refrigerate the cookies overnight. As someone in a household where half the cookie dough disappears as soon as it is made, following this instruction was difficult. But the resulting cookie was amazing and I will never make a different chocolate chip cookie again. The recipe is below.

Jacques Torres’ Chocolate Chip Cookies

Adapted from NYTimes.com and Jacque Torres.

• 2 cups minus 2 tablespoons (8 1/2 ounces) cake flour
• 1 2/3 cups (8 1/2 ounces) bread flour
• 1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons coarse salt (I used kosher)
• 2 1/2 sticks (1 1/4 cups) unsalted butter
• 1 1/4 cups (10 ounces) light brown sugar
• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (8 ounces) granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons natural vanilla extract
• 1 1/4 pounds bittersweet chocolate disks or fèves, at least 60 percent cacao content (I used a combination of Ghiradelli dark chocolate chips and white chocolate chips)
• Sea salt

1. Combine flours, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a bowl and stir completely with whisk. Set aside.
2. Using a mixer fitted with paddle attachment, cream butter and sugars together until very light, about 5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Stir in the vanilla. Reduce speed to low, add dry ingredients and mix until just combined, 5 to 10 seconds. Stir in chocolate. Press plastic wrap against dough and refrigerate for 24 to 36 hours (extremely important; don’t let the dough dry out). Dough may be used in batches, and can be refrigerated for up to 72 hours.
3. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a nonstick baking mat. Set aside.
4. Scoop 6 3 1/2-ounce mounds of dough (the size of generous golf balls) onto baking sheet, making sure to turn horizontally any chocolate pieces that are poking up; it will make for a more attractive cookie. Sprinkle lightly with sea salt and bake until golden brown but still soft, 18 to 20 minutes. Transfer sheet to a wire rack for 10 minutes, then slip cookies onto another rack to cool a bit more. Repeat with remaining dough, or reserve dough, refrigerated, for baking remaining batches the next day. Eat warm, with a big napkin.

Small Changes for the Environment

Lately, society has gone through a “green” revolution: Companies are now hyping every product they have as environmentally-conscious, everybody and their mother are switching their traditional lightbulbs for CFLs, and every blog has had articles such as “10 ways to save the environment…” It’s been driving me batty because most of those articles repeat the same advice over and over. So I’ve decided to list some of my favorite ways to save money and be more environmentally conscious without repeating every other blog post out there.

10 easy ways to save money and save the planet

1. Stop using paper sleeves for your coffee

   Do you really need that sleeve on your coffee? Some people do, and that’s fine, but I find that people often take one simply because it’s given to them or out of habit. If you find that you don’t actually need them, hand it back to the barista since every piece of waste counts.

2. Use less water when rinsing out your plastic and glass for recycling

   In some areas, cleaning the items you set out for recycling isn’t necessarily needed, but I tend to do so to prevent a smelly bin. Rather than cleaning the jar under continuously running water, simply add about 1/4 cup of water and a bit of soap to the jar, secure the lid, and shake thoroughly. This will clean the jar enough to recycle, while much less water.

3. Use a stainless steel bottle to drink water at home, at work, at the gym, anywhere

   How many people grab a cup next to the water cooler rather than using a reusable option like Sigg? They also hold more water, are more spill-proof, and look pretty darn awesome too.

4. Stop buying new furniture. Stop it!

   Has anyone taken a gander at Craigslist lately? eBay? It’s not for those who need instant gratification, but why buy new when you can buy “gently”-used? It’ll be cheaper and better for the environment if we don’t insist on new manufactured materials every time we want something.

5. Buy potted herbs and keep them on a windowsill

   Buying package after package of fresh herbs from the market will not only hurt your pocketbook (they usually go bad before you’re able to use the entire package), but you’re constantly throwing away the plastic containers they come in as well.

6. Don’t recycle boxes from moving; throw them on Craigslist

   When I moved, I foolishly bought a “moving-kit” from Costco. Next time, I vow to take someone’s old boxes off their hands since cardboard stays in pretty good condition.

