Upsides to the Down Economy/ Meat Me at Cotco!

Made the trek to Cotsco so Zeke could pick up his contacts, but the office was closed so made due with getting meat and one bottle of $6 wine. Zeke wanted to meander and look around at everything. I just wanted to get what we needed and get out. When they rang me up, I had a bit of sticker shock at $71 for just five items! Deducting the wine, we had paid $65 for 4 meat items. When I thought it through, however, I realized it actually was a good deal. We purchased a package of veal scallopine, two huge flank steaks, two pork tenderloins and a package of organic boneless chicken thighs. Breaking it down, that will make approximately 14 meals for our family, so it comes to $4.60 per meal for the protein. And it is high quality, low fat protein, not ground chuck. Of course, you need to round out the meal with a carb, but pasta, rice and potatoes are relatively inexpensive. We used four of the scallopine to make Veal Marsala last night. I also made spaghetti with a fresh pasta sauce made with olive oil, sliced garlic, chopped fresh tomato and basil. Fresh basil would have been lovely but, alas, the snails have demolished my sweet basil. I served a spinach salad with pine nuts, sun dried tomatoes, feta cheese and a lemon vinaigrette, similar to one I like at a local Italian restaurant. It was a very easy meal, relatively light, with not too much effort. I got the recipe for the veal from one of my all time favorite cookbooks- The New James Beard- modified to make a smaller portion.

Veal Marsala

4 Veal Scallops, pounded until thin

1/2 c flour

2 T Butter

2 T olive Oil

salt, pepper

1/2 c Marsala Wine

2 T chopped parsley

Lightly flour the scallops, shaking off any excess. Heat the butter and oil in a large heavy skillet until it stops foaming, then add the scallops, a few at a time. DO NOT CROWD THE PAN. Saute them quickly, about 1 minute per side until lightly browned and season with salt and pepper. Remove scallops from the pan and deglaze the pan with the marsala. Return scallops to the pan to heat through. Serve with sauce poured over them. Sprinkle with chopped parsley.

Unfortunately, I had no parsley to put over them because the stupid snails had eaten that too. Escargot, anyone?