Day 27 - another tempting weekend

I think it's harder on the weekend because if you're at home you have your cupboards and fridge right there, daring you to eat from them. Definitely not fair. So far I've managed to resist.

Mac didn't really have any lunch. I didn't either until about 3pm when I finally got out of bed (I was hanging out in bed doing stupid blog updates (AAAAAARGH) and other stuff) and made myself a mushroom sandwich. I was absolutely ridiculous and used 100g for the one.... mmmm.... At £6 a kg, that means it was 60p just for the mushrooms. I think I may have gone WELL over my limit. Oops. Plus 15g of butter (8p) for cooking the mushrooms and two slices of bread (12p). I then added a thin layer of ginger preserves that we got given for Christmas by Jim and Mars.

This is an exhorbitant lunch at 80p!!! Oh no! I hate to think how much I went over today. . . . ugh.

RIght, so dinner was stirfry, using up the rest of the mushrooms (I picked them out of my portion because I knew I'd spent a lot already--I figured I would eat them the next day), pak choi and carrots from the Riverford box, some ginger and garlic, soy sauce, and a TON of rice. Mac wanted to add an egg again, but I convinced him to add some of the cheap broken cashews we bought from the World Food shop (3.50 a kilo instead of 6 for whole ones!)

Another Stirfry Combination
(this time without a recipe)

Sesame seeds (2T - 7p)
1/2 inch of fresh ginger (2p)
(O) 2 cloves garlic (15p)
1T soy sauce (9p)
(O) Pak Choi (RIVERFORD)
(O) Carrots (RIVERFORD
100g mushrooms (60p)
2 onions? (8p)
2 tsp rice vinegar (4p)
2c Rice (WAY too much) (45p ish- I'm guessing because I'm at work and can't measure a cup of rice)
About 70g cashews (broken ones!! 25p)

As for directions, I have no clue. I know that Mac marinaded the ginger and garlic in soy sauce and possibly rice vinegar.
He also roasted onions in the oven and added them at the very last step.

Apart from that, I don't know. I'll have to ask. Sorry!

Breakfast - Mac had (O) porridge - 8p with 1/2 T (O) jam (he thought it was too little) 12p. I had (O) half a portion of porridge 4p with (O) 1T milk 5p. I also had a slice of toast with peanut butter and a bit of (O) jam (9p + 5p +4p) And we both had (O) tea with (O) milk - 4p That's one organic-filled breakfast. (Breakfast total: Mac - 16p, Megan - 23p)

Lunch - Megan - 80p Mac must have eaten something during the day, but I don't know what....

Dinner - Megan - 29p (I picked out all my mushrooms and put them in the leftovers because I knew I couldn't afford them) Mac - 44p

Riverford - 75p

Totals: Mac £1.35 + whatever else he ate that day, Megan £2.07.

I went over. Again. That's what I get for eating a MASSIVELY expensive lunch. I would totally eat it again, though. Just not during this challenge. And 80p isn't so bad when you aren't trying to get it to add up to £2.00 every day.

Day 26 - I cheat and Mac makes me feel guilty

I cheated. I had lunch out with my friend Dave. I felt bad, but it was my last Friday lunch to have with him (he's leaving his job) so we went out. Last time we went out and I just watched him eat (except he bought me a hot chocolate) but this time I bought a cranberry & brie baguette and a side of chips. I felt even worse when I got home and Mac told me how hungry he was because he didn't have anything for lunch because we didn't have leftovers (because we cheated the night before) I'm a jerk. Especially because we could totally have had a nice dinner the night before.

Hopefully Mac has forgiven me after I made him nice eggplant dinner!

Melizanes Me Lathi (Aubergines with Olive Oil)
The recipe is mostly taken from this, except I tried to get it to look and taste like the AMAZING melizanes they have at the Fat Fig, a wonderful low-key and very tasty Greek restaurant on Bedford Place. They manage to make these lovely eggplant slices (they call them "medallions" in the menu) that have a crispy skin and melt in your mouth. They are incredible). I want their secret!

In the meantime, here's my version of the recipe.

Served 3 - 5p excluding eggplant (but then Mac ate the third portion when he got home last night). There's a bit of tomato sauce left over. (Tomato sauce: served 4, 1.13, 28p per serving)

(O) 1 eggplant, sliced thickly (RIVERFORD)
(O) 1 tin tomatoes (79p)
1T tomato paste (4p)
(O) 4 cloves garlic (30p)
1/2 tsp sugar (less than 1p)
pinch of salt and pepper (nil)
3T veg oil (6p)
1T olive oil (10p)
3T water

For eggplant:
Heat a pan on medium-high heat. Add veg oil, olive oil AND water.
Slice eggplant thickly.
Once hot, stir oil and water together quickly and then immediately add slices. Turn about 20 sec after adding so both sides are covered with oil. After that, turn every 2-4 min or so, and move around in the pan because most stoves don't heat evenly. You want them to brown on both sides. The eggplant skin will turn brown, which is your first indication that they are cooking. Add a bit of salt and pepper.
Once browned on both sides and cooked fairly well through, put in oven at about 160C (350F or so) to finish cooking.

When you first add the slices to the pan, that's when you should start your tomato sauce. It's VERY easy.
Put a can of tomatoes in the pan. Put on medium heat
Mash up the garlic in a mortar and pestle, or mince. Put in with tomatoes.
Add tomato paste.
Once it reaches boiling, turn down heat (you can be more precise if you use gas, but I'm forever turning things up and down with an electric stove) and allow to simmer for 20min+. I usually keep the lid on half the time. You don't want it to reduce too much.
About halfway through, add 1/2 tsp sugar and a pinch of salt.

Spoon some tomato sauce directly on top of eggplant slices when serving. You could make loads of this and freeze it, or save it for an Italian dish or Mexican dish later in the week. Just add some herbs or chili later on to give it another feel. If I had a freezer that wasn't the size of a very small breadbox, I would consider doing exactly that.

Jamie Oliver's Spicy Cous Cous recipe
(I make this ALL the time) It's from his Naked Chef book. I don't own the book (or any celebrity chef books) but Helen does, and I called her up years ago and wrote down the recipe on an envelope. It's been treasured ever since.

Usually serves 4, this served 3 for 24p

Ingredients:

• 425 ml stock or water (I made slightly less- 325 L of stock - I used 1 tsp bouillon -2p)
  
• 1 medium onion, finely chopped (Mac's super cheap ones--about 4p)
  
• 1 tablespoon olive oil (I used veg - 2p)
  
• knobs of butter (I skipped this)
  
• 1 level teaspoon cumin seeds (1p)
  
• 1 heaped teaspoon coriander seeds (1p)
  
• 1 heaped teaspoon fennel seeds (8p)

[a HUGE difference in pricebetween supermarket small amounts and in bulk from ethnic food shops TIP: Buy in bulk and share with friends! Why pay more unless it's organic/fair trade]

• 1/2 small dried chili, or to taste (I used a shake of chili flakes-- 4p)
  
• 1 teaspoon salt (less than 1p)
  
• 1 bay leaf (I forgot)
  
• 1 clove of garlic, finely chopped (I left this out because of the tomato sauce)
  
• (O) 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar (4p)
  
• 1 teaspoon sugar (1p)
  
• (O) 255g couscous (I only used 200g - 44p)

Directions:

1. Bring the stock to the boil. In a thick-bottomed, deepish pan slowly fry the onion with the olive oil and half the butter, without colouring.
2. In a pestle and mortar smash up the cumin, coriander, fennel, chili and salt.
3. Add the spices, bay leaf and garlic to the onions and continue to fry - they should look and feel like marmalade, but not be coloured or burnt. Add the vinegar and sugar and reduce to a syrup.
4. Add the couscous and stir. Add the hot stock and simmer for 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Fork through the rest of the butter to lighten.

