Do you ever find yourself Yelping takeout on the last few minutes of your drive home from work? Do you examine your monthly expenses only to be blown away by how much you spend on food? If so, you may want to check out a new Living Frugally feature from LearnVest.com where they supply a weekly shopping list, five 2-person dinner recipes and a plan: shop on Sunday, spend 90 minutes on prep and then for the rest of the week have dinner ready at a moment's notice - and on the cheap too!

Since I fall into the category described above, this sounded great. I'm following the plan for October to see if it's truly saving me time, money, hassle and maybe even improving the healthiness of my dinner choices.

Week One

You may or may not have heard of LearnVest; in sum, it's similar to other financial tools like Mint.com, but it's specifically for women and its strategy involves frequent communication through email newsletters and short "finance bootcamps" that you join based on your financial goals and weak spots. I don't actually use LearnVest to manage my overall financial picture because I have run into a lot of Beta user interface bugs. These issues extended into the Food for a Month feature, but they've been very responsive to my and other users' comments and already week two has shown a marked improvement.

Week One Shopping List

Suggestions: SmartPhone app (see: Epicurious recipe + shopping list app), easy printable format and sorting by type of ingredient (i.e., where in the store it will be...see: Punchfork recipes) Also, I do not think that the average person considers tahini an "on hand" ingredient (though I did have it patiently waiting in the pantry) and this seems like a trick to keep the price down. Also, the shopping list didn't cover some minor ingredients such as sesame seeds.

LearnVest Price: $27.42

California Whole Foods Price, mostly organic: $49.07 + tax

Price discrepancy is totally reasonable to me, and that's probably less than two take-out dinners in Berkeley. Price = good

Prep instructions are located on the article homepage, but they really need their own clearly delineated section. This was resolved by week two.

Recipes:

Day 1: Roast pork with roasted vegetables
Day 2: Pork pitas with vegetables and dill hummus
Day 3: Pork-fried quinoa with dill and capers
Day 4: Black bean and pork sweet potato salad
Day 5: Roasted vegetable and black bean soup
Snack: Dill hummus with pita chips

Suggestions: Smartphone app, printable. Also, make it clear in both the prep instructions and recipes how much of the material goes in each dish (maybe some sort of recipe grid?) I used all the dill in the hummus because I didn't realize some should be reserved for the Pork Fried Quinoa.

Part of this concept is that all five dishes use a collective set of ingredients with little left to waste at the end. However this set of recipes called for a single carrot. Excuse me? Do they sell single carrots in New York? Because they don't in the Bay Area. Easy solution is to utilize carrots more extensively in the recipes; I grated fresh carrot into the pork & veggie pitas. Alternatively, everyone should invest in a guinea pig as an extremely adorable composting solution.

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My own brilliant innovation in this project was to layer the prepped ingredients for each dish in a single storage container in the order in which they would be needed. Remember that this is reverse order from the recipe! In the Day 5 Soup the container has (starting on top): garlic; tomatoes; roast vegetables; black beans; quinoa; pork. For 'fresh' ingredients like spinach I washed and measured the ingredients and then packed them into a seperate ziplock. I opened cans, especially when it was being split between recipes, but left stuff like chicken stock in the package until needed.

Week 1 in Review:

It took me longer to prep than advertised. Probably close to 3 hours, but I wasn't trying to maximize efficiency. However each meal did come together in about 10 minutes the day of. The recipes say they serve two, but if so that would be two hearty portions. I am only cooking for one, and any extra got tossed in the freezer. For week two I plan to use leftovers as lunch, which will further reduce my grocery bill. Also, it's probably important to check your social calendar before doing this. I had already committed to two nights out, and I didn't prep until Monday. The food saw me clear through the weekend in addition to my budding freezer supply, but this is all good in my book.

I am extremely pleased at the healthiness of the recipes in the selection. The theme is a simple one: protein with some vegetables and the occassional grain. I have found that many recipes billed as: simple, easy, weeknight-ready, 30 minutes or less, etc. all end up being heavily reliant on processed foods. Not only do processed foods tend to be higher in sodium and lower in nutrients than fresh food...but they're not actually very cheap. In most situations a seasonally and regionally appropriate fruit or vegetable will be cheaper fresh than canned.

Check back over the next three weeks to see how Food for a Month is progressing. If you try it out, I've love to hear you thoughts or suggestions -- though make sure you pass them along to LearnVest as well and hopefully we'll see this feature develop even more.

