Budgeting Assignment #2 Stir Fry Noodles

For this week's home cooking assignment, I decided to choose the following two recipes:
Stir Fry Noodles (Food Network)
- 1/3 cup soy sauce
- 1 tbsp ginger
- 1 tbsp honey
- 1 tbsp white wine vinegar
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 2 tbsp canola oil
- 1 lbs of tofu
- 1 cup of carrots
- 1 cup of sliced green onions
- sriracha
- bok choy
- vermicelli

Grilled chicken breasts
- frozen vegetable bag mix
- 2 chicken breasts
- salt
- pepper
- olive oil

For this past week, my shopping list was as follows:
tofu: $2.99 (Target) or $3.49 (Cub)
Carrots: $1.99 (Target) or $1.99 (Cub)
Green Onion: $0.85 (Target) or $1.19 (Cub)
Bok Choy: N/A (Target) or $2.49/lb (Cub)
Chicken Breasts: $6.99 (Target) or $4.29 (Cub)
All remaining ingredients were in my pantry, and I decided to compare the product prices between Cub and the corner Target in Dinkytown.

Based upon this experience, I did not notice any significant differences between the prices at either Cub or Target. However, the one key difference was in the price of chicken breast where the cost was significantly lower at cub compared to target. Overall, I was not surprised by this experience. I do not often go to corner stores to purchase groceries since the cost of household staples such as butter, milk, and eggs is more expensive compared to full-sized grocery stores. Based upon this experience, I will continue to shop at Cub because there is a greater variety in options available. Compared to other shopping trips, I did not save any money; however, I was well within my established budget for the week.

For this week's cooking assignment, I began by frying the tofu in several tablespoons of oil until the tofu was crispy on the outside. I then marinaded the tofu in the soy sauce, ginger, garlic, honey, and vinegar. I then set the tofu aside to then prepare three scrambled eggs in addition to the tofu. To prepare the vermicelli, I brought several cups of water to a boil then added the noodles for three minutes, and then rinsed the noodles with cold water. Finally, I sauteed the bok choy, green onions, carrots, and mushrooms in several tablespoons of oil until the bok choy was tender. I then mixed all of the prepared ingredients together in a red mixing bowl using two forks to toss the ingredients together.





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