Emily's Hot Dish

This Hobo Monday, we're taking a picnic. 
We're bringing: 

Oh my goodness do I love meatloaf sandwiches. It’s two comfort foods combined into one hybrid ULTIMATE comfort food. It’s MEATLOAF in a SANDWICH.

If that weren’t enough, we’re topping it with wine-glazed caramelized onions. The flavor, my friends, will bring you to your knees and make you weep.

This is great food for a picnic – it doesn’t require much prep, provided you had meatloaf for dinner last night, you can eat it without utensils, and it’s good at room temperature. 

I compared the cost of ingredients for my fattet hummos recipe at Safeway and Whole Foods. While some ingredients were slightly cheaper at Safeway, the high prices on “premium” items raise the overall tab to over 130% of the overall cost at Whole Foods.

The total cost at Safeway for 4 servings is $16.21, or $4.05/serving. This is more than 130% more than the cost at Whole Foods of $12.07 for 4 and $3.02 per serving. You can save some money by making the chicken broth yourself – it will taste a lot better than packaged broth and save you a few dollars to boot. If you make your own chicken broth, it brings the total cost down to $10.07 for 4 servings and $2.52/serving.

The biggest savings, though, is buying the dairy at Whole Foods instead of Safeway. The feta at Safeway costs twice as much and the yogurt costs three times as much – buying those two ingredients alone at Whole Foods will save you $5.00 over 4 servings.


Once again, Safeway proves to be more expensive than Whole Foods.

I used to think that Ranch dressing was something that only came in a bottle. The idea of making my own at home never crossed my mind. At the very least, you had to buy a packet of “ranch dressing mix” and combine it with mayonnaise and buttermilk. Until recently it never occurred to me that the contents of the packet were spices that I could combine myself at home.

Because this recipe uses fresh herbs it tastes better than bottled dressing. And because it uses yogurt to replace half the mayonnaise it’s healthier than ranch dressing. It’s so easy to make, you’ll never buy the stuff in a bottle again. 

You will need:
  • 1/3 cup buttermilk
  • 1/3 cup greek-style yogurt
  • 3 tablespoons mayonnaise
  • ½ tablespoon lemon juice
  • ½ tablespoon Dijon mustard
  • ½ teaspoon onion powder
  • ½ teaspoon garlic powder
  • 2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives
  • 2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill
  
Mix all ingredients together. Serve. Extra dressing will keep in the fridge for at least 2 weeks. 

In my estimation, there’s no reason to ever buy salad dressing in a bottle from the store. Not only is it easy to make salad dressing at home, it’s often healthier, it tastes better, and it’s much cheaper.

Let’s take a look at a few common dressings. Today we'll make he easiest one to put together, and the one that I use most frequently: vinaigrette.  To make basic vinaigrette you’ll need three ingredients: oil, acid, and emulsifier.

The oil is easy: olive, canola, sesame, peanut, soy, etc. If you’re using a strongly flavored oil such as sesame, consider mixing it with a neutral oil like canola.

For the acid, I typically use vinegar or citrus juice. You can use any type of vinegar – balsamic, wine, rice, or whatever your favorite is. I also like to make flavored vinegar by microwaving a few tablespoons of plain white distilled vinegar or rice vinegar with a teaspoon or two of dried herbs for 15 seconds. Let it cool completely, strain, and Presto! You have tarragon (or oregano, or whatever) vinegar.

An emulsifier is a substance that holds fat and water together. When making salad dressing, the ones you’ll typically use are egg yolk, mustard, or honey.

To make the vinaigrette, mix 3 parts oil with 1 part acid and about ½ part emulsifier. For 2 servings, you’ll want to make about 4 tablespoons total, so use 3 tablespoons of oil, 1 tablespoon of vinegar, and 1 or 2 teaspoons of emulsifier. Whisk it all together. If the mixture appears to be separating, add more emulsifier and whisk some more.

If you like you can add other flavoring agents like minced herbs or spices, but you don’t have to. Add salt and pepper to taste, then toss with your greens and serve.

Note: if you’re leery of using raw egg yolk, you can coddle it to reduce the risk of food poisoning. Bring a small pot of water to boil, then put the whole egg in the water for 30 seconds. Remove with a slotted spoon, crack, and use your fingers to separate out the yolk. It will not be cooked through, but it will be slightly safer. You should also choose the freshest, most local eggs you can get your hands on. I use Steibr’s Farm Organic Cage-Free eggs, which are local to Seattle.

 Tomorrow: Buttermilk Ranch! It’s delicious, and made with yogurt! 

