Steak Dinner for Two for $20

There's no reason you can't live large on a budget. It's all about picking and choosing the moments to indulge yourself.

With the help of some savvy shopping you can have
a Friday night steak dinner for two with all the fixings for $20.

Twenty dollars and only two stores.

Here's the menu:

Grilled New York Strip Steak

Sauteed Potatoes with Carmelized Onions

Steamed Broccoli Florettes with Garlic Butter

Fresh Corn on the Cob

Toasted Garlic Bread with Parsley

.

2007 Pepperwood Grove Pinot Noir

How do you bring all that in for 20 dollars.

Here's how:

Follow the deals and know where to look. Once the Wednesday grocery circulars come out start your menu planning.

First stop was Stanley's Fruit Market at 1558 N. Elston (the SW corner of North & Elston).

Stanley's is an amazing resource for produce. Their prices are beyond reasonable, I would highly recommend a weekly visit to their store for all your veggie and fruit needs.

They also have a great bread selection. Several local bakeries sell their goods there and Stanley's gets fresh deliveries from Cuisine de France. If you show up at the right time you can get bagettes hot off the truck.

In addition to fruits, veggies and bread, Stanley's has a small grocery selection with among other things, dried herbs and spices, their own brand of olive oil, chips, nuts and organic coffee.

Coffee isn't the only organic item. Stanley's has a large area set aside for organic produce.


The next stop is Jewel-Osco for the meat and wine.

My recommendation for shopping at Jewel would be to watch the sales.

If you see they are having a killer deal on something, get it. Get two if storage and expiration dates aren't an issue.

Some things can be kept for a later date, either in dry storage, the refridgerator or freezer, i.e. steaks and olive oil.

While some things are best not to load up on unless you can use them sooner than later, i.e. eggs and lettuce.

In this case Jewel was offering a deal on New York Strip steaks. I picked up two for just under 10 dollars. The wine was also on sale and with the purchase of two bottles there was an in-store coupon for 3 dollars off, bringing the cost to just $5.50 per bottle.


The rest of the herbs, spices and dairy come from home, don't worry they are all included in the final price. No sneaky hidden extras. It's all accounted for in the twenty dollars.

Here's the price break down:

2 New York Strip Steaks - $10
1 lb. small white potatoes - $ .70
1/2 lb. broccoli - $ .45
2 ears of corn - $ .40
onion/garlic - $.15
1/2 stick of butter - $.25
1 loaf of sourdough bread - $1.95
oil/herbs/spices - $.60
1 bottle of pinot noir - $5.50

Throw some nice linens on the table. Dust off the good plates and glasses. Light a couple of candles. Heck, put on your going out clothes for a swank night in.

Pull out all the stops. Just because it only cost twenty dollars doesn't mean it has to feel like it.

Do it up, even on a buttoned down budget, we can all live it up.

Farmers' Markets...Are they worth it?

What happened to farmers' markets?

That's the question my friend and I were debating last night. We weren't wondering where they went or when they are. The frequency and prevalence of the farmer's market isn't an issue. In Chicago there's one almost everyday and in almost every area of town.

What we were debating is the substance of the markets' themselves, namely the deals. It used to be they were a place to get farm fresh goods in the city at a fair price. It seems I remember a time when the market would come to town and have fruit ripe close to bursting and the vegetables, hearty and plentiful, all at a reasonable price.

Lately, it seems the farmer's market has become a place to look, but not shop. The market's selection has been limited and expensive, two things a grocery shopper does not want.

Now maybe I'm waxing poetic, remembering back to a time in youth when summer lasted forever and nothing cost more than a dollar.

Or maybe my memory is getting long. It's long enough to remember when gas was three dollars a gallon...oh wait that was just last summer.

How about long enough to remember when milk was three dollars a gallon...now wait that was just last month.

It's not hard to deduce that with all this inflation that the farmer is feeling the pinch. But a price of a bushel of corn is at an all time high. Between the flooding in the Midwest and the high demand for alternative fuels like ethanol, farmers are looking at fields of gold almost literally.

Now I realize that this new found liquidity doesn't necessarily impact the profit margin of an organic berry farmer. Smaller farms still face the economically daunting task of bringing their crops to market. Fueling the harvesting equipment and staying in the black could prove tricky in a summer where oil is expected to top one hundred and fifty dollars a barrel by Independence Day.

So what does that mean for the us, the shoppers?

Two things really...

1. It means we have to look harder than ever for a deal and the
weekly farmer's market might not be where you find it. As much
as I love my open air market, a stroll may be the only thing I take home from
it.

2. It means we have to pay more attention to what things cost, where
the deals are and what the best deal is. If you're at the farmer's market
and need a pound of green beans for dinner that night, even if they are a
little more than what they cost at Jewel, get them. The small
expense is worth the time spent for a special trip.

It helps me to think of myself as a small business owner, running my home is my business. If financially I am able to help out a fellow small business owner like the farmer at the market by all means I'll do it. In these economically uncertain times (dare I say the "R" word) we all need to rediscover good old fashion stick togetherness. I'm all for helping the little guy, but I also have a business to run.

In the end, what my friend and I concluded was that we'll still go to the farmers' markets, if for nothing else the people watching and to support local growers. But the days of a dollar buying the world may be long gone, at least for this summer.

