Thoughts on the last day

First, every word with an 'l' or an 'o' hits the blister i gave myself earlier today while making flan... I've got to stop using these words.

First off, MONEY. We have $0.23 left. According to our receipts for grocery's for this month, we spent $46.90. The balance consists of food i bought from myself. I started out the month with eggs, butter, onions, and the like that i didn't want to go to waste, so i noted how much they were at the places i shopped (1lb butter=$1.99 @ wegmans; 18 eggs=$1.59 @ h-mart), and took the money out of the envelope.

If we do this again next year (and i think we will), i'm going to change one thing. We're going to start the month off with a USDA food supplement box. I'll have to confirm with some people, but i've packed these things before and i remember a 5lb bag of flour, a quart of vegetable oil, a jar of gov. peanutbutter, a big can of peaches, potato flakes, and a couple of other things i can't remember. I'm not sure what i'd do with the flakes (besides using it to coat some chicken into chicken strips...), but everything else would be EXTREMELY useful. I figure, if you're livin off if a dollar a day, then you probably get some government help...

There are a few things I made this month that I wouldn't have tried otherwise. we've been eating pasta carbonara for the past couple of nights and it's been pretty good. when all you have left is eggs, milk and pasta (garlic and parmasean help!), it's a pretty good option. The other is tempura (although i can't wait to try a beer batter next time), and tofu in brown sauce.

I'm a much better baker than i realized. especially when it comes to muffins. they're awesome. You can freeze the batter in the muffin cups and just bake what you need that morning. So every morning you get FRESH muffins! yaaaaay! i think these are going to be breakfast from now on.

This is the first time in many many years where i've run out of garlic. I ALWAYS have garlic. But from now on I'm not going to buy pre peeled garlic. I'm just goiing to buy it by the head and peel it and store it in a container when I get home. It's cheaper and much less wastefull.

A few words about waste. I'm going to make a committment to myself to try and eliminate food waste in our home. Herbs can be frozen for later and vegetables can always find a home if you bought more than you need. Most importantly, milk never needs to go bad. If you want to buy a gallon or half gallon, just save what you think you'll want to keep in it's original form and make something else with it. Paneer is soooooo easy to make, and dishes that feature it are delicious. Yogurt is easy to make too (especially if you have the little $25 machine). From yogurt you can make lebene - which i LOVE. You'll never need to buy sour cream again. Almost every fruit you don't want can be baked or reduced into a topping. These are things humanity has learned over thousands of year, but it's only taken a generation or two for modern society to forget. We definitely take the things we can just go out and buy in the grocery store for granted.

Anyway, all of the typing is making my blister kinda crazy, so i'll sign off for now. I'll update when I can.

Worst Blogger Ever

I'm the worst blogger ever. I'm going to try and put up a list of what we ate on what days, to try and catch up. After I realized that we wouldn't need to change the rules of the game in order to keep ourselves from wasting away, I just kinda KNEW that our nutritional needs were being met...I know, I know, that sounds like a poor excuse. Anyway, I'm going to try and get a list going, then I'll fill in the blanks with the ingredient lists and nutrition information.

Tomorrow is the last day and we have $0.23 left!

Day 13 - Totals

Breakfast: Ginger muffins
Lunch: Tofu and green beans
Dinner: Tofu and green beans

Day 12 - Totals

Breakfast: Biscuits and Honey
Lunch: Black beans and rice
Dinner: Tofu and green beans

Day 11 - Totals

Breakfast: Biscuits and Honey
Lunch: Black beans and rice
Dinner: Black beans and rice

Day 10 - Totals

We had pancakes for breakfast, focacci for lunch, and black beans and rice for dinner!

Day 9 - Nutrition goodness again!

So this was MY day to break 2000 calories. I had forgotton how caloric the foccacia is. Here are the results:

Me:
Calories: 2250.36
Protien: 41.3
Fat: 86.77
Carbs: 336.97
Fiber: 21.48
Sodium: 3929.27

Chad
Calories: 1765.69
Protien: 64.7
fat: 26.54
Carbs: 321.51
fiber: 45.11
Sodium: 4385.38

Day 9 - Black Beans and Rice

I actually didn't get to eat any of the blackbeans. If I had been smart, I would have put them in the crockpot that morning, then had them ready by the time we go home. Nope, so I made about 30 green bean tempura (chad ate half of them as a snack), and ate them with rice, sauce and sesame seeds.

