Our Fridge

Right, I'm going to cheat and backdate over a week's worth of posts. I apologise for not posting, but I've had the Food for the Future event (photos will be posted!), I was in the newspaper (hopefully a scanned copy of the article will be posted), I had a birthday (photos of BBQ on Sunday will be posted), and I've had three lots of minutes and a report to type up for various groups (none of which will be posted).

So I'm sorry!

Anyway, here's some photos of our fridge and cupboards. It's a TINY kitchen, and I didn't take a picture of the 5kg of rice, 5L of rapeseed oil, and 5kg of haricot beans that sit on the floor of our airing cupboard because there is no other place to put them. I highly recommend buying in bulk, but it IS a bit of a pain.












Here's our shelves. Flours and various things on the top, baked goods on the second shelf on the left, some random seeds and things on the second on the right, and the bottom is tins and condiment type things. There's wholefoods in the other one (nuts on top with some beans, then beans and pulses on the second shelf, and some pasta, rice on the bottom shelf)

We realised early on that we had a) too many oils and vinegars to fit in any convenient place, and b) that we had LOTS of herbs and spices (we often buy in bulk and keep the bags they come in ontop of the bread box. Mac found this drawer that had slots for . . . . stationary? cutlery? I don't know. We turned it on its side (you can see the drawer pulls on the right) and use it as a spice rack. It looks great.

The oils and vinegars sit on one of those things you're supposed to put in your bathroom. It wouldn't fit in our bathroom, but works well in the corner of our kitchen.







Here's our fridge (I couldn't get the door in the shot, and I cut off the mini-freezer that sits on top). It's about the size of a college dorm fridge. With a kitchen this small, nothing else would fit. On Wednesdays (when we get our milk delivered AND our vegetable box) it's a bit of a tight fit, especially if we have lots of leftovers, but we manage okay.

Later this day, I took the kohl rabi out as it turns out they shouldn't be refrigerated. I also keep tomatoes out of the fridge (pictures to follow many posts from now!).

We have a LOT of food at any one time, but 95% of it requires some kind of preparation. Apart from a box of falafel mix (to which you still have to add water, make the patties, and then shallow fry them) and a chocolate chip bread mix I got as a gift, and maybe a couple of sauces, everything is pretty much raw ingredients. It DEFINITELY cuts down on the bills.


Any tips?
BUY IN BULK! Set up a food co-op with friends and family, or see if you can order in bulk from an independent health food shop (Naturally Healthy on Bedford Place is usually willing to order in for people). Get at least 2kg at a time of things you use a lot (for us that's oats, cous cous, rice, and possibly one kind of bean) and 1kg of other things. We bought (months ago!) 800g container of vegetable stock powder. We'll probably have it for almost a year, but it means we won't run out and it was LOADS cheaper than buying those little cubs.

Spices are a MUST for buying in bulk. Find your closest world food/ethnic/halal whatever they call it shop and buy it in bulk. People say not to use spices after 6 months because they'll lose their flavouring, but if you cook them in oil it will usually perk them right up. Plus, if you get whole spices (cumin, coriander, mustard seeds, etc) and grind them as and when you need them, they'll keep a LOT of their flavour.

ALWAYS STOCK UP - If you want to save money, always have a lot of staples (and I include a range of oils, vinegars, spices, pulses, grains, pasta, cans of tomatoes, quorn/TVP mince, vegetable stock powder, ginger, butter, and garlic in the word "staples") on hand. It means you won't be so tempted to buy a jar of something or a frozen meal because you know you have at least something that you can make. Plus, it helps bring a bit more of a routine to your shopping so that you can start skipping certain aisles which will really help you save money.

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 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.

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?

Some thoughts from the field....more like a nutrition rant?

We’re on day 11 at the moment. This is when the original One Dollar Diet people started to lose heart. Kerri said at the start of her post that day, “Today was the first day that I really felt like asking, ‘Aren’t we done yet?’”

