GOURMET MEALS FOR $5 OR UNDER: MEAL 18 OF 25

OKANAGAN (BARLEY) SALAD

Total Cost: $4.78/serving

Total Preparation Time:  30 min

Anyone who performs regular physical exercise knows about the loss of strength that manifests itself within days of inactivity. Similarly, a writer unable or unwilling to apply ink to paper or, in the case of a modern blogger, press the keys on a laptop keyboard for a period of time is destined to consign to oblivion his friendship with words. 

Having been out of commission for four nights since my last post, I find myself struggling to progress beyond the first paragraph. Instead, my body is giving way to the mystical forces that ever so proficiently evoke yawns and shut eyes. In two and a half hours, I have next to nothing to review, edit and publish, hopeful for a sudden inflow of energy and creativity.

Ironically, the salad I made for dinner a few hours earlier, was the result of creativity and moderate experimentation with flavours. I called it the Okanagan salad, tying its lengthy ingredient list to the region's diverse food offering. A vegetarian dish, this meal is surprisingly filling, probably due to its sheet size- the salad takes up an entire dinner plate- and the presence of gorgonzola, the sort of flavourful Italian blue-veined cheese.

There are two phases to the preparation process. First, I sliced and diced ten ingredients to saute in a medium-sized pan, using tarragon, oregano, black pepper, salt, organic mustard and wild flower honey to enhance flavour.

MEASURE	WEIGHT (g)	INGREDIENT	COST PER PACKAGE ($)	TOTAL COST ($)	COST PER SERVING ($)*
N/A	50	Spinach	3.99/5oz	1.40
½	42	Orange carrot, large	1.99/bunch (477g)	0.18
N/A	32	Black kale	2.99/bunch (257g)	0.37
½	21	Shallot	1.62/lb	0.07
¼	39	Red Bell pepper	1.99/lb	0.17
1 cup	157	Cooked pearl barley	3.81/kg	0.60
¼	15	Lemon juice	3.98/lb	0.13
N/A	16	Cilantro	0.99/bunch (110g)	0.14
		Salt & spices		0.15
TOTAL				3.21*	1.61

*Makes 2 servings

Next, I prepared a fresh part of my salad, mixing red leaf lettuce, dill, sliced cucumber, diced purple carrot and other vegetables in a bowl with organic extra-virgin olive oil and a touch of grated gorgonzola. Recently discovered at a natural food store, purple carrots add a touch of colour and great nutritional value to my meals. In fact, the colour of this unusual vegetable comes from anthocyanins- the antioxidant compound also present in blueberries and red cabbage.

MEASURE	WEIGHT (g)	INGREDIENT	COST PER PACKAGE ($)	TOTAL COST ($)	COST PER SERVING ($)*
N/A	14	Red leaf lettuce	1.49/bunch (500g)	0.04
N/A	14	Dill	1.99/bunch (140g)	0.20
1	65	Mini cucumber	3.71/2lb	0.27
N/A	54	Bok choi	1.99/lb	0.24
1	38	Purple carrot, small	2.41/bunch of 7	0.34
½	61	Avocado, small	0.99/each	0.50
N/A	41	Cherry tomatoes	3.00/case (300g)	0.41
N/A	8	Gorgonzola cheese	4.14/100g	0.33
3 tbsp	45	Extra-virgin olive oil	14.00/750ml	0.84
TOTAL				3.17	3.17

Once both parts of the salad were ready, I combined them in one bowl and served the resulting mix on a dinner plate. It is worth mentioning that most of the photos of my meals depict partial servings to be pleasing to the eye- an overloaded plate does nothing for an aesthetic image- so by the time the photo session was over and I added the remaining mix to my plate, the serving looked rather gigantic and I was unable to finish it.

Calculating the total cost of the ingredients- some of them unusual and in turn priced higher- I came up with the total of $4.78/serving. Had I replaced black kale spinach or romaine lettuce, organic purple carrots with regular orange ones and cherry tomatoes with their larger-sized cousins, I would have saved a dollar or two per serving. However, this is a gourmet meals series and as such justifies the use of exotic ingredients.

	TOTAL COST ($)	COST PER SERVING ($)
GRAND TOTAL	6.38	4.78

Cited Sources:

http://www.organicgardening.com/learn-and-grow/color-purple