Day 4 - apple juice greed.

Just to give you an idea of part of the process, I took some photos of me making breakfast. Since this is the least complicated meal in terms of cooking and the number of ingredients, it's easier to show the steps involved in keeping track of the costs.
Of course, because we have porridge just about every day, it makes it a little bit easier--it's on the spreadsheet and we've already measured it once. It means this process is a little different to what we do for dinner--then, we usually make the meal and then hope for the best that all the measuring we did won't put us over once I check the spreadsheet.



So, in the morning I measure out 1 1/2 cups of oatmeal for the two of us, and just under three cups of water.














While that's cooking, I get out the bowls and measure exactly 20g of raisins.












Mac usually eats more than I do, so if he's putting the oatmeal in the bowls, he'll weigh and measure them to make sure they are equal or that he has the bigger of the two.





Dinner is about 20 times more complicated, and usually involves somewhere between 20-45min sat in front of the computer comparing the recipe to what was actually cooked and then looking at the spreadsheet, weighing out things we forgot to weigh before (how much does 3/4c of cous cous weigh?) and looking up on the ASDA Online Shop for things we don't know the prices of.

And then of course some days we go over anyway.

Riverford: 77.5p
Breakfast: Oatmeal 13p, Megan had tea 3p
Lunch: Mac: Pasta&Beans with sauce, 40.5p, 1/2 a portion of Rice salad 14p, Megan had mushroom and spinach curry leftovers for 28p
Snack: I'm leaving my job next week, and another co-worker is leaving on Friday. I brought it cakes from the Art House. Cost me a small fortune, but they were delicious. I'm going to count this as an exception to the challenge. Tough.
Dinner: I was going to cook... I was supposed to, but then I ended up being at the Art House for a meeting at 6 and then ended up organising the crafts (I'm partway through...) until 10:15 or so. I kept apologising to Mac (who was there with me using their wireless) and ended up making us dinner from Art House leftovers. We had carrot salad with raisins, walnuts and some vegan mayonaisse, plus a pile of hummus on the side and some salad leaves. Chances are it didn't cost much anyway.
When we got home, since we hadn't spent much, we both splashed out and had a glass of apple juice (49p!!!) and a slice of bread with butter 26p + 4p. This was our downfall.

Totals:
Megan: £2.005... so really £2.01. D'oh.
Mac: £2.24 (and that's WITHOUT any dinner!)
Maybe we should have figured out the rest of the day before we decided to drink super expensive juice. At least we were getting a bit more fruit than usual.

Day 3 - reflections on how Zen-like this all is.

As I was making the crumble last night, I realised that I was never this careful about cooking. I made sure absolutely no oats fell onto the counter. After using my hands to rub in the butter, I spent a good two minutes taking all the oats off of my hands and back into the bowl. I didn't want to waste one bit of that crumble. I think Mac would agree that this challenge makes you focus on food to such an extent that you appreciate it far more. We've started looking with earnest at recipes (well, Mac has. I've been staring at stupid spreadsheets about it) and we're both getting back into the enjoyment of a good challenge.

As much I'll appreciate not having to slave over a scale and calculator once the month is over, there is something to be said for the heightened awareness. I'm hoping that after this month is over, I can convince Mac to try out a 100mile challenge. After realising that it would stretch from Hastings, Bedford, part of Wales(!) and Exeter, I feel a little bit better about trying it out. And, if we were doing that, it would avoid any of the comments about whether we're just trying to save money. Although doing it still on a budget would make it almost like the extreme sport of diets.

Anyway, onto the food:

Wild Rice Salad (from UKTV food)
Ingredients - total: £1.35(5), per portion: 28p
400g long grain and Wild rice, mixed together --48p for rice, wild rice was FREE (way to get stuff after its sell-by date!)
Salt
1 red pepper, finely diced - RIVERFORD
1 green pepper, finely diced (skipped)
1 small red Onion, finely minced - 12p
6 button mushrooms, finely diced - RIVERFORD
10 cherry tomatoes, halved - RIVERFORD
A handful of fresh Coriander, roughly chopped (skipped)
A handful of flat leaf Parsley, roughly chopped GARDEN!!

