A Week in the Weaver Henderson Kitchen

I decided to keep track of our dinners for a week and then make a blog post about it.

This was done of a budget of 60 Euro per week. That is 30 Euro per person per week (about $40).

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Day 1: Mexican

This meal is from Laura. What you see is our mexican beans meal, which is our most common meal. It is accompanied by home-made fresh tomato salsa and homemade corn tortillas.

Cost: 3.25 Euro -- Beans (.55 at Plus), shredded Gouda cheese (.30), Corn tortillas (corn meal, oil, sugar salt, milk) (~.50), spices (cayenne pepper, salt, oregano) (~.3-), homemade salsa (fresh ripe tomatoes, diced yellow pepper, onion, lime juice, spices) (1.60).

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2. Day Two: Penne Pasta with Zucchini and Red Bell Peppers topped with Mozzarella and Pesto

This style of dish is also a very common one. I make pasta, then add whatever vegetable are on sale at Albert Heijn, and then come up with some sort of a sauce. Sometimes, I do a read sauce, sometimes I do a pesto sauce, sometimes I do a butter-cream sauce, and sometimes a white sauce with melted cheese. Many possibilities!

This time, zucchini and red peppers were cheap, so I used them.

Costs: 5.14 Euro -- Red pepper (99 cent), Zucchini (89 cents), pasta (1/2 package Albert Heijn brand penne on special 39 cents (normal 91 cents, on special for 77)), Euro Shopper Mozzarella (40 cents), half jar pesto (66 cents), whole wheat partially-baked bread (1.19), oil and spices (35 cents).

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Day 3: Curried Chickpeas and Vegetables over Rice Noodles

So... this dish has four of our favorite things: lots of vegetables, rice noodles that take 5 minutes to make, spicy curry seasonings, and chickpeas! Throw it all in a wok and get to cookin'!

Price: 7.37 Euro -- Rice noodles (.99), chinese vegetable mix on special (1.68), green beans on discount (1.39), organic fair trade coconut milk (1.19), chickpeas (.89), spices including garlic-red pepper curry paste, extra cayenne pepper, salt, and hot curry powder (.90), shrimp chips for appetizer (.33). As you can see, there were a lot of leftovers.

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Day 4: Baked Tofu with Roasted Zucchini and a Shredded Salad with Feta and Sun-Dried Tomatoes

So this was a new meal for us. My aunt and uncle who I stayed with in the US do a great baked tofu. So, I tried to replicate it. The basics are marinating it in a sauce of soy sauce and peanut butter. The peanut butter gives it this smoked/toasted flavor which is quite nice. We put thin-cut zucchini slices in the oven with the tofu and Laura made a shredded salad with two of our favorite salad toppings -- feta cheese and sun-dried tomatoes.

Marinated tofu and zucchini before they went in the oven for about 20 mins on 220 degrees C.

And the salad Laura made

The meal all together.

Cost: 5.22 Euro -- 350 grams tofu (1.69), zucchini (.89), 1/2 package Euro Shopper salad mix (.38), one fresh tomato (.30), one yellow bell pepper (.66 (pack of three was 1.99)), feta (.30), sun-dried tomatoes (.40), oil and seasonings (~.60).

There was a lot of left over tofu and left-over salad as well!

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Day 5: White Chili

As I said above, we make our mexican bean dish a lot. We do our beans in a lot of different ways: beans and rice with homemade corn tortillas and/or home-made salsa, beans and home-made cornbread, chili, etc. Also, we really love chickpeas. We try to come up with a lot of different ways to make pinto beans and chickpeas. Making a chili but replacing some or all of the pinto beans with white navy beans or chickpeas is a creative way to prevent you from getting bored with pinto bean chili.

Price: 3.65 Euro -- Chickpeas (.89), left-over home-made salsa which had corn added in a meal not pictured (previously calculated), two onions (.45), kidney beans (.65), can blocked tomatoes (.38), 4-5 slices sunflower seed bread from Plus (.53), shredded Gouda cheese (~.50), oil and seasonings (.30)

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Day 6: Chinese Cabbage Soup with Sesame-Ginger-Wasabi Tofu

So... I have been trying to diversify and improve what can be done with baked tofu. I discovered that toasted sesame seeds are an excellent addition. To toast them, heat them for 3-5 minutes in a pan with no oil on medium-high heat until they turn partially brown, stirring frequently. Ginger and garlic are also nice on bakes tofu. This day, I mixed a little Wasabi paste into the peanut putter-soy sauce marinade for the tofu.

For the picture here, I actually tried to just toast the sesame seeds in the oven with the tofu. This did not work, as they are not nearly toasted enough in the picture. Toasting them in a pan is much faster and lead to far superior results in taste. I recommend toasting them in the pan and then sprinkling them on top.

So... next we move to the soup. This soup turned out simply incredible. Mmmmhmmm. For me, it was the most successful dish of the week. Also, it is incredibly fast for make (at most 10 minutes).

Here is what I did. Shred one large carrot. Cut up half a head of chinese cabbage in thin horizontal slices (also called Napa cabbage). Buy a package of Chinese rice noodles, also known as Miehoen.

