Dream Haven

Hubby and I became homeowners last year just as the housing market sank in a free-for-all. Due to the current housing situation, we probably cannot move out for a couple of years unless we do a lateral move. I love our house, our neighbors, and the things/amenities in our area so I'm happy with where we are. The only downside is that we live about 30 minutes away from the city center. It is a trade-off though--the closer in to the city we live, the less we can afford in terms of a house and neighborhood. Our future will change drastically in another year--so we'll reassess our 5 year plan at that point.

Once in a while, I check our house value online even though it is completely pointless. Sometimes, just as a dream, I look up houses in our ideal neighborhood. May I just say that the property taxes in the city are REDONKULOUS? Yet another good reason to live in the 'burbs. We can actually afford to retire there!

Still...one can dream. Although not pictured, there is also a separate office/building too!





Might I just add how much I adore this side patio! Imagine the parties we could have out there! So elegant. So dreamy. Le sigh.

The house is actually not expensive for what it is but the property taxes are killer. Property taxes are nearly $15,000 a year and it is an expense that will likely increase in the future. Still, I adore older homes. This one was built in 1928. It looks like it must have had a lot of fun during its times. If walls could talk, I wonder what stories it has to tell.

Day 9

So exhausted today...I had to be out the door early today so we didn't have time for a real breakfast. It's fine...we're both kind of sick of oatmeal by now. Wednesdays are my longest days (13 full hours) so I didn't have time to cook dinner nor did I have energy to care about the next day's lunch when I returned home at 10:30pm. Good thing we still had some leftovers so lunch was taken care of today but dinner was another story.

We got off early today to pick up the car from the shop and got back home before 6pm. I had some defrosted chicken from earlier in the week but wasn't quite sure what to do with it. We have been craving fried chicken ever since we watched "Man vs. Food" on the Travel Channel so I decided to make some yian xu ji (Taiwanese snack food of crispy fried chicken bits tossed with spices and basil). To make our meal healthier, I tiredly started cutting fresh corn kernels to make some seafood & corn chowder. It has been damp lately and we are both fighting off colds so I wanted to make warm or hot foods. I got out some greens and rehydrated some shitake mushrooms intending to braise it Chinese style but about five minutes of listless preparation, I decided to screw it. I turned to an equally tired hubby and said, "Howzabout some ramyun?" to which he replied, "I was craving that on the way home today!"

Happily energized now, I made Hubsters in charge of making the ramyun while I finished frying the chicken. I love cooking in my Le Creuset because it retains heat so well. I was able to fry the chicken in less than 10 minutes when it normally takes me double that time in a wok. Hmmmm...yian xu ji. What is it about crispy, salty, sweet, spicy fried snacks that makes it so darn satisfying?



Do I feel a wee guilty for eating stove top ramen and fried chicken for dinner with nary a vegetable in sight? Only for 2 seconds haha. It was darn good and satisfied our tired and cold bodies and souls.

Cost spent on food today: $0
Est. Cost of food: $4 (chicken) + $3.40 (2 packs of ramen) + $.80 (2 certified humane eggs) = $8.20.

Day 8

Today was both a bad day and a good day. The bad was totally preventable, which makes me all sorts of upset but the good was very much a product of my own doing so it makes me all sorts of happy. In my profession, one must pass several tests in order to practice and pass I did! On the first one at least. I have more to come but climbing over this hill helps reaffirm my decision to quit a decent career in order to pursue this new one (which will leave me riddled with debt upon graduation).

Ahh finances. This relates back to my earlier bad. The bad is that my car headlights got bashed in last night. I do not want to go into the gory details of it but at least nothing worse happened. It could have been stolen, smashed some more, gutted, etc etc. Nevertheless, this will cost us an estimated $190 to replace. Le sigh. We received the car as gift but along with it came lots of overdue maintenance work. After comparing quotes, the estimated cost will be anywhere from $600-$900. But fix it we must because it was pretty much a ticking time bomb of a death trap. Brakes? gone. Transmission? Within an inch of it's life. Axles? Both to be replaced. This doesn't include the requisite fluid flushes etc etc. All in all...we are looking at probably $1000 in immediate repairs.

At that point, part of me wondered if it wasn't smarter to just sell the thing and get a new one. The current bluebook value of the car (based on mileage) is worth anywhere from $1800-$4000. No...not worth it right now. It is still better to stick it through and literally drive it to the ground for another 2-3 years before getting a new car.

Oh right...back to the experiment.

My meals today:
Breakfast: made oatmeal but proceeded to lose my appetite immediately upon receiving that dreaded phone call informing us of the headlight bashage so I didn't eat it.
Lunch: Still no appetite
Dinner: one bun and an apple and coffee.
*edit* I ended up buying a cup of split pea soup today (both the cheapest and the healthiest) for dinner because I obviously did not pack enough today to last me for 13 hours. I felt horribly guilty because I had SPENT MONEY BUYING FOOD but it is not good to starve. At least that was a good reminder that even when things come crashing down (or in our case, getting bashed), we should still remember to take care of one's basic needs. *end edit*

Husband's meals:
Breakfast: probably oatmeal
Lunch: leftovers
Dinner: leftovers

Total Food Expenses today: $2.95 (split pea soup)
Est. Cost of Food today: $.50 (apple) + soup = $3.45. Buns & leftovers previously accounted for.

Total expended on sheer stupidity: $190

Day 7

For breakfast...oatmeal again but I should mention that we soak our oatmeal overnight. One small rice cup of oatmeal is just the right amount for the two of us in the morning. Soaking it makes the oats creamier and easier to eat.