Chad got the blackbeans. They needed to keep simmering for 30 minutes after I left for work, so I just gave him a time and told him to taste them before turning them off. He did and they turned out pretty well:

1/2 lb dried black beans (picked over for stones and soaked over night)
1 tbl butter
2 tbl olive oil
1/2 large onion - med dice
3 cloves pressed garlic
1 tbl cumin
1 tbl crused red pepper
2 tsp ground black pepper
2 tsp cardamom
1 tbl salt
2 tbl liquid smoke (kinda smells like bacon ;)

Makes 6 servings. Per serving:
Calories: 313.25
Protein: 19.03
Fat: 3.5
Carbs: 52.57
Fiber: 21.03
Sodium: 1180.78

Day 9 - Lunches

Today for lunch Chad had the last of the Tahina chicken over rice, and I had about a quarter of the foccacia that I baked this morning with olive oil and salt. Nothing too exciting, especially since three of my coworkers went to jaipur! ARGH.

Day 9 - Apple Muffins, again.

I baked 4 more muffins this morning, as well as some plain foccacia for myself. After this, we have one muffin left. I wonder what I'll end up doing with it. Right now it's just sitting in the freezer.

Day 8 - Nutrition Awesomeness

This was the highest caloric intake day for either one of us. Chad even managed over 2000 calories! Yaaaaaaaaaay! If I can keep this up, then we might not need to change the rules.

Me:
Calories: 1881.7
Protien: 45.17
Fat: 31.39
Carbs: 355.66
Fiber: 27.61
Sodium: 3299.3

Chad:
Calories: 2372.39
Protien: 87.71
Fat: 61.06
Carbs: 368.59
Fiber: 35.28
Sodium: 3381.32

Day 8 - Tempura Dinner

Today I was planning on making us black beans and rice. Well, about halfway through the workday I realized that 1. i forgot to buy black beans, and 2. they need to be soaked overnight. ARRGH! But then I remembered that I still had a coupon for h-mart. 1lb string beans for $.50. I'd pick up the black beans then too. There was rice at home too, so we'd still have rice and beans for dinner, but they'd be green instead of black. So I started looking around online for things I could do with the green beans when I found a recipe for tempura green beans. That would be perfect! We'll just have a little light Japanese dinner. Of course, the batter in the first recipe called for light beer. Well, we just can't afford to buy a beer right now. Then I found one that called for corn starch instead of beer. Well, I have plenty of corn starch as a staple at home, I figured that would work. The recipe was for tempura tofu and green beans, so I decided to check out the price of tofu at the store, and if I thought we could afford it, I'd get some.

I had forgotten how cheap tofu is. There's a brand at H-Mart that's only $0.99/lb. So I bought it with the plan of prepping a quarter of it for the tempura, and saving the rest for when the blackbeans and rice ran out. That's exactly what we did. The whole thing took almost no time in prep besides mixing the batter and cutting the tips off of the beans, and it was pretty good too!

The Batter - I halved the below, and only ended up using a third of it. I just put it in a container in the fridge when I was done.
1.5 cups flour
.5 cup corn starch
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp salt
.25 tsp ground black pepper
1.75 cups ice water

Sauce - There was a lime/soy sauce recipe that I ended modifying a little bit (mainly because it was too tart!)
6 tbl soy sauce
.25 cup lime juice
1 clove garlic, through press
1 tsp crushed red pepper
1 tbl honey (or two packets from starbucks ;)

Nutrition - really kinda suprised me. Maybe it's because the tempura is fried that this meal had such a high calorie count, but it all ended up pretty good:
For 1 serving rice, 2 tbl sauce, 1 tbl sesame seeds, 15 tempura green beans, and 2 slices tempura tofu slices:
Calories: 1064.19
Protien: 28
Fat: 16.76
Carbs: 201.23
Fiber: 19.05
Sodium: 2075.59

Day 8 - Leftover Lunch

For lunch I had the last of the leftover thai chicken curry and chad had half of the last of the tahina chicken stew. yum. we might not be able to go out for lunch right now, and we're on a super tight budget, but my coworkers still get jealous of the food we bring in. Usually, I let them eat the leftovers from the night before, but not this month!

