How To Share Costs In A Stocked-Up Kitchen

One thing my new roommate and I are dealing with is something that more and more people might be facing in the coming times:  different challenges in our attempt to equitably share food costs.

Back in the days of college roommates, sharing grocery costs was easy — you just split the grocery receipts, at least for items that both people consumed.

But now we have two factors complicating things.  First, I’ve been stocking up on staples for years now.  And second, we have different budgets and quality standards for some items — for example, one of us buys expensive dogfood and one of us buys cheaper stuff.  And agreeing to each keep buying our separate items can make the household logistics a bit silly:  feed this dog a scoop from THIS bag, and that dog a scoop from THAT bag…  But if budget constraints preclude one person from going halfsies on the good quality stuff, that doesn’t mean the other person will wish to feed their dog the cheaper stuff.  So, we keep the separate bags for different dogs.  Good thing we have plenty of storage space!  And sometimes it even feels a bit snobbish — like my dog is eating prime rib while hers are eating ground round.  Sometimes I think I should just share the good stuff with her — but actually, I tried to do that — I suggested we mix bags together and the dogs get a mix — but K didn’t feel good about doing that, because she didn’t feel she could afford to pay for her share of the good stuff.

It got even more complicated when we considered ‘people food’.  She of course wants to pay her share of food, but it certainly makes no sense for us to fuss over how much she should reimburse me for each cup of rice or beans we use from my stock — especially since we’ve been cooking together a lot, which is a HUGE benefit to me, as I need the motivation and inspiration to move toward being more of a cook myself.

Again, the challenge is not just to be equitable, but also to accommodate our differing budgets.

I’m interested to hear if anyone has any recommendations about this kind of situation.  But in the meantime, here’s what we’ve agreed to:

I told her that she should consider that the rent she is paying me includes use of any of the stored staples in the house — this includes rice, beans, oatmeal, flour, spices, etc.  If she’s regularly making something just for herself then perhaps this might feel awkward, but most of our use of those kinds of foods is for shared consumption.  Also, she will share whatever staples she happens to have if it fits with our needs.  Then, for the items we buy to complete our recipes, such as veggies, cheese, etc, we will share the cost.  Some things, such as soymilk, we don’t want to have two containers open at the same time, so we will use up what I have (most of a case) and then we will share the cost of replacing it.  This means that I’ve effectively contributed half of what I initially had to her, but all costs after that would be shared.  That’s okay too — I just think of it as more “included in the rent” type stuff.

We’ve agreed to see how this approach works, and if anything doesn’t seem like it’s being addressed fairly, we’ll revisit it.  But considering that managing my stocks is a separate but important part of being stocked up, I definitely want to encourage us to use what I have — especially that brown rice that’s already been stored for 2 years or so!

So far we’ve made a couple of delicious meals.  First she made a cold bean and rice salad we’ve both been taking to work for lunch: black beans and brown rice, mixed with chopped cabbage, broccoli, carrots, garlic, cilantro, onions.  Then we add some balsamic vinaigrette dressing, and yum!

We also made a lentil soup with curry powder, onion, garlic, various herbs, and a hamhock.

[Note:  While I've never been a 100% vegetarian, I've only had meat a few times per year for several years now.  Because K is not vegetarian, she sometimes wants meat in her dishes.  But she doesn't make meat the center of the meal, nor eat it every day.  Because I so value the cooking lessons/experience I'm gaining by cooking together with her, I've decided to relax my vegetarianism for a while.  As I said, this does not mean meat in every meal, nor does it mean meat as the primary part of a meal.  But I didn't object to the hamhock she put in the lentil soup, and I won't object to the buffalo meat we plan to put in a red bean chili this coming week.  We might even make buffalo burgers once!  I will, however, continue my beef boycott -- fortunately the buffalo is available and I doubt she'd want to eat regular beef anyway!]

And I’ve made pancakes a few times so far — that was one of the items on my list of ten things I wanted to add to my “do without thinking” cooking options.  The pancakes haven’t worked too well, but we’re narrowing down the cause — honey that was too hard, a kamut mix that cooks differently than regular flour, and a pan that had burned spots on the surface and so didn’t cook well.  We’ll try again tomorrow and see how many of these things we can change/fix.

