Holy Top Sirloin, Batman!

I have always, ALWAYS wondered how the heck chefs, grillmasters, and everyday folk (other than ME) can tell a steak is done by touch.  You know, by just POKING IT.  If you yourself are interested as well (impress friends! earn raises!), let Elise Bauer over at Simply Recipes show you how it’s done (or just medium rare, ha!).

I’m actually making steak tonight.  The beau and I have decided to splurge tonight as we have oh-so much to celebrate, despite this being a rather challenging and tumultous year.  But how else would you expect Martha Mcgyver to roll?

I’ll follow up later and let you know how it goes!

Soba Oatmeal Pancakes

I came up with a great recipe to use up that little bit of leftover oatmeal you always seem to have after breakfast. They freeze great, too, for mornings when you don’t have time to whip up homemade pancakes (i.e. most of them.)

Check it out over at my baking blog, Obsessed with Waffles.

on grocery shopping: part one

After work yesterday I swung by Berkeley Bowl on my way home.  Berkeley Bowl is a phenomenal local grocery store.  If Whole Foods had dreams of one day abandoning it's lot in life as a corporate giant, it would dream about being reborn as Berkeley Bowl.

Berkeley Bowl has all the standard awesomes: cheese samples, olive bar, decent bulk section, etc.  But where they really excel is in produce.  Berkeley Bowl is a produce god.  Every variety of every fruit, vegetable, fungi and sprout known to man, in both organic and conventionally grown varieties.  Yes gentle reader, at Berkeley Bowl you will never forced to pay $6.99 a pound for garlic. 

And in this holy home of produce, there is an altar.  And this altar is the bargain section.  All the fruit and vege and fungi and sprout that is nearly on it's way to the big compost pile in the sky.  No, it's not rotten, it's just a little brown.  And soft.  But usually just blemished, and desperately desiring to be your dinner--TONIGHT--and at bargain basement prices, friend.  Let's take a look at what I swooped up:

 

These acorn squash, for example.  There was absolutely nothing visually wrong with them.  I think maybe they just had too many? I got them BOTH for 99 cents.  Thank you, bargain section.  Everything else was non-bargain section, but super affordable as well.  Those organic satsuma mandarins (yay mandarin orange season!) were only $1.59 a pound. I saw them at Whole Foods tonight for almost a dollar more.

The brussel sprouts are conventionally grown, but at $1.19/lb they are way more affordable now than they even were a few weeks ago.  Brussel sprouts are one of my favorite magic foods.  People don't think they like them.  And then you cook them up, and you blow people's minds. 

It used to be the same with kale.  However kale is so popular now I'm pretty sure it parties with Jay-Z and Beyonce.  No matter! I remember it's humble beginnings, and we'll always be pals.  I bought the kale to teach my beau how to make kale chips.  Kale chips are so popular, Gwyneth Paltrow has her own recipe (and she DOES party with Jay-Z and Beyonce).  

Kale, with it's new champagne taste, can sometimes be a bit too pricey for my food stamp budget.  But it's winter, prime kale season (more on shopping seasonally later), and at the blessed Berkeley Bowl organic kale was actually 10 cents less than conventional.  Praise be.  

So at this point I'm sure you're wondering, "Ok Martha, how did you abracadabra this into dinner?"  I halved and oven-roasted one acorn squash, then thinly sliced the brussel sprouts and threw them in the cast iron with a little bit of olive oil, red onion and some Aidell's feta chicken sausage I scored at Grocery Outlet for $4.99.  This fed me and my main squeeze dinner twice. Grand total? $7.01.  That's $1.75 per person per meal.  

But honestly this post is all just a prelude to what I really want to share: which is while this is a pretty average quick trip to the grocery store for me, it's guided by some pretty solid principles I've developed to make grocery shopping kind to my budget, the planet, and my taste buds.