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