7. Extend your green-consciousness at work

   So many people are judicious about recycling and turning off lights while they’re at home (when you’re the recipient of the eventual bills) but forget to apply the same principals at work. Don’t be lazy: Turn off extra monitors, turn off bathroom lights when they’re not in use, and put a recycling bin next to every waste bin.

8. Close the shades in your house in the summer during the day to keep cooler

   It’s really easy to switch on the air-conditioner, but sometimes all it takes to keep the house cool in the evening is a little preventative work in the morning. Close all blinds, curtains, and shades on the sunny side, and enjoy a cooler house in the evening.

9. Volunteer to plant trees in your neighborhood

   Trees provide cooling shade, raise house values, and help clean the air. Volunteer at organizations like Friends of Trees and provide your neighborhoods and environment a boost while doing something awesome for the environment. Bonus points if you make new friends as well.

10. Choose vacations that celebrate the environment

    It’s very easy to becoming disenchanted and hard when working in front of a computer the entire day (like I do). When taking a vacation, give your self some time to step outdoors — - take a picnic, backpack to a camping spot (using no-trace principles), or take a simple walk. Remember why we want to keep the earth clean and beautiful.

Sausage, Kale, and White Bean Soup

Matt and I astonished our roommate Patrick with our enthusiasm for making soup when there are canned varieties. But we love fall: cool, overcast days; curling up on the couch with a book; and drinking tea and hot, broth-y soup. more »

Broken

I had such high hopes for my garden this year. But some things don’t always turn out like you want them to.

Ideation

Look at that! Glorious hillside in mid November, calling out to be turned into a beautiful garden. I came to this house with the permission of the landlord to turn and till and water to my heart’s content; to build a garden like I’ve always dreamed.

It started out well.

The Beginning

Gardening wasn’t that hard, was it? I worked in the greenhouse when I was in High School, mostly growing and selling the basics like squash, tomatoes, and flowers. And when I made raised beds in our backyard with my Dad, we never had a problem. The tomatoes grew vigorously, the squash were prolific, and we enjoyed many months of plenty.

So I was foolhardy and excited for my first garden in seven years. I raided garden centers, grabbing every plant capable of being edible or growing something edible. Tomatillos, yes. Random squash, yes. And when I planted, I threw them into the ground with gusto; I thought I could make mistakes and the plants would grow regardless.

And grow it did…

First major mistake, and I wish I could show a before picture. I knew that hand watering would not water deep enough, but I thought it wouldn’t matter that much until I put in a drip-system. But when I finally shelled out the money for drip-hoses and timers, my garden exploded. Above is the herb garden; green and completely happy. Other plants grew and thrived similarly. I wish that I had put in the watering system earlier so I would have had a quicker boost… I never knew how badly the plants needed water.

There were other mistakes as well.

• Deer. Deer! When I lived in the mountains, deer never touched our tomato plants, but here they were their favorite treat. My plants would be thriving one day and a mess of twigs devoid of their leaves. My hatred for deer was so great that when I saw them strolling the wild area above our house, I yelled and ran after them with rage. Thankful, they ran off rather than confronting me.
• I also discovered that the water boost caused a great growth spurt in all my plants, and the little plants that I put between the big plants were now being enveloped. Note to self: follow spacing requirements next time.

Downfall

And here we are today. The deer have been blocked out of the yard and the vole (?) has moved in. This creature has moved from plant to plant and chewed through the roots.

Deaths, to date:

• 3.5 tomato plants
• 2 squash plants
• 1 watermelon plants
• 3 bean plants
• 1 pepper plant

I am normally opposed to poison but I am rapidly reaching the breaking point. I want this monster gone. There went my glorious dream of fresh garden vegetables all summer; no tomatoes, no beans, nothing.

Here is where I am, and where I will start my writing. I hope I can only go up from here.