PoP: Brief shoutout to my PoP writers, even though I'm a day late and a...well, you can see the blog title. Powell has been extremely dilligent since joining us, and his bright bursts of pop culture critique guilt me every time they show up promptly on schedule. Cathy managed a celebratory post after her long hiatus due to a blog virus. Who even gets those? But I've killed it, so I expect some forthcoming posts about music that will make me feel like the cultural cretin that I am.

Sarah, Heather...quiescence is so 2007. Time to start back up!

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The produce in California is amazing, and every weekend at the Grand Lake Farmer's Market is a taste, smell and opportunity overload.

Even better, it seems like everyone grows something in their backyard; rooftop terrace; tiny, sunny nook. I'm working on my own nook but in the meantime I was recently the recipient of about 30 Lisbon or Eureka lemons (aka, regular lemons.)

Aside: It seems like everyone on the Internet is koo-koo for Myers Improved Lemons. I loove me some citrus but I feel like I have a dark, shameful secret: I don't like Myers! At first I thought maybe it was shipping time to Florida. Then maybe it was my sister's under-nourished tree. But immediately following the Lemonapolooza that I'm about to describe I was gifted with another six or so Meyers from a kind gentlemen in my neighborhood produce swap. I made these raspberry-topped lemon muffins and ended up throwing most of them out. Horrible, inconsistent lemon flavor. I just don't like Myers.

I briefly considered picking out my precious raspberries before tossing the muffins. I mean, can you blame me?

The first step I take when confronted with a surplus of lemons is to make Avgolemono. I can't pronounce it, but I love Elly Says Opa!'s recipe and I have no notes to add. It's perfect.

After some comfort food I was ready to venture into an exciting new arena: home canning. At first I thought I'd get the "ultimate" canner, i.e., a pressure canner because it can can "everything" including non-acidic items. Turns out this was a misconception and it's not recommended to pressure can lemon curd because it will overcook the delicate substance. But wait, it's not recommended to can lemon curd at all! Instead, the USDA suggests you freeze it. Well, if I wanted to freeze it I would just make ice cream! (more about that in another post.) And what's this? you suggest using Real Lemon_TM for "reliable acidity." Gross.

Luckily author and blogger Linda Ziedrich did some home chemistry testing to find out whether Real Lemon_TM really is more reliably acidic than the lemons you'd find at the grocery store (or a co-worker's yard, depending on your luck.) Since this information is on the Internet I decided that it had to be true and decided to move forwards with my plans: Curds Ahoy!

8 whole lemons, organic

½ grapefruit, organic

2 ½ cups white granulated sugar

2 cups (4 sticks) unsalted butter

8 whole eggs

Instructions:

Wash and zest the lemons and grapefruit with a microplane. Then juice the lemons...you'll get about 1 ½ cups (12 oz) of liquid. If for some reason you need to pause between these steps this month's Cook's Illustrated magazine reports that wrapping zested lemons in plastic wrap will keep them fresher (more moist) than storing them in plastic bags and/or leaving them naked in the fridge. Just sayin'.

Combine zest, juice and sugar in the top of a double boiler. Cook over medium-low heat until sugar is dissolved in juice. Cut the butter into small chunks then add to the mixture. Small pieces of butter will melt more evenly than a whole stick. Once butter has been fully melted and combined, turn off heat under pan (move off the burner if using an electric stove.)

In a medium bowl beat eggs gently. In the next step you won't have a hand free to hold the bowl, so either use one with a silicon bottom or place a wet dishcloth or silicon trivet under the bowl to adhere it to the counter. Fill a measuring cup with a small amount of your lemon-sugar-butter mixture (½ cup measure, or similar works well.) Drizzle a small amount of the hot liquid down the side of the bowl and into the eggs, whisking the area constantly while doing so. Pour very slowly, and keep the whisk moving. This process is called tempering the eggs and is very important; otherwise your egg will cook too fast and you'll get chunks of scrambled eggs in your curd. Don't worry if you get a few strands -- the mix will be strained later.

Continue to slow pour and whisk the hot mixture into the eggs. If you are feeling nervous, you can add more than a half cup of hot mixture into the eggs to make sure they're tempered. With practice you'll get a sense of when it's ready. Turn the heat back on under the double boiler and slowly pour the tempered egg mix into the lemon-sugar-butter mixture, stirring. Cook at medium-low heat for 10-15 minutes until mixture thickens -- test it by coating a wooden spoon with the curd, then wiping a finger across the back. If you leave a crisp line of spoon behind, then it's thick enough. See this example for illustration. Remove from heat.

Place a large strainer over a clean, large bowl. Pour curd through strainer. You may need to do this in batches and use a spoon to express the liquid out of the zest mix. I saved the zest leftovers and ate it on toast. It was delicious. You can also leave it in if you want a chunky, almost marmalade-esque curd.