Day 8 - Apple muffins!

Well, I had only planned on having 1.5 muffins each for the whole week. But since we had pancakes the day before, which saved us three muffins, I decided that we could each have 2 muffins for breakfast every morning. That extra half of a muffin, even though it wasn't very big, made a huge difference for me.

Day 7 Nutrition

Here are our totals for the day:
Me:
Calories: 1646.52
Protien: 36.75
Fat: 22.07
Carbs: 321.13
Fiber: 16.13
Sodium: 2067.78

Chad:
Calories: 1688.27
Protien: 53.77
Fat: 31.97
Carbs: 296.35
Fiber: 18.41
Sodium: 3028.2


Kind of an average day...

Day 7 - Leftovers for Dinner

We both had thai chicken curry for dinner again. Chad didn't really complain about having to eat it again, but I know that it was a welcome change from rice with ponzu and sesame. much more filling.

Day 7 - Lunch

Chad took the leftover chicken curry to work for lunch. I was supposed to eat leftover tahina chicken stew with rice. but when the rice was ready, all i really wanted to eat was that with sesame and ponzu... so that's what i did.

Day 7 - Breakfast!

Well, it was snowing and everyone would be running late. I had a telecommute day planned anyway, so when I got up, I decided that instead of baking the frozen muffins, I would make us pancakes!

check out Day 3 Breakfast for the info on my pancakes. =)

This is NOT a diet

Chad and i have both lost 4 pounds in the last 7 day. I knew we were going to loose weight, but this is ridiculous. Everyone I've talked is worried and wants us to stop. If it were just me, then I'd consider pressing on, even with some damage to my health. I'm just that stubborn. However, I won't drag Chad down with me. I'm going to marry this man at the end of September, and I don't think his mom would appreciate me starving him in the meantime. We're going to asess our situation on sunday, and if the forecast is bad, we're going to change the rules.

Basically, if it looks like we're going to keep loosing at this rate and send our bodies into starvation mode, then we're going to allow all food that is already in the kitchen into play. However, any new items will have to be paid for out of the $56 budget. If we do that, then we should have no problem keeping to the costs down and the calories up. I have so much food hanging out in the pantry and the freezer that we should have no problems whatsoever.

We'll decide on Sunday.

Day 6 - Nutrition info

Here's the breakdown:

Me:
Calories: 1568.3
Protein: 65.21
Fat: 34.69
Carbs: 244.99
Fiber: 21.66
Sodium: 768.99

Chad:
Calories: 1568.3
Protein: 65.21
Fat: 34.69
Carbs: 244.99
Fiber: 21.66
Sodium: 768.99

Day 6 - curry lunch and dinner

well, one of the things that i really love about yummy chicken curry is that you can eat off of it for days. we both had it for lunch and dinner today, and will probably do the same tomorrow, if not on thursday too! we'll see what happens =)

Day 6 - Apple Muffin Breakfast

So when I went to h-mart yesterday I got two red delicious apples for $.50. I figured that they best way to make them stretch was to turn them into apple muffins. I made the batter monday night, poured them into a muffin paper lined muffin pan, then froze them over night. This way, I could just pop them in the oven before work and they'd be ready by the time to go!

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cup flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
cinnamon (i never measure cinnamon - i just run it agains my microplane until i think there's enough. there's never enough! i think i used 2 tablespoons. The recipe called for 1 1/2 teaspoons. hehehehehe)
2 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/4 cup grated apple
1 tbl lime (this is my addition because there's no tartness to red delicious apples like there are for a green baking apple like a granny smith)
5 tbl melted butter

Nutrition (per muffin):
Calories: 163.3
Protien: 2.62
Fat: 5.33
Carbs: 27.25
Fiber: 1.15
Sodium: 324.1

Day 5 - nutrition

today was our best day yet! hoooraaaaay!