I’ve also made one pumpkin pie this season, just after Thanksgiving.  Need to do a few more before I can say it doesn’t require thinking, though.

More Soup ‘n’ Biscuits, Plus A Book Update

Last weekend I made a lentil and tomato soup that turned out pretty darn good.  Not without some mistakes and things I’ll do differently next time, but still — pretty good.  I just had some of it tonight for the third night in a row, and it was even better tonight than it was before.  I also made biscuits again, and it was rather a fiasco (let’s just say that I thought I was being so clever to only make half the recipe this time, until the process of converting butter quantities (in the recipe) to oil quantities (what I actually used) distracted me and I put the whole recipe’s amount of oil in.  So then I had to double all the dry ingredients and end up with a full batch again anyway).  Then that still turned out way too moist, for unknown reasons, and I added at least another cup of flour to get it to kneadable/rollable texture.  It was kind of a comedy of errors of biscuit baking, if you can imagine that.  But the good news is, they didn’t turn out any *worse* than the first batch.  I’m still eating them a few days later.

In other news, I *finally* finished Bill McKibben’s “End of Nature.”  Although I think it’s a really important work, it’s somewhat out of date by now (written in 1989) and his writing style near the end started to get downright annoying.  I know McKibben is spearheading the 350 project, which I think is great, so I’m sure his current writings are much more appropriate now anyway.  On Friday the book I’d been waiting for arrived, Kim Stanley Robinson’s “Sixty Degrees and Counting“, which is the third in the trilogy.  I’m nearly halfway through and enjoying it greatly.  I do get nervous, though, when reading about bitter cold as I’m trying to warm this house with the woodstove.  Wondering how I’d fare if we had a couple weeks of fifty below zero, as happened in the second book of the trilogy.  While waiting for the latest book to arrive ILL (inter-library loan) from the library, I also read “Bucking the Sun” by Ivan Doig.  A fascinating story about a family working on the building of the Fort Peck Dam in Montana during the Great Depression.  Any book that combines the Great Depression, severe winters, and hydrology has to be interesting to me! :p  I still have several books on request at the library, but now I’m half hoping they don’t show up for a while, or else how am I ever going to have time to read seventeen more books off my own shelf this winter?

A Start

The other night I made some soup using mostly garden veggies — potatoes, beets, and chard, plus some other stuff.  As usual for my off-the-cuff soupmaking, it didn’t turn out very well.  But it was edible, and in the course of two dinners I ate it all, composting none of it.  That’s a big improvment for me — usually when I try something that doesn’t work well, it’s too unpleasant to eat, and usually I’ve made a huge pot of it as well.  This time I got smart and made a smaller pot of it.

I’m embarrassed to even list the various things I threw in there, but I will anyway.  In addition to the garden veggies, there was an onion (not sauteed first — does that really make a difference?).  I think I salted it a little.  Then I wanted something to make the broth more hearty, creamy.  So I decided to try some coconut milk.  As bizarre as it sounds, I think the coconut milk is what made the soup edible — even though I couldn’t taste the coconut at all, it gave it a bit of ’solid’ feeling.  I guess a soup needs a little fat in it to make it feel filling.  But then it was still really bland, so I shook in a couple dashes of cayenne sauce.  Euw, I’m sure you’re saying, what an awful combination!  Well, truly, it didn’t combine badly at all, as odd as it sounds.  But on the other hand, it didn’t work, either — the soup was a little too cayenne-hot for my taste, but it didn’t seem to season the soup — it was just a bland soup with some spicy cayenne taste.  I still need to learn the trick of having the broth of a soup taste good — favorful.  Somehow I managed to get both bland and spicy and once, but not flavorful.

In addition to the soup, I made biscuits.  I found a very simple recipe in one of my favorite cookbooks, Kitchen Wisdom: Harrowsmith’s Sourcebook for Cooks.  They turned out a little better than the soup — not bad, but still not great.  There are a variety of things that might not have worked well.  First, I used hard red whole wheat flour — maybe I should use soft flour and/or white flour for biscuits?  Second, I substituted soymilk for milk and coconut milk for yogurt — I don’t think that should have been a problem though.  Third, I’m not sure I “cut in” the butter in the right fashion.  The ony other problem is that I made too many.  I ate some with the soup, and ate a few more for breakfast the next day, but haven’t had any since and there are still a few left.  They will probably be composted.  I think biscuits are one of those things that should be made in one-meal batches.  Next time I try the biscuits I’ll make half or even a third of the recipe.  Biscuits is one of the things I’m most excited about adding to my “do it by heart” cooking list, so I’m pleased that my first batch came out as good as they did.

