United Way Hunger Challenge Day One

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 1: Monday, April 20, 2009
After shopping day one was all about cooking. My husband was at work so I had a friend shop and cook with me for the day. So the first thing we had to do was thaw the stewing hen. Now, you have to understand, a stewing hen is not called a chicken for a reason. The meat is much more tough than a chicken, but the price is lower.

Usually I’d take a stewing hen and put it in a pot of water to simmer for hours or leave it in the crockpot all day. But I had planned soup with chicken in it for lunch. And to top it off the hen was frozen when I bought it. The only fresh whole chickens in town were packaged by the twos and cost around $20 for the pack.

So step one was to thaw that hen. And I learned that my defrost setting on my microwave is a bit too strong. The bird started to get too warm so we started to chop it and just get it in the oven or fridge.

This was also the first time I cut up a raw chicken, but it’s pretty much the same way I cut it after I roast one. Remove the breasts and tenderloin, then the wings, then the legs with thighs attached.

The legs with thighs attached got some salt and went straight in the oven. The breasts got covered in black bean marinade and went in the fridge. The carcass and wings went into a plastic bag in the freezer for the next time I make homemade chicken broth.

black bean chicken marinade

Realizing that the soup was going to take a while I started the meat sauce for the pasta. I browned the ground beef and drained most the fat. Please don’t put your grease down the drain. I store mine in an old jar or coffee can and throw it in the trash when it’s full or starts to smell too bad.

Add the sauce to the pot with the meat and add Italian seasoning blend to taste. Luckily for me the no name pasta sauce was pretty good. Not too thick or thin, not too sweet or acidic.

Boil pasta in a large pot of salted water. Drain when done and mix with sauce.

Penne with Meat Sauce

Pasta $2
Bottled Sauce $1.78
Italian Seasoning Blend $1
Lean Ground Beef 1 pound $2.98

Total: $7.76 for 6 servings; $1.30 per serving

I did make too about 4 serving too much pasta for the amount of sauce. I might try to freeze it but it’s perfect now and will probably be too soft when thawed. I might just save it until Saturday and make some homemade sauce or melt some butter on top of it before then.

So toast with margarine was breakfast, penne pasta with meat sauce for lunch and avgolemono for dinner. I put the avgolemono soup recipe on a different page because it’s a great freezer recipe and I wanted to include freezing and thawing instructions. I made a double batch of avgolemono as well but it hardly cost me anymore to double it because the chicken is the most expensive part.

I used about 1/3 of the stewing hen so we’ll estimate that at $4. Six eggs costs $0.94, the rice cost about $0.75 and the chicken bouillon cost maybe $0.50. That’s a total of $6.19 and I’m not sure just yet how many servings I’ll get but it’s more than six for sure.

Read about shopping and preparing my husbands work meals during the United Way Hunger Challenge.

Want to talk to me about this challenge or freezer cooking? I'm on Twitter @FavFreezerFoods

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