$pent Millennial

Recipes to meet you where you are.The goal is to provide recipes that require simple, inexpensive ingredients. The focus will be real, approachable and affordable recipes that I make and eat throughout the week with limited hassle and adequate fanfare from my (very–easy-to-impress) partner. 

For these recipes, you shouldn’t have to go to the store to pick up expensive, hard-to-find ingredients that you’ll use once and then forget about in the cabinet or worse leave to rot in your fridge. You shouldn’t need to spend hours sweating over a stove or pre-preparing anything. There is a time and place for that (Thanksgiving, Christmas, trying to impress your sister-in-law who has 8 Cuisinarts- whatever those are). The day-to-day recipes listed here are not designed for that. Who knows, maybe some of these simple favorites will surprise you and even impress at holidays or unofficial sibling rivalry cookoffs. 

If not, that’s okay too. These recipes aren’t meant for the Queen. They are meant to help you get by in a way that will (fingers-crossed) help you feel confident and secure in the fact that you really do “have food at home”. 

And because a kitchen just isn’t a home unless it is filled with love, laughter and really bad stories, I will also share on this page…

Stories that highlight my journey with food, home cooking and more. As cheesy as it sounds, leaning into home cooking and coming to enjoy it -even more than takeout, ordering in or dining out- truly has been a journey and an experience I am excited to share with others. I can’t be the only one who has $pent far too much money at drive-thrus or tipping DoorDash  just to be disappointed by over-priced soggy fries and cold queso. 

So, I will also be providing some-what accurate… 

Budget Comparisons that do the math for you (kinda) to calculate what you save on take out with similar (sometimes better) homemade options.  I’ll provide different levels of cost for similar recipes because sometimes the crunch of fresh onions and peppers in the breakfast burritos is priceless- worth every additional penny. Other times, it is the end of the month and the grocery budget is tight, so canned green chilis will have to make-do. They do, and I’m here for it all. 

But, that being said, what this page is not here for is…  

Judgment. Don’t Worry!

I’m not here to tell you that you will get out of debt, buy a house or max out your retirement by cooking at home, skipping the latte or deleting DoorDash. You most likely won’t. I haven’t. The systemic and structural factors that go into wealth-building are much more complicated than that. But, every little bit does add up quicker than you might expect, and by embracing home cooking and home coffee, you just might get a start on some of those goals while finding that happiness (and mindfulness) really are homemade.This has been my experience. 

And what about you!? 

I would absolutely love and adore for you to share your own recipes, stories and food-budget tips and tricks with the community as well. Share in the comments or reach out to hello@spentmillennial.com