Day 17: How NOT to Add to a Pantry

I hadn't planned on eating lunch with The Geek today but it just so happened that I was at his house when mealtime rolled around. As I have mentioned previously (here and here), The Geek jokes that he is not licensed for indoor cooking and his pantry and refrigerator are mostly empty, almost as proof of that point. Eating out wasn't an option because he is under a very tight deadline and was going to spend the day working furiously at his desk. Since my pantry does not extend to my car (meaning I do not store food in my trunk, although that is an intriguing idea), this created a new challenge in my pantry shopping experiment: how to cook from scratch while NOT adding to The Geek's pantry beyond this one meal.

You see, somehow, after having known me for a year and a half, The Geek is still impervious to my food hoarding ways. He does not keep things around that he is not going to use and this is particularly true of food. On those rare occasions when I have extra this-or-that after cooking at his place, he packs it up and makes sure it goes back home with me. So while The Geek was happy to pick up the tab for any groceries I needed to buy (he is very conscientious about not adding to my food bill during this experiment), I wanted to make things that would be completely consumed during this one meal.

The starting point was a smoked, boneless leg of lamb that The Geek had done the day before. Beautiful, oak-y, delicious. Due to a problem with the burner in the smoker, he had to pull it out before it had quite finished cooking but it was serendipitous because the lamb was perfect for re-heating.

I wanted to make a Greek salad but didn't want to buy a whole head of lettuce, a whole jar of Kalamata olives, and a whole container of feta. At the grocery story, I found Belgian endive that was the perfect size for two people. I also found a small container of Olive Feta Tapenade that suited my purposes perfectly. A chopped up Roma tomato completed the appetizer.

I decided to also make AB's roasted asparagus which requires salt, pepper, olive oil, and nutmeg - things The Geek already had at home. I only had to buy a lemon. A small loaf of bread and head of garlic completed the meal, which I toasted in the oven after I had roasted the asparagus and finished off the lamb.

The Results
Everything was delicious.

• The Geek had seasoned the lamb with just kosher salt so its natural flavor, enhanced by the smokiness of oak, really came out.
• The crunchy, mild endive balanced out the salty, flavorful tapenade.
• The slivered garlic on the bread did not turn out quite as I had hoped. It really needed to be toasted longer but The Geek said it was still good, very garlicky.

Ratings

• Difficulty: Easy when someone else smokes the meat.
• Time to prepare: 30 minutes (not including the lamb). There was only one roasting pan so I had to cook things in succession. If I had had a second pan, I could have done everything at once and been ready to eat in 15 minutes.
• Prognosis: Will definitely be making all of these things again.

My Shopping List

• Two small heads of Belgian endive: $1.25
• Olive Feta Tapenade: $4.99
• One Roma tomato: $0.49
• A loaf of sourdough bread: $1.69
• One head of garlic: $0.49
• One lemon: $0.59
• One bunch of Asparagus: $3.05

The Geek spent $12.47 on today's groceries, not including the cost of the lamb.

The Tally

• The day's tally: $0 (for me)
• Total this week so far: $18
• Total this month, to date: $18