Although 2009 has so far not been the year that Carlo and I had hoped for, we are still thankful for having each other and our relationship only getting stronger despite the many obstacles that we have stumbled upon this year. I’m thankful for my family, and although I’m missing them like crazy today since this is my first Thanksgiving ever to be apart from them, we are also creating a new holiday tradition with Carlo’s family in Tucson. I’m also thankful for all of my friends, near and far, who are the best and always make me laugh and feel better about life. I want to give out a shout out to our awesome kitty Boo, who I hope is doing okay at home in Las Vegas and is enjoying snuggling on my fleece that I left out for him.

Lastly, I would like to thank each of you who read our blog, try our recipes, and leave comments. This blog has been an incredible and rewarding experience over the last 9 months. Not only has it been a powerful source of unemployment therapy, it has helped me reconnect with old friends who also love food and create many new friends. Plus it was pretty awesome to be mentioned in the lead story on the front page of USA Today yesterday

So today, take a moment out from your day of foodie revelry and give your thanks to your support network, without which we would be nothing.

Happy cooking, and be reassured that even if things don’t turn out as planned in the kitchen this holiday, no one will remember it tomorrow. A few years ago, Carlo had to take a leaf blower to help fire up the smoker, and even though the turkeys ended up with a thick layer of ash over them (thankfully easy to remove once you took the skin off), everyone still raved about his legendary smoked turkey. Plus we have this awesome photo to remember one of our last Friends’ Thanksgiving in Austin.

Considering that we are both such big food geeks, food was the focal part of our reception, and we even named all of the tables after our favourite restaurants around the world. So to celebrate our first anniversary, I share some of the food related photos of our wedding.

We are celebrating our anniversary with a trip to LA where we plan to see lots of great art, go to the Santa Monica Farmers’ Market, and perhaps most importantly, eat lots of incredible food! There will be no mention of the recession this weekend.

Thanks to our dear friends Ashley and Emily for taking such beautiful photos to help us remember this special day.

I’m a huge food TV fan. I start up fantasy leagues for Top Chef and have become a recent addict to Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives, as well as The Best Thing I Ever Ate (which tipped us off to two great restaurants are going to eat at when we are in LA this weekend for our wedding anniversary). But at the same time, I love to cook and do so on an everyday basis.

Even when we both had jobs, we made cooking a priority and we would spend Sunday afternoon in the kitchen together preparing homemade lunches for the week. It was not only a way that Carlo and I bonded and spent time together after a busy week at work, but it made us both feel good that we were taking the time to prepare healthy food for ourselves, a great affirmation of self love and worth.

So while I enjoyed Pollan’s article, it made me sad. Sad that the average time spent each day to prepare food is 27 minutes in America, and sad that the food marketing guru thinks that cooking may become a thing of the past for our grandchildren.

However, I hope if something positive comes out of Recession Recipes, it is that perhaps you have seen a posted recipe that has inspired you to get back into the kitchen and cook something good for yourself. I know how cooking makes me feel good and I hope we can share that feeling with our readers.

Has anyone else read Pollan’s article? I’m curious in learning what y’all think of the lack of home cooking in America, and whether you fall into that category of people out of the kitchen and onto the couch. How often do you cook at home each week? Do you cook from scratch, or do you use a lot of pre-made foods? Are you the weekend warrior cooker, or do you cook on weeknights too? I’m looking forward to hear what you have to say.

Follow our adventures as we try to dine and drink well on the budget of a MBA student and a recently unemployed art historian.

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How We Price Each Recipe Serving

When we go grocery shopping, we try to buy the highest quality produce and meat at the cheapest prices. We try to tailor our menus to whatever ingredients are on sale at the grocery store, or make ingredient swaps in recipes to keep our costs down. We have been known to stalk the sale section of the meat section to find great pieces of lamb that have been marked down 50% because they need to be used or frozen by the next day. Just stick them in the freezer and you will never know that they were 50% off when you use them!

For each recipe, we compile all of our grocery receipts and create a spreadsheet that details the cost for each ingredient. This process is easy when we buy discrete ingredients that aren’t used in any other recipes, but it gets a bit more complicated when one bag of cilantro is used for 3 different recipes. In this case, we just make our most educated guess on how much the portion is that we used for a particular recipe and assign an appropriate cost. When we have to buy a special ingredient for a recipe that will not be used in anything else that week, we include the full cost of that ingredient in the per serving cost. However, we do not include the cost of kitchen staples like salt, pepper, dried spices, olive oil, and butter in each recipe.

The cost per serving may be what it costs for us living in Las Vegas and shopping at the grocery stores that we do, but this cost will differ depending on where you live in the world. For example, the general cost of groceries is much more expensive in Las Vegas than where we used to live in Austin, Texas. So treat the cost per serving as a general guideline when budgeting for your meals.