For the salad dressing:
4 tbsp Olive oil (Rapeseed oil - 60p)
1 tbsp red wine vinegar (4p)
Grated zest and juice of 1 unwaxed Lemons (1T - 3p)
1 tsp Mustard (skipped)
1 tsp Honey (1p)
1 clove Garlic, crushed (7.5p)
black pepper
Total: 75.5. Per portion (we're going to stretch it to 6 portions) 13p

Method

1. Place the rice in a large saucepan. Cover generously with water, season with salt and bring to the boil.
2. Cover the saucepan, reduce the temperature and simmer the rice for 20 minutes until the rice is al dente. Drain the rice thoroughly in a colander and allow to cool.
3. Mix together the cooled rice, red pepper, green pepper, red onion, mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, coriander and parsley.
4. Make the salad dressing by mixing together the olive oil, wine vinegar, lemon zest and juice, mustard, honey and garlic. Season with salt and freshly ground pepper.
5. Pour the salad dressing over the rice salad and toss through. Serve.

Day's Breakdown:
Breakfast 13p
Megan's drinks 3.4p had 0.4p worth of cordial and a cup of tea in the morning 3p
Riverford 77.5p
Mac had one pear, 36p
Lunch - Mac ate for free, Megan spent 9p + 28.5p for beans/sauce on super-leftovers
Dinner 28p per portion

Total before dessert: Mac, £1.55, Megan £1.59 (Mac's pear was just about the same as Megan's entire lunch. Fruit inequality discussion coming soon!)
Dessert was more of the rhubarb and apple crumble for 32.5p and we STILL had money left!
Then Mac made himself a slice of sourdough with butter (carefully weighed to just make the £2.00 mark) and cut Megan a teeny-tiny slice as well.

Total? Somewhere right under £2.00

Day 2 - Mushroom and Spinach curry, Rhubarb and apple crumble

After yesterday's fiasco, in which Mac proclaimed (loudly and often) that he was starving, I can't believe we ate so much!

What's organic? The oats, raisins, spinach, rhubarb, apples, white wine vinegar, green tea at work, beans and tomatoes from last night, and pearl barley.

What was local? The bread impatient Mac ate, the butter in the crumble, the rhubarb, the mushroom stalks, and the spinach and apples (at a stretch).

AND I'm going to bed fairly full having had a dessert.

Mushroom and Spinach Curry - £1.24 total. 31p per serving with leftovers. Taken from Classic 1,000 Indian Recipes
300g mushroom stalks, 82p (See picture. I know you can't tell how many there were, but it was DIRT cheap!)
300g spinach - RIVERFORD
1/2c wild rice (free!)
1/2c barley (about 150g?) O - 23p
3T veg oil 3p
1 inch ginger 5p
1 tsp ground cloves 3p
1/2 tsp chili powder 2p
1 clove garlic crushed 5p
1/2 tsp paprika 1p

Mix together the mushrooms, wine vinegar and honey. Leave to marinade for 1 hour.
Drain off liquid.
Heat 2tsp oil and fry ginger for 30sec.
Add mushrooms, fry 3-4min and remove from pan.
Heat the remaining oil and add spinach, cloves, chilli powder and garlic. Cover and simmer 3-4 min.
Stir in mushrooms, sprinkle with paprika and simmer, stirring, until well blended.

Some of you might be thinking--that's a LOT of white wine vinegar. So, how was it? Alright. Mac didn't like it--he found the vinegar and cloves far too strong. He was also upset that I ruined nice earthy flavours in the barley, wild rice and mushrooms with these overpowering tangy ingredients. He might be right.
I would, however, make it again with a bit more paprika, a little less cloves and vinegar, and over regular rice with a nice chutney on the side.

