Does this sound familiar? It’s so easy to fall into the “let’s just go
out,” trap or throw a frozen dinner in the microwave. But in order to live a healthy lifestyle, we
have to make smarter food decisions.
Couple our perpetual time crunch with the increasing cost of food, gas,
everything, and we’re left wanting to choose the path of least resistance.
When I talk to people about
moving toward a healthier lifestyle, I rarely hear them say that the food
doesn’t taste good. Rather, the two most
common complaints are “I don’t cook” and “healthy food is too expensive.”
Merely a stumbling block, I
say in reference to the first complaint.
My recipes are easy and come together in minutes. I don’t want to spend all day in the kitchen,
either. Who has time for that? Once I show them (in person, or through the
blog or cookbook), they usually rise to the challenge.
To the second complaint, I
say this. False. Wrong.
Though I understand where they’re coming from. Here’s how I see it. Best case, you make a grocery list. And it keeps getting longer and longer as you
think about all the things you “need.”
Then when you get to the store, the cart fills up even more. By the time you check out, you’ve spent $50,
$100, even $200. Your heart races and
you think to yourself, “Healthy food is too expensive. We can’t live like this.” And just like that, it’s back to old habits.
I get it. I have sticker shock in the checkout line,
too, even with the best plans. I’m not a coupon clipper. Maybe I should be (I know I should be!), but
I haven’t found the motivation or dedication to make it work for us. But I know now that it’s all in how you
approach the groceries once you leave the store. How often do you get home, put everything away,
cook one meal, and then lose track of your weekly meal plan and end up throwing
away an entire head of lettuce seven days later? It happens to the best of us. But I want to walk you through a few tips and
a recipe sample that will help put this into perspective – eating healthfully is
not more expensive than a diet of
junk food and takeout.
Yesterday I went to the
grocery store for the sole purpose of research.
No store sale flyer, no coupons.
Just me in the store pricing what my desired ingredients cost. I wanted to test this theory and make eggplant Parmesan for
dinner, serve it with a green salad, and pick up a few other things for the
rest of the week (I had no weekly plan….again.
Oops.). For the sake of argument,
let’s assume that I have “pantry staples” necessary for a healthy diet –
cooking spray, minced garlic, spices, salt/pepper, olive oil and vinegar. If you’re just starting a healthy plan,
you’ll have to buy these things – but trust me, you won’t need to replenish often.
Here’s what I got:
- Head
of lettuce - $1.24
- 3
cucumbers - $2.25 ($0.75 each)
- 4
tomatoes - $3.78
- 3-pack
of boneless, skinless chicken breasts - $9.00 (yikes!)
- Pork
tenderloin (did you know there are two in there?!) - $11.54 (sheesh!)
- 1
eggplant - $1.50
- 4
cans of low sodium diced tomatoes - $3.96 ($0.99 each)
- Shredded
Parmesan cheese - $3.50
- Part-skim
mozzarella cheese - $2.39
- Can
of panko breadcrumbs - $2.50
- A
dozen eggs - $1.69
- 2
bags of frozen vegetables (16 oz each) - $3.00 (gotta love the store brands!)
- Loaf
of whole wheat bread - $2.69
- 1
pound low sodium deli turkey breast - $6.50
- Fresh
basil - $1.69
- London
broil ($4.49/pound) - $11.00 (if only I’d picked a sale week!)
- 6
bananas ($0.59/lb) - $1.18 (one banana weighs about 1/3 pound)
OK, drum roll please. My quick stop at the store to make eggplant Parmesan has turned into a somewhat manic “I need to fill the fridge!”
escapade. Grand total? $69.41. Ack!
For ONE meal and a “couple” things!
I could have taken us out for dinner!
Ordered a pizza (several pizzas)!
(Initiate heart palpitations and panic attack.)
But it clearly isn’t just
one meal’s worth of food, even though that’s what the shopping trip was
for. The next step is making the
commitment to use what you purchased so you don’t have to throw away rotten
tomatoes and brown bananas at the end of the week.
For now, though, let’s start
by making dinner. The recipe is listed
below with a cost of exactly the amount we use for this recipe from the groceries above (and
some I’ve labeled staple since they’re already in our pantry).
The Svelte Gourmet Baked Eggplant
Parmesan
Serves 6
For the eggplant:
1 medium eggplant, sliced crosswise into 1/8 inch slices (I used a
mandolin slicer) ($1.50)
Salt (staple)
1 egg, beaten ($0.14)
1/2 cup panko bread crumbs ($0.47)
3/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese ($1.32)
1/4 tsp garlic powder (staple)
1/4 tsp dried oregano (staple)
Cooking spray for misting (staple)
Line a large colander with the eggplant slices and sprinkle with salt.
Let them sit for about an hour. The salt will help to drain excess water from
the slices. Pat them dry.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mist 2 baking sheets with cooking spray.
Mix the Parmesan, panko, garlic powder and oregano in a shallow dish. Dip each
slice into the beaten egg, then dip into the cheese mixture, pressing to coat.
Place the slices in a single layer on the baking sheets. Mist the tops with cooking
spray and bake for about 40 minutes or until golden brown. Rotate the sheets
halfway through baking if one is browning more quickly than the other.
