Day 37: Odds and Ends

Day 37 Vitals:

Weight:  270 lbs.
Mood:  Exhausted
Water Consumed:  2 Nalgenes
Breakfast: 2 Hard Boiled Eggs
Lunch: Tomato Soup and Toast
Dinner: Tomato and Sweet Potatoes
Hangry Thought of the Day: Do not EVER nominate me for your Facebook Challenges!

We are now rapidly approaching the half-way point of Project Table for One.  So far so good.  I went looking through my pantry the other day and I actually have quite a bit of odds and ends that I should find some use for.  Here are some of the items I have in abundance:

• 1/2 bag of Flour (Week 1 Cub Foods)
• Possible Uses:  I would like to take another stab at baking bread.  But right now I tortillas, bread, and am making scones this week.  So I will take this venture on in the near future
• 1 full bag of black eyed beans (Week 0 Pantry Stocking)
• I have a recipe for these, but the last bunch of stores I have been at did not have ham hocks.  I will keep trying!
• Soy Sauce (Week 3 Wal-Mart)
• I picked this up as a flavoring agent based on the advice of the book Good and Cheap.  but I am trying to be mindful of my salt intake, so I have been avoiding it's use.  It's not that this is a BAD thing to pick up, I just don't need it.
• 1 LARGE pack of Hot Dogs (Week 4 COSTCO)
• I picked these up for cabin weekends.  So I will get to these shortly.  I think I just burned myself out on hot dogs the first few weeks.
• Baking Powder (Week 1 Cub Foods), Vanilla (Week 3 Wal-Mart), Brown Sugar (Week 0 Pantry)
• And lastly I have some odds and ends from Week 0 Pantry Stocking like a jar of Vindaloo sauce, some canned beans, a can of spicy corned beer.  Lots of fun stuff still out there.  

So what would you cook with these odds and ends?  Leave a comment below!

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Day 10: Cauliflower Cheese Bake

Day 10 Vitals:

Weight:  270 lbs.
Mood:  Everything is Okay!
Water Consumed:  2 Nalgenes
Breakfast:  Oatmeal with Cinnamon
Lunch:  Hobo Soup
Dinner: Tacos
Hangry Thought of the Day: Darned email security systems, blocking my perfectly good macro enabled workbooks!

Just a quick word on dinner.  A friend of mine decided to exercise rule four last night for my dinner.  He made tacos for the family and I did indulge in a couple, but I kept it to a minimum to stay within the rules of the project. 

So today we are going to talk about the third recipe I made during week 1, and by far my favorite.  Cauliflower Cheese Bake from the book Good and Cheap.

Ingredients:

• 2 tbs. Salt
• 1 head of cauliflower, cut to bite sized pieces
• 1 tbs. butter,
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1/2 tsp of chili flakes
• 1 bay leaf (skipped)
• 1 tbs. flower
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 6oz. of Cheddar, shredded
• Pepper to taste

1. Pre-heat oven to 400
2. Bring a large pot of water to boil.  Add the cauliflower and salt.  Boil for 4 minutes.  The drain the cauliflower.
3. Oil Baking Dish, and put the cauliflower in it.
4. Melt butter in a sauce pan, add garlic, chili flakes, and bay leaf.  Cook for about 1 minutes
5. Add flour to thicken the mixture (called roux)
6. Slowly stir in milk slowly.  Bring the mixture just to a soft boil, usually 5 to 7 minutes.
7. Stir in cheese and stir until it all melts.
8. Remove bay leaf and pour over cauliflower
9. Bake for 40 minutes

This dish lasted my four meals, and was my main course in a couple.  I really like this dish, and I can see myself cooking it, even when I am not on the project.  It's also a GREAT way to get your kids to eat vegetables.  The book offers some additions that you can add to spice this up, so go take a peak at the above link if you are interested.

Also I got a couple more donations through work:

The pumpkin spice chips chips have me thinking.  If I can squeeze in some vanilla into my budget this week, I can bake cookies from my pantry and use them to raise awareness at work!

Day 9: Cooking Hobo Soup

Day 9 Vitals:

Weight:  271 lbs.
Mood:  Everything is Okay!
Water Consumed:  2 Nalgenes
Breakfast:  Oatmeal with Cinnamon
Lunch:  Potato, apple, hot dog, 1/2 ear of corn
Dinner: Hobo Soup
Hangry Thought of the Day: Why didn't Chewie hug Leia?!