Me:
Calories: 1608.55
Protein: 67.07
Fat: 36.86
Carbs: 248.47
Fiber: 21.19
Sodium: 931.79

Chad:
Calories: 1715.5
Protein: 69.24
Fat: 40.67
Carbs: 265.1
Fiber: 21.67
Sodium: 1175.14

Day 5 - Yummy Chicken Curry

Now, what I've got below is more like yummy curry light. mainly because i didn't put in nearly as much vegetables as i usually do. just couldn't afford them this time. the chicken's only in there because it was in the freezer.

Ingredients:
Massaman curry paste
1 lb broccoli
3/4 lb potatos, large dice with skin
2 tbl peanut butter
1 can coconut milk
8 oz chicken, sliced

Nutrition per serving with rice:
Calories: 479.11
Protein: 10.87
Fat: 3.88
Carbs: 98.18
Fiber: 6.13
Sodium: 115.34

Day 5 - Leftover breakfast and lunch

Not much more to say to it than that. Today I'm going back to H-Mart to take advantage of the 'happy hour' coupons i have. $.50/lb for apples and broccoli! Hooray for green vegetables!

Day 4 - Nutrition sadness

Well, Sunday was our worst day yet for caloric intake. We skipped a meal and that did us in. Of course, we didn't FEEL that hungry. Sigh. Here's the breakdown.

Melissa:
Calories: 962.64
Protein: 32.36
Fat: 29.94
Carbs: 137.39
Fiber: 10.29
Sodium: 1368.43
This is HALF of what a person's daily intake should be, on all factors. ugh.


Chad:
Calories: 1420.42
Protein: 61.47
Fat: 46.29
Carbs: 187.31
Fiber: 15.97
Sodium: 1712.78

Chad had more dinner than I did, so at least he had more protein.

Day 4 - Zatar Chicken in Tahina sacue, served over Quinoa

Let's talk a bit about the ingredients found in yesterday's dinner (and today's lunch ;), since there are a couple of things in the title up there that many people haven't heard of.

Zaatar is middle eastern oregano that's dried and usually mixed with sesame. I found out about it when I lived in Israel, and now hummus doesn't seem right without it. I really also like to eat it on a lavash thats been spread with Lebne and sprinkled with zaatar. It's delicious.

Tahina is probably the most recognizable to people. It's ground sesame paste (like peanut butter), and is a key ingredient in hummus. I decided to add it to the marinade and stew in order to up the calorie count for today.

Quinoa is something that more people should know about. You can find it for $1.99/lb in may places (look for it in bulk bins), and has a better protien string than any grains or legumes (it's actually a small seed). Quinoa cooks up almost just like rice, and kinda looks like couscous. Actually, I used to make this dish to go over couscous, but then I discovered quinoa and prefer it's nutty flavor and high nutritional
value.

Recipe:
8oz chicken, cubed
(marinade)
1 tbl lime juice
2 tbl zaatar (regular oregano if you can't find zaatar)
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp tumeric
3 cloves garlic through a press
1 tbl olive oil
2 tbl tahina

2 med carrots, med. dice
2 yellow squash, coined
1 pound, small head of savoy cabbage
1/2 large onion, med dice

Makes 7 or 8 servings
Nutrition per serving
Calories: 175.41
Protein: 13.47
Fat: 6.72
Carbs: 16.64
Fiber: 2.6
Sodium: 50.5

Quinoa nutrition info (we had cooked half cup servings):
Calories: 318
Protein: 10
Fat: 4
Carbs: 56
Fiber: 6
Sodium: 16

Day 4 - The Biscuits that weren't

weren't? weren't what? Well, let's just say that my first forray into biscuit making left them a little flat. I rolled them too thin. There were a couple that looked like they were on their way to being grown up biscuit, most of them didn't make it... Oh well. Since I put a little cinnamon sugar glaze on them, they actually ended up tasting like palmire cookies. I guess that's better than nothing right. =)

