Cavatappi pasta: $1.50
Walnuts: $1.89
Tomatoes: $0.75
Spinach: $2.99
Broccoli: $2.29
Mushrooms: $0.81
Parmesan Cheese: $2.89
Items from Home:
Olive Oil
Garlic
Salt
Basil (from basil plant)
Grand Total: $13.12
I started out by chopping some broccoli florets and the mushrooms and sauteing them. At the same time, I was toasting the walnuts and getting the ingredients for the pesto sauce.
I used a variation on the Bittman recipe for my pesto. The bulk of the pesto was spinach, but I also added a few sprigs of fresh basil, along with the toasted walnuts, some , salt, and olive oil, and blended them together.
When the veggies were finished, I tossed the cooked cavatappi into the skillet with a dollop of the pesto, mixed it up, and tossed it on a plate with a parmesan garnish. It blew Noodles & Co. out of the water.
In the end, this challenge assignment didn't feel like much of a challenge compared to the difficulties of shopping at a corner store. Variety was certainly not a problem; I would say I had a harder time narrowing down what I wanted to make because the options were endless. The price was definitely more of an issue this time around, partially because that is the nature of co-ops (high-quality food is just more expensive), but even more so because this was a more complex meal than the last one -- in particular, I bought a larger variety of veggies than were available at the corner store. While I personally couldn't sustain an all-coop budget at this time, I would definitely like to incorporate co-ops into my shopping, especially for the bulk containers, which I found to be incredibly convenient and economical.
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