Breakfast - (O) porridge - 8p, Mac had a bowl of (O) porridge with (O) 1T jam (17p)
Lunch - Mac had nothing, I cheated and ate out with Dave.
At work - I had (O) 1 cup of tea 4p, Mac had (O) 1 cup 3p and a free muffin
Dinner - Mac was starving, so he had 4 pieces of bread with (O) pate (24p + 12p?) as soon as he got home. Actual dinner was (O) eggplant (5p) with a tomato sauce (28p) and Jamie Oliver's spicy cous cous recipe (24p)
Riverford - 75p (Always Organic!)
Mac then had the third portion of the eggplant and cous cous when he got home. greedy. (29p)

Megan: 1.44 (but I cheated on lunch. If I make up lunch, I'll be able to eat a feast for 56p!!)
Mac: 2.17 He shouldn't have eaten an extra portion of dinner. OR should have waited after work for me to make him something. OR we shouldn't have cheated Thursday night and had leftovers!

Day 25 - We kinda cheat.

Right...
So we kinda cheated. Thursday was a WEN meeting at 7:30 AND supposed to be a coordinator's meeting for the Art House at 6 AND Mac was meeting this woman from Listed (a local listings magazine) at 5. So I didn't think we had time for dinner. I suggested that we eat at the Art House. Which we did. We got given the soup, but I paid full price (3.25) for the pasty. Which means we cheated. Of course, I cheated more on Friday, but that's still to come.

I'm tempted to find out the per-portion cost of the food at the Art House and work it out--after all, they buy their veg from Riverford.... so shouldn't that count as part of our 75p per person per day? Probably not.

I think we're just going to make up this meal after our 30 days (we thought doing this in February during the shortest month of the year was kinda cheating.

Breakfast: Megan: (12p) a bowl of oatmeal (O) (I still have no raisins) 8p, cup of tea 4p (O), Mac: Toast (O) w/ marmite & butter (O) : 15p + 4p (19p)
Lunch - leftover pasta and broccoli 29p. Plus, Nina at the Art House kept giving me loads of food--I got given a small bowl of soup (O) AND some bread (O) AND a piece of stale staff cake (mostly O) . It was freaking awesome! I think Mac got 2 free donuts as well (those were certainly NOT organic).
At work - Megan had (O) 1cup of tea - 4p, Mac had (O) 2 - 6p
Dinner - (O) 1/2 pasty at Art House and a (O) small bowl of soup and Mac had a sandwich before he came to the Art House (probably about 20p?)
Riverford - 75p

TOTAL (excluding dinner) 1.20, Mac 1.49
Shame we didn't eat at home that night. We could have TOTALLY made dinner that day and had dessert. Oh well.

Day 24

I had some people over for a Transition Southampton meeting on Wednesday, so Mac made a quick and easy dinner that we could have before or after. They left around 7:30, and dinner was just about finished.

Mac made a super easy pasta dish with olive oil, garlic, chili flakes and roasted broccoli. It's almost not worth writing instructions because it was so easy. But I will anyway.

Roasted Broccoli with chili and garlic pasta - serves 4
- Cut the broccoli into florets. Save the main stalk for a day when it would be better used. (in a stock, or in a hot pot or something else)
- Put broccoli into a large roasting pan so they aren't piled on top of each other.
- Cover with a few T of veg oil. Cook in oven at about 180C for 20-25 min. The broccoli will brown a bit, but shouldn't burn. I would stir once halfway through.
- Thinly slice garlic
- Heat 1 T olive oil on low heat. Add a shake of chili flakes and garlic.
- Cook slowly so that garlic becomes golden but doesn't brown.
- Cook pasta according to directions
- Drain pasta and add to pan with oil. Stir to coat. Serve with broccoli on top.

(O) One large bunch of broccoli
(O) Pasta - 84p (this is both organic and fair trade from the local Fair Trade shop)
olive oil - 10p
(O) 2 cloves garlic - 15p
4T veg oil - 8p
chili flakes - 2p

Breakfast: Megan: (19p) Half a slice of bread (O) and a glass of water before I went running, then a bowl of Oatmeal (O) (I ran out of raisins) 8p + 7p, cup of tea 4p
Mac: Toast (O) w/ marmite & butter (O) : 15p + 4p (19p)
At work: Mac: 2 cups tea (O) (6p), Megan: 1 cups of tea (O) (4p)
Lunch: (44p) lentil and swede mixed in with the last of the curry
I had half a cookie when I got home (3p) and a cup of green tea (O) (4p)
Riverford: 75p
Dinner: 50p pasta with broccoli (O) , garlic (O) and chili flakes (29p) plus 1 1/4 slice of bread with butter (22p)




















So I put all this information into http://www.nutritiondata.com and it told me that for what we ate this day, it is just about complete proteins for the day (99--anything over 100 should be a complete protein) and we've had 117% of the daily recommended amount of protein. (probably a bit less for Mac, because he's a guy)

Not bad. However, it's apparently not very nutritionally balanced--it got a "completeness score" of 53. . . . we need more vitamins and minerals, apparently.

It did say that day only gave us 1538 calories. Oops. That's quite a big chunk less than I think it should be... I was always told 2,000 for women.

The money total for today is: Megan: 2.00, Mac: 1.95

Day 23 - Megan turns to Martha (not turns INTO thankfully)

On Shrove Tuesday, Pancake Day, we did indeed have pancakes. But they weren't the traditional British kind. . . .they were the Jewish awesome kind! Mmmm......

Today's recipe came courtesy of: http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/potato-carrot-pancakes

Yes, that's right. I used a recipe by Martha. THE Martha. Except I changed it a bit. Here's my adapted ingredients. The directions are still basically the same, except you grate the onion as well. Oh, and she doesn't tell you to squeeze out the liquid from all the grated vegetables. That's KEY whenever you make potato pancakes. Always always always squeeze out as much water as possible!

I'm wondering how you would make a vegan version of these.... The egg binds. What else might bind well that wouldn't add a weird taste. . . Most vegan substitutions suggest things for baking....

Potato and Carrot Pancakes (Latkes)
Served 2 (because we were really hungry, but made 10 patties) - 23p for two greedy servings

3/4 pound (about 3 medium) white potatoes, peeled (I used about 400g - 16p)
(O) 8 ounces (about 3 medium) carrots, peeled (I used three carrots - RIVERFORD!)
1/2 cup thinly sliced scallions (about 3 scallions) (I used 1 onion - Mac got going-off ones from an ethnic food market so only paid 20p for 1kg! I guess it costs 4p?)
Coarse salt (What is coarse salt? I used regular salt. ABout 1/2 tsp - less than 1p)
(O)1 large egg, lightly beaten (22p)
(O) 1/4 cup matzo meal (yeah, okay. For regular people who don't have every ingredient in the world, use 1/4 c flour - 3p)
1/4 cup vegetable oil, for frying (we reused our oil from parsnip cakes and everything else we've fried.)