My recipe today was inspired by a rustic potato leak soup posted on Whole Foods Site .  It is heavily modified from the original recipe, but it still worked.  I am calling the creation a Hobo Soup, a loose term I use for any soup you can through together from stuff in your pantry.  Here are the ingredients I used:

• 3lbs. of Potatoes cut into bite sized pieces
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 2 leaks
• 1 can of diced tomatoes
• 1lb. of ground chicken cooked with 2 eggs (from my previous disaster)
• Salt
• Pepper
• Italian Seasoning
• 1 large container of Chicken broth

I tossed it all into the crock-pot in the morning.  After work, viola!  Hobo Soup.  It wasn't too bad.  Needed WAY more seasoning, nothing a little more salt and some sriracha sauce couldn't fix.  A great game designer named Mark Rosewater once wrote an article about creativity.  He said that (and I am paraphrasing here) setting limitations for yourself breeds creativity.  When we have all the resources we want at our fingertips it often leads to stagnation.  The limits we set for ourselves is where creativity breeds.  I only had so much ingredients to work with, and no coherent recipe to work with, but I still managed to create a pretty fine soup, and one that will last ALL week!  I guess the lesson I am trying to impart is that if you go open you cupboard right now I bet you will find something on yourself that has been sitting there for some time.  This is a luxury most people on SNAP do not have.  Plus it is a waste of resources, you have perfectly good food that is just spoiling away!  Take it out, look at it, and be creative.  Make it into something.  If you are having troubles finding a good recipe head over to Allrecipes.com and type in the item you have left over.  It will dig through its huge database of recipes and help you find some inspiration.  You'll love how you feel for being so creative, less wasteful, and helps with your food budget,

That's all for now!  Thanks for reading.  Please remember that we are trying to raise $2,500 for the Finnegans Community Fund.  If you haven't yet donated please click the big picture of the Finnegans logo to the right of this column.  98% of your donation goes back to the community in the form of nutritious food, right here in the Twin Cities!

Day 2: A Day At Cub

Day 2 Vitals:

Weight:  277 lbs.
Mood:  Enthusiastic
Water Consumed:  2 Nalgene Bottles
Breakfast:  Skipped (please leave some harsh comments as I am not supposed to do that)
Lunch:  Baked Potao with Tuna, and Celery
Dinner:  Jalapeno Cheddar Scone, 2 Chicken Hot Dogs
Hangry Thought of the Day:  What's up with the new season of Daredevil?  I can't make it through one episode without falling asleep!

In today's blog post I would like to spend some time talking about Saturday night's grocery run.  Here are my reciepts.  I spent a total of $29.75 in total, leaving me an extra $0.25 to go into next week.

I was actually really excited about the prospect of doing this.  I felt like an Iron Chef (one of the original ones).  I know I am kind of making light of a somber situation of having to live on what millions of American's do everyday, but I have to keep high spirits too.  For the most part I stuck to my plan.  I wanted to get the ingredients for my dishes.  I picked out three, a cauliflower and cheese casserole, Dal (an Indian dish made of protein heavy lentils), and some cheddar jalapeno scones.  More on these dishes in future posts.

I scored three really big wins at Cub Foods:

• $0.79 Eggs:  I got a carton of eggs on coupon for this low price.  This freed up a couple extra bucks in my budget which allowed one of the two below items
• 2 for $3.00 5lb. Potatoes:  10lbs of potatoes is a HUGE win.  This versatile tuber can be baked, fried with eggs and onions, and added to many soups.  This two was a coupon item.
• 2 Packages of Farmland Deli Style Chicken Franks for $0.99.  Normally $3.99 Cub was clearancing out these items.  HUGE win for my almost meatless week.  I tossed one in the freezer for next week.

So here are my tips for stretching your dollar at Cub:

1. Coupons, coupons, coupons.  Utilize the coupon book and the weekly add.  You can pre-load coupons onto your reward card, or do it old school by clipping them at the door.  These are some of the hottest deals in the store.
2. Look for the TPR/Green Stickers.  These indicate a clearance item, a short coded item, or some other hot deal.  This will allow you to stretch that dollar further.
3. Overall Cub has really good pricing on items, especially in the center store, focused on canned goods and baking ingredients.  Their private label program is very solid, and allows you to save even more.  Keep an eye on your add prices as very often you will see private label more expensive if the national brand is on sale.  Cub's private label program includes Shopper Value, Culinary Circle, Wild Harvest, Everyday Essentials, Super Chill, and more.
4. Cub has really good dollar section.  At my Cub it is located in the GM department.  They offer value spices, and several items in the Shopper's Value line at a great discount.  I didn't need anything from this section, but it is a good place to look if you have a couple of extra dollars to play with for this week's budget!

As an added bonus I got my first "Food Shelf" bonus from work today:

That's all for today folks!  Tomorrow we will talk about some of the recipes I am making tonight including the above mentioned Dal, and cheddar jalapeno scones!  See you tomorrow!

Also the donation button on our Finnegan's Page has been fixed.  Please help by supporting our goal of raising $2,500 for the Finnegan's Community Fund where 98% of your dollar goes back to the community to help peoplei n need get good wholesome and nutritious food!