Sometimes I will make a recipe that calls for lemon zest but not lemon juice, like the incredible roasted chicken from last week. When this is the case, instead of chucking the "naked" lemons in the fridge where they will inevitably be forgotten and go bad, i juice them right after I'm done zesting them. I portion the juice into an ice-cube tray putting 1 tablespoon of juice in each cube, then freeze. When I need lemon juice for baking, salad dressing, or cooking I don't even need to measure - I just pop out as many cubes as I need. This juice tastes MUCH better than bottled juice and I don't always have to keep fresh lemons on hand. 

I shop at Whole Foods. 

There are a number of reasons that I choose to buy my family's groceries there, including but not limited to the customer service, the availability of organics, the quality of the food, the selection, and the price. 

That's right, the price. 

Perhaps I should back up a bit. Over at Thursday Night Smackdown, Michelle has a feature she calls Cheap-Ass Mondays. In thinking about launching my own site, I wondered if any of the food I cook would be eligible for that feature. Her requirements are that the food feed two people for less than $5.00 or four for less than $10.00. 

I figured out the per serving cost for a few of my favorite recipes and wasn't too surprised to find that I was spending more than $2.50/serving. After all, I buy organic produce, meat, and dairy and I shop at Whole Foods. 

So I decided to figure out how much it would cost to buy ingredients at Safeway instead. The results surprised me: Safeway was MORE expensive, both in the per-serving cost AND in the total outlay necessary, than Whole Foods! Not only that, but at Safeway I was "buying" factory farmed chicken, and at Whole Foods almost all the ingredients were organic and they were more local! 

The recipe I was shopping for is Chicken Almond Soup from The Soup Bible. Here is the ingredient list I used:
  ● 4 ounces chicken thigh or breast meat
  ● 4 ounces almond butter
  ● 1 leek
  ● 1 T grated fresh ginger
  ● 1 cup frozen peas
  ● 2 carrots
  ● 2 cups chicken broth
  ● ½ cup half-and-half
  ● large handful fresh cilantro

I'll post the entire recipe soon, but right now I'm most interested in the varying costs to make it. I calculated four different shopping scenarios - entirely at Whole Foods, entirely at Safeway, the cheapest possible way, and the way I usually do it. 

From most to least expensive: 

Entirely at Safeway, the ingredients necessary for three servings of the recipe would cost $9.63, or $3.21 per serving. You would have to actually hand over significantly more at the register, though, because to get the cost of the chicken down, you have to buy a four pound "value pack" that costs $3.49/lb. The almond butter is also most expensive here, with a one pound jar ringing up at $7.99! 

If you buy all the ingredients at Whole Foods, you'll spend $8.73 for 3 servings, or $2.91 per serving. Chicken is more expensive here, but you do have the advantage of being able to buy only what you need. If a single chicken thigh is too heavy, the butchers will actually cut it in half for you! You'll spend a dollar more for the chicken (thighs are about $5.50/lb) that you consume, but at the register it will only cost you $2.75. I was interested to find out that the produce was less expensive at Whole Foods: leeks are sold for $2.99/lb here, compared to $2.99 EACH at Safeway. When you consider that one leek weighs about 6 ounces, Safeway seems like a ripoff! The almond butter is also less expensive at Whole Foods - $5.99 for a jar. 

The way that I typically do the shopping, 3 servings will cost $8.24, or $2.75 per serving. I save a little bit of money by buying my chicken broth in bulk at Costco and picking up almond butter at Trader Joe's for $4.99/jar. My version is still organic, but slightly cheaper. 

The cheapest possible way means going to four different stores: Whole Foods for the leeks and ginger, Safeway for the cilantro, peas, carrots, chicken, and half-and-half, Trader Joe's for the almond butter, and Costco for the chicken broth. Total cost? $6.66 for three, $2.22 for one. Of course, there's also the time and fuel cost of shopping at multiple stores to consider. 

My verdict: For my family, it makes a lot of sense to shop at Whole Foods. The overall costs for the types of ingredients I buy (think fresh produce, frozen produce, meat, dairy, cheese, etc - not a lot of processed stuff) are not much higher than they would be at Safeway (and probably lower than QFC!). At the same time, I believe that the ingredients are of a higher quality, healthier for my family, and better for the environment. 

I've also seen a couple more formal studies about the cost of produce in Seattle. The Neighborhood Farmers Market Alliance has a roundup of several of these, and they show the same results - produce (especially organic) is less expensive at Whole Foods than it is at QFC. 

I think the reason that Whole Foods has a reputation for costing your "Whole Paycheck" is not because comparable food there is actually more expensive, but because they carry higher-end items that other stores simply don't carry. It's difficult to resist the attractive displays of artisan cheese, bakery bread, convenient and oh-so-delicious prepared food, etc. I know that every time I go in, even with a list, I ALWAYS walk out with something I wasn't planning to purchase. 


However. Whole Paycheck? Hardly.