Breakfast: go out or eat at home?

We liked to go out for breakfast: there is something in it that going out to, say, dinner doesn't have. The atmosphere of the breakfast places, their pace and the crowd is quite different from any other setting. We usually ordered some muffins or pancakes or eggs-just typical breakfast food, nothing fancy. The total bill for us amounted to something like $12-14. Recently, I've gotten into a habit of making our weekend breakfasts at home. I got the whole grain pancake mix from Trader Joe's (cost $2.29) and Betty Crocker muffin mix( cost $3.00) from Target.

By using 1/3 of the pack of a pancake mix, I produced 10 medium-sized, fluffy and (at least to me!) delicious pancakes enough for a full breakfast. That's 76 cents for a family breakfast! Now, the recipe called for 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil and 2 eggs, that add to overall cost, depending on your local costs of eggs. Then syrup- how much is for 2 tablespoons?Coffee, too, but home -made coffee cost much, much less than any cheapest prepared coffee. I estimate the price of home-brewed coffee to be anywhere from 10 to 20 cents a cup( for the most expensive brands like Kona) So overall cost of such breakfast is probably less than 2 dollars for a small family, 6 times less than at breakfast place. Probably more delicious, because you use high quality products (incl. coffee) Time investment: 15 minutes.

Now, for muffins:(that's for another day, since you'll be too full from pancakes) the whole pack would yield 12 medium sized muffins- again, very yummy.

So, at the end, the cost savings, if not grandiose in absolute terms, are enormous percentage wise.

Perfect Cosmo

As a doctor, I know perfectly well and encourage everyone to enjoy alcoholic beverages in moderation.

However, if you do decide to have a drink, let it be a high quality drink, which is not necessarily obtained in an overpriced bar or restaurant. It can be prepared at home.

I, for one, enjoy an occasional Cosmopolitan.
For making it, you'll need:
1. 2 oz. of vodka. Don't believe those who said that the more expensive the vodka, the better your Cosmo. Price of vodka in your Cosmo has almost no bearing on the quality of your Cosmo. I select grain vodkas, though, for I never tried potato-based vodkas. You can go light on vodka and use only 1 oz. of it.
2. 1 oz. of cranberry juice. It has to be a pure cranberry juice, not those Ocean Spray cocktails.You can get it in any health food stores or Trader Joe's.
3. 1 oz. or Triple Sec or Cointreau/Grand Marnier . The latter is usually much more expensive than the former. I use Triple Sec.
4. 1/2 oz. of lime juice.- fresh is always better, but concentrate will do, too.

These ingredients needs to be shaken in a ... yes, a shaker with broken ice. You don't have to shell out a lot for a shaker- most liquor stores sell them for $5-10 ( I think they take them out of the liquor gift boxes and just sell them separately)
I take 4-5 cubes of ice and split them in halves using an ice pick (which always invokes the images from "Basic Instinct")
The whole mixture is to be shaken 10-15 times ( an English bartender guide suggests shaking until you hands are cold)
Pour it into a martini glass (again, can be obtained for a liquor store for cheap), straining the ice either through a built-in strainer, or through a separate strainer.
Enjoy!
You'll be amazed at how different this drink tastes from an $8 drink from that hip cocktail lounge.
I think it's because a bartender has a plastic jug under the counter with all the ingredients (except vodka) premixed in it. When the day (er..night!) is over, this jug goes into a fridge, until the next night.

Food and doctors

One of the major money wastes that I encounter in everyday life is related to food: I don't see too many hospital workers, including doctors, bothering themselves by bringing luch to work. Even as simple as having breakfast at home is too big of a deal, it seems.
Most of my coworkers drink coffee bought from the hospital cafeteria, which is a branch of a nation-wide of above-the-average(in terms of prices) fast food chain. Also most of them order breakfasts and lunches from the take-out places.
The daily expenditures for this can easily amount to $10-15 a day ( $3 for breakfast, and at least $7 for lunch, and a cup or two of coffee in between).
NPR today had a nice program about teaching doctors to cook healthy meals in less than 20minutes, titled" Doctors Get a Crash Course in Healthful Cooking"
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89883788