Day 13 - Homemade Tortillas!!!

I am SO proud of our homemade tortillas. So proud that I was munching on them as a snack for the following days, much to Mac's dismay. Although bean chili is not the most romantic of meals, we started off with a nice breakfast (I went out to the bakery in the morning to get some bread) before I abandoned Mac for my WEN meeting. Then our friends came over and invaded our SUPER messy flat to plan our new allotment.

We hung out at night and watched Alfie (the original one). I kept turning to Mac saying, "Are you SURE he's supposed to be a loveable character?" REALLY bizarre film. It's such a dated outlook on life, but I can't tell what the director/writer was going for--was he criticising this new libertine outlook? This seems a bit early for an attack on "free-love"..... Absolutely bizarre film.

Now, down to our food:


Homemade Tortillas - I watched the instructions (and the recipe) here:
BUT I'm wondering if this might be better.

Tortillas were 6p a piece
4c flour (44p)
1/8tsp baking powder (1p)
1/2c vegetable shortening (30p)
1 1/2 tsp salt (1p?)
1c hot water
Watch the instructions. It's way better than trying to envision it
based on written instructions. Trust me.

Chili Lasagne 54.5p (WAY more expensive than I thought this would be)
Ingredients:
3T veg oil (9p)
1T chili oil (10p) (I would have added more chili... this wasn't spicy enough!)
1c dried black beans (36p--an estimated guess. I brought it back from
the States)
1c dried kidney beans (40p)
1 1/2 onion (1/2 from Riverford, 1 large onion 10p)
2 cloves garlic (15p)
1T cumin (18p)
1 can tomatoes (72p)
2T tomato paste (8p)
water
6-8 tortillas (see above--we used 6 for 36p)

Boil the beans for a couple hours. It certainly lessens the cooking
time if you soak them overnight, but we didn't and they were fully
cooked after about 3 hours.
Roughly chop the onion.
Heat the oil and add the onion. Cook until softened.
Add garlic and cumin, continue cooking 5 min.
Add tomatoes, cook a further 5 min.
Add beans and stir to mix thoroughly.
In a separate pan, heat 2T tomato paste with a pinch of hot chili
pepper and enough water to make a sauce consistency. As you cook this,
you may need to add more water as it evaporates. Don't heat too high
or you'll burn it since there isn't much in the pan. In reality, we
could have added a few more tablespoons of tomato paste, made more
sauce and added it to every layer.
When tortillas are ready, add beans and tortillas to a casserole dish
in layers. On top add tomato paste.
Bake 20min or so.

Both of us £1.99 (phew. that was EXTREMELY close)
Breakfast: 37p, 1 egg (22p), 1 slice bread (9p) 3g butter (2p) (plus Mac had marmite) and 1 tea (4p) It was freaking Valentine's Day. We treated ourselves.

Lunch: 31.5p Cous cous (27p) with leftover sauce 100g onion (3p) withcabbage (riverford) and 1T veg oil (3p) add in leftover sauce from cauliflower
Riverford: 75p
Dinner: 55p Chili lasagne with homemade tortillas! We wanted chili,but had to change the recipe around when we thought we had WAY moretortillas than beans. We were wrong... oops. The tortillas made agreat snack, though. Yay for carbs.

Day 12 - We go to a potluck birthday party

Our friend Nina had a Mad Hatter's Birthday party on Friday. Unfortunately I forgot about the hat part and ended up wearing my fleece/wool hat ALL night which was a bit hot because it was the only one I had.

Mac and I haven't really figured out how we are going to account for the pot luck. I ate a LOT. I ate cheese!!!! Glorious, wonderful cheese!!! Heather was apologising because she didn't have time to make anything, but Mac and I were absolutely over the moon with it. I hadn't realised how much I had missed it!!! I also ate some bean salad, some pesto pasta salad, a nice warm vegetable and cheese-topped bake, a bunch of olives, a cupcake, some mini-rice krispy squares, and probably a bunch more food. Plus two pieces or three pieces of our pizza. DEFINITELY more than our £2 in that meal, let alone that day. Not too much was wasted, which was good. I'm sure whatever was left (some pasta salad, a bit of cake) was eaten after I left.
Needless to say, this kinda screws up our totals.


