Shopping Around the World - Potatoes

Today we join Phenny in shopping around the world. We seem to post on the wrong day, so we hope this is the right one!

Our potato disk is the Man's famous latkes. This is how you make them. 

First: Peel potatoes

Then decide that isn't enough for 12 people and peel more. 

Get some zucchini and onion (we didn't get a picture of the onion)

Put the potato, zucchini and onion through the food processor (or you can grate/chop by hand, but that is a lot of work, we have done it!)

In a bowl add eggs, flour (not pictured here)

and spices of your choice. 

It will look a lot like this. It is important to squeeze the extra liquid out of these. Potatoes have a lot of water in them!

Shape into a patty and deep fry. This can also be done in a frying pan if you don't have a deep fryer. 

Serve with sour cream or apple sauce.

Estimate price for latkes for 12 people in Canadian Dollars:

Eggs: $3

Potatoes: $8

Onions: $5

Gluten Free Flour: a few dollars

Spices from home - unsure

Under $20 Canadian or $15 US or $13 Euro.

Shopping Around The World - Pumpkin

We are excited that the Lady got her act together and shopping around the world was actually something Lady can cook (thanks Phenny for picking something in her wheelhouse!).  For those of you who don't cook, if Lady can make this it is super easy. 

You need:

Stock/Broth - Lady likes to use vegetable as she is eating less meat.

Pumpkin - Lady is way to lazy to cut up a pumpkin so she buys a can of filling. She gets 100% pure pumpkin.

Cream - Lady uses a can of coconut milk instead because she is on a low dairy diet.

Garlic (optional) - Lady has already minced garlic (that is how lazy a cooker she is)

Curry paste or other spices - Lady likes a little curry paste for kick

Salt - a dash will do

Onion - Lady used about half the onion - she is picky about how she likes her onion (man as we write this we see how complicated all her food stuff is)

Oil - Because she loves it and it is healthy she used avocado oil this day, but you can use whatever you have

What you need

More of what you need

Here is how to make it:

Dice the onion and brown it in a pot with the oil. This is the hardest step we promise. 

Dump in all the other ingredients.

Stir and let simmer. Lady usually simmers it for about 30 minutes.

There you have Lazy Lady's pumpkin soup! 

Lady didn't get all the prices but she guesses the whole pot was about $10 Canadian (the pumpkin, the coconut milk and stock each being between $2-$3 plus the little bits of the other stuff she had). The pot makes up 4 lunches for her, so that is like $2.50 per serving (or $1.98 US and 1.68 Euros at the time she prepared this post!)

Shopping Around The World - Soup

Today is Bacon's shopping around the world. The item we are sharing is soup.

The Canadian Dollar is worth .73 US cents, .65 Euros,  and 1.02 Australian Dollars.

I recently came across this recipe on All Recipes, for a black bean soup. I am not much of a chef (I don't enjoy cooking), but this is one of the easiest and yummiest things I make. 

Here is what you need:

• 2 cans of black beans - $1.49 a can
• 1 1/2 cups of veggie broth - on sale for $2 a box
• 1 cup of salsa - $4.49
• 1 teaspoon of cumin - the jar is about $7

The total price to make a pot (as you use half the box of broth and about half the salsa and a tiny bit of cumin) is under $7. This will make up my lunch for at least 4 days this week.

Now for the recipe:

Wash the beans, add them and the stock to the blender. (The recipe says to blend the salsa too, but I don't, I like the little bit of texture it adds).

It turns a beautiful purply colour

Pour into a sauce pan, add the salsa.

Add the cumin. 

Stir and heat up. It is that easy!

The recipe suggests topping with a little sour cream and green onion. Since I am living a low dairy life (and am not wasting my dairy on that), I serve with a handful of my new favourite corn chips, which are about $5 a bag.

If you decide to try this, let me know what you think! 

Shopping Around the World

We are thrilled to be participating in our first shopping around the world, brought to you by Bacon and Fozzie.  This months theme was 5 ingredients for a Thanksgiving Dinner. While we Canadian dogs celebrated in October, we thought we could still share the prices of some of our favourite Thanksgiving food.

The conversion of the Canadian Dollar (as of Monday this week):

$1 Canadian Dollar = .75 cents US (this makes us cry a little that it is so low!)  or $1.04 Australian Dollar  or .70 Euro or .49 British Pound

another conversion - 1 KG = 2.2 Pounds

First we have the best part - the Turkey - unfortunately Lady won't let us catch one, so we have to buy one. Turkey was $3.28 a kg.

A not great picture of the turkeys in our backyard

What turkey is complete without the stuffing. Cause the Lady can't eat gluten a loaf of her gluten free bread is $6.49. Highway robbery is you ask her.

Next up is the sweet potatoes. These are a new favourite in our house. They will set you back $1.29 a kg.

What meal isn't complete with something green. The beans were $6.15 a kg.

We are not pumpkin pie eaters in our house, we are apple pie ones. Macintosh apples were $4.99 a lb. Don't ask why they were sold by the pound in Canada. It is one of those mysteries, especially since they were products of Canada.

Thanks for shopping with us in rural Quebec, Canada. 

We hope all our American pals enjoy their Thanksgiving!