Cabbage recipe - I couldn't find the recipe, so I just took the ingredients from Day 5 and made it up. (Served 4 - 5p)
(O) Redcabbage (RIVERFORD!)
(O) Red wine vinegar: 1 Tbsp (4p)
(O) raisins: 40g (10p)
1/2 tsp cinnamon (2p)
1T brown sugar (3p)
Slice red cabbage.
Heat oil in pan and add red cabbage. Cover and stir often.
After about 10-15 min, add raisins, cinnamon stick (or 1/2 tsp cinnamon) and red wine vinegar and recover. I also added 1Tbsp of brown sugar.
Keep stirring.
Eventually, it will be cooked. Eat it. (Sorry, I'm getting a bit impatient with writing out recipes.... I should be more kind)


Breakfast: Mac: (O) Toast w/marmite & (O) butter - 19p, (O)Megan: Toast w/peanut butter and (O) jam - 15p + 9p? 24p
Lunch: Lentil and swede with curry - 44p
At work: (O) 2 cups of tea, 6p and 8p
Dinner: Potato-carrot pancakes 23p and sweet red cabbage 5p
Riverford: 75p

TOTAL: Mac: 1.72, Megan: 1.79

Day 22 - Mac gets greedy and forgets to do his maths.

We will NOT be making this meal again without significant alterations. It turned into a beige soupy gruel-like thing. It tasted alright, but there was not real stand-out flavour to it.

Possible improvements/additions are marked in parentheses (and bold italics), however we did NOT try these, so I can’t guarantee that they would improve the dish.
(As for texture, I would be inclined to add chopped nuts at least to the top, if not throughout the dish OR to leave chunks of swede instead of grating it. Or both. I don’t know this is a weird dish. OR just be okay with it being soupy and serve it over rice as a dhal-type dish.)

Swede and lentil bake
Serves 4+ - It's 38p per serving with veg oil. 46p with olive oil and stock.
Preparation Time: 10 minutes
Cooking Time: 1 1/2 hours

Ingredients
350g red lentils (£1.26)
850ml water
2 bayleaves (1p?)
Seasoning (Mac assumed this meant stock, and added 2tsp stock – 4p)
225g swede (RIVERFORD)
60ml olive oil (4 Tbsp - 12p if veg oil)
1 medium finely chopped onion (10p if 250g)
2 sticks of finely chopped celery (skip)Nutmeg (2p?)
30ml chopped parsley (garden)
60ml browned crumbs (homemade - 2p?)
(Possible also:
EITHER: 1 tsp sugar
OR: 1 tsp mustard seed and 1 tsp coriander seed
AND: 1 tsp paprika)

Instructions
1. Place the lentils in a pan with the water, bayleaves, and seasoning (stock).
Cover and bring to the boil, and simmer for three quarters of an hour, (although if you have it at a higher temperature, you only need about half that time)
(One option to add flavour would be to start cooking onions when you first put on the lentils. Caramelise slowly adding a little bit of balsamic vinegar and/or a pinch or two of sugar to speed up the process)
Beat cooked lentils to a thick consistency. (Skip this. The red lentils will have already turned to mush by this point, so there is no need to lose even more texture. Instead, reduce down a bit more to have less liquid??)
Grate the swede (maybe squeeze out the liquid from these before adding) and add them to the lentils for the last 10 minutes of cooking time. Remove the pan from the heat.2. Preheat oven to 200C (400F, gas 6) and oil a deep dish.
(If you haven’t caramelised the onions, another option is to heat the oil and add 1tsp coriander and 1tsp mustard seed. Heat until crackling.)
Mix in the onion and celery (and 1 tsp paprika), cook until soft.
3. Add this mixture to the lentils with the nutmeg and the parsley. Put mixture in the oiled dish and smooth top. Press crumbs onto the surface and put dish in the oven for 30 minutes.

So far today we have spent:
Breakfast - 12p on toast, then Mac used about 4p on marmite & butter and I used jam and peanut butter which was probably 13p. (So Mac: 16p, Megan: 25p)
During work - Plus I have had two cups of tea, so that's 8p. Mac also had two cups of tea for 6p.
Lunch as leftovers was 41p. Plus we both had a cookie 5p
Riverford: 75p

I had 46p left for dinner. Mac didn’t get my e-mail, so he used olive oil and dinner ended up being exactly 46p. That meant I didn’t get any bread. Mac, on the other hand had a big slice of bread and put lots of butter on it…. Unfortunately for him, he hadn’t looked at a final tally of his costs, and ended up going over last night by 7p.

We managed to get dessert, though in the form of some Fair Trade ginger stem cookies that I got while meeting the Secretary of State of Overseas Development (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_of_State_for_International_Development) with the Fair Trade Group. I got bullied into presenting him with a lovely Vandanamu bag by Francoise (who is actually a wonderful person, but I was more than a little hesitant to have my photo taken—there were four or five cameras there!!)

I also managed to get a cup of tea (poured as SOON as the secretary of state walked in the room—Sod/Murphy strikes again) and a flapjack AND an orange juice out of it. Excellent!

PLUS, at my WinACC meeting, I got two ginger nuts and a glass of locally-made apple juice. Finally! Fruit!

TOTAL: Mac went over with his £2.07 Megan: £2.00

Day 21 - I finally say what is organic... oops!

We went to the Winchester Farmers' Market today (hooray!) but I did not end up making it to the allotment. Mac cynically told me, "you'll get used to not going to the allotment" but I'm bound and determined to prove him wrong. I'll make plans asap to meet up with people next weekend. So there.

The farmers' market was a great success though. We had just arrived where the stalls begin and Mac had started saying how hungry he was and that he would end up buying a mushroom buttie (buttie = sandwich for those non-Brits out there. They eat chip butties here which is, once translated, a french fry sandwich. Some things I just can't get used to. The word buttie I'm ok with) Lo and behold, the heavens opened and we were provided with free food--not manna (for all you religious-in-the-know people) but a free spring roll from people advertising their new restaurant. Awesome! We then re-discovered free samples--I tried loads of bits of cheese and several relishes/chutneys/jams on crackers. Woo-hoo. It was enough to tide us over until we got home and made . . . . mushroom butties!

We now have lots of food from local places, some of which we can't eat until the month is over. Mac got some marmalade (partly because it's nice and partly because he know I won't eat it), we bought some relish for friends, 500mL of rape seed oil (a British-made alternative to olive oil! I love it and am going to try to get the guy to bring a 5L container at the next market), some oil-packed chilis for a friend, sourdough bread, three kinds of cheese (one of which I think we can afford to eat now!), a bunch of watercress for scones to eat during the challenge, some cheaper-than-supermarket-organic butter, and probably some other stuff I've forgotten about. It was WONDERFUL.

As for eating:

Breakfast: I made pancakes (British kind) and then ate most of them because Mac wasn't that hungry.
1 egg (22p)
3/4 cup milk (I used 1/2 c milk and 1/4 c water) (15p)
1/2 c flour (7p)
1/8 tsp salt
pinch of sugar

I then had about 2/3 with lemon and sugar and the rest with 1/2 tsp of jam. I used 2tsp of jam (6p) and I'll guess the lemon and sugar was about 6p?
Mac had three, I had six. Plus I had two cups of tea and he only had one.
Mac: 19p + 3p tea, Megan: 37p + 8p

Lunch: mushroom butties! - a VERY expensive 41p
melted 10g butter (5g)
once hot add 100g mushrooms, sliced (57p)
Keep flipping and stirring rapidly at the start to get both sides coated in butter. Then you can stir intermittently. Keep the heat fairly high and it will only take a few minutes.
4 slices of bread (20p)
Eat!

