Let’s face it, I’m secretly still twelve years old, and it’s enough if I can make macaroni and cheese and fruit smoothies. Thanks to my IBS and residual pickiness – remember when I was young and would only eat cheddar cheese, avocados, yams and strawberries? – I have a fairly small appetite except when it comes to dessert. My boyfriend, however, is a bottomless pit. So I can’t often get away with my beloved steamed rice and grilled zucchini and sweet potato anymore, though it certainly makes meeting our budget a snap. We generally split the meal preparation; I do almost all of the cleaning and and he works longer hours. He’s been pretty stressed out lately so I’ve been trying to handle all of the cooking.
Some of my favourite winter meals are based around soup and fresh bread from the bakery. Add some garlic and/or cheese to the bread, and chopped cashews and spring onions to the soup, and yum. Cheap and easy. With tomato soup I regress and make grilled cheese sandwiches, which Chris really hadn’t eaten before and now loves. If we’ve roasted squash and sweet potatoes, which are still very cheap at this time of year, we usually use the leftovers to bulk up a plain soup the following night. I often do the same thing with rice. These are all very inexpensive meals – less than NZ$10 total, and I usually get lunch out of the deal as well.
Another dish that I created almost by accident involves orzo pasta. I grill garlic, bell peppers, zucchini, onions – basically any veggies we have around the house – with oregano and cashews, and squeeze the juice of a lemon into the pasta before adding the vegetables. Delicious with grated sharp cheddar as the parmesan available here is pathetic.
We try to have one bean dish a week in honour of my Southwestern background (but mostly because we love refried beans). I still haven’t touched the tortilla-maker my grandparents sent, so lately we’ve been opting either for nachos with grilled onions and peppers as well as homemade guacamole and sour cream. My favourite alternative, as it wreaks less havoc with my intestines, is to replace the chips with pitas.
All in all I have a long way to go, but am making some progress.