If you wish to water bath can the mixture, follow the standard directions for prepping your materials and process for 10 minutes.

If you can't/don't want to can the lemon curd, and eating it all in one sitting with a spoon seems unreasonable to you, you can make lemon curd marbled cheesecake. I used Anna's Ginger Thins and some butter for the crust (it's almost worth eating alone.)

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Recipe: http://www.tarteletteblog.com/2011/06/recipes-gluten-free-cherry-clafoutis.html

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Fall in Florida is beautiful and I take frequent breaks at work to wander outside for a few minutes. I was amazed to find this little guy hanging out a few days ago -- a shiny, verdant green dot against an equally green and vibrant background. Apparently he doesn't know that fall is about changing colors, the cold, old growth and death. Such is fall in Florida, where tiny green spots of growth prosper all year long.

I can't tell the seasons apart either, as I've been 'spring cleaning,' selling my furniture and generally getting ready for the move. I posed some shots of my furniture and I must admit my house looks quite dapper. I'm also successfully selling third-hand furniture on Craigslist for more than what I originally paid, and feeling pretty awesome about it. The cats agreed to be style props (they get commission, of course) and I'd label the pieces in this series: (1) Study in grey; (2) Face only a mother could love; (3) Grey lady; (4) Frogs have nothing on me

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PoP: Heather wrote a really sweet email saying "sorry guys, I won't be able to publish tonight because it's the last day of Swedish class!" It made me feel bad about having been so slack, so here I am blogging from HeadlessChicken2k10 HQ. Sarah's site is down, but I doubt she's noticed yet. Also, that's my problem, so I don't want to think about it. Cathy has been very active and it's not PoP, but I love her recent post on death and rose&lychee martinis.

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October will always be fall break time in my mind, so a few days ago I hopped on a plane for D.C. to visit one of my favorite people, Bubbles. I know the phrase "Hostess with the Mostest" is kind of a cliche, but Bubbles taxed the upper limits of my sociability with a rigorous itinerary of events. Getting to see Stars was one of the reasons I went up, but by far the cutest thing we did was drive into Virginia to visit an apple orchard. Cue fall weather!

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Cathy gets points for style, but was unable to find an apple.

We finished off the day with some more romping, some relaxing and plenty of delicious apple cider (unlike apples, this DOES taste better when made fresh at the farm.) A great time was had by all, and we pretty much forgot about the dearth of apples by the end of the day.

PUBLISH OR PERISH: Sarah gets extra points not only for writing despite the October rush of visitors but for figuring out how to access WordPress at all after I changed her password. Good job! Heather doesn't have anything new this week, but I missed her birthday so I have no room to give her crap. And despite the fact that this post is pretty much all Bubbles alread I will give Cathy another shoutout not only for her PoP phone app review but also her Street Food Festival write-up. Nom nom nom.

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My mom recently commented to me, "I wish I could die and come back as one of your pets." Sadly, I kind of have to agree with her. My furballs enjoy pretty sweet lives. So this week I embarked on some cage renovation for the little sea pigs. Sparked by a fellow pig owner's comment, I found out about using fleece to line the pigs' cage. For the uninitiated, you generally line the cage with a mixture of hardwood chips (something non-aromatic and oil-free, like aspen) and CareFresh which is a crinkly, paper-like absorbent material. The CareFresh is expensive but important because wood shavings are dusty, oily and even the scent-free kind can irritate sensitive piggy noses. This works well to an extent. The cons are that it creates a lot of waste, and cleaning is kind of a hassle (no one likes scooping poop), and it can get expensive though the wood helps cut the cost. Lastly, the pigs tend to choose 'bathroom' spots that get wet and smelly faster than others. Obviously smell is bad, and no one wants to live in a spongey environment.

The first step to the renovation was to expand the cage. The really truly dedicated pig people say that 10.5' sq is ideal for two pigs. The last cage reconfig only gave them 7.5' with a 13"x13" loft and I've been feeling guilty ever since. I have a ton of spare cube pieces so when I couldn't sleep on Monday night I got out the zip ties and went to work.

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The new abode (I like to call it Pigwarts) has different rooms. Pictured above is the Apéritif y Antipasti room. Note the two water bottles for multi-pig hydrating. This is also where most of the veggies land. You'll notice that the AyA room has a traditional CareFresh and wood shavings floor. This is because pigs (like most rodents) are multi-taskers and tend to do the input and output of food at the same time. Plus the waters are drippy.