That didn't fill Mac up so he then had another 2 slices of bread and some pate (22p)

I then had 2 cookies, 10p

Riverford: 75p
Dinner: I don't know what to make! I'm doing this to work out how much money we have, but it's also stalling.... I have 29p for my portion and 40p for Mac's and we don't really need to make leftovers because we still have FOUR portions of the curry in the fridge!

Mac came home and started making soup. It's a variation (VERY much so) of a recipe in my Soup Bible that Lara bought me AGES ago when I first started doing soup nights in Fitchburg.

It's supposed to be spicy parsnip, but we've cut out the cream, and Mac's added potatoes to bulk it up because we didn't have enough parsnips. Hopefully the cost will be low enough that we can have some of the sourdough bread that we bought. Mmmm...... sourdough and soup. I managed to get 20g of bread (the VERY thin crust) and Mac got 69g. That will teach me to have two expensive meals in a day AND two cookies. BUT it was all delicious and we still had three decent sized meals.

I realise that I haven't been very good at saying what has been organic/free range/fair trade since we started.

Let's fix that.
Breakfast: flour, milk and jam was organic. Egg was free-range. Sugar is British-beet (silver spoon's stuff... nothing fancy) Lemon juice is just cheap Sainsburys brand stuff.
Lunch: Mushrooms, were local but I don't know about organic.... can you have NON organic mushrooms? I don't know much about how they grow.... bread was from the local bakery, probably not organic ingredients. Butter was Anchor, which happens to be free-range but also comes from New Zealand. Unfortunately, that's all the corner shop (the one RIGHT round the corner) sell.
Dinner: Parsnips and stock was organic, garlic and bread were local but not organic (the organic bakery stall I like to buy from had sold out of their bread), potatoes and all spices were just cheap.

Mac's Cheaper-Than-The-Recipe Spiced Parsnip Soup
serves 2 - 25p per serving

Ingredients
1 1/2 T butter (8p)
1 onion, chopped (we didn't have any)
340 g potatoes (13p)
2 3/4c parsnips (Mac just used the 2 1/2 that we had left. I doubt he measured it) (RIVERFORD)
1/2 tsp ground coriander (1p)
1/4 tsp ground cumin (less than 1p)
1/4 tsp turmeric (less than 1p)
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper (less than 1p)
2 1/2 cups vegetable stock (2 tsp bouillon) (it called for chicken. I don't get why so many recipes do that) (4p)
1/3 c cream (skipped)
1/2T veg oil (1p)
2 garlic cloves (15p)
2 tsp yellow mustard seeds (6p)
salt and pepper

Chop onions, parsnips and potatoes
Melt butter in large pan, add onions (skipped), parsnips and potatoes (added) and fry slowly for about 3 min (this was more like 10 because how slow our electric stove is)
Stir in spices and cook for 1 more minute
Add stock, season and bring to a boil
Lower heat, cover and simmer for about 45min until the parsnips are tender.
Meanwhile, make the garnish.
Julienne garlic (cut into small thin strips)
Heat oil in a small pan, add mustard seeds first and then add garlic. Cook until garlic is beginning to brown and seeds pop. Remove from heat and set aside.
Cool slightly, puree in blender until smooth (they say "or food processor" but that is NOT a good substitute--you'll end up with little chunky bits and it's not nearly as nice)
Return soup to pan.
Add cream (we skipped that) and heat through slowly on low heat.
Serve soup with mustard seed/garlic garnish on top.

Finally! Something that ISN'T food related!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090205/ap_on_re_us/ice_storm_amish
It's all about how Amish neighbours helped out their non-Amish Ketuckians when an ice storm hit and everyone lost power. I wish we'd had some Amish in Fitchburg!


I LOVED this article. How awesome are the Amish? How great is resilience and grit (that the newspapers said all of England is lacking)? I love the fact that while things seriously sucked, there were some people to remind us that actually, it's completely manageable and people did it for a fair few hundred years, thank you very much.

It does make me want to take a couple courses so that I know how to do things for myself. If something went wrong in the flat, I wouldn't have a CLUE what to do without calling aprofessional--that's for repairs, plumbing, doctor visits, everything. I realised that my "skills" are all about talking and office skills. Put me in a jungle or forest or just away from electricity and I would probably die in a week. There is something for knowing that you don't rely on lots of gadgets or other people to get by. Or at least having that knowledge as a just-in-case. Maybe I will take a woodworking class or something. At least get used to using my hands. I guess the allotment will help loads with that!

Day 20 - no dessert.... but LOTS of root vegetable curry

Breakfast: 2 pieces of toast - Megan had PB&J (10p + 14p) Mac had pate & butter (10p + 9p), Mac had one cup of tea 4p and I had two, 8p

Then I realised I was still hungry, so I had another piece of toast with peanut butter 10p

During the day: Both of us had roasted cashew nuts (with a bit of oil and some salt on it). I had about 1/3 of the bowl and Mac ate the rest, so that's 18p for me and 35p for Mac.
I also had two cookies during the day.... I wish they hadn't been so accessible! 10p

Lunch: Mac had the leftover mushroom and leeks 25p
I had orzo with a carrot boiled and then added to some stock for a not really-soup soup. That was 8p
Riverford: 75p
Dinner: 41p (27p + 14p)


Totals: Megan 1.98 (half a cookie to make it 2.00), Mac: 1.99

Root Vegetable Curry
4 Servings - total liars. We used way less vegetables than they requested, but this will definitely serve 6 - 27p
Served with 2c rice - 72p (5 portions 14p)

Ingredients:
(I added 1 c. dried chickpeas - 34p)
½ tsp Black mustard seeds (I used regular mustard seeds - less than 1p)
4 T Ghee (we don't have enough cupboard space for this. Veg oil works fine - 6p)
2 Onions, finely chopped (1 only used one 10p)
8 Garlic cloves, minced (I used about 5... but most were tiny. Oh well.) (37p)
2 tablespoons Finely chopped ginger root (about 4p)
3 Green chiles, chopped (I put in a pinch of red chili flakes)
3 Parsnips, peeled and cut into 1/2x2-inch sticks, 1/4-inch thick (I used 2 - RIVERFORD)
3 Carrots, peeled and cut into 1/2x2-inch sticks, 1/4-inch thick (I used 1 - RIVERFORD)
3 Turnips, peeled and cut into 1/2x2-inch sticks, 1/4-inch thick (DIdn't have any)
½ Rutabaga, peeled and cut into 1/2x2-inch sticks, 1/4-inch thick (I used 1/3 of one - RIVERFORD)
(I also added 460g of potato - 18p (new cheap potatoes)
1 T Coriander (3p)
1 T Garam masala (we just bought 400g for 1.79!!!! HOLY CRAP! I LOVE bulk spices in world food stores - 3p)
½ T Ground cumin (3p)
½ T Turmeric (1p)
½ T Cardamom (oops. I forgot)
½ tsp chili powder (a couple shakes - 1p)
½ tsp Fenugreek (1p - 2p)
1 c Chicken stock (1 tsp VEGETABLES stock 2p)
1 c Canned crushed tomatoes (I used half a can of organic 'freaking expensive' tomatoes)
Salt (oops. I forgot)
Cilantro leaves, for garnish (yeah, right)

