Well my lovelies, as promised in my last post I’m going to tell you WHY I will be updating more often. It is a product of some other changes in my life I am making, which are all good and necessary. I’ll explain.
Recently my friend Bianca and I were shopping for peanut butter and beer together (as you do) and I told her about all the nut butters I already had at home (almond butter, chunky peanut butter, cashew butter, dark chocolate peanut butter)… as I picked up two new jars to purchase (maple peanut butter and white chocolate peanut butter). She accused me of being a hoarder, and after thinking about it for a moment, I realized that she was right. I’m particularly bad about the nut butters because I love them so (I don’t want you to think I keep six kinds of everything on hand), but I admit it, the label fits.
Hello, my name is poopie, and I am a hoarder. Problem number one.
The Brit and I are going through a financial program to help us budget better and get out of debt. Oh yes, the evil thing that no one wants to talk about. We have DEBT. Budgeting can be difficult for us because since we’re both self-employed, our income is anything but steady and reliable. We have to keep a large sum of money in the bank at all times, because income could dry up at any given moment and we still have bills to pay. I’m hoping this program will help give us some tools to make things more efficient.
In going through this program and making a budget etc, I realized how much we were eating out. And more importantly, how much we were SPENDING on eating out. Ouch. Problem number two.
These two things combined to result in a new resolution for me: we will still allow ourselves to eat out once a week, but the rest of the time I will cook.
So far I’m sticking to meal plans, and actually enjoying it. It’s more fun to cook when you know ahead of time what you’re going to make, and already have the ingredients on hand. I’m even doing some prep the day before so the cooking goes faster. The Brit has been much more open to my cooking than in the past, and he hasn’t eaten meat since Monday! It is cheaper and healthier than eating out, and it is abundantly more rewarding. Plus, I’m slowly making my way through my over-stocked pantry.
So, more structure = more home-cooked meals = more pictures = more blogging!
If you’ve actually made it this far without leaving, thank you. I will now reward you with pictures of food. And for those of you who just scrolled down to get to the goods… you’re probably not reading this either so I don’t know why I’m even addressing you.
Last night I made another tester recipe for Bianca‘s cookbook. If you’ve never lived in the south, you’ve probably never heard of the phenomenon that is chicken and waffles. It’s pretty popular in these parts, and seeing as Bianca‘s cookbook is of SOUTHERN vegan food, it pretty much had to be in there.
She’s done it again with this recipe. The beer battered chicken fried tofu is out of this world, the waffles are perfect and the maple-dijon sauce? Unbelievable.
The Brit opted to eat his the traditional way:
I took Bianca‘s suggestion and made it into the most amazing wafflewich ever. I wasn’t sure if I would like it all put together like this, but I had no trouble polishing it off once I tasted it. OH YES.
Last but certainly not least, brunch this morning. I’ve had a lot of trouble with pancake recipes for some reason… they never work for me. So this morning, I put away my cookbooks, closed my computer, and used the force. I mean, I trusted my instincts and what I know about cooking and baking, and made pancakes without a recipe. These were THE BEST pancakes I have ever made (thank goodness I wrote down what I did after I took my first bite!). They need a little tweaking, but for a first try at my own recipe, I was very pleased.
And so, without further ado, I give you: Blueberry Pancakes.
I hope that picture was worth reading through the whole damn post.
Tags: blah blah blah, pancakes, testers, tofu, waffles
That food looks great! Will you be posting the pancake recipe?
Barb
I’ve had to start cutting back on certain items too, I hate doing it but I know this will be good for me later on in life when I life alone.
Horray for more blogging! I love your posts. The pancakes look amazing and so does that waffle-wich. I can’t believe I’ve never thought to make a savory waffle-wich before!
I can’t wait for Bianca’s book. So much goodness there!
As far as eating out and debt…we used to eat out all the time. Then we knew it had to give. It wasn’t easy at first, but once we started eating at home all the time, we actually preferred it. And it’s helped a lot not to hit the ATM every day. Hope it works well for you, too.
Either way, YAY for tackling your debt!
We did the same thing: ate out wayyy too often, though we kept a “stash” of food in our pantry. Over the past 6 months I’ve stuck to using up food I have instead of eating out. It’s been a huge money saver, and lots of fun. You can do it! Good luck.
Yay for saving money! I think any change at first might be hard, but you will get used to it. I am really getting into my budget.. in fact, I only spent $1.80 on food a day this month for a total of $50 bucks!
I can’t wait for Bianca’s book.. wafflewich.. oh my god!
Debt sucks but home-cooking definitely does not.
What amazing pictures, those pancakes look insane!
Not fair to the other cities in the world that two of the awesomest bloggers live in the same place!
I can’t wait to see Bianca cookbook, the pictures everyone keeps posting look sooo yummy.
Congrats on making successful waffles!!
Hi Stephanie!
I’ve been subscribed to your blog for a while now and LOVE all your food pics. And yes, I do actually read the text too
I live in Memphis and would love to hire you to bake a cake and maybe some other goodies in about a month.
It would be great if you could email me when you get a chance lindseyannesanders AT gmail DOT com