The middle of the cage is now dedicated to living and lounging space. Several layers of cotton towels are topped with soft and plushy polyester fleece. Urine quickly drains through the polyester into the towels, which are laundered 1-2 times a week. A quick daily vacuum keeps the poop under control and the whole thing supposedly will stay drier and cleaner. Ideally the pigs will concentrate their waste activities in the areas with CareFresh. In the meantime everyone seems quite pleased with the velvety soft bedding.

Last but not least, you should notice the second kitchen, the tube tunnel (with viewing ports) and the expanded hay loft. The hay goes in up top and 'Tufo and Ginnie spend a lot of time pulling it down (much easier than just going upstairs). No picture yet, but it's very cute to watch such stubby animals go up on two legs.

The bottom of the cage provides convenient storage space, though I think the next project will be to create a curtain to go around the bottom. It doesn't look that bad, but the cubes just seems so dorm chic to me.

I'm sure this won't be the last change to the environment, but for now the pigs and I are pretty pleased. It really seems like they have a lot more room and I like the look of the space (key since it's in my office.) Several weeks of dedicated socializing have also brought about huge changes and I'm free to pet and pick them up, rub their noses, bellies and cheeks and there is far less terror involved, especially from Ginnie.

Wheek wheek!

PUBLISH OR PERISH
I'm trying not to be bitter that Sarah is having seasons. Cathy and I are going to try and fake it while I'm in DC next week. She's been posting like crazy lately, but seems to have fallen off the bandwagon this week. Heather warned me she would be late, but I think she forgets that the rest of us are on EST, so she still makes the cut in my book.

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It's a busy time of year at work as I slog through thousands of pictures to find the few prize winners that will grace our annual calendar. I'm also tossing around layouts that I'll probably show to the decision makers on Friday. I think this 'look' will be the winner:

It looks fine, right? People in the foreground, jobsite in the back. But the two guys holding the stick...well, you don't have to know what you're looking at to wonder how many men it takes to hold a stick. The answer should be one. In the actual situation, one man is training the other, but for the sake of appearances I altered the situation a little bit:

PoP has changed with the seasons: posting is now on Wednesdays and Heather of thingsandthin.gs has joined us! Hooray. Cathy has been on a whirlwind of posts including a new advice column, and Sarah is taking her turn at a little bit of slack. But she's got plenty of quality posts that I am behind on, so no worries.

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It's been a major peeve that there's no supported way to edit the "Close Opportunity" dialog box. In fact since I'm using Microsoft CRM Dynamics 4.0 Online there is no way period to edit any part of the Close Opportunity process. Well forget you, MS, I'll just build my own solution that actually better supports my company's business process!

And that's what I did. But I also wanted to take away the "Close Opportunity" link in the Actions menu. And since the ISV.CONFIG only lets you giveth, not taketh away it looked like I'd be needing a form load event. The bulk of the code came from this conversation, but for some reason they set the item to display inline instead of none. I fixed that and ended up with:

// Hide the Bid Close button
if (document.getElementById("_MIcomplete") != null)
{
var CLSBtn = document.getElementById("_MIcomplete");
CLSBtn.style.display = 'none';
}

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It often feels really challenging to eat healthy on a budget. For the past 14 months I've kept very detailed track of where my money goes and that's really helped me bring down my food cost from as high as $200 a week to a much more reasonable $50-75. Even this price range may seem high since I'm cooking for one these days, and it is high -- much higher than if I didn't try and buy healthy and environmentally responsible foods and products. Budgeting requires a prioritization of desires, as does dieting, so these two projects actually go together well even if they often have an inverse relationship.

I don't diet in the traditional sense, but I really like the approach that's laid out in The Full Plate Diet. One of the first important things to know about this plan, is that the eBook is available for free from their website. They also have a pretty cool mailing list with recipes, short stories and ideas for success. I don't think their approach revolutionary, in fact why I like it is that it jives with most of the other ideas in which I believe. Eat mostly plants, some meat, but everything in moderation (note: Americans eat an average of 8oz of meat per day -- which is double the global average). Eat carbohydrates that are providing you with plenty of fiber (they recommend 40g per day) and not that much sugar. Never get hungry, never get full.

The best way for me to eat healthy AND cheap is to have a plan. As much as I love making elaborate meals they often require one-off ingredients and I'll eat more than I should since it's really challenging to make single portion meals from scratch. So I've settled into a routine the past few weeks that hasn't helped with my blogging goals, but will hopefully help with my health and budget goals!