The Breakdown
Riverford - 83p
breakfast - 13p
lunch - Mac 12p pasta & 28.5p beans/sauce, Megan bulgar wheat, 28.5p beans/sauce
Megan drinking - 2.4p
dinner - 31p
£1.67 after dinner. Not bad!

So then we thought about what we'd like to eat in addition. I ended up making a rhubarb and apple crumble. Lo and behold, it worked out to be 32p. Magic! Of course, the fact that I started making it after dinner and it took 45 min to cook so that I just finished eating my portion at quarter to eleven was a little less than magic. Mac gave up and had a piece of bread with something on it. (definitely less than 32p)

Rhubarb and Apple Crumble
Now, personally, I don't really like mixing my rhubarb with other, inferior, fruits. No rhubarb and strawberry for me. Rhubarb and apple is the same--especially with these too-sweet apples that we have at the moment (it isn't apple season, so I shouldn't be complaining.. . . although I would have happily traded them for some gooseberries... and I don't even know what gooseberries taste like.

So, the crumble got an "ok" from me. However, it was a good way to use up some too-expensive-for-our-diet fruit.

£1.94 total. If 4 portions, it would come to 49p. If 6 smaller portions, 32p. Perfect!
300g of rhubarb (about 88p if I remember the price at the farmers' market correctly)
72p for 2 apples at 36p each (again, approximate. The fruit bag from Riverford is a little hard to calculate)
1/3c sugar (I hope the sweet/tart balance turns out ok!) (6p)
1 1/2c oatmeal (16p)
24g butter (11p)
a dash of nutmeg (1p)

Preheat oven to 180C (350F)
Chop up rhubarb and apples--I usually go for a range of sizes so that some will turn to mush and others will keep their shape
Put in a dish (my quantities are small, so I used a cake tin) and top with the sugar.
In a bowl, mix oatmeal and butter. Rub together with fingers until you get pea-ish sized chunks. Add dash of nutmeg (completely optional)
Add to top of fruit.
Bake 30-45min (depends on size of container)
You know it's done when the liquid from the fruit is boiling.

Winchester Farmers' Market...

...is amazing.
I LOVE it. Rochester and Syracuse farmers' markets are a fading memory. Maybe they were cooler than I remember. Union Square (I think that's where I was?) was pretty cool, but it can't beat Winchester. Winchester's market is run by Hampshire Fare who requires the items sold to be from Hampshire (my county) or within 10 miles of the border. I think that they might stretch that some of the time. . . although my geography isn't great. . . but it would CERTAINLY qualify for a 100 mile diet. I kept forgetting to take pictures. And I missed a great opportunity to take a photo of everything I bought. I guess I'll just have to take more pictures when I go next time (it's every two weeks!)












What did I buy?
- A BIG bag of New Forest charcoal (it's to support people doing coppicing work)
- 5L of Cox & bramley mix apple juice by Hill Farm Juice (that now is just about too expensive to drink on this stupid diet) for £9.75 (better than Copella at that price!)














- bag of potatoes and over a kg of rhubarb from Sunnyfields (the people who are catering our ethical food day!)
- butter from Lyburn Farm--they also make the parmesan-style cheese that is dirt cheap and REALLY nice.
- organic sourdough bread.... which might also now be too expensive for our diet. But it's SOOO delicious (£3.00 for 800g) It's super pretty to look at. Dinner party bread, for sure.
- 500mL of Pratt's extra virgin rapeseed oil. Okay, I need to look into this. We buy it because it's a British alternative to olive oil. Less on the food miles. But then rape is supposed to be really bad for the environment (monoculture, lots o' pesticides). So I need to do some homework. Still, it tastes nice and is a nice bright yellow. And the maker/owner is "lusty" as Hannah put it. Two bargains of the day:
- 250g of asparagus for £1. And it was delicious (even if there wasn't enough of it...)
- 550g of chestnut mushroom stalks for £1.50. I feel like I shouldn't boast about this too much or he'll run out of them. A super bargain, and they worked just as well as whole mushroom caps.

