if only i took pictures

I haven’t posted in here for a while and today’s post will be quite different.  This past weekend my sister, Julie, and sister-in-law, Cristina, came to visit sans hijos, so we did what we like to do most…eat out in peace. So get ready for a culinary tour though my favorite New Mexico haunts.  If this doesn’t make you want to come, I don’t know what will.

Thursday:

They flew in late Thursday night and we flew to Frontier.  Julie and I got breakfast burritos, Cristina got a burger.  The food here is decent but the ambiance is top notch, they really like John Wayne.

Friday:

Baked oatmeal at the house

Lattes and Chai’s at a bike-up coffee shop, Mimmo Espresso

Truffles in Madrid with the rudest service ever.  “What types of truffles do you have?” “Oh, you didn’t read the sign?”

Lunch in Santa Fe at “Mucho: The Gourmet Sandwich Shoppe.”  In spite of their lame spelling of shop, Cristina had the best BLT she’s ever had, Julie’s sandwich came with stuffing and I got the Food Network recommended Southwestern Grilled Cheese.  Cristina and I both learned that when they say “mound of crisp bacon” they’re not joking.

Then came teatime at the Tea House.  The tea was great and the scones with cream and lemon curd…um I decided that if you mix them together, ignore the scone, you can pretend it’s lemon ice cream and eat it off a spoon.  Fortunately it wasn’t an overly pretentious teahouse.

On the way home from Santa Fe we stopped by my favorite tortilleria, Ruby’s, in a gravel lot to pick up barbacoa. They were closed! But I am known so they let us in and we got a pound of deliciousness to go.  At home we ate it with tortillas and chips…and cuties because we needed some freshness.

Dad sponsored our purchase of a german chocolate cake from Chocolate Maven…what a way to end the day!

Saturday:

Pre-breakfast was granola and snacks we had around the house (i.e. german chocolate cake)

Real breakfast at Julie’s favorite place to visit in Albuquerque, Golden Crown Panaderia.  They have these sweet potato empanadas, and these raspberry empanadas, and these cinnamon bread things and lattes and a sunny patio in November.

For lunch we went to Flying Star Bakery and Café because they do have lots of fresh options.  We didn’t get any of those.

Quite a while ago Julie and I discovered that if you’re going to dinner and ice cream you should get the ice cream first because it’s harder to save as leftovers. We took that to heart this trip and went to Pop Fizz, where they have these homemade choco taco things (pumpkin!) and other delicious ice creams, before dinner at Farinas where we got chopped salad and a pizza that was good, but somehow we overlooked the burning peppers from the ingredient list.

Sunday:  Sunday started off rough because Golden Crown wasn’t open before church and my back-up bakery, limonata, was closed because of a leak.  Fortunately we still had a little time to run to Satellite café for coffees and muffins before the meeting.  After church my adopted family had us over for 4 hours of eating, and saving money.

We figured by this time Golden Crown would be open to stock up on empanadas. They were and the pizza they sold looked so good too so…cheese pizza on blue corn crust to go, with our ½ dozen empanadas. So dinner was pizza, guacamole and chips, cuties and sweet potatoes with raw milk (purchased during our field trip to the farm earlier in the day) for dessert.

Monday:  Sadness…they left.  But we were ready ahead of schedule like at 6:20am instead of 6:30, so we got to sneak in one more latte run to enjoy with the empanadas before the airport. 

And, since New Mexico is cheap, the whole food weekend was only like $200.

                                                                                                                    

What Happened December? (& The Rest of the Year)

Well I was only in Abq. for a few weeks and tried to not shop much during that time.  I did by some root beer milk one day and ate dinner out another day, and have a note that I spent money on something another day (but I have no clue on what).  I did buy a few things at Walmart using a gift card for my Christmas Party soup.  Another day I bought a drink at Starbucks but I justified it by using some of the $16 I had found on the sidewalk.  Once I left for break, Dec 13th, the semester was over as was tracking my spending

December Total: $16.80

Since I started tracking in January of 2012 here is my total for the 2012 school year. 

drum roll....

$782.54 or $65.21/month or $15.05/week or $2.14/day

So if you are one of the people who fed me this year, thanks!

End of Novemeber

I'm totally cheating and writing this two weeks after the fact, but I saved my receipts (this is my personal expense report.

Now I will think back on what I ate on the 29th and 30th two weeks ago.

Thursday's dinner I had a meatball sandwich (meatballs, bbq sauce and bread on its way out from thanksgiving) I was very proud of myself for coming up with that one.  Friday night was family pizza night with my adopted family.  Breakfast and lunch were probably remnents of thanksgiving. ($0)

But alas, I did have to go grocery shopping, in anticipation of hosting a Christmas party I figured people probably wanted more than water to drink.  $24.73 on mostly tea.

 Monthly Total:$79.86

day 6 of cranberry sauce

Breakfast: Pancakes, using flaxseed instead of egg, and cranberry sauce (have you seen a trend). ($0)
Lunch: Thanksgiving. ($0)
Snack: I met some ladies from work and bought a hot chocolate, it wasn't very good. ($3)
Dinner: Cheese and crackers, again, and some veggies, i did consider eating cranberry sauce with my crackers. ($0)

packed lunch

Breakfast: French toast with cranberry sauce. ($0)
Lunch: I worked from Starbucks (on a gift card) but packed a lunch. I made a sandwich: old bread, turkey, cranberry sauce and pumpkin cream cheese.  I also had my 2nd coconut milk yogurt. ($0)
Dinner: Cheese from tailgating and crackers from when my dad was here and got a stomach virus. ($0)

exhaustion

Breakfast: Rice ($0)
Lunch: For some reason I was really tired so took a nap for most of the afternoon instead of eating lunch. ($0)
Dinner: Thanksgiving in a bowl aka stuffing, cranberry sauce and butternut squash. ($0)

ginger cookies and inner struggles

Breakfast: Oatmeal ($0)
Brunch: I made cookies as a back up dessert for the day after Thanksgiving and they weren't needed so I brought them today instead.  Once again everyone was amazed by the chewy ginger cookie.  ($0)
Lunch: Pizza with one of the families from church. ($0)
Dinner: Potato bar at youth group, I volunteered to bring green onions. ($.59)

Weekly Total: $35.23

I realize this is more than all of the month of October, I am becoming more and more like my parents with an aversion to eating out.