For the sauce:
1/2 tsp olive oil (staple)
1 tsp minced garlic (staple)
2 14-ounce cans diced tomatoes (undrained) ($1.98)
1/2 tsp dried oregano (staple)
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes (staple)
1/4 tsp salt (staple)
6 fresh basil leaves, roughly chopped or torn ($0.66)
In a medium saucepan, heat oil. Reduce heat to medium and sauté garlic
for two minutes or until it starts to be fragrant. Add diced tomatoes with
juice, oregano, crushed red pepper and salt. Simmer, stirring, for about 5
minutes. Remove from heat. Just before assembly, stir in chopped basil leaves.
For the casserole:
1/4 cup shredded Parmesan ($0.43)
3/4 cup shredded mozzarella (part-skim) ($0.89)
Sauce
Baked eggplant slices
Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees. Mix the Parmesan with the
mozzarella. Add a spoonful of sauce to the bottom of a casserole dish,
spreading to coat. Layer with some of the eggplant, followed by a sprinkle of
cheese, then more spoonfuls of sauce. Resist the urge to completely cover with
sauce, as we want the eggplant to stay crispy. Repeat until the eggplant slices
are gone, finishing with sauce and cheese on top. For reference, I got 2 layers
of eggplant out of mine in a medium-sized oblong casserole dish. Bake covered
for 20 minutes, then remove lid and bake for another 10 minutes or until cheese
is bubbly.
Yum! This eggplant Parmesan makes 6 servings at
only 220 calories per serving (now THAT’S eating light!). Couple it with a serving of green salad made with
1 cup of lettuce ($0.25), ¼ of a cucumber ($.019), half of a tomato ($0.47) and
a splash of balsamic vinegar (staple) and you have yourself a NICE dinner. This is so nice, in fact that it’s dinner
party worthy. And guess what – the
eggplant Parmesan only costs $1.23 per serving.
$1.23! That’s cheaper than fast
food or a can of soup! The salad set me
back $0.91. That’s $2.14 a person for a
NICE meal. Serve this to six people at a
dinner party for $12.85. That’s cheaper
than a pizza, which won’t even feed six!
Not convinced yet? Remember, this only works if you continue to
eat from the fridge. For the sake of
argument (and easy math!), let’s calculate the remainder of the discussion as
1-person servings. So out of my meal
above, I have 5 servings of eggplant parm left.
Instead of leaving this in the fridge to go bad or eating the same meal
for days in a row, I package each serving separately and freeze – makes a
perfect lunch to grab on the way to work or dinner for a night when I don’t
want to cook. What else? At 3 meals a day for 7 days, eggplant parm alone isn’t going
to cut it. So here’s how the rest of the
week might look.
Breakfast ideas:
- 1
packet oatmeal ($0.62) and a banana ($0.20)
- 2
eggs ($0.28) and half a sliced tomato ($0.47)
- 1
slice of whole wheat toast ($0.12), 1 egg ($0.14) and a slice of tomato ($0.15)
Lunch ideas:
- 2
slices wheat bread ($0.24), 2 oz turkey breast ($0.81), tomato slice ($0.15),
mustard (staple)
- 1
can diced tomatoes (.99), a bit of minced garlic/salt/pepper, a leaf of basil
($0.11) and a bit of water blended with immersion blender then heated. Cheaper than canned soup and MUCH less sodium. Tastier, too!
- 2-egg
omelet ($0.28) with ¼ cup mozzarella ($0.29), ½ a cucumber ($0.37) sliced on
the side.
I know it’s hard to argue with ramen
noodles at $0.25 a brick, but this healthy food is worth the tiny bit of extra
cash! And it is only a tiny bit.
Dinner ideas:
- Pork
loin ($0.73) with steamed frozen broccoli ($0.37) and green salad ($.91) (by
the way, that pork loin I bought was nearly 4 pounds….that will feed me roughly
16 times using 4 ounce serving sizes! Break it up into smaller portions before
you freeze it.)
- Grilled
chicken (that 3-pack of chicken breasts contained nearly 24 ounces of meat – that feeds me 6
times at $1.50/serving) with steamed frozen green beans ($0.37) and a green
salad
- Leftover
eggplant parm and salad (you get the idea)
- London
broil (at roughly 2.5 pounds, this will feed me 9 times at $1.22/serving! Again, split into easier portion sizes before
freezing!), broiled ½ tomato sprinkled with parmesan, basil and garlic ($0.65) and
salad ($0.91).
- Need
some filler? I bought a 20-pound bag of
basmati rice at the big box store. Did
you know that basmati rice is AS LOW as whole grain brown rice on the glycemic
index? It won’t spike your blood sugar,
it keeps you feeling full, and it cooks in only 20 minutes! Rejoice!
Anyway, this bag of rice contains 200 servings. And it was $15.00. So that’s about $0.07 per serving. (So add it to every meal if you’re feeding a
crowd!)
Even after all these meals,
you still have a ton of food left over – some cheese, a lot of meat split up
and frozen, veggies, leftover eggplant parm, the remaining eggs and bread. For just under $70 I fed myself for one week AND
stocked up the fridge and freezer to avoid future “Ugh, let’s just go out”
nights. Feeding a family works the same
way, you just have to commit to eating at home and not wasting the fresh
foods. If you can, buy meat on
sale. Stock the freezer! This will save you a ton! (Sometimes I vow not to shop until we eat
everything in the freezer – good thing I can make chicken 37 different
ways!) Always package leftovers in easy
to grab and reheat portions. And look
for recipes that have simple, everyday ingredients – that filet mignon and
lobster may be pretty lean, but it won’t feel that way on your wallet.
Best of luck – let me know
how it goes! If you find yourself left
with a couple random ingredients that don’t seem to go together, send me an
email and I’ll try to come up with something creative. I love a challenge!