Wednesday Dinner

Tonight's dinner was sort of a theme meal. We had something like a French picnic - chicken liver mousse/pate' served with a loaf of homemade bread, cracked wheat crackers, Dijon mustard, assorted cheeses, grapes and Granny Smith apples.

I won't go into a lot of details about the chicken liver mousse/pate' because I know that liver is one of those love it or hate it foods. My recipe is fairly standard and not unlike hundreds of others out there. I'm happy to share it if anyone wants it - just email me. The basic ingredients are bacon, chicken livers, onion, apple, brandy, and spices.

I won't price everything out individually, but it was very easy on the wallet - well under $5 with lots of leftover everything. Chicken livers are just about the cheapest meat around at $1.25/lb. A whole batch of pate' costs me less than $2. We always have crackers and Dijon mustard around anyway, and the fruit was what I had on hand for snacking and The Kid's school lunches. I can whip up a loaf of bread machine bread for under 50 cents. The cheeses would have been the most expensive part of the meal, but they were a freebie. If you're in Greensboro, you should really sign up with Earth Fare (Earthfare.com) to be on their email list. Every week they send out a printable coupon for a different free product - sometimes multiple free products! It really is the best deal going. This week's freebie was a 7 oz. block of Kerrygold Irish cheese with any purchase. The Kid and I each went armed with a coupon, so we got a block each of Irish sharp cheddar and a Gouda-like cheese called Blarney Castle. So we were able to add $7 worth of imported cheese to our meal for $0.


(NOTE: I love a good freebie like anyone else, but I don't like to feel that I'm taking advantage. Even though there's no minimum purchase required, I always spend at least as much as the freebie is worth. On this visit I got 2 lbs. of bulk dry soybeans for roasting, and The Kid bought a 1-lb container of organic dark chocolate peanut butter.)