Breakfast - Megan - three pieces of toast and jam - 15p, tea -3p, Mac - 2 pieces of toast and jam - (4p + 9p) 13p
Lunch - Megan and Mac - leftover beet and broccoli - 41p + couscous from last night 13p
At Work - Megan had a cup of tea - 4p, Mac did too 3p
Dinner - Nina's Mad Hatter's Tea Party - we made vegan pizza with bits we had in the fridge and cupboard. And it was great!
Riverford - 75p

Megan - £1.48 without counting dinner. Mac - £1.45

Quick and Easy Pizza Dough - this recipe came from here but is ever-so-slightly adapted- I LOVE this dough recipe. SUPER easy.
Ingredients
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon white sugar
1 cup warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)

Directions
Combine 2 c flour, salt, sugar, and yeast in a large bowl.
Mix in oil and warm water.
Add in more flour bit by bit to get the right consistency. It might take less than a cup, it might take more. Trust your instincts.
Shape into a ball.
Put in a oil lined bowl. Or just a regular bowl.
Let it sit for 20 min.
Roll out onto a floured surface to the right size -- I usually divide the dough in half and put it on two baking sheets. Keep it fairly thick.
If possible, lightly grease the baking sheets AND add a bit of rough corn meal to the sheet so it won't stick.
Bake at 375 degrees C (190 degrees C) for 10 or so minutes.
Take out, add sauce and toppings.
Return to oven for an additional 15 min (or longer depending on whether you need to cook your toppings further.

While resting the dough, make the sauce and prepare your toppings.
Ultra-cheap sauce (this I made up... normally I'd throw together a nice sauce with chopped tomatoes, let it simmer for 40min with spices, etc. I didn't have that much time)
1/2 a can of tomato paste (maybe 1/4 c? maybe a bit less?)
water (enough to mix well)
1/2 tsp spices (I put in a couple pinches of bread oil seasoning my mom put in my stocking ages ago. Minced garlic, oregano, basil, garlic powder, and chili flakes also work well)
pinch of sugar

We made garlic mushrooms and carmelised onions as our toppings, along with slices of olives. Both are made by thinly slicing the mushrooms & garlic or the onions and heating slowly in oil in a pan for 20-40min. You want to slowly brown them, but have it cook gradually. The onions also had a pinch or two of sugar added to them while they were halfway through cooking which helps to carmelise them.

Day 11 - melt-in-your-mouth cauliflower

The cauliflower was pan fried then baked in the oven to melt-in-your-mouth texture. I loved it. Unfortunately, there wasn't nearly enough of it! We finished the cauliflower for dinner. It had been pan fried then baked in the oven to melt-in-your-mouth texture.

The cous cous was nice and simple, but the balsamic vinegar/sugar/butter/raisin sauce really made it. It went well with the cauliflower AND the cous cous. The only problem was that it congealed overnight and looked REALLY gross this morning. I chose not to include it in my lunch.

Roasted Cauliflower (6p total, 3p per serving!) Cauliflower and sauce recipe taken from this book (I think it's this book...)

Ingredients:
2T vegetable oil (6p)
1 medium cauliflower (RIVERFORD)

Directions
Preheat oven to 180C
Heat 2 T veg oil in a pan on high heat.
Once the oil is heated, add the cauliflower cut into florets.
Keep turning the cauliflower to avoid burning but allow it to brown on the edges.
Remove from heat
Add to baking sheet or roasting pan, drizzle oil from pan on top.
Sprinkle salt lightly on top of cauliflower
Bake until tender.

Balsamic raisin sauce for cauliflower (61p total, 15p per serving)
Ingredients
50g raisins (12p)
75g butter (38p)
2T balsamic (10p)
1 1/2t sugar (1p)

Directions
Melt butter, mix in other ingredients into pan, and keep on low heat. Make about 10-15 min before serving the meal.


Cous cous with cabbage and onion - serves 6 (13p per serving) (Made up by Mac)
Ingredients:
2T veg oil (6p)
1T mustard seed (16p)
1/2 cabbage (RIVERFORD)
pinch chili flakes (2p)
1/2T stock (3p)
1 1/2 tsp chili oil (4p)
1 1/2c cous cous (44p)
Directions
Heat 2T veg oil
Add 1 T mustard seed and cook until crackling.
Chop up 1/2 cabbage into fairly thin slices and add that and a pinch of chili flakes into the pan.
Cook until tender.
In a bowl, add 1 1/2c cous cous with 1/2 T stock, 1 1/2 tsp chili oil and 3c boiling water. Stir the boiling water into the cous cous and allow to sit 10 min.
Once you're about ready to serve the meal, add the cous cous to the cabbage and stir in.