Rolled Biscuits - made 38 (that should have been my first clue - the recipe said 24)
1 3/4 c flour
1 tbl baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
4 tbl cold butter
3/4 milk
cinnamon, sugar, and a little milk for the glaze

Nutrition per biscuit! (i had 8, chad had 11):
Calories: 35.65
Protein: .72
Fat: 1.27
Carbs: 5.54
Fiber: 0.16
Sodium: 81.12

Since it was Sunday we only had the biscuits for brunch, and dinner. With a snack of the leftover lavash in between. Probably not a good idea to skip meals....

Day 3 Dinner - Chicken and Lentil soup with LAVASH

I love lavash. It's easy and yummy, like most good flatbreads. It doesn't require any yeast, and when I make it, I don't usually let it rest without rolling it out. Here's the info. We ate it with the rest of the Chicken and Lentil soup.

Here's the ingredients for 2 loaves. I cut it in half when I made it yesterday.
bread
1 3/4 cup flour
1/3 butter (a little cooler than room temp)
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp sugar
2/3 cup water
1 1/2 tbl beaten egg

topping (get's spread on the loaves before they go in the oven)
2 tbl butter (melted)
1 tsp salt
2 tbl sesame seeds
4 cloves garlic (through a press)
2 tsp red pepper flakes

Nutrition for one serving, the above makes 8
Calories: 184.3
Protein: 3.1
Fat: 9.5
Carbs: 20.39
Fiber: .43
Sodium: 652.98

Aaaaand? It's yummy. =)

Day 3 - Total Nutrition

For Me:
Calories: 1558.38
Protein: 70.52
Fat: 37.25
Carbs: 237.18
Fiber: 24.99
Sodium: 2883.02

For Chad:
Calories: 1856.66
Protein: 74.77
Fat: 45.37
Carbs: 288.48
Fiber: 24.99
Sodium: 4624.64

Today we got plenty of protein, fiber and sodium. Probably too much sodium actually. Oh well. I'm also very glad that we made it through the day without having to buy any groceries. That won't be the case today, i have to buy potatoes and carrots. I hope to keep that to under $2 though.

Day 3 - Lunch at work

I took some leftover Chicken and Lentil soup in to work yesterday it was, of course, yummy. =)

I have a part time job at a Sur La Table. For people who aren't familiar with it, it's basically a fancy kitchen store. We carry a huge variety of things. While we have some pretty expensive items, we also have a lot of items that are under $5.

So all day long I talk to people about food and cooking. Friday afternoon I was worried that it would difficult for me because 1. I'd be running around, climbing up and down ladders, and burning calories, and 2. I'd be talking about food and cooking all day long. But I was okay, and I only had to work until 4pm, so we had time to come home and relax a little bit before dinner.

I think my body has gotten used to the foods and portion sizes we're eating - Chad's too. We've both lost a little weight, but since our sugar intake is way down, I'm not suprised. I hate not being able to snack on mixed nuts though, especially since they're still in their jar in the kitchen, but the self dicipline is good for me, right?

Day 3 - Pancakes for breakfast!

I've always used the Krusteaz pancake mix, and while I've got plenty of it left, I decided to try and make them from scratch. I really preferred the flavor and the consistancy. It was a little different to work with, but they seemed to be a little bit sweeter, and with a better, crisper 'skin.'

Ingredients:
3/4 cup flour
1 1/2 sugar
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup milk
1 1/2 tbl butter
1 egg
1/4 tsp vanilla

I served them with 2 pats of butter and some maple syrup. Yummy, and very filling. I had 3 and chad had 5. =)

Nutrition Per serving (including a little butter and syrup):
Calories: 149.14
Protein: 2.63
Fat: 4.06
Carbs: 25.65
Fiber: 0
Sodium: 370.81

Day 2 - Nutrition totals

I'm really really really glad that we got enough protien today. Here's the breakdown:

Chad:
Calories: 1468.1
Protein: 58.62
Fat: 25.73
Carbs: 247.7
Fiber: 21.83
Sodium: 1058

Me (melissa):
Calories: 1416.8
Protein: 50.62
Fat: 14.63
Carbs: 267.6
Fiber: 26.83
Sodium: 2025.25

Day 2 - Chicken and Lentil soup for dinner! Yay!