Lunch: Hubby got leftovers from dinner. I had an apple and a bun from yesterday. That obviously wasn't enough for me because I was starving by the time I got home and ate 3 more buns over the course of the evening. Ditto for hubby. Whoops. On the bright side, the buns were still decently soft.

Dinner: I felt inspired to make comfort food because of this crazy weather today so I made some hot, soothing Corn Chicken. I don't know what else to call it haha. It is fresh corn, zuchinni, onion, diced chicken (two thighs--from the fancy chicken I butchered earlier this week) and stir-fried it with some broth to make a creamy Chinese style casserole dish. As a side, I also stir-fried some jade beans and carrots. Doesn't look fancy--in fact, it looks down right cafeteria disgusting in this picture but imagine it all nice and colorful, like it was in real life. It was also hot and soothing with lots of sauce--perfect for a dark and stormy night.



Tomorrow's lunch shall be leftovers for the Hubby and for me as well except mine is served over shirataki noodles. Since I deboned the chicken thighs, I took that opportunity to make a quick chicken broth out of it by simmering it with some leftover onion tops, carrot peelings, bean ends, and corn cobs. The corn cobs made it distinctly sweet and corny but I can make great use out of it another time.

Total amount spent today: $0
Estimated cost of Dinner: $.25 (2.5 ears of corn) + $2 (2 chicken thighs @ $8/chicken that I cut into 8 pieces) + $.50 (est. cost for 2 cups rice) + $5.00 (2 packs of shirataki noodles) = $7.75.

This is enough for dinner and lunch AND a heaping serving of dinner for my brother (with his own pack of noodles). So really...if I hadn't delivered take-out to my brother tonight, that would have given us 2 extra servings making it a grand total of $1.29 per serving. We were in the 'hood so we thought he'd like a healthy and nutritious meal from his big sister.

I did not account for breakfast (just oatmeal), lunch (leftovers--already accounted for), or random extras from dinner because some were leftovers or fresh (and free!) from my momma's garden.

Day 6

Breakfast: same ole
Lunch: Last of the spaghetti (thank GOODNESS)
Snack: half a macaron & a quarter of a lemon tart from Bouchon in Napa Valley (courtesy of a most beloved sis-in-law).

Dinner: I was craving Jiajangmian but we didn't have the bean sauce at home. Not to be deterred, I made my own version of it with onion, zucchini, Chinese black beans, and tofu. The noodles were from hubby's parent's company--lovely spinach noodles!



I got inspired by one of my friend's pictures of Asian pastries from Vegas and really wanted to try my hand at making some of them. Originally, I just wanted to make Asian style bread--bread that is pillowy, soft, with a fine crumb. You know, the kind used to make brick toast at tea houses. Well...as luck would have it, I stumbled upon gold...I figured out how to make Asian pastries! Yayzers!!

Behold--this is supposed to be "catepillar" buns but we don't have any hotdogs at home so I subb'd it with Spam. Not the healthiest but I plan to give most of these away.



See! Soft and fluffy! It is supposed to stay soft and fluffy overnight too. We'll see if that is the case tomorrow. If it does, then I think I have a winner on my hands.



Here is another variation--I got a little bored so I added some fresh corn and tried out a circular design.



Estimated Cost of Buns: $3 for 10

Day 5

Our meal schedule got completely turned around today. The first night the kidlets were here, they did not sleep well so the following night, they snoozed for nearly 11 hours. We ate an early "brunch" of oatmeal today. The kids ran around a lot so every hour or so, they came running to me claiming near death by starvation. Between brunch and dinner, I fed the kiddies apples, bread with peanut butter, one blueberry muffin, and string cheese. For dinner, the kids and hubby ate their weight in spaghetti with bolognese sauce while I had some shirataki noodles with broth.

Total spent today: $0
Estimated Cost of Food: Too exhausted to count.

Day 4

Sorry! Not a single picture to share today. For breakfast, I made the girls blueberry pancakes. Hubster and I had our requisite oatmeal porridge with blueberries. Hubby had a lunchtime outing and I think he had a margherita pizza while I made spaghetti bolognese over organic whole wheat pasta for the children. The bolognese was a slow process involving organic tomatoes, onions, carrots, zucchini, garlic, seasoned beef, and my secret ingredient: a bit of duck liver pate. I simmered the sauce until the veggies were tender and then I blended it with an immersion blender to make the sauce smooth. The meat was added back to the sauce after the blending.

Then....dinner came. I had a vague notion that Hubby's friends were stopping by en route to the airport today but soon after they arrived, I realized that we should all have grab dinner together. Time was a wee tight so I suggested that we stay in and I'd make dinner. Good thing I made a giant vat of sauce--it was simple to make another package of pasta, some warm bread, and some of that sweet corn we picked up yesterday. I was afraid we didn't have enough food so I asked Hubsters to pick up some lettuce for a salad. I asked for 1-2 heads...he came back with 4.

Total spent on food today: $4 for 4 heads of lettuce.
Estimated cost of food for 7 hungry people: $2 (2 heads lettuce) + $1.25 (avocado) + $.50 (1 onion) + 5 corn ($.50) + $1 (homemade sourdough bread) + $2 (pasta) + $10 (bolognese sauce) = $17.25/7 = $2.46/PP.

I might be off by a few dollars but even so...I think it is safe to say that dinner cost less than $3 a person for today. Not bad for grass fed beef & organic tomatoes!