Trying to eat cheap: A month of dinners, Day 10--Salmon patties

I'm getting sick of looking at my own heavily-vegetarian posts from the last 9 days. This is what I get when I shop for the lowest possible unit price--rice and beans and many variants thereof. I have some plans to mix things up a little in the coming week. My last 7 meals made at home average about $9.86 each. I'm thinking if I raise my sights by about 25% I could incorporate some more interesting foods--like meat, more condiments, heck maybe some SIDE dishes.

As I plan, here's the recipe for tonight's main course. This is based on yet another recipe from Laurel Glen's Quick Food. They suggest serving it with a lime zest mayonnaise, but lately we've just been using tartar sauce.

Ingredients:

1 7.5 oz can salmon (bones & skin OK)
1 egg
1/2 stick celery, cut up
2 potatoes (skin OK)
1/8 t dill
chives or scallions
2 T parsley, chopped
salt & pepper
3/4 cup bread crumbs (make your own!)
olive oil or cooking spray

Assembly:
Cut the potatoes into large chunks and boil for 15 minutes. Drain.

Meanwhile, put salmon in food processor and blend thoroughly. This helps incorporate the bones & skin. Don't worry, salmon bones are usually soft and should blend in well. I think they are a source of calcium in fact! (Of course you can remove if eating them seems weird.) Add the celery next and blend until well incorporated. Then, add the egg and blend for about 10 seconds more--until mixed. Scrape the sides of the food processor if necessary.

In a large bowl (or the pot you boiled them in), mash the potatoes roughly. It's OK if there are some chunks. I used red potatoes today, as you can see.

Mix the salmon mixture in with the potatoes. Add the chives or scallions, parsley, dill and salt and pepper.

Heat a frying pan, preferably a non-stick one. Form the salmon mixture into patties and put in bread-crumbs. Turn to coat the other side in bread crumbs. Add olive oil to pan if you're using it. Otherwise, spray the down-side of each patty with cooking spray. Place patties in pan.

Cook for about 5 minutes on each side. Makes 6-7 patties. We also had salads.

Here are my cost calculations:

salmon: 1.59 (usually 3.59 but we found it at the scratch & dent store)
potatoes: 2.00
bread crumbs: .75
parsley & chives: free from the garden
egg: .50
celery, s&p, dill: .75
salad stuff: 5.00
total: 10.59