Now I’m Cookin’ With Ga — er, Wood!

My other “focus” project for myself this winter, in addition to the reading/decluttering project, has to do with cooking.  I’ve never been much of a cook, and now is the time to change that.  I’m not aiming toward fancy dishes, nor even toward a huge repertoire.  I just want to expand my list of what I can cook COMFORTABLY — meaning 1) in a hurry, 2) when I’m stressed, anxious or upset, and 3) without thinking too hard about it.  Without a cookbook would be nice, but some things are just going to need a written recipe — my goal is for it to be easy for me — meaning I know which cookbook it’s in, and what ingredients I need (without looking at the cookbook, so I can get the ingredients on a whim in town when I decide to make something) — or make sure I’ve stocked up so that I *know* I have what I need.  I think it’s also important that I develop a sense of what’s important and what’s flexible, for each meal, so that I know when I can substitute or do without some particular ingredient (as well as add extras!).

For example, a few years ago I decided that my “standard” potluck dish would be sauteed mushrooms.  It’s something that most people like, but it’s not a typical potluck dish so I never worry about someone else bringing the same thing.  I’ve made it often enough that I know what I put into it, I know whether I can make a batch with that partial stick of butter or whether I need more (and whether I can substitute olive oil for the butter if I want).  I know how little (or how much) garlic I want.  I know how much time it takes, how much of my energy it takes (ie how far in advance I need to start).  I’m comfortable with it, in other words.

I want to add ten dishes to my “comfortable” repertoire this winter.

Without getting too bogged down in rules, here’s what I’m thinking:

Stir fry, rice/beans, soup, stew, chili, bread, biscuits/gravy, pancakes, pie, cookies, lasagna.

Stir fry:  I’ve rarely if ever made a stir fry.  I want to make it often enough that I can ” throw a stir fry together” using whatever I have laying around.  I have a wok and want to get in the habit of using it (or get rid of it if it’s not the right tool, but from what I hear it’s an excellent tool).

Rice/beans:  Of course I’ve made rice and beans before.  But I want to experiment with some new kinds of beans, and a variety of seasonings.

Soup:  Ditto, I’ve made lots of different soups before.  But none that I can just “throw together”.  I’ve made some I really like (carrot-ginger, mmm!) that I just need to make a few more times so that it’s etched into my mind and I don’t need the recipe in front of me anymore.  With other soups I need to learn about spices, as the veggies turn out horribly bland, and the water isn’t brothy, so it’s just soggy veggies in water.  I think learning a few tricks about seasoning soups will do wonders for me.

Stew:  same as soup, just focusing on root vegetables (and perhaps a touch of meat if I can find local/organic sources — but perhaps not — I haven’t cooked meat at home for many years now, and haven’t decided to change that, but I’m not overly attached to it, as long as I’m happy with the source of the meat — oh, except for beef, I still boycott that).

Chili: I’ve only made chili once, and it was years ago and I’m pretty sure it had ground beef in it.  I’d like to learn to make a tasty vegetarian chili.

Bread:  I tried bread a handful of times in the past few years, and usually got something edible, but not overly.  I want to find a recipe that works for me and then make it regularly, matching however much bread I eat (which currently isn’t much, but the more soup I make, the more bread I will correspondingly want to have).

Pancakes:  I used to make them often when I was a kid, but I haven’t made them in years.

Biscuits/gravy:  I want to be able to make these on an early morning, knowing what I’m doing but not having to think too hard about it.

Pie:  I’ve made really good pumpkin pie a few times, but no other kind.  And definitely no homemade pie crusts — not sure if I’ll tackle that this winter or not.  But I’d like to add at least one other kind of pie to my repertoire.

