23.2.09

Whatever happened to the Budget Challenge?



When someone announces a project, talks about it enthusiastically for a week or so, and then stops talking about it, there´s a pretty good chance that said person has abandoned said project but is too embarrassed to admit that. (From my past: learning Russian, taking up guitar lessons, attending the gym regularly... to name but a few).

I´m happy to report that the Budget Challenge does not fit into this category, and that the fact that I haven´t reported about it, is simply due to my omnipresent unavoidable laziness. Because, in fact, it´s been going very, very well.

Today I chekced the bank balance and saw we had 190 euros left until Saturday, which means I can spend 90 euros on this week´s grocery shopping (way too much, but not really, cause this will help contribute to Dennis´ birthday dinner for 17 that we´re having on Saturday) and still have 100 euros left over this month. Woohoo!

We had some uninspiring, cheap dinners the last couple of days (the best one was penne with panfried zucchini and goats cheese, pictured above). Yesterday was a lovely dinner at VDuck, the corncakes with chipotle shrimp I´d been coveting ever since Mark blogged about it here. And they sent us home with leftovers, so tonight will be a reprise of that, yes, I´m almost ashamed to say it, for free.

Other things that have been happening: I´m shopping like crazy for the birthday dinner, and today I made more than 50 Morroccon lamb pastries - which will be the appetizer on Saturday. They´re safely tucked away in the freezer, but I did bake one just to see if it was okay. It was more than okay, it was so good I burned my mouth because I could not stop eating it even though I knew it was way too hot to bite into.

Scheduled for the rest of the week: poach a mess of quinces, bake basbousa, count my tableware.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Any chance you will be posting the recipe for those Moroccan pastries? They sound great! :)

Klary Koopmans said...

maybe after the dinner, when I have pics of the finished product!

Gfron1 said...

I can't wait to see the dinner pics - it sounds like a really wonderful menu.