Boil two liters water. Add two chicken or vegetable bullion cubes, cayenne pepper, black pepper, and half a root of shredded fresh ginger (a must as it is the key flavor!). Cut your vegetables. Add carrots, cabbage, and noodles to broth in that order. Cook for 5-10 minutes.

This what it looks like all together! Many chinese soups like this are completed with thinly sliced tofu, pork, chicken, or beef. Lekker! 美味的!

Cost: 4.63 Euro -- 1/2 head chinese cabbage (1.15), rice noodles (.99), one large carrot (.15), oil and spices (.65), 350 grams organic AH tofu (1.69).

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Day 7: Home-Made Cream of Broccoli Soup with Pan-Seared Lemon Basil Salmon

I was really excited to make this broccoli soup. Broccoli was on sale and so I got a chance to use my new hand-held soup blender (8 Euro @ MediaMarkt).

I was also feeling a lack of meat in my diet, so I wanted to do some fish. Thankfully, salmon was half-price at Plus!! It was buy-one, get one free, so I bought two huge filets filets priced at 6 euro each. Thus, I saved 6 Euro overall, paying just 3 Euro per filet, which was split between use at 1.50 euro per piece. We actually couldn't even finish one filet between the two of us. :-)

Making the soup: boil water with chicken or vegetable bouillon. I added a head of broccoli (florets and stalk, chopped up), the last of the shredded salad mix with sliced carrots, 1/3 of a head of celery root which is an excellent source of energy, and one leek. Boil water with 2 bouillon cubes. Add chopped vegetables. Add plenty of black pepper and salt, a bit of garlic, italian seasoning mix, and a few tablespoons oil or butter. Boil vegetables until soft. Add about 100-200 ml heavy cream. Blend with hand-held blender. For a lower-calorie version that tastes just as good, instead of heavy cream, make a basic white sauce and then blend that in.

Garish with parsley, italian seasoning, salt, and pepper.

So... on to the salmon! I cooked it a very simple way. I heated oil on a pan to medium-high. Then I laid the thick salmon filet skin-side down and cooked for 5-7 minutes. Flip. Cook for about 3 minutes on the other wide. Cover, remove from heat and set aside to finish cooking evenly while you eat your first course of soup.

This was a really thick, bright pink cut of salmon!

How done should it be? Of course, the time depends on how thick the salmon is, but in my opinion people overcook salmon far too often. Our body is perfected capable of digesting raw salmon. Cooking fish is mainly to kill any bacteria on the outside. For bacteria to be in the middle, it would have had to rot all the way from the outside to the inside, in which case, the smell would be apparent. A nice piece of fish that has been just purchased from the store does not require very much cooking. The skin should be crispy, the outer flesh flaky, but the inner-most flesh cab be left quite soft and fleshy because salmon has a great, non-fishy natural taste.)

For this recipe, I marinated the salmon is lots of lemon juice. I coated it with lots of basil, and a bit of salt and pepper.

Salmon and soup all together.

Oh, oh, yes!

Cost 5.39 Euro -- Salmon (3.02), broccoli (.95), cream (.35), leek (.39), celery root (.33), rest of salad mix (previously calculated), spices and oil (.35). There was enough soup for two lunches as well.

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So, a week's worth of dinners comes out to under 35 Euro (34.65 Euro).

For snacks this week, we bought two mangos (2.70), popcorn (1.15), bananas (1.30), Elstar and Jonagold apples (3.04), chevre, camembert, and brie (2.85), and pretzel sticks (.24).

For lunch every morning, I have a croissant with nutella or jam, 1-2 cups coffee, and a daily vitamin. Laura has tea, bread with jam, butter, or cheese, and a vitamin.

For lunch, Laura has two pieces of bread. One with Gouda cheese, and one with peanut butter. I have leftovers from previous dinners with toast and cheese. Sometimes we have salad also.

For lunch, breakfast, we went through 4 half loafs of full grain bread (3.15), two packages of croissants (1.85), nutella (.50), jam (.30), coffee (1.50), tea (.15), juice (1.94), half a kilo of Gouda cheese (3.5), 0% fat yogurt with honey, cashews, and dried fruit (2.50).

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Special Section on Drinks:

To transition from work to evening together time, we have a borrel (drinks and snacks) around 5pm. This week, I decided to make some tropical drinks! Here was the result:

This week, coconuts and pineapples were on special at Albert Heijn so, I decided to get two coconuts (1.98) and a pineapple (1.50). This led to fun drinks...

The coconuts were really difficult to open up, and the first one had gone bad so we had to throw all of it out.

Very difficult

Cocktail with fresh coconut milk, cream, chocolate liqueur, and rum.

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And then with the pineapple...

Mago daiquiri in a pineapple? Oh yes. Yes

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The coconut milk was used for the first pictures shown. Later in the week, we decided to make good use of the coconut as well... as a glass...

Wait a second, that is not an ordinary coconut. Oh, :-), yes, that is a White Russian in a coconut.

:-)