Oh dinner, I'm soooo glad that you were able to get our protien and fiber intakes near or over 100% for the day. Soooo happy.

I love chicken and lentil soup. The way I make it yields 6 servings, so we'll be able to have it for 3 meals. Yay. I splurged and bought chicken. 2.5 lbs of chicken breast for $6 at HMart. Ouch, that hurt - three complete days of food. but since the recipe only took 5.5 ounces of that chicken, I still have 2.16 pounds to work with for upcoming meals. I think at least 1.5 lbs may have to go into the freezer on Sunday if I'm going to strech these birds (yes birds, there are at least 3 breasts, and I hope I'm not eating some kind of new, mutant chicken)

Anyway, here it goes:
1 cup rice
2 cups red lentils
5.5 ounces chicken breast
1/2 large onion, small dice
3 cups veggie stock (I drained some of the liquid from the veggie stew for stock)
water (there's no amount because you just keep adding it while cooking until the consistancy is right)
tumeric, cumin, salt, red pepper flakes, to taste


Nutrition, per serving:
Calories: 463.47
Protein: 29.77
Fat: 7.78
Carbs: 69.92
Fiber: 12.28
Sodium: 1058

I like to garnish mine with lime juice. but i don't feel like counting it in the totals. More later =)

Day 2 - Lunch and thoughts

I'll get the boring stuff out of the way. We both had the leftover veggie stew and rice from yesterday.

I'm pretty sure that it's because I'm obessing over food all of the time, but I've got this dull hunger in my stomach that I pretty much have to ignore. But since I've always have to think and plan about the next meal, food is just always on my mind. My mouth constantly waters because I'm constantly looking through my cookbooks. Even though our caloric intake is low, I know we're getting enough to eat. But it's just always on my mind. Ugh. I really hope this passes soon. Next up, dinner and the total nutrition count for Friday!

Day 2 - Breakfast

Popovers and Rice

I had the day off yesterday, but I still got up to make sure that Chad got a good breakfast. I halved a popover recipe and i think they turned out okay.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup milk
1/2 tlb butter
1/2 cup flour
1/8 tsp salt
1 egg, beaten

Next time I make these, I've got to remember to grease the bottom of the custard cups thouroughly. I had a hard time getting them out.

And now for the nutritional breakdown.

Calories: 411.3
Protein: 17
Fat: 14.1
Carbs: 53.1
Fiber: 0
Sodium: 2458

I had rice with Ponzu sauce and sesame seeds (good for you!) for breakfast. Ponzu sauce is basically soy sauce with a little lemon juice. It's nice and tart, and doesn't taste too salty. I prefer it to soy. Here's the nutritional breakdown:

Calories: 360
Protein: 9
Fat: 3
Carbs: 73
Fiber: 5
Sodium: 920

That is all for now! Stay tuned for lunch and thoughts

day 1 - nutritional intake

Chad and I pretty much split our meals down the middle, so for day one, our intake will be the identical

Foccacia (we split the loaf in two...ok, maybe i gave him the bigger half, but i'm not counting for that here)
Calories: 911
Protein: 19.75
Fat: 42.95
Carbs: 119.4
Fiber: 2.2
Sodium: 8.45

Stew with rice (we've quarted the recipe. one serving each for dinner and split the leftovers for lunch)

Calories: 593.33
Protein: 11.85
Fat: 3.85
Carbs: 124.68
Fiber: 9.55
Sodium: 46.45

Daily Total
Calories: 1504.33
Protein: 31.6
Fat: 46.8
Carbs: 244.08
Fiber: 11.75
Sodium: 54.9

Analysis
all around, we didn't get enough of everything that the USDA thinks we should be getting. The part we're closest to 81% closest carbs. Hmmmm - I'm going to have to do something about this.

day 1 - veggie stew and rice

Since I thought I had to work last night, I decided to break out the crockpot so the food would be ready when we got home. That way, the only thing I'd have to make for dinner was the rice. Here goes the ingredient list:

1 tbl olive oil
1 half large onion
3 small red potatoes
2 med. carrots
10 sliced mushrooms
1 tbl tumeric
10 cloves garlic
1 quart of water
salt, pepper and tumeric to taste
1 tbl cornstarch in 1/4 cup cold water

2.5 cups steamed rice.