Day 1 (spring/summer) cost breakdown.

I think Mac and I are both thinking right now that we don't want to be doing this challenge. We're both hungry, and have been so ALL day. Hopefully that's from not planning it well, and just throwing things together and hoping for the best.

I've tried to keep hunger at bay by having a tortilla with peanut butter after dinner, but I'm still hungry. Stupid hungry.

Riverford - 83p (We got the "seasonal box" this past week which is more than the small box.... but the small box had more UK produce in it. Go figure)

Breakfast - 12p
Both 3/4c oatmeal (8p), 15g raisins (4p)

At work (only Megan--2.4p)
Megan: 1 cup tea (2p), 2 cordials (0.4p)
Megan's drinking - 2.4p

Lunch: 41.5p
I made this up this for dinner the night before, but liked it enough to have it again for lunch. We also had it with a piddly garden salad made from lettuce, red pepper, bunched onions, and cucumber from our Riverford box AND lettuce from our garden!!!













Potato and Asparagus salad
Chop (into big-ish chunks) and boil potatoes until tender, but don't overcook. Drain and set aside.
Grill asparagus with a little oil or butter. One of those nice ribbed grills that sits on your stove works really well. Have it on medium-high heat and turn them occasionally.
Meanwhile, add equal parts lemon juice and olive oil to a jar, along with some sage or finely chopped garlic. Cover jar and shake it, shake it, shake it, shake it like a Polaroid picture. Mix all together and enjoy. It's good warm or at room temperature. It's also good with grated cheese (but then, what isn't?)

125g potatoes (12p)
125g asparagus (50p)
1T lemon juice (3p)
1T rapeseed oil (15p)

Garden Salad:
vegetables in salad from garden and Riverford
2 tsp cider vinegar (3p)

Dinner (at 40.5p) was haricot bean curry, except it was more like a spicy tomato sauce and we ate it over pasta which made it even more spaghetti sauce. It was good though. But NOT enough food.
We'll need to make more pasta for tomorrow's lunch, but there is enough beans and sauce.

100g pasta (24p) - 12p/person for the pasta, 28.5p/serving of the beans and sauce.
1 tin tomatoes (75p)
1T coriander (3p)
1T cumin (6p)
1T fennel (4p)
1cup cooked haricot beans (16p)
1 onion (10p)

12p for pasta + 28.5p/serving for 4 servings + Mac had bread (8p)
I then had a tortilla with peanut butter on it (it was what was left of some Sunpat Mac's mum bought us, but I'll pretend it's our normal organic stuff for price sake) for 10p + 3p for 16g of peanut butter.

Mac: £1.85, Megan: £1.92. . . . except then Mac then had a piece of bread with Marmite for his remaining amount and I had 35g of raisins. Both of us: £2.00.

Day 1 - Starting all over again. £2 a day diet

I ate lunch 45 minutes ago, and I’m still hungry. I knew that June 1st was coming up, but neither Mac nor I made any preparations for our second try at the £2 a day diet. Oops.

This morning we both went back to the obligatory porridge—I’m expecting that I’ll alternate between bread with either peanut butter OR jelly (although both are relatively expensive… as is the bread) and oatmeal with 15g of raisins. Both the raisins and the oatmeal are organic, bought at near-wholesale prices from the food co-op we belong to. The food co-op is probably what allows us to eat organic so inexpensively.

Is that cheating? If we’re trying to show that this can be done, is it wrong to use a co-op that has limited membership? I don’t think so. There are now guides online for how to set up a food co-op, interviews and advice from those who have done it before, and the internet. If you want a similar deal, find friends & family who feel the same way, and start ordering. You’ll need a few hours a month (or every two months), space to store the stuff, and some organisational skills. Yes, it’s more work than going to the supermarket, but it will save you a boatload in the process.

