The FOOD, INC. $11 Dinner for Four Challenge: Day Five Meal
[NOTE: If you're new to my FOOD, INC. $11 Dinner for Four Challenge, I recommend you read Ground Rules and Day One Meal, as background before reading this entry.]
Mackie's shopping skills continue to shame me. On a recent outing to Safeway, she found a killer bargain on chicken drumsticks. So, for day five's dinner we're again going with her menu: Shake N Bake chicken legs (we'll use the Safeway equivalent for the coating), with Brussels sprouts and brown rice (we have lots of brown rice left from a few nights ago). Everybody drinks milk. We're getting some money saved so we might be able to afford coffee for the adults before the week's out.
Mackie spotted a 20-pack of Safeway chicken drumsticks for $0.99/lb., marked down from $1.99/lb, for a total of $5.73. She examined the package and pronounced the contents fit to eat. Again, she's fussy so I'll take her word any day. Add a 5.5 oz. box of Safeway chicken coating mix, $2.59 Club Card price, and we have our protein with ample seasoning. The mix is for 16 pieces be we'll stretch it bit to cover 20. It's ultra-high in sodium so stretching is a good thing.
Brussels sprouts cost $1.99/lb. We'll get a pound, which translates to about 30 medium pieces, and cook them in brown butter. Two tbsp. of butter will work for a pound of sprouts.
We have about 2 cups of brown rice left from day three's dinner. We'll use 3/4 cup (uncooked) for tonight's dinner's starch, leaving about 1 1/4 cups for future use.
This is a very hearty meal and the calorie count is high, so we'll pass on dessert to save some money.
Prep time is about an hour. The chicken takes about 50 minutes to bake and probably about five to 10 minutes to wash and coat. The brown rice also takes some time. Mackie's "shopping" took about 10 minutes and was conducted on July 16, 2009 at the 16th and Potrero Safeway.
Adding it up, ingredients cost $10.31. Including day four's carryforward, we had $12.25 to spend. So, we'll carry a $1.94, our largest surplus yet, plus 5 oz. of butter, three large eggs, 5/12 cup of Parmesan cheese, and a quart of milk into day six.
Per person, this meal delivers 1060 calories, 43 g of total fat, 12.5 g of saturated fat, 1024 mg of sodium and 5 g of fiber. I worry that we're getting into fast food territory with the fat content but there's an easy solution — don't finish all of the chicken. Five drumsticks per person is a ton of food. If concerned about the calorie and fat content, save a few drumsticks for tomorrow's lunch. Cutting each person from five to three drumsticks changes the nutritional values to 776 calories, 29 g of total fat, 9.5 g of saturated fat, 672 mg of sodium and 5 g of fiber, which is much more in line with our goals. Fiber is low, the worst of any meal to date. We'll work on that over the last two days. Click here if you want to see a JPG of the spreadsheet used to calculate the per person nutritional content for the meal, here for the three-drumstick version.
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Nutritional information for the chicken (used Perdue drumsticks, assume chicken is generally the same) and butter from www.thedailyplate.com; for the coating, rice (used Mahatma info as Safeway brand not available) and milk from www.safeway.com and for the Brussels sprouts from www.nutritiondata.com.
I was really surprised at how much fat and saturated fat was contained in the chicken. I imagine that 5 3/4 lbs. of bone-in drumsticks is at least half bone by weight, so about 3 lbs. of chicken meat and skin has more fat, and higher ratio of saturated fat to total fat, than 3 1/2 lbs. of boneless London broil. Color me stunned!
I was also surprised at how little fiber the Brussels sprouts contained, essentially a gram per ounce. It's hard to hit the fiber goals without including beans, corn or whole grain in the meal. In retrospect, using sprouts for day four's vege and green beans for today's would have been a better call.
Can I actually complete another menu or is Mackie going to continue to blow my efforts away? Stay tuned!
