Day 4: On Sunday I cook.

A month isn’t going to be enough time to get a lot of variety out of this cookbook. 

Consider this, as is the case with most collections of recipes, they’re not written for one person. Ingredients aren’t intended for the solo diner, the general minimum for any meat that isn’t processed and destined for a sandwich is a pound, which is usually 4-6 servings. So I’m going to end up with leftovers for 5 meals if I make a recipe with 6 servings.

Rereading those paragraphs I realize that is a pretty privileged viewpoint, and it’s the wrong viewpoint to have. I’m accustomed to eating the same thing maybe once, the next day, or the day after that. It’s a luxury. But others make the most of the ingredients that they have access to and will utilize the results for as long as they can. Preferring novelty isn’t a luxury for a lot of people.

Back to the cookbook. Today I baked the Whole Wheat Jalapeño Cheddar Scones. I’d never made scones before, I realized after baking them that it’s because I’m not a huge fan of them. One of my Twitter friends remarked “they just tend to be too dry for me. Can be nice dipped in milk or tea, but gimme a biscuit over a scone any day.” I’m very inclined to agree with her, especially since these savory ones aren’t likely going to taste great dipped in Earl Grey. The good part is these are actually more affordable to prepare than the book suggests at 71 cents a scone versus 75.

I mean, they look pretty, and they taste okay. But the moisture is missing, it seems that’s been an issue with most scones I’ve tried.

Here’s an interior view too. You can see all the voids and recesses from the expanding butter and cheese.

That takes care of quick breakfasts or easy lunches for the week. But I need another meal that will be easy to heat up on the days that I want to write or work on my side projects. So I also made the Beef Stroganoff recipe from the book. One failing of the book is that it doesn’t include cooking times when looking at the recipes. The scones were quick and easy, the Stroganoff takes at least 2 hours of idle time. But I think it was worth it. It also comes in cheaper than suggested being $2.50 a serving versus $2.75

Day 1: $6.45 (I didn’t realize how much my free SweeTango apples were worth)
Day 2: $3.71
Day 3: $2.52
Day 4: $3.80

Total: $16.48
Average: $4.12 (I’ll try to get this down under $4 as time goes on)