For this month, I think I’ll try to emphasise the ethical side of things a bit more. I got a lot of reactions from friends and colleagues when I would explain the challenge previously. “Two pounds? Wow, you must be saving a lot of money!” people would exclaim. I’d then have to say that I wasn’t doing it to save money. Why am I doing it? Because I don’t believe that ethical food is outside of most people’s means. If you can afford Sky TV, you can afford to eat ethically. If you can afford a mobile phone, or new clothes once every couple of months, there’s no reason why you can’t buy organic food as well. In fact, the amount that we’re spending (even if you take a conservative estimate of the exchange rate and converted prices of food) is 1/3 of the maximum food stamp allowance allotted to the poorest of America’s citizens.

I am a little concerned that our veg box this time of the year is filled mostly with ingredients for salad. I’m hoping that courgettes (zucchini) are on their way soon. I also need to try to book in that session with the vegan nutritionist to make sure we’re doing okay protein wise.

Lunch, dinner, and number crunching to follow.

Oh, I also need to plan a way to present the information on this diet at the Food for the Future ethical food open day that I’m planning. I want to give a good overview, maybe a few recipes, and say whether or not I think it was successful. Any and all suggestions are wanted!

Weekend away in Brighton

Yes, I know I haven't updated in two weeks plus. I am rubbish. In fact, I am SO rubbish that I've failed at my buy nothing new (I have bought a couple food things in addition to my horrible Snickers) AND I'm almost out of a month's worth of £74.65 and it's six days into the month (I started on the 2nd).

I suck. But, I'm leaving HSBC as a customer for the Cooperative Bank (hooray for banks that let you vote on their ethical policies!) rather than have my money and accounts split between the two. VERY good news. Also, I was away for the weekend and didn't actually spend that much money.

I went to Brighton for the weekend, mostly to see volcano! play an ejectorseat night (they only played three UK dates on this tour and one of them was for Ejectorseat!), but also to hang out with Andy, give him his Christmas present and see some Transition-related stuff.

Andy's Christmas present was that I was going to go to his flat for a weekend and make it a home. This meant cooking from-scratch meals, making him blueberry pancakes, and tidying up. I think I succeeded on all three counts! I arrived on Friday but hadn't told Andy what time I would arrive, so I had an hour and a bit to kill while he bought beer for the Freebutt, the venue where he works (this was an ongoing mission over the weekend).

I spent my time wandering around the laines, and ended up spending £2.30 on old snapshots from a box full of photos in Snoopers' Paradise. When leaving there, I bumped into our former couchsurfers, James and Becky who have been wondering around the world for the past few months. That day they were wandering around Brighton and had just purchased some fudge. We talked briefly about their involvement in Climate Camp in London as legal observers, what they'd been doing in Brighton, and my plans for the evening (I didn't have any). I left them to look for a pie plate as mine has gone missing, but couldn't find one. I was a bit upset that I couldn’t find a pie plate, but a trip to the (stony) beach and my fortune told by a lady who looked a little bit like this:

cured me. She told me to be wary of men with beards. I think that's extremely good advice.

Met up with Andy, but we didn't have time to get ice cream (everywhere was closed!) and I made soup instead. I also did the first of MANY dish washing sessions. I managed to go to bed at 11pm despite the club on the same floor as Andy's flat being open until 1. This meant that I woke up at about 8:15, so I started cleaning. I attacked his kitchen, part of the bathroom (it wasn't that messy), and was washing the kitchen floor when Andy woke up. We had french toast with a syrup I made out of heating raspberry jam and adding a bit of water. I did more dishes.

I had considered going to one or two community farms in Brighton on Sunday to work, but I was still so tired that I thought it wouldn’t be very enjoyable. Hopefully in a couple weeks I’ll head back to see Casiotone for the Painfully Alone and will bring gardening clothes to work then. I think I should also plan to bring cupcakes or something to woo them and convince them to play the Freebutt EVERY time they come to the UK.

