pagtitipid and cuisine everyday?

i'm planning to make chicken curry later for dinner (wanted beef or shrimp curry but we don't have beef nor shrimp so back to good old chicken) and since i'm on a bree van de kamp phase (more on this later), i told myself that chicken curry is not enough. so i browsed through my indian recipe book (yup, i have an indian recipe book!) and tried to look for a dish i can pair up with curry. hay! wala akong mahanap! my problem lies with the spices. i can handle cumin and turmeric but what the hell is garam masala or asafoetida? sabi ko na nga ba, i should have gone to the specialty Indian food stores muna para i could have bought stocks. anyway, so for now, my indian cookbok will remain on the shelf until i can gather those out-of-the-world ingredients it's talking about.

for dinner, if i can muster enough sipag, then i can drop by the supermarket to buy additional ingredients and i'll just make tom yang. :)

anyway... it's 10:44 am and i'm already planning what's for dinner. since i'm home alone for lunch on weekdays, i just have a sandwich or i just open anything canned or i have a salad but i try to make nice dinners. actually, this "cuisine-for-dinner-everyday" phase started just a while ago. you see, jojie and i realized that we've been spending so much on eating out. at first, it didn't bother me. si jojie and matipid eh so siya ung nagwo-worry dun. what he would do is to limit what we order na lang para maka-tipid. like for example, in Terikaki Boy, instead of ordering teriyaki boy chicken don, gyu yakiniku don, california maki, kani salad, and iced tea like we used to do, we'll go for just the chicken don and the gyu don. at first, ayoko kasi feeling ko dapat maraming ino-order para masaya (haha!)but then, i realized na pareho lang pala yung level of satiation ko with or without the add-ons so sige na nga. isa pa, because of stress, i've been throwing up a lot lately so honestly, hindi ko na rin kayang kumain ng marami (sana lang mag-reflect na soon sa dress size ko! haha!).

and then, one time i saw this oprah episode which featured this newly married couple mired in debt. they've been married for only 3 months and already, they're in a $50,000 credit card debt! juice ko! hindi ko ata kaya yun. pag nangyari yun sa amin, baka makalbo ang asawa ko sa stress! the episode got me thinking. we should really try to save! for now, we're living within our means naman (hindi papayag si jojie to live beyond our means! away yun pag ginawa ko yun!) but i realized that we can save a lot by just dining out once a week or so (for the past couple of months, we've been dining out, on the average 4x a week). so i decided to have a conscious effort to eat at home instead of dining out. but then, the problem lies in my way of thinking... you see, if we just eat canned goods and prito-prito everyday, feeling ko kawawa naman ang asawa ko. i know that's a stupid thought and i don't mean any offense to families who have canned goods and fried food everyday pero ayoko lang ng ganun. (yeah, i admit, i do that whenever i'm tamad but i really try to cook nice dishes, you know). thank god we can afford to buy ingredients for dishes that i like to try na alam kong kaartehan lang. dun talaga super grateful ako kay god sa mga blessings kaya lalo natinag yung resolve ko na wag umabuso. :)

so yun na nga, i told myself i'll just cook every night pero hindi puro prito. so now i experiment every night. basta i think of ways na masarap yung dinner. this way, i get to enjoy cooking. i may not be the best cook but i really enjoy cooking. the other night, we had grilled liempo, garlic rice, and salad. ang winner dito i made the salad dressing myself. i made strawberry vinaigrette (sp?) and ang sarap! i was so proud of myself! :) last night we had bologna (good! pero dahil si jojie ang kakain, dapat pinoy style, read: matamis, at hindi italian na maasim), oatmeal chicken (just so-so), and coleslaw. yummy!

and you know what's the best part is? i have realized that ang laki talaga ng natitipid pag kumakain dito sa bahay! for example, for our dinner the other night, yung grilled liempo, ang breakdown nun was:

liempo: P100 (jojie's cousin was supposed to have dinner with us kasi so i cooked 3pcs liempo)
additional ingredients for the liempo: approx P15
garlic rice: approx P5.00
salad: P13.00 for the green lettuce, P12.50 for the mango, P4.00 for the tomato, and approx P16.00 for the dressing.

total is P165.00! which is equivalent to 1 order of chicken don in teriyaki boy or 1 order of crispy tadyang ng baka in crocodile. i was really amazed!!! yung lagay na yan, malaki pa yan for a dinner at home kasi nga madami pa ako arte. ang galing di ba? so everytime i have a hard time washing the dishes afterwards, i just remind myself na ang laki ng natipid ko, nag-enjoy ako sa pagluluto, and nag-enjoy kami ni jojie dining together at our home on our starbucks-look-alike table. :)

so back to dinner for tonight, i'll have chicken curry. i'm debating whether to have bagoong rice or not kasi parang over na sa lasa. what do you think? then i'll just have soup, kung hindi man tom yang, i'll be sure to whip something up. :)