purplerabbits

Yesterday's eating was pasta with leftover pasta sauce and a small amount of cheese, plus a very nice curry made of basic red lentil daal with added cauliflower and the rest of the frozen peas. That was actually lots of food and plenty to feed Jon as well as me.

Today has been porridge with nearly the last of the raisins, pea soup and a chunk of my handmade bread which I carved off of the frozen loaf at far too early o'clock this morning. THere is leftover curry for tonight, but I might save that for tomorrow and try to ring the changes with some kind of chilli, or butternut squash something.

At this stage I have run out of: courgette, cauliflower, frozen peas, pasta sauce, tinned soup, pepper, rice pudidng and yeast. If I cook tonight that will be the last of the onions and garlic and probably the end of the passata too, leaving me no tomatoey things at all. I have about three dribbles of oil left.

I only have to last four more days, so it will be OK, but the last day may well be lentils with lentil sauce...

This is day 10, and certain things are becoming apparent, one of which is that I am going to run out of milk, which won't be pretty. Even if I drink work's free coffee, I still need to GET myself there to drink it.

The last few days food consisted of:
Thursday - I was very depressed and knackered after a week of work. This was the closest I came to chucking the whole thing in. I had had my usual porridge with sultanas, and pea soup for lunch, but when I got home I just felt shit and ended up eating the other half of the rice pudding and a dish which I will call 'two slices of cheese on a plate' - not exactly cooking, and not enough vegetables. I also ate a handful of sultanas, so now those are going to run out as well. And that still only counted as 3-4 veg portions at the most.

Friday is my day off, so I felt a bit more human after a lie in. I was hungry after the night before so I made a pasta sauce with the second cheap jar of pasta sauce, carrot, onion, a little bacon and some TVP mince made up with half a stock cube. Pretty edible actually, and with a pile of wholemeal pasta and a bit of cheese also very filling.

I also made BREAD, which was absolute bliss after a week without any. The bargain flour wasn't ideal, not so much because it was way after its sell by date but because it was just plain flour not bread flour. I managed to make two small loaves happen anyway and ate half of one almost straight way. I will own up to cheating by using a spoon of sugar cos the recipe called for it, but since it came from a sachet I had clearly swiped from a coffee shop at some point, I'm not going to fret about that. And even imperfect home made bread is awesome straight out of the oven. It is also extra tasty with bargain tomato soup. 3-4 veg portions again. Hmm.

Saturday I had a home made bread BACON SANDWICH for brunch. Food of the gods! Seriously missing ketchup, though :-( I did eat a raw carrot as well, which counts as a vegetable...

And yesterday evening I made cauliflower cheese. I do still remember from my childhood when cauliflower cheese was the highlight of the week and not just a really cheap option, and this was like that, and seriously one of the best cheese sauces I've ever made because I was paying actual attention. And STILL only 3 portions of veg. I must do better today...

Yesterday evening was butternut squash curry in the end, which is OK, but not one of my greatest triumphs; it really needed potatoes or some firmer beans instead of the lentils, neither of which I had.

Today was porridge (again again), carrot daal soup of nom, and because I was feeling particularly rubbish, tea was big chunks of bacon and cabbage, which I briefly boiled and then tossed in the frying pan to get it all bacony. (Still craving ketchup, though.)

And then realising I hadn't had a starch option and I was craving sweets, I made a brilliant discovery - you can add grated carrots to bargain tinned rice pudding and a few sultanas to make a very passable Indian-style desert. Well it would have been Indian style if I'd been allowed to add cardomom and saffron, but the principle's sound, and I am now definitely full of food AND have had my five a day.

Oh woe! I forgot to eat my porridge this morning and am hungry, but won't be near my home food supply until at least 5pm. I've had a carrot and a portion of actually quite lovely pea soup wot I made out of peas (and a onion and bargain yoghurt and mint I gathered in the outside world - I even put the cauliflower leaves in to avoid wasting food) but it's nowhere near as filling as the daal soup and oats. Tomorrow I will bring some oats to work just so I have backup. It does make me realise how very essential planning ahead is when you have no ready money.

Last night I had some of my previously prepared chilli with rice instead of either of the alternatives I'd pondered. Tonight I will have been to the dentist (further woe!) and so am not sure what I'll feel up to eating, but I should get round to doing something with my butternut squash, which seems to spell curry to me, so we shall see...

Wow, porridge is seriously filling. I brought some to work to eat at my desk and am not nearly ready for lunch yet. I found the same at the weekend when I basically didn't eat lunch at all, but I did find that I was suddenly STARVING TO DETH at 3 or 4pm, so I have bought soup to work with me cos I am trying not to be an idiot.

So anyway. Yesterday consisted of a mini portion of leftover chilli (which was as good as predicted and made three portions and a bit), a mini portion of porridge (actually two spoons of oats eaten with a spoon, which allowed me to go to kntting and drink water and not cry at all the cakes), a raw carrot and a dinner made of pasta, bacon and the remains of the courgette.

Yes, I am aware that that is about 3 portions of veg, which is not ideal.

