Cheap

 This is a bunch of 7 peonies we picked up for $3.99.  I love peonies and the silver plated mint julep cup they're in we picked up a couple months ago at a thrift store for less than $2!

As my husband was saying the blessing before we ate our dinner he ended with, "And thank you God for giving me a wife who can make a delicious meal from the clearance seafood section at the store."  I began to giggle as we said Amen.  Tonight after hearing Novella speak (oh my God, it was awesome, and I'm e-mailing her later more questions about raising rabbits for food!) we headed to the grocery store realizing it was too darn late to eat out, and all we had at home is a lone spaghetti squash (would take too long) and some eggs (for tomorrow night's dinner).  So we swung in hoping they would have some of the 50% off salmon to pick up.  Nope, instead I grabbed two swordfish steaks for $3.35!  We also grabbed a baking potato for 0.89, and a single vine ripened tomato (that was actually ripe!) for 0.60.  Not including what we already had at home that we added the whole meal cost the two of us less than $5.  Cheap and ended up looking like something from a restaurant.

I sliced up the tomato, and seasoned with sea salt, pepper, olive oil and some balsamic.  I figured we'd pan sear the swordfish, but went online to look up a recipe.  We ended up using my cast iron grill pan to grill them and then made a mix of fresh basil, arugula, garlic and lemon juice to go on top of it.  We took a baking potato, made mashed potatoes and added the balsamic from the tomatoes (having ate them as we cooked) and a bit more balsamic to boot.  So there we had it:  a dinner of grilled swordfish with balsamic mashed potatoes.  G kept making noises as he ate but didn't say much except "oh my God this is amazing."  I concur.  

If you live in a place that has a grocery store that marks down meat that is close to the date I highly recommend checking in on it.  We've gotten whole sides of salmon for less than $10 before that lasted us several meals.  It's a cheap option, and though it means you plan on the spur of the moment I've found it makes cooking a delicious meal simple rather than trying to hunt down ingredients for a meal you've already thought of.  (And I'm so proud of this meal it's going to be the first real pic I add to the Slow Year flickr group!)

Also, bonus pics for everyone because my camera died earlier and now I've made muffins using fresh blueberries that needed to be used up.  I squeezed in a bit of lemon for lemon blueberry muffins (the same lemon we used for the fish for dinner), and now they're done and smelling divine.