One of my very favorite bloggers ever is Ms. Bitchcakes. I have learned so much more from her than I ever did from actually attending Weight Watchers. If you check her out, you'll see why I see her as partial inspiration for this style of post.

 

Breakfast

Kashi GOLEAN Crips! Toasted Berry Crumble  

I've really been able to embrace Kashi cereal since they introduced this one with some freaking sweetener. This cereal is actually a case where budgeting helps me be healthy. Kashi retails for $3.75 in Tampa and I only want to buy one box per week. Left to my own devices I would fill my cereal bowl to the point where I got 4 servings out of a box. But to keep to one box a week I make each bowl slightly smaller and tada! a week's worth of breakfast.

My Serving: 288 cal / 5.6g fat / 56g carbs / 12.8g dietary fiber / 14.4g protein

 

Publix Organic 2% Milk

While all private brand organic milk currently gets two cows from the Cornucopia Institute due to lack of survey response, Publix has my price point of $5.49/gal figure out. Plus, much like Google, Publix has totally suckered me into loving and trusting their brand.

My Serving: 130 cal / 5g fat / 13g carbs / 9g protein

 

The Fiber Splurge: In-season blueberries are two pints for $5, which comes out to about 3g fiber per $1. Sure, the Kashi is 17g per $1 but considering how sweet and crisp and delicious these little suckers are, it's totally a good value. Blueberries also come packed with lots of other health benefits. And did I mention delicious? With about 2oz of blueberries on top of my cereal I feel like I'm eating dessert for breakfast.

My Serving: 21 cal / 0g fat/ 5.25g carbs / 1g fiber / 0g protein

 

Total Breakfast Cost (per serving): $1.60

Nutritional Value (per serving): 440 cal / 10.6g fat / 75g carbs / 14 g fiber / 23 g protein

 

 

 

PoP: Look at me posting on the right day. Way to go, me! Sarah hasn't posted yet tonight, which hopefully means it was a full house at the lodge tonight. CiaoSlacker has a computer virus so I'll give her a slight pass, but she needs to get her butt in gear. PUBLISH OR PERISH!!!

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I wrote out a to-do list for everything I needed to do after work on Monday. The good news is, I got everything done. The bad news is, I forgot to put PoP on there! Without further ado, I'd like to introduce you to my new friend, Caitypillar:

My new apartment has a little sliver of a backyard and it's absolutely perfect for me. I've rented houses with lawns, but a lawn is so intimidating. If you're going to make a change it needs to be big and fit in with the house and be something your landlord is going to accept. The small scale of the yard gives me enough room to plant some flowers and herbs, have a BBQ, a little sitting area, and still room for the cats to dust bathe and poop.

It's this last, unglamorous requirement that led me to Home Depot a few weeks ago. The previous tenants had tried to carve out a little space in the yard though I think they ultimately ended up container gardening in the space. All that's left is a thriving aloe plant. The dirt there is diggable and not covered in grass, so the cats have been taking the path of least resistance in regards to their toilet activities. This space is right next to the patio so there's often a certain odor floating on the wind as I sit on the porch and relax in the evening. Though it is kind of interesting to watch the giant flies try and answer the age old question regarding pin heads and angels...only with cat dung and themselves.

All of this has meant that designing the yard got bumped up in my move-in priority list. The first stage became a "smell barrier" at the edge of the cement slab that is the patio. I picked scented geraniums and marigolds as partial sun/shade plants that produce strong but pleasant odors that will both block any yard odor as well as deter mosquitoes and other insects. Win-win. Also, I think marigolds are just the most cheerful flower and I know that they're hardy and won't die on my immediately.

I picked a great time to plant because the day after was the start of a week-long early evening deluge. So far the plants appear to be taking well, though in looking at this picture I realize I need to add some more wood chips. Can't let the weeds settle in!

In addition to the marigolds I wanted to pick up some dill. But I ended up also picking up a little passenger along with the dill. She and the dill ended up in my cupholder on the way home, thus the title of the post. I bought her a parsley as well as some pintas and other "butterfly" flowers. Sadly Caitypillar has abandoned me, but I'm hoping she'll come flying back at some point soon. In the meantime I need to find some resources on square foot gardening and see if it's something I want to try. I want to put the herbs and butterfly flowers in a raised bed, but I haven't figured out what my ideal edge material is (brick, wood, pre-built plastic?). I will attempt to get the rest of the plants in the ground this weekend so they don't die and go to waste. More pictures and plans as the yard develops.

PoP: Thank you to Sarah, both for her awesome conversation and cheering skills as well as being our consistent poster. Catherine has another VenusZine piece up, but she's not cross-promoting yet. Bad PoPper! Speaking of cross-promotion...I do blog fairly frequently, I just do it for work.

