I’m taking a rest from the chopping, boiling, mixing… let me ‘splain and backup. Eddy (who is also recently underemployed) and I have recently been sharing our unemployed afternoons. We watch Ellen, Family Feud and Oprah. We sometimes go to museums. We sometimes have cocktails. To us, everyday is Tuesday and the world is our oyster. Just like one night in Bangkok.

During one of these afternoons, Eddy mentioned the new Amy Poehler show Parks & Recreation and how excited he was for the premiere. Since these television afternoons have been spent at Eddy’s, I invited him over for dinner and to watch the premiere, which is tonight.

While I do enjoy cooking, I don’t really have a big repertoire. I immediately went to my old favorite: homemade red sauce. I thought of doing eggplant parmesan, which I haven’t made in a long time. But then Eddy doesn’t do dairy so that was out of the question. Then I decided to go with the P & R show theme and do picnic food. And I thought the spaghetti w/ meatballs was pedestrian!

I planned out what I was going to make: hamburgers, hot dogs (actually sausages), potato salad, corn on the cob, a salad and popsicles for dessert. And even though it was a beautiful day to walk to the store, I thought this might be a lot of groceries so I used up some of my Zipcar credit and rented the li’l station wagon next door.

First stop was Eastern Market. Instead of regular hot dogs I thought it would be nice to do some sausages w/ peppers and a pickle slice, ala Chicago-style. I went to Canales, knowing they would have the best selection. I chose one chicken & turkey with artichoke and roasted garlic and one turkey & chicken with wild mushrooms and cognac. Eddy can decide which one he wants and I’ll take the other. On top of this I will put red, orange & yellow pepper slices, some celery salt and a pickle spear.

At the grocery store, since I had the car, I decided to do a little extra shopping and stock up on items that were either on sale, that I’d need soon or were too large to carry comfortably home while walking (24-pack of bottle water).

I caved on my secret favorite (frozen pizzas: 4) but also picked up things like coffee that was on sale, condiments I’m sure I’ll use in the future and large boxes of cereal.

I’m making a basic potato salad, nothing fancy there. I’ve never made potato salad before and I’m already afraid that it’s going to turn into mashed potato salad. All mushy. We’ll see. For the burgers, I’m using 1 lb beef, 1 lb North Carolina hot sausage (that I picked up at Canales) and adding to that chopped purple onion, red orange & yellow peppers, s&p, adobe seasoning. I’m going to take ½ of this and save it for meatballs later this weekend. The other half I’ll use to make the burgers, probably divided into thirds.

Purchase: $117.67 
EBT Card Balance: $98.57
Club Card Savings: $24.06 (17% of purchase)