Symbiotic Grocery Shopping

Cooking for two is much easier than for one in some respects.  You don't end up eating the same thing everyday, less math is involved with recipes...good stuff.

However, if your palate is significantly different than say your significant others' - it's an uphill battle to meet both people's wishes while keeping on a budget.

To attempt to thwart overspending and also to be more organized - I've been putting together shopping lists and menus for the week for Ox and I.  My first week I borrowed from the domestic genius Martha Stewart - in her Everyday Food magazines there is always a weekly menu and a tear out shopping list.  Awesome.  Even more awesome?  The fact that you can find these lists here for free without a subscription on Martha's site: http://www.marthastewart.com/menus.

The first week Ox only hated one of the 6 meals - that's a pretty good ratio considering this man loves mac and cheese.  But this week, I wanted to fly free - or thought I did.  So, I pulled out a few cookbooks, a pen, paper and started trying to make something work using the ingredients we picked up at the local farmer's market.

The problem of trying to best a master is that they cover the subtlies without you knowing it.  You see, the professionally published menus I was using did a great job of using something in several dishes to make shopping more efficent.

But, I'm a budget shopper, I won't go buying 50 things for one meal...well not every week of course.  But there's always a time to expand a pantry.  So, balancing the budget and tastes and still making out without feeling like I'm missing out -- that's today's goal.

The menu so far this week is going to be:
Sunday - Polenta with Asparagus and creamy mushroom sauce (Martha)
Monday - Baked chicken with bacon (I've yet to acquire that recipe, but will iron-chef it out)
Tuesday - Meatloaf (traditional - adapted from Alton Brown's masterpiece - I'm adding jack cheese through the center)
Wednesday - Chicken Stir-fry with snow peas and carrots
Thursday - Andoullie sausage, chickpea and chard frittata (adaptation of this food52.com recipe)
Friday - Spaghetti and meat sauce
Saturday - Eggs in a nest (from the Animal, Vegetable, Miracle site)

Last week our grocery store trip was around $100 - I'd love this week to be half that.  We've spent $20 (farmer's market) already on food this week leaving $30 for the above mentioned recipes -- note we have a well stocked pantry/fridge with lots of excess "face" aka meat.

Let's see if it happens when we hit the store tonight!

At the end of the day, we spent $40 - so only $10 over budget - a nice beginning if I do say so myself!