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Summer is here in its fruitful abundance and I am thouroughly taking advantage of stone fruit season right now. Plums have been my drug of choice lately, but when I got a King Arthur Flour email with a new recipe for cherry clafouti...well, let's just say there was no arm twisting involved. I first learned of clafoutis from Tartelette, but my favorite recipe comes from the Joy of Baking. Part of the allure of this dish is how delightfully simple it is, just ripe cherries baked in an a firm, eggy custard. Of course, leave it to me to make it complicated.

I wanted to make three slight variations, so I doubled the amount of cherries and made 1.5 of the recipe. It came out like this:

Ingredients

6 small-medium eggs (farm fresh, and thus smaller than grocery store eggs)

1.5 cups lukewarm milk

3 T unsalted melted butter

1.5 t vanilla extract

1/2 t almond extract

1 1/4 t salt

1 cup sugar (oops, this should have been 3/4 cup)

3/4 cup almond flour

1/2 cup KAF all-purpose flour

For chocolate variation:

1 T dutch process cocoa 

1/4 c milk chocolate chips

Variation One

Follow KAF instructions, except as noted above (cherry pits, almond flour mixed in)

Variation Two

Same as above, but I carmelized the cherries ahead of time. To do this, melt one tablespoon butter in a skillet or large saucepan and toss cherries in over low-medium heat. Stir frequently as the juices come out of the cherries. When carmelized, pour into bottom of baking pan.

Variation Three

What goes really, really well with cherries? Chocolate! It seems like kind of a bastardization, but I decided to venture out. I added 1 T cocoa powder to the last 1/3 of batter, and then poured it over the cherries. I also sprinkled a handful of milk chocolate chips over the whole thing so there would be little globs of chocolate in the mix.

The batter looks like something unfit for polite society, so instead I'll show you the clip I attached to the bag of chocolate chips. This little guy and a set of his friends came in a recent care package from my sister.

The Verdict? TBC....after breakfast!

PUBLISH OR PERISH: I have to applaud Sarah at Chef In The Sticks who has held down PoP summer while Cathy and I flagged a little. She's got a write-up on Asheville this week that I am looking forwards to reading (I wonder if she visited the cheesecake place that uses real cheeses like cheddar in their pies...eating there was a disturbing moment in my life). Cathy told me she was working on something this afternoon, but so far nothing new at CiaoCatherine. I'm already 30 minutes into Tuesday, so we'll see if she has a rabbit in her hat at some point. EDIT: Cathy pointed me to her review of Jimmy Gnecco's The Heart published on VenusZine. Pssh, like being published on a real media outlet is any excuse for missing PoP!

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Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

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It's a Monday. The weekend was great, but I never made it to the store. Anything for breakfast? Nope, out of everything. So what's a girl to do?

Dining in the drive-through is a perilous task. If I'm eating breakfast on the run, but favorite is a bagel or smoothie shop, but these places rarely have a drive-through. I think slow(ish) food is great, but if I'm so pressed for time I can't make breakfast at home then I also can't wait 20 minutes with the parking and the queuing and the unparking.

I tried McDonalds this morning, since it's one of the closest things to my house, and only a slight detour on my way. Last time I was in a breakfast pinch I tried Starbucks' Reduced-Fat Turkey Bacon with Egg Whites on English Muffin. It beat out water and tofu as blandest food on earth. At 340 calories it still packs quite the punch (10 g Fat, 47g Carbs [3g Fiber] and 22g Protein) but healthy or no I don't want to pay $5 for shoe leather.

After scanning the menu at MacDo I settled on the Fruit 'n Yogurt Parfait as my best bet. I added it to a Bacon, Egg & Cheese Biscuit (later to find this is the WORST thing on the menu...but I am a sucker for their biscuits!) and it was only a $1. That was a good start. I opened it up, sprinkled in the tiny packet of Nature's Valley granola and stirred. I did a double-take on the first bite. I usually buy vanilla yogurt, so I'm no stranger to sweet, but this stuff tasted like a thinned out version of canned cake frosting. Some of the berries in the mix tasted like pancake topping (meaning they'd been macerated in sugar syrup) though the blueberries felt fresh. Wow. No wonder they categorize it as a dessert option in their nutritional profile.