How are we doing? There are a lot of things that I wish I could eat. I get cravings for cake, chips, crisps, cheese, pizza, and probably other stuff. I’ve had a horrible urge to buy a Snickers from the vending machine a couple times while at work. BUT, am I feeling rubbish? Am I waiting for this month to be over? Do I feel that I’m lacking something? No, not really. I get hungry in between meals, but I always do. I probably need to think of some good cheap snacks that I can eat, but it’s not too bad. Maybe I could alter my biscuit recipe to include honey or a tablespoon of maple syrup and a few walnuts spread throughout the batter…. I don’t know. Something would be nice because I’m more of a grazer than a 3-square-meals kinda gal.

I’ll have to ask Mac to weigh in on how it’s going. He said the other day that he thought he was wasting away from not eating any dairy, but I think he’s full of it.
I do think there is probably a BIG difference between £2 spending power in the UK and $1 in the US. We’re probably eating bigger meals, which is helping. BUT we’re also focusing on the quality of the food more—that’s why the bar was set at £2 instead of £1—we wanted to keep our organic veg box. Kerri and Christopher did an amazing job with what they had. It’s a shame that they won’t share their month’s of meals because they say it’s not nutritious and potentially dangerous". I wish they had added to that comment by saying that nutrituious and inexpensive meals ARE possible, but for a bit more than $1 a day (a quote I read recently said that average food stamps allow for about $3 a day, and some people are eligible for $5 a day… not that I would claim that being on $3 a day on food stamps is easy, but surely it begs the question as to why more nutrition education isn’t out there.)

Talking about nutrition education, I found this bookletfrom the USDA. It’s for healthy, inexpensive meals. They give recipes AND two weeks’ worth of meal plans.

Awesome, right?

EXCEPT they want people to eat meat twice a day. Honestly?!?!?

Beans/lentils/legumes are SOOOO much cheaper per portion than meat, and provide just as much protein. The USDA should be split into a number of separate groups so that the pressure from the agriculture (and, in particular, meat) industry doesn’t interfere in their advice to consumers. It’s a shame that all these people are being told they have to eat meat 12 out of 14 lunches and dinners to have a balanced diet.

Recommended daily protein requirements for women is 45.0g and for men it’s 55.5g. (This is something I've worried about a litle because we're not eating as much cheese. . . well, not eating ANY cheese) Eating tons of meat isn’t necessary to get those amounts. And if you’re seriously on a budget, you might skip fruits and vegetables (with important vitamins and minerals) because you spend too much on meat. Not to mention the fact that cheap meat (the only kind available on a tight budget) has SOOOO many environmental and ethical problems. Seriously NOT happy with that booklet.

Just to give you some facts, here is a chart (that I cobbled together) that goes through major forms of nutrition. The site on nutritiondata.com not only looks super high-tech, but it's full of useful statistics AND can tell you about a food's amino acids (whether it's a complete protein or not). Most things are 100g.... but some (1/2 pint, 2 slices of bread etc) I took what was on the original list. . . . oops. Check someone who knows their stuff for better information!


http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/healthy_living/nutrition/healthy_protein.shtml
www.vegsoc.org/info/protein.html

www.nutritiondata.com

Someone else's cheap food list

I found the list below from this site, but I have a few comments about some of it. It is for food that is under $1 per serving. Since we’re limited to £2 a DAY, this is a list of cheap foods, but not all will fit our needs.

• Oats High in heart-healthy soluble fiber, oats are a quick and tasty meal. A dollar will get you more than a week's worth of breakfasts. [I am definitely having these EVERY breakfast—a bowl of cereal is more than double the price!]

• Eggs. About a dollar for a half dozen, eggs -- once given a bad rap for high cholesterol -- are now back in the good nutrition fold. [I’ll have to look into whether we can afford these. It would be nice to have add them to meals]

• Kale. Roughly a dollar a bunch, kale and other dark leafy greens are packed with nutrition. [Depending on where you look, I bet you can get greens cheaper. I’ve heard good things about ethnic food shops. There are LOADS of places not too far from us that sell fresh produce, and usually Halal meat as well. PLUS, at least in the UK there is some kind of green in season just about all year long.]