Directions

• I know you're supposed to soak beans and chickpeas overnight, but we didn't. Cooked for about 2 hours or so in over 4 cups of water and they were fine!!
• Parboil vegetables for 10+ minutes until just-barely tender (If you want this ready quick-ish, parboil. Otherwise, cooking all in one pan for 1 1/2 hours will help meld flavours)
• Heat ghee in a large skillet with cover or Dutch oven until very hot (or just a regular big pan).
• Saute mustard seeds for about 5 seconds, until aromatic. (Maybe the pan wasn't hot enough, but this wasn't ready in 5 sec)
• Add onions, garlic, ginger root and chilies and saute for 5 minutes.
• Add root vegetables and saute 5 minutes.
• Remove pan from heat, stir in spices, (chickpeas if adding), vegetable stock and tomatoes and lightly season with salt.
• Bring to a boil, then simmer, covered for 1 1/2 hours. (OR simmer about half an hour if you parboiled the vegetables first)
• Serve over white or brown rice, garnished with fresh cilantro leaves.

From Taste Show # 4713 Recipe by: David Rosengarten Posted to MC-Recipe Digest V1 #532 by "Master Harper Gaellon" on Mar 21, 1997

Day 19 - mushroom and leek bake and NO cookies during the day

Mac has just made leek and mushroom bake from this recipe here. I don't know what he's making them with.... I wish we'd started some pearl barley as soon as Mac got home because that would be DELICIOUS. Instead I think we're having potatoes.

Here's the recipe for those of you who don't want to watch the whole video over and over again.

Mushroom and Leek Bake
Served 3ish - 25p per portion

Ingredients:
30g butter (Mac used oil instead 6p)
5 leeks, trimmed & sliced (RIVERFORD)
250g mushrooms sliced (RIVERFORD)
1 clove garlic, crushed (8p)
100mL veg stock (1 tsp stock - 2p)
150mL cream (we used milk) (19p)
1tsp thyme (3p?)
30g grated parmesan (Mac only used 10g - 17p)
salt & pepper

served with 400g potatoes (20p)

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 180C
Chop leeks and mushrooms, and mince garlic. Heat butter (oil) over medium heat and then add sliced leeks Gently fry 2-3 min, stirring often so they don't brown Add mushrooms, salt, pepper and thyme and minced garlic.
Cook another 4 min.
Add chicken stock and cream (milk--cook a bit longer if using milk)
Stir and bring to the boil for 1 min.
Bake in the oven for 20min.
Take out and sprinkle the top with parmesan.
Return to oven for 5 min or until most liquid has reduced.
Serve immediately


Breakfast: Mac - oatmeal (happy, Robin??) with jam - 17p, Megan - oatmeal with 20g raisins - 13p (I ran out of time for a cup of tea)

At work: Megan - 2 cups of tea - 8p, Mac - one cookie and one cup of tea - 8p

During work: Megan also had her cup of tea and hot chocolate because she's bad.r Lunch: leftover stirfry - 43p

Dinner: 25p (it only really made three portions)

Riverford: 75p

Megan 1.64 + 2 cookies + pistachios - 2.00
Mac 1.68 + 42g of pistachios for 2.00

Ok, I have a confession to make. I accepted two hot beverages today--paid for by other people. I'm a cheat.

Dave bought me a hot chocolate at lunch. I think he felt bad for me. Rob, my boss, bought me a tea (and bought another guy a tea) when we went up to the canteen for a meeting in the morning.

Dave had actually offered to buy me lunch, but I told him that wouldn't count. He also kept asking if I wanted cake or something. I think it was a bit mean meeting up with him when I wasn't going to be eating (I ate my stirfry beforehand so I wouldn't be so tempted). BUT I really like hanging out with Dave and I didn't think my challenge should get in the way. I guess this means I go over? I don't know. I'm not very good with enforcing my own interpretation of the rules.

Mac got cakes for free at work. Lucky. He had three mini muffins, two mini flapjacks and a mini caramel thing AND a satsuma. WHAT THE CRAPOLA?!? I guess I get loads of free cakes and cookies and stuff at meetings. But that's not during the work day when I'm HUNGRY.

Day 18 - MUCH cheaper stirfry!

Not too shabby. Made TONS of stirfy for not too much money AND managed not to use up too much veg. I'm very aware now of spreading out our veg box over the whole week. I used all the broccoli (TIP: use broccoli as soon as you get it--it does NOT keep well) half the mushrooms we were given, one carrot (once cut up into matchsticks it looked like LOADS!), a few leaves off the red cabbage, and decided to use onions instead of leeks. I'm hoping for a mushroom and leek dish later (maybe we can top it up with mushrooms from the Mushroom Guy at the Winchester Farmers' Market.......mmm..... mushroom butties......)

Also, we managed to have cookies (!) and I had an apple (!!) AND we both had dessert (!!!) We are definitely getting better at this.

Anyway, here's our dinner. I WISH I'd taken pictures. Stupid Megan. Stirfry ingredients look so colourful lined up on the chopping board.

Megan's cobbled together vegetable stirfry
serves 4 BIG portions (or 5 if we hadn't been so greedy) - 43p per portion.

Ingredients:

• About 200g (I think? a couple handfuls) of mushrooms, in thick-ish slices (RIVERFORD)
• Soy sauce 2T 18p
• Lime juice - 1T - 3p
• Veg oil – 2 1/2T 7p
• Onion, roughly chopped- 10p
• Broccoli, florets with small stalks separated from main stalk, which is then roughly peels and cubed (RIVERFORD)
• Carrots, chopped into matchsticks (RIVERFORD)
• A few leaves peeled off of a red cabbage then thinly sliced (RIVERFORD)
• 2 cloves garlic - 15p
• Ginger 1p
• Pinch of Chinese 5 Spice 2p
• 2c rice - 72p
• 2 eggs - 44p

Directions
I hate it when recipes don't tell you in the directions to prepare the vegetables but instead put it in the ingredients list. However, I've already done it.... so I'll repeat it.
Prepare the vegetables:

• Slice the mushrooms first and put in a VERY shallow dish with the soy sauce, lime juice and 1T of veg oil. You want this done first so it has about 20-30 min to marinade. It's not much marinade, so you will need to occasionally move around the mushrooms to ensure all are soaking at least some of the time.
• While the mushrooms are marinading, chop the onion, broccoli, carrots, and red cabbage (see above for how big). TIP: The reason to pull off individual leaves of red cabbage (although it is a bit of a pain to do) is because it will keep the red cabbage whole, so that it lasts longer. As soon as you cut into it, it will go off a lot faster.
• I made the mistake of not steaming my broccoli first. Do this now so that your other vegetables can stay quite crunchy. Steam about 5-7min, or until it is just barely tender…if you like it a bit crunchy. If you like well-cooked broccoli, keep cooking until the fork easily goes through the stalk.
• Start cooking the rice—2c rice with just under 4c water in a covered pan. Do NOT heat the water first. Heat on a medium-high heat until it starts to boil and then IMMEDIATELY turn it down to the lowest possible temperature. It will take about 20min to cook. DO NOT TAKE OFF THE LID. The rice will cook in part through steam, so you don’t want the steam to escape in excess.
• (Again, I did NOT do this part of the recipe when I should have and got another pan dirty. Oops.) Heat up 1/2T of oil in the wok on medium/medium-high heat.
• Beat 2 eggs together in a bowl and then add to the hot oil.
• Stir quite quickly and keep stirring so you don’t end up with an omelette, but instead you get a whole bunch of little cooked egg pieces.
• Once it is fully cooked, remove from the wok and set aside.
• Add 1T of oil to the wok and add the onions.
• After about 3-4 min, add the carrot sticks and garlic.
• Two min later, add the rest of the vegetables, the mushrooms and their marinade (there is no perfect way to do this, so don’t worry too much about timings).
• Add a pinch of Chinese 5 Spice, and grate some ginger over the wok. Keep stirring.
• Once you’ve been cooking all these vegetables for about 5 minutes, add about 1/2 c of stock (or be lazy like me and put 1tsp of stock powder on top of the vegetables and just pour some water onto the wok from the kettle).
• Keep cooking until you get the tenderness/crunchiness balance that you want OR until the rice is cooked (all the water will have been absorbed and you can fluff it with a fork) OR until you feel like eating and the table has been cleared.
• Throw in the egg with the stirfry at the last minute to mix it in.

Serve over rice.

Here’s the day’s breakdown. We worked out most of this BEFORE dinner so we knew whether or not we could have dessert.

Breakfast: oatmeal and raisins 13p, tea 4p Mac at a cookie for breakfast for 5p. I guess it has oatmeal and peanut butter in it, so it's not too bad.
Lunch: 31p leftovers.

At work: Megan pigged out and had green tea 4p, 2 cookies 10p, and an apple 13p ALL before noon – 27p. I then gave Sarah my last cookie so that I wasn’t tempted to eat it as well. Mac had 1 cookie after work 5p.

Riverford: 75p
Dinner: 43p per portion, excluding veg.
Dessert: Mac had 55g worth of pistachios (he did out the math gram by gram to see the maximum he was allowed with his leftover money. Megan had half a cup of tea and a cookie for 7p. I was going to have half a cookie and a full cup of tea, but once I broke the cookie into half, I decided it would be cruel to only eat half of it… I thought half a cup of tea wouldn’t be too bad.

Totals: Mac: £2.00 (after his carefully counted 41p of pistachios), Megan: £2.00 (after realising she could have a whole cookie AND half a cup of tea for dessert)

I ended up being really full at the end of the evening. Not bad for £2 a day!!

Food costs

Yes, we're managing to eat well. But we're lucky where we have the internet and 22 cookbooks (I am NOT exaggerating on the number--and that's after we got rid of six or so) to help us find recipes, and we have cupboard with bulk wholefoods and links to a food coop. Could we eat mostly organic if we were just shopping at farmers' markets and supermarkets? I don't know.... Could we survive on a mostly-wholefoods diet? DEFINITELY.

But many people struggle to meet their nutritional needs--they struggle just to know what those are. If they didn't, obesity wouldn't be such a concern in rich countries.

In fact, even though we pay lots of attention to what we eat, I had fresh fruit for the first time in weeks two days ago. I found apples marked 2 for £2 and managed to get 16 British gala apples or 12.5p a piece. They are awfully tiny.

For that same amount, I could eat 2 1/2 peanut butter oatmeal cookies that I made. In fact, for that amount I could probably have half a pack of cookies if I had bought them from the supermarket.

I just finished reading "How I Lived a Year on Just a Pound a Day" by Kath Kelly and found the following extract:

It was harder work still getting my 'five a day' of fruit and vegetables though. In the supermarkets, in terms of calories per penny, it was so much better value to get a packet of digestive biscuits (18p) than one orange (18p too). It quickly became clear why there is more obesity among the poorer sector of the British population. That packet of biscuits would fulfil half the calorie needs of the average person for a day, and with some cheese spread or something at under 40p, would be quick, cheap and easy to carry to work. If I tried to get fresh and healthy foods, I found them much ore expensive, heavy to carry on food and requiring many extra trips to the shops, because of their perishability.
I had to eke out my food supplies as long as possible while eating healthily. I'd never given this much thought beore, but under the circumstances I had to cook for maximu nutritional and monetary value to make my supplies last. When we walked over to the St. Marks Road street party to watch the parade and join in te dancing, I begged my friends for advice. Between them they came up with some great ideas."

Those great ideas included:

• Don't add salt to dried beans when soaking them,
  
• Keep red cabbage in the dark,
  
• Make stirfries because they use very little oil,
  
• Use a hand blender to turn leftovers into soups,
  
• Add different herbs and spices to meals (eg. add curry or chili/Italian spices and the same food would be totally different),
  
• Cook onions with meat (not a concern for us) to save on using double the oil,
  
• make white sauce for lasagne using half milk, half water, cornflour and seasoned with mustard and cayenne pepper instead of butter milk and flour.
  
• Use tinned or frozen fruit and veg instead of fresh,
  
• Freeze foods to make them last,
  
• Keep leftovers labeled in the fridge,
  
• Separate fruit and veg in storage to keep both longer,
  
• Put dry stuff from packets into dry airtight containers once opened.
  
• Eat regular snacks so you feel less hungry and aren't tempted to eat more.
  
• Don't waste ANYTHING! (I've recently learned that vegetable peels can be turned into veg stock--doesn't work for us because we don't peel most of our veg and we don't have a place to store stock, but still a useful tip!)

A great read. Made me think about my purchases in general. I'm quite happy with what I spend money on most of the time and I think my 'buy nothing new' year will help with the rest. Still, good food for thought.

Day 17 - Wonderful Creamy Risotto.... and a new veg box.

Breakfast: Mac - porridge with jam - 17p, Megan 37p - porridge with raisins - 13p, cup of tea 4p, slice of toast with PB&J - (9+7+4= 20p)
Lunch: Mac & Megan - 28p We both had leftover celeriac/apple (13p), plus half the leftover roasted pumpkin, and one parsnip patty (15p).
At work: Mac - 2 cups of tea 6p and an apple - 13p, Megan - 2 cups of tea - 8p,
Riverford: 75p
Dinner: Purple Sprouting Broccoli and Lemon Risotto - 31p per serving with parmesan.
Dessert: A BUNCH of peanut butter oatmeal cookies!!

Mac - £1.90 after having a FOUR cookies!
Megan - £1.94 after having a THREE cookies! WOO-HOO!!.