I wanted to take a look at see how this parfait stacks up against other commercial varieties, as well as against what you could make at home. Here is what I found:

My first question mark is why the Fruit 'n Yogurt is listed as 7oz but the serving size is 5.3oz. The McDonalds nutrition facts doesn't say how many servings per container...so which is it? 7 or 5.3? 5.3 ounces in a 7ounce container? It just doesn't make sense. Each parfait has different components, but if you're heading to Panera be aware that it looks like they're using full fat yogurt. The Dannon product comes in pretty trim, probably because people can eyeball the facts BEFORE they buy, unlike at most fast food establishments. The Kashi parfait (which is what I'm most likely to make at home) compares nicely but why so much sodium?!

It's hard to make an apples-to-apples comparison because the amounts on the labels get rounded up and down, or will increase in different proportions based on which part of the ingredients you add more of (more yogurt is more protein, but also more fat; more fruit is more fiber, but more sugar as well). With that caveat, here are the facts at the 1 oz level.

So it turns out that I probably made a good choice going to McDonalds for a parfait, rather than Starbucks. It actually compares rather favorably to the Kashi parfait as well. I get less fiber, but also fewer calories and lot less sodium. I still can't help feeling it wasn't a healthy breakfast though. There is something intuitive in my body that feels like real fresh fruit and more crunchy, fibrous bits would have made my breakfast more well-rounded. I'll hit the store after work tonight and try for better breakfasts the rest of this week.

SIMILAR ARTICLES:
Serious Eats: Fast-Food Yogurt Parfaits
The Tippy Toe Diet: Food Fight! Yogurt Parfaits

SOURCES:
http://www.kashi.com/recipes/192
http://www.livestrong.com/thedailyplate/nutrition-calories/food/starbucks/fruit-and-yogurt-parfait/
http://www.peertrainer.com/DFcaloriecounterB.aspx?id=8347
http://www.peertrainer.com/DFcaloriecounterB.aspx?id=6887
http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts/fast-foods-generic/9407/2
http://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en/food/food_quality/nutrition_choices.html
http://www.panerabread.com/pdf/nutr-guide.pdf

PUBLISH OR PERISH:
Sarah is probably in the car on the way back home, but she's been doing really well publishing on non-Mondays, so I think she deserves a slide. Or she might be her normal amazing self and pull it off before midnight. On the other hand, I think Catherine has probably forgotten it's Monday so I will need to be on her her to publish. OR PERISH!

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Perhaps I should back-track a little bit and explain my history with red velvet. The first time I can remember trying it wasn't that long ago. I spent much of my early college years baking treats as a form of social currency, a way of ingratiating myself with the older boys I tended to have class with, and thus half-formed crushes on. My first three newspaper editors were all of the older and male variety, though the first was a schizophrenic and the second a compulsive liar. So when the third one was just mildly depressed and had good taste in music, he got a birthday cake. In what was possibly the only instance of reciprocal baking I've ever experienced, the week of my birthday he presented me with a 9x9 casserole pan, inside of which appeared to be some sort of cake-like food. A thick schmear of canned frosting topped the creation, obscuring any hint as to the innards. When I cut into the concoction little bubbles of a viscous red fluid oozed out onto the frosting, creating pink arterial trees. This was, of course, a red velvet cake. I worked my way through a piece, as did some of my more adventurous friends. Then it got put into the dorm fridge. And was never pulled out, because no one was ever that hungry. A week later and it migrated to the bathroom sink to receive last rights. Except the priest never showed up. There wasn't much about it that seemed likely to degrade, but still when time rolled around to go home for Thanksgiving I deemed it should go back into the fridge during my absence. I didn't want it attacking a hand towel.

Enter stage left, the co-eds have all come back from break and it's well into December. The cake is still in its pan, probably propping up some books by this point. Enter stage right, another older male crush-friend in my room and on the prowl for grub. Usually there would be a freshly baked supply, but give me a break I hadn't stocked up yet. He finds the cake, and a spoon. "Don't eat that," I tell him. "It's really old. And I'm not sure it's cake." He pokes it with the spoon, carves out a piece and says he's not concerned. "No, really. A boy made that. Last month. And it's oozing." All the same he ate close to half of the remaining cake. He didn't end up in the hospital, but watching red slime gloop out the pores of a dessicated cake covered with industrial strength frosting forever hardened my heart against the great Southern classic that is Red Velvet Cake.

But you only turn 10 once and that's what Ben wanted for his birthday.

It seems like many a young baking lass runs into the challenge of le velvet rouge. Or the "Waldorf Astoria Cake" as you may find it called. In fact, the cake and it's connection to the hotel is the granddaddy of the Neiman Marcus cookie email hoax. While there are many traditional takes on the cake, I found myself drawn to the recipe posted at Smitten Kitchen. My reasons? Firstly, like me, Deb doesn't really get the appeal of a food whose primary flavor is a color. Her recipe also used the most cocoa of the ones I gathered and included the conversion to use red gel coloring, which I hoped would tame the 'red' flavor a bit. 

