Hunger Action Week

Hunger Action Challenge Day 5: Aloo Gobi and Wine

April 25, 2009

Yes, I realize food stamps do not pay for wine. That’s why this is a simulation. With $7.71 cents left in our challenge, B and I went to Trader Joe’s for a bottle of wine. Picking out a bottle of $3.99 Carminere, I started to the check out counter. B dragged me over for a second bottle, A Charles Shaw Merlot for $2.99. Yup, Two Buck Chuck. Ugh, B! “But we have the money, right?” he asked. We do. We did. We bought the two bottles and headed home for dinner. After another breakfast of lentils and the leftover...

Hunger Challenge Day 4: Risk Taking

April 24, 2009

The first thing I noticed in shopping for this challenge was that I took less risk in shopping. Normally I pull anything of the shelf and figure out what to do with it later. With the limited amount of money, I was more careful. I’m not really sure why, as I’ve never run into an issue with experimentation, but it was a reaction to the challenge. Yet as I prepared my dinner for Thursday (I did so Wednesday evening) I took a risk and made a new dish. Knowing that I had a soccer game at 7pm on Thursday,...

Hunger Challenge Day 3

April 23, 2009

When we woke up this morning, in addition to making our usual lentils for breakfast, I had another thing to prepare–our Holy Sh*t Pork Cheeks for tonight! When you’re on a budget and buying cheap cuts of meat and plan to come home hungry, the slow cooker is a girl’s best friend. It turned out to be a nasty rainy day and I was coming down with some sort of illness, so sitting at work all day remembering the deliciousness boiling away at home made me very happy. Lunch was another Chicken Bahn Mi–I was going to branch out...

Day 2 of the Hunger Action Challenge: Impulse Shopping

April 21, 2009

Worst Budget Shopper EVER: I bought rib-eye steaks. Okay, I’ll be honest, they weren’t that expensive and I didn’t go over my budget, but it just felt ridiculous. Also I’d been sent to the store for tofu. And came home with steak. I might be the only girl whose boyfriend would complain in this situation “but I’d been looking forward to a nice meal of tofu and vegetables!” I’m dating freaking Vince the vegetarian here! With a day like today’s in Seattle, there was no question that we wanted to bust out the grill, so I was off to...

Hunger Action Challenge Day 1: Delicious, Can we do it again?

April 20, 2009

My first day on the $12 a day budget thing went pretty well, despite a few snafus. Last night, I came home and made mayonnaise, but I wasn’t feeling very well, and wasn’t paying attention, and so this task, something I’d done a million times before, I sort of screwed up. Definitely still usable, just a little runnier than my usual mayo. It will be showing up all over the place. My illness continued into today, so my appetite wasn’t really up, so I’m going to tell you what B ate as his share. This morning I woke up...