Breakfast - Megan oatmeal - 13p, Mac had nothing
Lunch - leftover beet and broccoli - 41p, Mac had beet and leftover hot pot - (34p + 19p) 53p
At Work - Megan had 3 cups of tea - 12p, Mac had 1 - 3p
Dinner - Really nice roasted cauliflower (3p) Served with cous cous (13p) and a really nice balsamic sauce. wonderful! (15p) for a grand total of 31p
Riverford - 75p

TOTAL: Mac £1.62 - Megan £1.72

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

Day 10 - Good cheap eatin' and recipes

We're back on track!! I'm so happy that we didn't go over today--even WITH me having a flapjack at work and adding seeds and nuts to our dinner. Pretty impressive, right? HOORAY!

Breakfast - Megan oatmeal - 18p, Mac had nothing
Lunch - leftover hot pot - 19p (turns out there was enough for 5 servings)
At Work - Megan had a cup of tea and a flapjack - 21p
Dinner - Purple sprouting broccoli with sesame seeds and garlic (from BBC Food) and Beet, Tamarind and Potato Gratin, 7p + 34p
Riverford - 75p

TOTAL: Megan – £1.74, Mac - £1.39 (I bet he snuck food...or I’m just a sore loser)

Purple Sprouting Broccoli with Garlic and Sesame

- we only had a small amount of broccoli, so it made 4 VERY small side portions at 7p per serving, excluding the cost of broccoli.

It came from here. Here is their picture since I'm so rubbish at food photography.

This recipe does NOT take long at all. I wouldn’t start the actually cooking part until quite close to mealtime, although you can quickly boil the broccoli long before you heat the oil.

Toast 1 T sesame seeds (3p)
Cut the bottom of the broccoli (RIVERFORD). You can eat the leaves and the stems, so don't start trimming off all the stalk. I cut the leaves off and sliced them up a bit before I cooked them. Cut the stalks/florets so that each floret has a stem, if possible.
Boil some water and cook the whole broccoli for 2 min. Immediately drain (unless you're using the water again, which I did)
Heat 2T veg oil (6p).
Add 3 cloves garlic (20p) sliced fairly thin (but NOT minced) and cook until golden.
Add broccoli and mix it in to get it covered in oil. Cook 2-3 min.
Plate up and serve topped with sesame seeds.


Beet, Tamarind and Potato Gratin-ish

- served 5 (at 34p per serving)
I got the idea of mixing beet with tamarind because neither Mac nor I really like the sweetness of beets. BUT, after Mac seemed VERY dubious about my making-up skills, I thought that it might be worth looking at a recipe for a basic idea. I found this when I googled tamarind and beet. I’m glad I was on the right track. I wrote down the proportions for the sauce, ended up making the bulk of it up.

Now, the last time I made a gratin it took flippin’ FOREVER. I’ve decided that potatoes are far more stubborn than I am, and will happily take 1 1/2 hours to bake in a hot oven EVEN when sliced extremely thin. Stupid potatoes. Which is why THIS time, I cooked all of these parts separately before layering them in a dish.

Ingredients
5-6 beets
2 T olive oil (20p)
6 (or so) medium potatoes (10p)
2T veg oil (6p)
3c vegetable broth (4p)
4 heaping T of tamarind paste (see note below!!) (12p)
1 T lemon juice (3p)
2 T honey (we added 1T for 2p)
1 onion (6p)
1-2c of greens (spinach, kale, chard, purple sprouting broccoli leaves, etc)
50-100g walnuts (we used 50g for 31p because of cost)

Wash 5-6 beets (RIVERFORD) and chop off the top and tail. DO NOT PEEL.
Chop them into large-ish chunks (too small and they will shrivel in the oven) and place on an oiled baking sheet. I used chilli olive oil that Katey gave us for Christmas (20p if we use our regular olive oil price).
Roast in an oven at 200C.

Wash and DO NOT PEEL 6 (or so) medium size potatoes. Place in boiling water until tender. Originally I thought that I would try to follow the instructions for stuffing the potatoes, but realised that was a ridiculously time consuming idea.