Helpful Tips I pulled from the other recipes: (1) Mix the food coloring and the cocoa powder together to form a paste which will help keep from having random cocoa swirls in the batter. (2) refrigerate the cakes the night before frosting (especially if you cut the layers, as I did.) 

End Results: I still hate Red Velvet Cake. The birthday boy really loved it though. Leo also really liked the cake, but not the icing. He tends to like really simple desserts with flavor depth, rather than complexity (like a really good yet classic creme brulee) so for him to get seconds on a cake is rare. He especially complimented the moist, dense crumb. All three of us agree that it would taste better with a different frosting (and I pretty much only eat cream cheese frosting). They thought a traditional butter cream (ala Publix) and I think something like a Swiss meringue butter cream would go well.

The best part of the experience came at the end. I baked the recipe in two 8" rounds (despite the instructions to use three) and then cut each in half, in order to maximize the amount of frosting and create a nice presentation. However we were rushed to frost and eat so I couldn't let the crumb coat sit long enough and it got slide-y. Deciding all way lost on fancy presentation, I had Ben help me decorate it...to humorous results. I may still not like red velvet, but I'm pretty happy with the end result.

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It's feeling like a hot PoP Summer with CiaoCatherine getting published in a pretty cool DC rag, and Sarah adding in some NASCAR coverage to beef up the "Sticks" section of her blog. I get to see the wonderful Ms. Zell next weekend...maybe we'll do something exciting enough for a double-post!

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I sign-up for all the marketing emails that I can as a form of research in my field. I like them to be targeted though, and so I end up with a lot of food and recipe based emails. One such email recently included a quick recipe for an apple melt sandwich (though I think they used an english muffin). I liked the idea, but they suggested jam which is kind of an unhealthy load of sugar in my book, so I came up with my own variation. I've had probably close to six in the past 10 days, and I converted Leo to them today. I even switched it up and used mango as my fruit, but apple remains champion. So without further ado, here are the ingredients and steps for an incredibly simple but delicious sandwich.

Ingredients:

 1 slice whole wheat bread
1 T stoneground/horseradish or other fancy mustard
1/3 apple, sliced thinly with core cut out where necessary
1-2 sliced turkey sandwich meat
6 thin slices White Cheddar (I used Cabot Seriously Sharp)

Directions:
Toast the bread by itself. Let cool slightly, then cover with thick layer of mustard. Layer first turkey, then apple slices, then cheese slices. Place on foil-covered tray on toaster oven and broil until the cheese is ripping and boiling and has caramelized over the entire top. Remain vigilant that it doesn't burn, but I recommend you let the cheese get good and toasty - it really adds another level of flavor.

Makes one sandwich. You'll probably want two.

PUBLISH OR PERISH BLOGROLL: Cathy seems to have taken the holiday seriously (I swear, it's Washington DC rubbing off on her) but Sarah has a comical post on white squirrels up today. I never knew such a creature existed.

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What's In The Fridge:

• cream
• milk
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 sweet onion ("strawberry onion")
• nutmeg

Supplies from the Outside World:

• pie crust
• bag of frozen spinach
• 1/2 lb of baby bella mushrooms, sliced
• very sharp white cheddar (cabot)

Quich is such an easy food. Pie crust + filling + custard. Stick in the oven until it bubbles and looks amazing. I've made many quiches, but I generally search until I find a recipe that matches the ingredients I wish to use. In my kitchen sink cooking I've been trying to go a little bit more freestyle, so I went looking for the best way to design my own quiche. I found the perfect inspiration at NPR where chef Michael Ruhlman talks about throwing away the recipe and learning the ratio. It's very thrilling to cook by intuition, and the results were superb. I had Leo, Heather, Erik and Catherine over the day after and we greedily ate the whole thing far faster than we should have. I've got a second pie crust with no purpose in life, and I'll likely use up some more spare eggs by making this again. I almost always use bacon in quiche, but I skipped it for economies sakes, and I barely even missed it.

This post is part of PUBLISH OR PERISH. Amazingly, it's on time. Cathy said she'd set a timer on her post, but I only see the one from yesterday. Sarah doesn't seem to have hers up yet, but I'm not going to give her a hard time because I forgot to say happy birthday over the weekend. My only excuse is that Marina had me pinned down watching Supermarket Sweep episodes on YouTube, and I was too traumatized to be useful after that.

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