E-Co$t Debut

Nope, I didn't forget about the new E-Co$t feature of this site. Last week we spent $131 on groceries. We bought a lot of stuff and mostly it was food related. But amazingly enough, only a total of $74.44 was for food for dinner prep—and that includes the $14.99 for a 44-fluid ounce bottle of extra virgin olive oil. The organic baby spinach at $3.79 per 6-ounce "box" (evil plastic) was also a big chunk of the bill since we bought three of them (the spinach and the olive oil totaled $26.36). The other expensive items were non-dinner related (sparkling water, organic cereal bars, yogurt, and coffee beans). I have several ideas for cutting down those costs, which I'll post about eventually.

Here's the totals (approximate) for the meals for the Menu 5/31/08 to 6/6/08:

• Turkey meatloaf: $10.81 for loaf ($1.08 for each serving)
• Smashed potatoes: $3.15 ($0.52 for each serving)
• Lemon-herb roasted chicken: $10.55 for entire roast ($2.63 per serving; however, the carcass meat does get recycled into stock and other meals)
• Fri-ta-toe: $1.68 ($0.42 per serving)
• Chicken-Spinach Faux Casserole: $12.46 ($2.49 per serving)
• Prosciutto Pasta: $6.65 ($3.33 per serving)

I'll have to probably refine this feature of the blog as some of the costs can be misleading. For example, the chicken-spinach faux casserole: the total includes the costs associated with the first chicken meal (lemon-herb roasted chicken) from which the faux casserole is derived. So, it can be argued that the costs are more accurate this way, but for a true idea of how much we are actually spending, the cost for that initial chicken meal would have to be excluded (because I didn't really go out and buy more food). In other words, all the ingredients for the casserole (including those for making 2 servings of the lemon-herb chicken) totaled $12.46. But because I already paid for those 2 servings of lemon-herb roasted chicken ($2.63 x 2 = $5.27), the outlay for the second "left-over" meal was really $7.19 ($1.44 per serving). The same is true of the fri-ta-toe; the only new ingredients were red pepper, onion, olive oil, egg, and salt and pepper.