• Potatoes. As long as you don't fry them or slather them in fatty condiments, potatoes can be a part of a nutritious diet. Sweet potatoes have the added benefit of beta carotene.

• Apples. Most varieties are very inexpensive and can satisfy a sweet tooth with their crunchy goodness.

• Nuts. A great source of healthy fats, nuts might seem expensive, but since their portion size is small, many varieties (such as peanuts, walnuts and almonds) land well under a dollar per serving. [Our organic walnuts aren’t TOO expensive by the kilo, so I think we’ll be able to chuck them into things. Cashew nuts and pine nuts are another story.]

• Bananas. High in potassium and fiber, bananas are a nutritious and inexpensive food. [Yeah, but they are flown halfway round the world! I found out recently that they are the UK’s most consumed fruit. SERIOUSLY? They have gorgeous British apples and pears almost all year! If you want something exotic, oranges from Spain are
  good!]

• Chickpeas. Beans, in general, are a healthful and ridiculously-cheap food. Plus, they're a great protein-rich replacement for high-cost meat. Garbanzos are a versatile and healthful choice. [We’ll probably be eating a LOT of these. We also have red kidney beans and haricot beans. All dried, all organic, all cheap.]

• Broccoli. Delicious raw or cooked into a wide variety of meals, broccoli is well under a dollar per serving.

• Watermelon. Per serving, watermelon only costs a few dimes. It's great for hydration and contains nutrients such as vitamin C and lycopene. [DO NOT EAT THIS IF IT’S NOT FREAKING SUMMER!
  HONESTLY!]

• Wild Rice. A little more costly than white rice, wild rice is well worth the extra cost in nutrition and flavor. And it's still less than a dollar per
  serving. [It is WAY more expensive and is NOT rice. It's best if you cook a little separately to rice and added in with regular rice]

• Beets. Barack Obama may not like them, but hopefully you do! Beets are powerhouses of nutrition and low cost to boot. [Get them from a world food shop that might include the greens, too! Roast the beets to give it a fuller flavour, and the greens can be cooked just like
  spinach]

• Butternut Squash. In season, squash is usually under a dollar per pound -- especially if you find it at a local farmer's market.

• Whole-Grain Pasta. Refined pasta is relatively void of nutrition. But
  whole-grain varieties are a welcome addition to any
  diet.

• Sardines. I can't stomach them. But if you're a sardine fan, they're an
  inexpensive and healthful food to enjoy. [Ewwwwww]

• Spinach. Another dark green and leafy vegetable, spinach is a great source of vitamin C and iron. [Can be expensive, especially if it’s organic. I’ll be looking for this at the Farmers Market in two weeks]

• Tofu. While some people question if tofu is a good choice, in moderation, tofu is a healthful and inexpensive protein
  replacement. [Bought from the Asian market in St Mary’s, I think it’s awfully cheap. It’s not as popular in the UK, though so it can be a bit expensive in the supermarket.]

• Lowfat Milk. Per serving, milk is still well under a dollar. Let's hope the prices don't continue to rise, though. [Again, it’s too expensive for our needs. And we only buy organic. That raises the price from 74p or so to 90p. Not as bad as in the States where it DOUBLES in
  price.]

• Pumpkin Seeds. Hopefully you enjoyed some free pumpkin seeds from your Halloween jack o' lantern. But even the store bought varieties are low cost. [We have plenty of pumpkin seeds and sunflowers. If they aren’t too expensive, we might roast some with soy sauce for a snack. It’s a shame they are so moreish!]

• Coffee. It's crazy-expensive if you buy it at a specialty coffee house but if you brew your own, coffee is less than 50 cents a cup. [I don’t know how much ours costs yet. Mac doesn’t drink it that often, so I might not have to find out. I bet it’s WAY less than 50 cents a cup, though, and that’s with it being Fair Trade.]