Nutrition Info broken down into stew and rice. I'll break down our nutrition info for the day in the next post.

Stew:
Calories: 773.3
Protein: 17.4
Fat: 15.4
Carbs: 138.7
Fiber: 18.2
Sodium: 185.8

Rice:
Calories: 1600
Protein: 30
Fat: 0
Carbs: 360
Fiber: 20
Sodium: 0

day 1 - foccacia!

Since one of my stipulations for the month is to make sure our nutritional needs are taken care of, I've decided to post the recipes I use and their nutritional values. This will also be a really good tool for me to make sure that we're staying healthy. If we're not getting enough of something, I can always plan to add it in the next time I cook. I'm also going to track our weight. If we loose weight too quickly, I might end the experiment. I don't want to do any damage that might take month to repair...

Food intake for the day:

breakfast and lunch: mushroom foccacia
dinner: veggie stew and rice

Mushroom Foccacia (adapted and halved from williams sonoma baking)

The bread:
1 package dry yeast (2.5 tsp)
1/4 plus 2 tbl cup warm water (not hot, baby bottle temp...)
1 drizzle honey (i've had it for almost a year and it's almost gone...sniff - i guess I'll be getting the packets from starbucks now...)
1/4 cup olive oil (i buy it by the gallon!)
2.5 cups of flour
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tbl dry thyme

Topping:
2 tbl olive oil
5 garlic cloves - pressed
1 tsp red pepper flakes

Nutritional Information for the entire loaf:
Calories: 1822
Protein: 39.5
Fat: 85.9
Carbs: 238.8
Fiber: 4.4
Sodium: 16.9

Chad took a picture, I'll try and post it later. Next up, veggie stew on rice!

the rules

sooo - this has been an interesting morning. I got up to bake the foccaica I made last night, and to put the veggies in the crockpot for dinner. That all went well, except my kitchen was on the cold side so the bread didn't rise very well. At least it's still tasty. More into the detailed food stuff later, right now, I think I'll go over...

THE RULES

Here are Melissa's rules for our $1/day/person deal:

1. Free Food: free food to use are foods that can be obtained by the general public. This includes the sugar and butter that the food court at the mall leaves out. This does not include food that my coworkers will try to feed me. Yes, it's free, but Jane's black beans and rice are not available to the general public.

2. Staples: Staples that I use on a near daily basis, but only have to buy a couple of times a year may be used. This includes oil, salt, spices, condiments and yeast. The stipulation here is that I can only use what I had at the begining of the month. No seperate check for staples. Four, sugar and butter are not included here, since I usually buy those around once a month.

3. Potlucks: We can only participate if we contribute. I have a feeling our contribution will be two loaves of mushroom focaccia.

Since the power at the office will probably go out (AGAIN) at any second, this is all for now.

the night before

I landed on this blog about a guy who wanted to see what it was like to eat on $1/day for a month. (http://hungryforamonth.blogspot.com/). It horrified me because he can’t cook and knows next to nothing about nutrition, so he basically ate crap for the month. $.89 hot dogs just don’t do anything for me.

So, since I have the whole ‘anything you can do i can do better’ attitude going for me, Chad and I are going to do something similar in February. We’re basically going to eat for $56 (or less!) the entire month. We will also eat balanced meals, not skip meals, not mess up our metabolisms, and have a little variety in our diet. There will be no ramen.

Today after work we’re going to the bank so I can put the months grocery money in an envelope. Then we’re going to the store to get groceries for the next couple of days. We’ll probably have a nice dinner out since it’s the last one until March. I’ll be blogging it here (hopefully) if anyone is interested in reading about it…