Cookies:  I’ve rarely made cookies and I don’t plan to make them often — I just want to know how.  Sugar cookies seem to be what I want to know how to do.  The only successful cookies I can recall making were M&M cookies, which must have been about 35 years ago when I was a young teenager!

Lasagna — Never made it, want to know how.  Again, not that I plan to make it often, but it would be a good thing to make in order to have a week’s worth of “just heat” meals.  And, of course, I won’t be using meat, so I need to find a good vegetarian recipe.

Now, one twist to my cooking projects this winter is that I really want to emphasize non-traditional cooking methods.  Whenever the woodstove’s going, any stovetop cooking I’m doing will probably be done there.  And I’ll be interested in seeing how my solar oven works in the wintertime (it’s still sunny, after all!).  Further, I want to get more familiar with using my electric crockpot to slow-cook things — that way I can cook even on days I’m away working.

I’m not going to make a lot of strict rules about how many of these things I’ll get to, but they are all things I want to do/learn/add to my skills, so I’ll just do as many of them as I can get to.

Side benefits will be less money spent on eating out, more self-reliance, and a reduced chance of letting any of my stored food go to spoilage, once I actually follow the cardinal rule of food storage:  Store What You Eat and Eat What You Store.

Now I better go, because I’m getting hungry.  Let’s see if I can start on one of these projects tonight!

Naan Ventured, Naan Gained…

Monday’s trial of “no computer from 10am-4pm” went well.   I peeked at the computer now and then, but didn’t allow myself any online activities other than checking to see if there were work-related emails.  There weren’t.  I didn’t deal with or even read non-work emails during that time.  I did allow myself a few solitaire games though. :)  And once, mid-day, when I needed a rest from outdoor/physical work, but wasn’t “allowed” to go online, I napped instead!  It was nice, and I felt good about the variety of errands/tasks I got done that day.

Tuesday and Wednesday are work days for me, so today, Thursday, was the next chance I had to try it again.  Today I closed the computer just after 9am, which ‘earned’ me a lunchtime hour online, according to my rules.  Of course, is it cheating that 9am was easy for me because I’d gotten up and turned ON the computer earlier than usual?  Hmm, I better check the rulebook on that one.  Today went a little differently than Monday, though it turned out well and I still followed my rules.  What was different was that it was cooler today, not as comfortable to work outdoors except doing something physical that warmed me up, like digging.  I did a little of that today.  But also, my back was in ‘caution’ mode today, meaning nothing was wrong but I felt susceptible to tweaking it the wrong way, and didn’t want to push it.  So, I did no tree pruning today (leaning and reaching from a ladder is a REAL good way to invite Mr. Murphy into my lumbar region).  And I did only a few minutes of garden digging.  Plus, I discovered two different reasons I needed to go to town midday, so I did.  That took a chunk out of my project time, but I accomplished my town tasks, so that was good.

When I came home mid-afternoon, in the midst of doing some indoor projects, I decided to try making naan.  I’d read badhuman’s recipe for it earlier this spring, and had it in mind to try ever since.  I made a few variations — our local grocery didn’t have plain yogurt except in the big size, and even that was nonfat.  So I had bought a small vanilla flavored yogurt to use instead.  Turns out it’s only 6 ounces, so when the dough came out a bit too dry, I added just under 2 ounces of soymilk.  I think a little less would have been better, as the dough went from too dry to perhaps a bit too moist.  Plus, although the yeast bubbled a bit, I think it is not really live anymore.  Perhaps when I realized that, I should have covered my bases by adding a little baking powder, but I didn’t think of it at the time.  Anyway, the bread came out okay, but thick and dense, not light and airy.  It might have benefitted from another 1-2 minutes in the oven as well, even though it browned nicely on the bottom.  Bottom line, I need to try again, but these results are still edible!

Oh, and I will add that I both warmed the bowl (the recipe specifies putting the dough to rise in a warmed and buttered bowl) AND did the rising in the solar oven!  It was cloudy and the sun was low in the sky, but I think the oven got up to 100*F, which was enough to warm the bowl and hopefully warm enough but not too warm for the rising dough.  It was really the only warm place I had — oh wait, I guess I could have set the bowl in the truck, that might have worked too…  I still need to re-establish some wind protection for the solar oven, but soon as I do that, it’s ready to use!