Wednesday Dinner

I don't abstain from meat for (Ash Wednesday and Fridays in) Lent, but other family members do, so I'll be cooking with them in mind during the season. Being Ash Wednesday, I planned in advance to serve fish. (And joked with my sister about it all week. I just typed the whole thing out then deleted it because it didn't translate into funny. I guess you had to be there.)

Harris Teeter recently had Gorton's Grilled Fillets BOGO and I had several coupons for them besides. It's HT's weird policy to only allow 1 coupon when buying 2 BOGO items (even though they ring up half price each, not 1 full price and 1 free). Some stores really enforce this, others don't. But since I saw on the shelf tag that the sale was good for 2 weeks, I just bought 1 box each on 2 separate trips and used a coupon each time. The end price was $2.25 for 2 boxes, 4 fillets total. Now I'm a little freaked out by the perfectly (unnaturally) square fish, but it's my understanding that's just the way it's cut (as opposed to being a "fish cake" of fish and by-products compressed together into that shape). At any rate, I've had many of the varieties of this product over the years (lemon, grilled, blackened, etc.) and I've always liked the flavor.

This one was no exception - we had the Signature Grilled Tilapia and it was very good. On the side I made steamed white rice, hollandaise (from a mix), and roasted fresh asparagus. Saints be praised, it's almost asparagus season! The regular prices are still high unless there's a sale (Lowe's Food had it $1.49/lb last week), but the quality is definitely that of in-season (tender, mild, sweet) as opposed to off-season (tough, strong, bitter). 99 cent a pound is just around the corner!

Wednesday Totals:

$2.25 - grilled tilapia
.20 - rice
$1.49 - asparagus
$1.50 - hollandaise mix + 1/2 stick butter

$5.44 for dinner for 4