Hunger Challenge Day Four
The Challenge: United Way of King County Hunger Challenge. April 20-24 2009 The rules: Eat breakfast, lunch and dinner spending only $12 a day for 2 people for 5 days. Can’t use food you already have or accept anything for free. My Personal Challenge on top of this challenge: I want to do this challenge with enough food leftover after 5 days to get something it the freezer. Day 4: Thursday, April 23, 2009 Breakfast was 3 eggs sunny side up and two slices of texas cut toast. I actually couldn’t finish all three eggs. Later I had an orange for a snack. I finished off the salad with the last of the black bean marinated chicken breast for lunch. Dinner was salmon with brown rice. Usually I cook my salmon in olive oil, but I couldn’t do that today. I should have baked it, but I waited until I was hungry to start cooking and didn’t want to wait another 20 minutes. So I pan fried it in margarine, which browned but didn’t burn. It wasn’t thrilling, I much prefer olive oil, or even canola oil but I ate it. The brown rice was cooked in chicken bouillon and tasted just fine. I’d usually add some onion and garlic but it wasn’t in this weeks budget.
To us having food on hand is like having an insurance policy, but without the chance to get denied or waiting for the check to clear. We always have the piece of mind that we will be able to eat and eat well. When we moved to Humboldt I started a price book since all the grocery stores and sales are different than where I was living before. With my price book I record the average and cheapest sale prices on food that my family eats along with the unit size so I know I’m comparing apples to apples. This way I know when something is at a really good price to buy it and stock up. I already know how much of certain items we go through in a year thanks to that big Costco trip and I know what we would eat more of if we had it on hand. Knowing what you tend to grab first and prefer for meals helps you make good choices. If there were potato chips in our pantry we’d eat them. But when we shop we shop with a list- sans chips- and don’t even walk down the chip isle. We stock up on meats for the freezer and some canned meats like tuna. Frozen or canned veggies and canned fruits. Occasionally we buy fresh fruits and veggies and process them for the freezer ourselves. But fruits and veggies lose nutrients every day after they are picked. Canned and frozen fruits and veggies are processed on the same day helping them keep their nutrients butter. Thus we don’t buy fresh fruits and veggies to freeze often. Flours, salt, baking powder, baking soda, different types of rice, olive and canola oils are also items we like to keep in the pantry. Stocking up when things are on sale is how we keep our grocery prices down. Read about my third day of the United Way Hunger Challenge. Want to talk to me about this challenge or freezer cooking? I'm on Twitter @FavFreezerFoods Return from Hunger Challenge Day Four to the homepage of Favorite Freezer Foods.  Custom Search
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