While both beets and potatoes are cooking, start the sauce.
Add 2T veg oil, 3c of vegetable broth, 4 heaping T of tamarind paste((NOTE: if you buy a big block of paste, the seeds (which are NOT worth eating) are still in it. You can either take them out pre or post-cooking. I recommend post, except then your fingers get slightly singed trying to pick them out of a just-finished-simmering sauce.)), 1T lemon juice (the tamarind is PLENTY tart), and 2T of honey. I only added 1T (our couchsurfers bought us cheapass honey), but, in hindsight, I probably would have added two.
Let the sauce come to a simmer, and happily boil away and reduce down a little bit. You aren’t trying to get a thick syrup, but it helped blend the flavours a bit.

Towards the end of the beet and potato cooking time, heat up 1T veg oil.
Add an onion—-I added 150g of onion (three very small onions) and cook until soft.
I then added half of the purple sprouting broccoli leaves that I had. Spinach, kale, chard, spring greens etc would all work—it was just to add some different flavours. Kale, spring greens and broccoli leaves also add a nice crisp texture, too. Depending on the type of green you are using, you might need to adjust the cooking time here. Kale and spring greens will need a while.

Lightly chop 50-100g walnuts.
Mix together roasted beets, onion/green mixture, and walnuts.
Stir in half the sauce (watch out for those tamarind seeds!).

When the potatoes have finished cooking, drain them and slice. They should NOT be crumbly, just tender.

Lightly oil a casserole dish.
Put in a layer of potato slices, then the beet mixture, and repeat, finishing with a layer of potatoes.
Cover with the remaining sauce.

Bake at 180C (350F) for 20 minutes. Just long enough to finish the potatoes (just in case!) and get the flavours to meld a bit together. I only had about 10 minutes in the oven, but it worked fine.

I was VERY pleasantly surprised with this dish. I had warned Mac and apologised in advance in case it was terrible. It was FAR from terrible-—we both really liked it!

AUGH!

Okay. I'm getting a little fed up with not meeting our goal. I think £2 is totally doable--we've done it more days than not.... It irritates me that I don't think we're putting enough thought into it. I think we are cooking pretty close to what we would normally do, and just assuming that it will be under £2. Probably not smart.

I'm also feeling a little bit stressed with the amount of stuff on my plate at the moment. My to-do lists seem never ending, and I keep having meetings! Maybe I need to calm down and make some more bread.

Day 9 - this time I fail.

Breakfast - Megan porridge and raisins - 18p, Mac had no breakfast but snacked on carrots
Lunch - dhal and a little cauliflower - 75p
At Work - Megan had 1 tea, 1 flapjack - 4p + 17p, Mac skipped the flapjack.
Dinner - hot pot with honey and cumin - 24p per portion (enough for tomorrow)
Riverford - 75p

Megan £2.13, Mac £1.78

PLUS Megan pigged out with free dates, cashews, peanuts, tea AND biscuits at her fair trade meeting this evening. She has no suitable defense for such behaviour.... 'but they were all fair trade!' was her only comment.

Are you beginning to see a pattern here? She would, however, like to point out that all this was provided by people who didn't know she's doing this challenge and was available for all attendees. In addition, she passed up an offer for tea/coffee at Costa coffee on Saturday while at (another) meeting.

I don't know why I'm writing in the third person. It's kinda weird.

Root Vegetable Hot Pot 2 - with honey, cumin and coriander - serves 4
I liked it. Mac thought it was a bit sweet, I think, but I thought it was a nice new way of cooking a hot pot. I'm leaning towards making a fake-curry hot pot. Although now I think I've been put off freaking spices for the duration of this challenge.

3 T olive oil (30p)
2 tsp cumin and coriander seed (12p and 12p)
1 clove garlic (8p)
1 onion (10p)
1 L veg stock (6p)
2 tsp honey (I'm guessing 2p)
300g carrots (we didn't have any)
400g parsnip (RIVERFORD!)
300g Jerusalem artichokes (we didn't have any)
half a small swede (we didn't have any)
300g potatoes (17p)
half a green cabbage (we used 1/4 of a red cabbage - RIVERFORD)

Chop the vegetables (really you don't need to peel ANY of them. Trust me!) into chunks
Finely chop onion and garlic, and roughly slice cabbage
Heat oil and fry spices, garlic and onion until soft.
Add stock, honey and vegetables and simmer about 20min until tender.
Stir in cabbage and simmer 5 min.
Serve with bread or dumplings.