A summer I hope, that at these prices, doesn't last forever as a younger me once thought it did.

Quick Note - City of Chicago

The City of Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs is offering cooking classes at Gallery 37 this week.

On Thursday, June 26th in the evening from 6 to 8:30 p.m. is What In The World Is This? A class to address the question that most cooks ask themselves when faced with an unidentifiable item in the supermaket's produce section. Not only will the class explain what it is, but how to cook it.

Saturday, June 28th from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. is June In A Jam which is a class aimed at making fillings, sauces and jams that can be used year round.

Both classes require pre-registration and cost $30 per person.

Reservations can be made by phone at312-742-TIXS (8497) or through Gallery 37's box office at 66 E. Randolph St. Box office hours are Wednesday through Saturday, noon to 6 pm.

This Little Piggy Goes to Market

Chicago is a great town for farmer's markets.

No matter what neighborhood you live if it's summer there is an open air market somewhere near you with local farmers looking to sell their wares at competitive prices.

On Tuesdays beginning in June there is one such market on the north side, the Lincoln Square Farmer's Market.

Just yesterday when I went I got four round tomatoes for a dollar. Not only was the price right, but with locally produced tomatoes the chance of salmonella is practically zero.

Zucchini and white potatoes were going for about a dollar a pound as well. Strawberries are a little pricier at about four to five dollars a pint, but the offerings aren't just fruits and vegetables.

The markets offer fresh baked pies and quick breads, locally made soaps, flowers and herbs (both fresh cut and potted), even meat.

C & D Family Farms is from Knox, IN and they offer all natural farm raised free range pork. If you go to their booth in Lincoln Square on Tuesdays you'll most likely meet Crystal, the C in C & D Family Farms.

The pork comes vacuum packed and frozen, something to consider if you were going to pick up some pork chops for dinner that night.

Crystal offered some tips on how best to defrost the meat. If you know ahead of time, give the meat a day to thaw in the refrigerator. If it's a last minute choice, Crystal recommends you run the packaged frozen meat under hot water to thaw it quickly.

Her selection is diverse, from the usual offerings of thick cut bacon, a selection of encased meats, pork chops and roasts to the more unusual, hocks (both smoked and fresh) and organs (heart, liver and tongue).

For 20 dollars I bought four bone in chops, six hot Italian sausages and a little over a pound of bacon.

The market officially closes at 2 p.m., but my advice would be to get there earlier in the day. When I went at around noon yesterday most of the booths were pretty picked over and some were close to sold out.

Also, be flexible. For example I needed a pound each of summer squash and zucchini for a recipe I was making. Though the zucchini selection was good, it may be too early for a decent summer squash crop. I ended up going with two pounds of zucchini instead and had no problem making my dish, but some recipes don't have such simple substitutions.

My advice, come with a back up menu plan if the items you need are either unavailable or unappetizing.

Lincoln Square Farmer's Market

When: Tuesdays, June 10-October 28, 2008
7 a.m.-2 p.m.

Where: Lincoln/Leland/Western (4700 N - 2400 W)
City Parking Lot adjacent to the Western Brown Line Station

They're Back...

Good news for tomato lovers, according to the Chicago Sun Times the tomato is back.

Why

I love food.

I remember as a little girl playing grocery store with my sister Anne in my Grandma Cavanaugh's basement. We used a toy metal cash register that belonged to my dad and his siblings when they were little. Sometimes I'd be the cashier and sometimes the shopper. My sister and I would make up small talk while the groceries were tallied. Every once in a while the occasional curve ball would be thrown, a price check. The food was plastic, the money fake but my pleasure was real. I loved the grocery story. Whether is was a make believe one in a South Omaha basement or the genuine article. But my love for food didn't stop at paying for it.

I love to cook.

Most women of a certain age remember the Easy Bake Oven, whether they had one themselves or envied someone elses. I was lucky to be one of the former. Santa surprised me one Christmas morning with it and by the end of the day I had baked every mix included in the package. It still amazes me that a plastic encased light bulb can produce brownies. Another Christmas, Anne and I got a kitchen play set. It had a sink and a stove top that's coils were painted red so it looked hot and ready to cook. We had to make believe the fridge and usually the meals, but back then our imaginations were pretty developed even if our culinary skills weren't.

I still love the grocery store, I go everyday if I can. I like to see what's new, watch what's on sale, think about what I need, maybe treat myself to something I don't need, maybe even something I've never tried. And then when it's all rung up two of my other favorite things happen:

1) I get to see how much money I saved (I think having grown up Irish Catholic things just taste better if you got a deal) and

2) I get to cook with it.

Sometimes I have a meal in mind, a recipe I saw that I want to try and sometimes I use what I bought at the store to inspire my menu. I'm always trying new recipes and creating ones of my own and every week I have a dinner party.

I'm going to take you on this journey with me, from market to meal.

About a month ago I started keeping a food journal to keep track of all my kitchen experiments and who I had experimented on. Now I'm going to start sharing that journey online.

I'll let you know what I make, how I make it, what works for me, what problems I came across, how much it cost and in the end if my guests and I thought it was worth it. I'll let you know the sources I go to for inspiration, materials and guidance.

My hope is that through shared experiences, yours and mine, we'll find not only exciting ways to cook, but smarter ways to shop.