One down!

When I went to bed last night, I successfully completed an item on my "30 Before 30" list.  Now numero sixteen looks like this:


16. Eat out zero times for a full month

This was one of a few items on the list that Daniel was not so excited about, but certain life circumstances made it seem like a good one to tackle ASAP.  Namely, the Tax Fairy (who used to leave nice, fat refunds for us) ran off with all our money.  Apparently we weren't letting the government withhold neeeeearly enough of Daniel's paychecks (am I the only one who is clueless about this stuff?).  Between that and the fact that Daniel has recently gone back to school, the Wiginton family's budget has taken some serious hits.  


But what do you do when life hands you lemons?  You look online for a recipe that calls for lemons!



At the beginning of the month, Daniel and I had a little back-and-forth to determine what exactly constituted eating out, and the most reasonable definition I could think of was paying someone else to prepare food for us.  That still leaves room for debate -- like when nice Mrs. Mollie at church learns what you're doing and says, "What if I buy you dinner and bring it to your house?"  But since I wasn't exactly sure what "the principle of the thing" was in this little experiment, I just tried to stick to every possible principle of the thing.  If it seemed questionable to me, I didn't do it.


According to my meticulous records (weekly menus written on Post-It notes), I cooked 22 of the 31 days in May.  The other days, we ate leftovers.  And for the sake of full disclosure, I should confess that we did go to a cookout one night where we were served food from a local BBQ restaurant, and there were several different occasions when Daniel went out to lunch or dinner without Ben and me (not as cruel as it sounds -- it's just part of his job sometimes). 

All month I felt like I was spending ridiculous amounts of money at the grocery store, but we ended up saving about $160 on food, compared to previous months.  That alone is worth the hassle to me.  But there was the added benefit of having to develop more self-control.  Most of the time, I plan to cook dinner, but if I don't feel like it or don't get around to it, I send Daniel out to pick something up for us.  That wasn't an option in May, so I actually had to plan ahead and be slightly less lazy.  Probably a good thing, right?


So what's for dinner tonight?  Pizza.  I know that seems really lame, but it's the one thing I have craved all month.  I tried pretty hard, and we ate pretty well in May, so I didn't miss restaurant food for the most part.  But homemade pizza just isn't the same as the cheap, greasy stuff from a pizza chain.


Just for fun, here were a few of my favorite dishes during my month of eating in:
Pasta, Pesto, and Peas
Beef Enchiladas
Garden Vegetable Crustless Quiche
Curry Chicken Salad
Tangy Pulled Pork Sandwiches