Purple Sprouting Broccoli and Lemon Risotto
31p per serving with 10g of parmesan instead of 115g.
Ingredients
1tbsp olive oil (10p)
50g (2oz) butter (25p)
8 shallots, finely chopped (replaced with 1 onion - 10p)
850ml (1 1/2pt) vegetable stock (3 tsp of stock - 6p)
280g (10oz) risotto rice (50p for 250g--half a box)
Zest of 2 lemons [instead use 1 T of lemon juice (3p)]
1 glass white wine (left out--too pricey)
250g (9oz) broccoli florets, blanched for 5 mins and refreshed under cold water [I bet you could cook these for 2-3 min instead. Purple sprouting barely needs any cooking at all. Slice up the leaves and throw those in as well when boiling them] (RIVERFORD)
115g (4oz) Parmesan, grated [We used 10g which is 16.8p]
Fresh parsley, to serve (FREE from the garden)

1. Heat the oil and butter in a frying pan and sauté the shallots for 5 mins. Bring the stock to a simmer in a pan. Add the rice and lemon zest to the shallots and stir for 2 mins.
2. When the mixture is hissing in the pan, add the wine, reduce the heat, then add the stock, allowing 1 ladleful to absorb at a time.
3. Add the broccoli and half the Parmesan with the last ladleful of stock. Cover, set aside for 5 mins, then serve with the remaining Parmesan and fresh parsley on top.
From here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/food/print/recipe6.shtml

Peanut Butter Oatmeal Rounds
Adapted from the Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook but without eggs!! (and yes, I pressed them with a fork to make a criss-cross shape like when my mom made them)
Made 34

3/4 Cup butter, softened (75p)
1/2 cup peanut butter (24p)
1 cup granulated sugar (17p)
1/2 cup packed brown sugar (18p)
1 tsp baking powder (2P)
1/2 tsp baking soda (1p)
2 egg replacements (9p) (see below)
1 teaspoon vanilla (11p)
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour (11p)
2 cups rolled oats (16p)

In a large mixing bowl beat butter and peanut butter until combined.
Add granulated sugar, brown sugar, baking powder, and baking soda.
Beat until combined, scraping sides of bowl occasionally.
Make egg replacement by mixing together in a separate small bowl: 1/2 tsp. baking soda, 1 tsp. baking powder, 2 Tbsp. flour, 3 Tbsp. water for each egg you want to replace
Mix egg replacement together well and beat into the dough with the vanilla until combined.
Beat in as much of the flour as you can. Stir in any remaining flour.
Stir in rolled oats and peanuts.
Drop dough by rounded teaspoons 2 inches apart onto an ungreased cookie sheet.
Bake in a 375 degree oven about 10 minutes or until edges are lightly browned.
Transfer cookies to wire rack to cool.

Day 16 - homemade chips!

Breakfast: Porridge - I had raisins 13p, Mac had jam 17p (but had to take it to work) I had tea 4p
At work: We both had two cups of tea-- 8p for me, 6p for Mac
Lunch: 29p leftover parsnip cakes and pumpkin. Still a serving left in the fridge.
Dinner: 31p Celeriac and apple bake (meh), grated cabbage with mace, and homemade chips (AWESOME!) for a very beige-y dinner.
Riverford: 75p

Megan: £1.60, Mac: £1.58

We then realised that we had a bunch of money left over and decided to have some "dessert". I had an apple and 25g of pistachios (13p + 19p) and Mac had 50g of pistachios for 38p

FINAL total: Megan: £1.92, Mac: £1.96

Celeriac and Apple Bake
serves 4 - 13p per serving
This recipe uses a delicious combination of celeriac with apple, to create a sweet, warming winter bake. It's a great way of introducing celeriac to fussy eaters or just those who fancy a change.

Ingredients
1 celeriac (RIVERFORD)
2 apples (39p)
2 tablespoons olive oil (10p)
1 tablespoon honey (optional) (3p)

Directions
1. Pre-heat the oven to 190 C.
2. Chop the celeriac into 4 and use a sharp knife to peel the rough outside.
3. Slice the quarters into 1 cm slices and boil for 10 minutes, until starting to soften.
4. Wash the apples and chop them in half. Remove the cores. It's up to you whether you peel them - you know your audience! Slice the halves into ½ cm slices.
5. Drain the celeriac.
6. While the pan is still warm, use it to mix the olive oil and the honey. This will help melt the honey. Add the celeriac and stir well, to coat all the slices. [Or, you could do what I did, layer the whole thing and then drizzle the oil and honey on it, and make sure the honey drizzles into the cracks between the layers as well. I didn't want to get the pan sticky]
7. Arrange a row of celeriac in an oven-proof dish. Then add a row of apple slices. Then continue to alternate, until all the celeriac and apple has been used.
8. Bake for 30 minutes, until the celeriac is soft and the apples are starting to brown.
Time From Cupboard-To-Table
50 minutes

Notes & Variations on Celeriac and Apple Bake
For a more indulgent version, sprinkle the top of the bake with a few teaspoons of brown sugar, before baking.


Buttered cabbage with toasted sesame seeds
serves 4 (we only had half a cabbage...so it only served 2) - 5p per serving.... I would have traded the extra 2p for some more butter.

Preparation Time: 10 mins, Cooking Time: 20 mins
Ingredients
500g green cabbage (RIVERFORD)
50g butter (I used a sliver of butter... maybe that's why it was a little dry. Oops. 5p)
1 tbsp toasted sesame seeds (3p)
nutmeg (2p)
salt and pepper (nil)

Instructions
This recipe is adapted from Green Cuisine by Anna Ross and makes a perfect accompaniment to mashed potatoes.

1. Finely shred the cabbage, wash and drain. In a large pan, heat the butter and sauté the cabbage for 15 minutes until softened but still crisp.
2. Stir in the toasted sesame seeds. Season with freshly grated nutmeg and salt and pepper

Homemade Chips
Ingredients (not a whole lot)
440g of potatoes (11p per person)
used veg oil
a bit of salt
some cider vinegar once we served them (2p).
Directions
I sliced about 6 potatoes in thin slices, parboiled them for about 10 minutes (and then left them in the hot water while I waited for the oil to heat up... and then cool down...and then heat up again when I realised I was reading the thermometer in Fahrenheit instead of Celsius...)
Put them in the used oil from last night (about 1/2" deep) and fried them for about 10 minutes, turning occasionally and did them in two batches so there wouldn't be too much.

Glorious spreadsheets

We are halfway done.

The finish line is a bit blurry because we need to decide how we are handling the days when we ate other people’s food (potluck, Kulbir’s house, our lovely couchsurfers) and the days when we went over. The first was covered in our rules—we said we would make dinner based on the money we had leftover for the day.

Unfortunately, I forgot about that rule when our couchsurfers cooked for us and I stuffed my face with extra cookies because we lpanned to just redo the whole day. Oops. The other two days aren’t as much of an issue.

We didn’t include a rule about “what if we go over” because we didn’t plan to go over. I think I perhaps was a bit optimistic about how quickly I would be able to work it out, and thought that we’d be figuring it all out BEFORE cooking so we would manage it better.

As a week average, however, we have a daily average under £2 for both weeks (see my lovely print-screened spreadsheet).

Woo-hoo! However, that wasn’t part of the initial rule. That’s the way Mac wanted to do it, and that’s how the £1 a day woman ran her challenge for a YEAR (more about her later!) but in my mind that isn’t strictly “£2 a day”. Of course the way we buy ingredients isn’t anywhere near £2 a day, so some flexibility is needed.

I thought, since I’m showing off boring spreadsheets, that I would include a little bit of the MASSIVE spreadsheet we’ve created (well, I’ve created) to keep track of portion prices of all the ingredients we use.

Sorry it's such a rubbish copy of it. I had to paste it into paint!

I colour-coded all the organic items, so you can see the balance. I haven’t really emphasised this in the daily breakdown, however. Maybe I should include it a bit more—especially since the idea was to highlight the fact that we can eat organic food for under £2 a day.