Insetead, I also helped Andy start to get rid of all the piles of paper that were needlessly filling his office—mostly on the floor. Nic arrived and (after thanking me for helping Andy clear away so much crap), we took a BUNCH of stuff out to recycle. We picked up postcards and food for the band, (including Tofutti cream cheese—boy was Aaron happy!) tried to buy alcohol except Nic didn’t have any idea and could have been under 18. So Andy bought weird beer from LIDL instead while we stood in line buying other things and pretending we didn’t know each other just in case. We also managed to buy toilet paper, trash bags, tin foil, AND a trash can all for Andy’s flat.

We also got Mexican…. Glorious wonderful Mexican cooked by a really nice Lebanese guy with prices, portions, and quality to rival El Volcan back home. (That’s a SERIOUS compliment)

Getting back, Nic decided cleaning wasn’t sufficient, so she started rearranging things. All of a sudden boxes were unpacked, CDs were stacked and/or put away, shelving was put up, and Andy has a home!!! I wish we had before and after pictures. I made soup and did more dishes. We all ate it, and I did more dishes.

Mac ended up not being able to make a decent train to get to Brighton, so I acted as the better half of Ejectorseat for the evening. I sat on the door, swapping with Andy so I could see Esben and the Witch and Hind Ear (formerly Revenge of Shinobi) and volcano!. I also had to stay on the door while Andy went out again and bought more beer for the venue as they were running out. I thoroughly enjoyed it, although standing in front of one of the speakers was probably not the best idea.

As an aside, here is the story of Esben and the Witch. I loved reading the color fairy tale books (pink, yellow, etc)

The next day I made volcano! the vegan pancakes they specifically had mentioned in their e-mail (thus securing ejectorseat’s position as one of their favourite UK promoters. We had also managed to get just about everything mentioned in their rider, including postcards)

I called Cookability!, a programme that is running in Brighton where people learn to cook—often disadvantaged people. I want to come along to one of their sessions and would LOVE to have something like this running in Southampton—come on council or Primary Care Trust—get your preventative heads on! I thought I might be able to stop by their office or meet up for a coffee to chat about how it works, but she just talked to me on the phone for the next 20 min about it instead. I then had lots more time to help Andy tidy and do little tasks while we waited for gas to arrive so they could have beer on tap in the venue (FINALLY!) and for a guy to look at his hot water heater and proclaim that it was way more expensive than he thought and would take a while. . . . . But then we forgot the troubles of the freebut in a big bowl of frozen yogurt. It was delicious!!! We also went to Ransoms, a wonderful shop that should be an essential in every town—the kind that will cut your keys, or sell you paint, dish towels, hammers, or cake tins. They did not, however, have the right kind of pie plate, despite their selection of about 20 different kind of cake and tart and quiche tins. Oh well.

Monday evening I went to the Sustainability Partnership meeting because I’m weird. Why else would I go to a meeting of councillors, representatives of businesses and other “partners” of the council to listen to them talk about what they are doing in Brighton and Hove? Actually, it was pretty interesting. I learned all about the Sustainable Communities Act (I don’t really understand how this is going to benefit people in practice—it’s a bizarre piece of legislation that will make proposals go on and on for about 2 years) and the new assessment procedures for local authorities. Okay, I found it interesting—I guess it doesn’t translate well into a short summary.

Andy paid for both the Mexican lunch and the frozen yogurt, so apart from buying a pasty so that I didn't die of hunger on my way home, I didn't buy a whole lot of food over the weekend that I didn't make from scratch. This does make me wonder where all my money went, though. I resisted fudge and buying CDs, spent £2.50 that first afternoon, and didn't buy any drinks or even a ticket at the gig. . . . Hmmm...

Anyway, that’s my boring and incredibly long recap of my lovely weekend away. I kinda wish I had taken photos, but I’m rubbish with that.