[NOTE: Again, my posts for the seven days of the FOOD, INC. challenge will not appear on seven consecutive days. Real life makes me do things other than blog.]
Mackie's shopping skills continue to shame me. On a recent outing to Safeway, she found a killer bargain on chicken drumsticks. So, for day five's dinner we're again going with her menu: Shake N Bake chicken legs (we'll use the Safeway equivalent for the coating), with Brussels sprouts and brown rice (we have lots of brown rice left from a few nights ago). Everybody drinks milk. We're getting some money saved so we might be able to afford coffee for the adults before the week's out.
Mackie spotted a 20-pack of Safeway chicken drumsticks for $0.99/lb., marked down from $1.99/lb, for a total of $5.73. She examined the package and pronounced the contents fit to eat. Again, she's fussy so I'll take her word any day. Add a 5.5 oz. box of Safeway chicken coating mix, $2.59 Club Card price, and we have our protein with ample seasoning. The mix is for 16 pieces be we'll stretch it bit to cover 20. It's ultra-high in sodium so stretching is a good thing.
Brussels sprouts cost $1.99/lb. We'll get a pound, which translates to about 30 medium pieces, and cook them in brown butter. Two tbsp. of butter will work for a pound of sprouts.
We have about 2 cups of brown rice left from day three's dinner. We'll use 3/4 cup (uncooked) for tonight's dinner's starch, leaving about 1 1/4 cups for future use.
This is a very hearty meal and the calorie count is high, so we'll pass on dessert to save some money.
Prep time is about an hour. The chicken takes about 50 minutes to bake and probably about five to 10 minutes to wash and coat. The brown rice also takes some time. Mackie's "shopping" took about 10 minutes and was conducted on July 16, 2009 at the 16th and Potrero Safeway.
Adding it up, ingredients cost $10.31. Including day four's carryforward, we had $12.25 to spend. So, we'll carry a $1.94, our largest surplus yet, plus 5 oz. of butter, three large eggs, 5/12 cup of Parmesan cheese, and a quart of milk into day six.
Per person, this meal delivers 1060 calories, 43 g of total fat, 12.5 g of saturated fat, 1024 mg of sodium and 5 g of fiber. I worry that we're getting into fast food territory with the fat content but there's an easy solution — don't finish all of the chicken. Five drumsticks per person is a ton of food. If concerned about the calorie and fat content, save a few drumsticks for tomorrow's lunch. Cutting each person from five to three drumsticks changes the nutritional values to 776 calories, 29 g of total fat, 9.5 g of saturated fat, 672 mg of sodium and 5 g of fiber, which is much more in line with our goals. Fiber is low, the worst of any meal to date. We'll work on that over the last two days. Click here if you want to see a JPG of the spreadsheet used to calculate the per person nutritional content for the meal, here for the three-drumstick version.
.
Nutritional information for the chicken (used Perdue drumsticks, assume chicken is generally the same) and butter from www.thedailyplate.com; for the coating, rice (used Mahatma info as Safeway brand not available) and milk from www.safeway.com and for the Brussels sprouts from www.nutritiondata.com.
I was really surprised at how much fat and saturated fat was contained in the chicken. I imagine that 5 3/4 lbs. of bone-in drumsticks is at least half bone by weight, so about 3 lbs. of chicken meat and skin has more fat, and higher ratio of saturated fat to total fat, than 3 1/2 lbs. of boneless London broil. Color me stunned!
I was also surprised at how little fiber the Brussels sprouts contained, essentially a gram per ounce. It's hard to hit the fiber goals without including beans, corn or whole grain in the meal. In retrospect, using sprouts for day four's vege and green beans for today's would have been a better call.
Can I actually complete another menu or is Mackie going to continue to blow my efforts away? Stay tuned!
[NOTE: Again, my posts for the seven days of the FOOD, INC. challenge will not appear on seven consecutive days. Real life makes me do things other than blog.]
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