This spreadsheet has been absolutely invaluable. It means that I'm having a slightly easier time (breakfast is super easy now) adding everything up. I don't have to measure most things, just sit at the computer and do some math. No, it's not an amazingly pleasant experience, BUT it's probably the hardest part of the whole £2 a day diet. Not bad, eh?

Day 15 - more super awesome delicious parsnip cakes!!

Monday night rolled around and I was running late from work and only had half an hour at home before I had to run out the door again for to catch a train to a meeting (oh the joys of being part of 5 different groups). Mac hadn't realised how tight time was, so he hadn't started dinner when I got in.

So, on the day when I heard on the news that KFC is expanding in the UK because more people are turning to fast food during the recession, I made my own fast food. And it was definitely cheaper than their chicken zinger or whatever it's called.

Megan's ultra-quick Italian-ish dinner for one -- a VERY expensive 58p!!!
Ingredients
100g pasta (16p)
1T olive oil (10p)
2 cloves garlic (15p)
1/2 tsp oregano (2p?)
1/2 tsp basil (2p?)
1 slice bread (9p)
1T tomato paste (4p)
pinch Italian seasoning (OR garlic powder AND oregano AND basil)
Directions
Heat 2T olive oil on low-medium heat in a frying pan.
Thinly slice or chop garlic and add to oil.
Add herbs as well, stir occasionally, make sure heat is fairly low. Try to cook for 15 min if time allows.
Boil water and cook pasta to instructions (usually 9-13 min depending on type).
Meanwhile, spread tomato paste onto bread and add pinches of seasonings.
Heat in oven at about 160C (yes, I know that's wasteful, but I was hungry!)
When pasta is finished, drain well and add to frying pan and stir to cover pasta with oil, garlic and herbs.
Serve hot.

No, it wasn't amazing. It would have been if I'd added some more spices and let the garlic cook a bit longer, but it was DEFINITELY better than KFC!!

While I was out at my meeting, Mac cooked the dinner I was longing for.... baked pumpkin and sage and parsnip cakes (see day 1 and the raves about the leftovers on day 2)

Baked pumpkin with red onion and sage - 5 servings - 14p per serving, excluding pumpkin
ready in: 1 hour (25 mins Prep - 35 mins Cook)
Ingredients
1 small pumpkin, about 1.6 kg (3½ lb), peeled, seeded and cubed, (RIVERFORD!)
2 red onions, cut into wedges (we used regular onions, 20p)
4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced (30p)
3 tbsp chopped fresh sage (from our garden)
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil (20p)
salt and pepper (1p?)

Directions
Preheat the oven to 220°C (425°F, gas mark 7).
Lay a large sheet of foil on a baking tray.
Pile the pumpkin and onions in the middle of the foil. Alternatively, prepare 4 sheets of foil and cook the pumpkin in individual parcels.
Scatter the garlic and sage over the pumpkin, then drizzle the oil over and add seasoning to taste.
Fold up the foil to enclose the pumpkin, then fold the edges together to seal the vegetables inside a neat parcel.
Bake the pumpkin parcel or parcels for 30 minutes.
Open the foil and bake for a further 5 minutes or until the pumpkin is tender and beginning to brown. Serve hot.
Copyright by The Readers Digest Association, Inc. 2004



Parsnip Cakes - Serves 4 (but we had enough for 5 with the extra ingredients) - 15p per serving for 2 patties per serving (excluding cost of parsnips)
Ingredients
450g (1lb) Parsnips (Mac used 580g - but all RIVERFORD!)
1 large Egg (Mac used 2 medium eggs because we had more parsnips. 44p)
8 tbsp Breadcrumbs (14p)
2 tbsp Flour (2p?)
2 tbsp Melted Butter (14p)
1 pinch Mace (2p?)
Oil for frying (we're using oil that has been used before, and we'll reuse this again)
Salt and Black Pepper (1p?)
Directions
Peel and slice the parsnips, then boil in salted water until tender.
Drain and mash well.
Add flour, mace, melted butter, salt and pepper.
Form into small flat, round cakes.
Dip into the beaten egg, then into the breadcrumbs.
Fry in hot oil until brown on both sides.

Breakfast: Megan had porridge and tea - 13 p and 4p, Mac had nothing
At work: Megan had two cups of tea - 8p, Mac had tea - 3p
Lunch: potato and celeriac leftovers - 17p
Dinner: Megan had her super quick pasta for 58p, Mac had parsnip cakes 15p and baked pumpkin 14p. Megan also had two parsnip cakes and some pumpkin when she got home. 29p :-(
Riverford: 75p
Megan: £2.05 (that's what 2 dinners will do for you. I should have worked out the cost of it before I stuffed my face when I got home!), Mac: £1.24

However, we both got free food in the evening. Mac had someone buy him a packet of crisps (he was at a music quiz and the guy bought the whole team a pack each--I doubt this guy knew about our challenge) and then ate the remains of chinese food someone couldn't finish. I stuffed my face on shortbread that was at my meeting. I had three pieces. I kept apologising saying that other people should have their fair share, but ate it anyway.

Day 14

I was at the seed swap all day on Sunday, and Mac brought me lunch. It was awfully hard seeing lots of really nice cake and pakoras and samosas and not buying any of them. The seed swap was a success, the WEN group got a bunch of sign ups, and Transition Southampton did EXTREMELY well. I was really happy with it.

It was a shame when my day started to suck a bit that night. After dinner I spent a HUGE part of my evening trying to measure and do the maths for the last few days of the challenge. Mac gave up on watching a film with me and went to bed. I gave up on the maths and went to bed too.

The challenge itself is great, but I wish someone else would record it all and work everything out for me.

Celeriac and Potato Gratin-Ish Bake - Serves 4, 69p TOTAL, 17p per serving
I made this up because I didn't like any of the gratin recipes--they were all too expensive, using white wine or cream. We went for a cheap version and added garam masala (an idea from a Riverford recipe, I think) for a different kind of flavouring

Ingredients:
Celeriac (RIVERFORD)
700g (ish) Potatoes (35p)
2 cloves garlic (15p)
1T veg oil (3p)
1T stock (6p)
2 c water
1T garam masala (8p)
Breadcrumbs (enough to cover the top. I just shaved off a loaf of
bread then toasted it) (2p?)
Butter - 25g (13p)

Preheat oven to 180C
Par boil celeriac (cut into potato-sized shapes) and potatoes
While both are boiling, mince garlic and cook in oil until soft (DON'T let it burn!)
Boil water.
Mix stock cubes/powder, water, garam masala and sauteed garlic together in a container.
Remove celeriac and potato from the water and slice both VERY thinly (so don't overcook the potatoes or this will be near to impossible!)
In a casserole dish, layer celeriac, then potato, then add a bit of stock/garam masala/garlic to each layer. Continue layering.
Grate bread into a sandwich tin and place in the oven for 5 min
Remove breadcrumbs from oven and add in a pinch of thyme. Top dish with breadcrumbs and dots of butter.
Bake in over 20min. Can cover if you think the vegetables might not be soft enough. It will probably be fine either way.


Breakfast: porridge. I had it with raisins 13p and Mac had it withjam 17p plus a cup of tea, 4p
Lunch: leftover chili lasagne 55p
Snacks: Megan - 2 cups of tea - 8p and about 3 tortillas that evening 18p, Mac had nothing during the day. Martyr.
Dinner: celeriac and potato gratin-ish bake 17p
Riverford: 75p

Megan £1.90, Mac £1.64