I did the last of my food shopping yesterday, and have now spent £13.97, which is about as close to the line as I could get. If anyone knows of anything you can get for 3p do let me know. The final shopping was a reduced cauliflower from Sainsbury and a similarly bargain plain yoghurt. I will put up the full shopping list when I'm at home :-)


Today will contain: nummy porridge with raisins (already consumed), carrot daal soup made by me in vast quantities on Saturday and containing about 2 portions of veg, and something or other for tea. I am currently thinking caulflower cheese, but if I'm not careful all of the cheese will be GONE and I will cry, so I may settle for pasta again. I could add a carrot and onion and some TVP mince to the frankly rather thin bargain pasta sauce, which would count as some more veg...

Today I have again only eaten porridge and coffee so far, but I have a lovely looking chilli on the stove right now.

I also did a (very) small amount of shopping:

a bag of 22p wholemeal pasta in Tesco for 22p
a Tesco value tinned rice pudding for 13p
and I persuaded a nice man in an Asian veg shop to sell me a single chilli and a floppy red pepper for 20p

So tonight's chilli contains TVP mince, Tesco value kidney beans, half a jar of Tesco value  pasta sauce, a flopper pepper, half a tiny chilli, some dried herbs and curry powder, a carrot and a bit of my solitary courgette. Served with rice that should make 3 portions. Maybe I should go wild and grate some of my precious cheese on top...

Today's foods came to only two meals cos I woke up late and had eaten ALL THE MEAT yesterday at Matt's birthday do. So I went shopping first and then ate porridge made with a few raisins, a couple of cups of coffee and for tea, a variation on what I am sure is a Cooking in a Bedsitter dish: bacon, cabbage, onion and rice with a spoon of pasta sauce fired up in and eaten out of a frying pan. It was nom, actually.

I still have a bit of shopping to do, but so far I have spent 11ponds and 8p so my remaining £2.92 will have to go quite a way. I can also affirm that shopping while hungry and with only a few quid on you is excruciating and should be avoided. I should really have eaten the prrodge before shopping instead of after...

So here is all the food I have so far:

Proteins (with a certain amount of fat): 2 tins Tesco value kidney beans, 500g lentils, a giant slab of Lidl cooking bacon, half a bag of soya mince and (unless I decide not to buy something else), only half of this 400g of cheese. To last a fortnight. Hmm.



Veg and a tiny bit of fruit consists on 500g carrots, 500g onions (I have the option of getting the same again for both of those), 1 small cabbage, a small butternut squash and a courgette (all on special offer at Lidl), 2 jars of pasta sauce, a pack of passata, a bargain tin of value tomato soup, a garlic and only half of this bag of sultanas...



And the rest... 500g rice, a kilo of flour, a single yeast sachet, 4 litres milk, 500g oats (in the biscuit tin), 10g mixed dried herbs, 32g curry powder, and five veggie stock cubes.



Not shown cos I forgot, 100g coffee and some oil.

So I start on Friday and so far I have a sort-of shopping list, which will be honed over the next few days. So far it goes:

100g dirt cheap coffee (see previous note about coffee) - 47p (Tesco price)
2 times 2 litres milks - £1.80 (Farmfoods)
Half of a 1 kilo bag of oats 37p (Tesco)
1 Garlic 22p (Tesco)
Half of a 1 kilo bag of rice 17p (Tesco, I am not making these prices up)
Tesco value pasta 500g 25p
1Kg carrots 50p (Farmfoods, price only available if you buy two bags, so I'm sharing with my imaginary friend)
2 tins Tesco value kidney beans 30p
Half of a 450g cheese from Farmfoods £1.25
Bag onions from Lidl 29p
Tesco value curry powder 44p
Tesco value pasta sauce 3 jars 54p (yes, this works out cheaper than value tinned tomatoes)
Tesco value ground black pepper 19p
Half a big tub of Tesco value soya marge 38p
Half a back of red chillis 22p (cheaper than chilli powder, weirdly
Lidl cooking bacon £1.44
Half a tub of Tesco value mixed herbs 10p
Tesco value soft cheese 200g 40p
500g red lentils 88p
900g Frozen peas  85p
A 10p bag of plain flour I got in the pound shop cos it's out of code
Half a bag of TVP Mince 85p (Holland and Barrett)
Half a bag of Sultanas 0.5 0.84 0.42
6 peppers for £1.25 (Tesco)

By my sums that leaves 20p...
I may change my mind about the peppers if I find more bulk of veg cheaper, which is quite likely.

Things not on the list: eggs, bread, anything sweet at all including sugar, tea, any kind of drink except coffee, any meat except bacon

This is going to be all kinds of fun

From 18th November to 2nd December I am going to be living on the food poverty line by spending only £1 a day on food. This figure is the UK adjusted equivalent of the poverty line, which leaves very little leeway, but it can totally be done, and possibly even healthily. Of course if I was doing it for longer and had to include fuel bills and housing I'd be screwed, but this in itself should be interesting.

I can't eat anything given to me by friends. I can gather wild food, though at this time of year that will be minimal. I am not trying to be vegetarian, but at the moment the only meat on the shopping list is a pack of Lidl cooking bacon, cos meat just costs too much for daily use.

One exception will be coffee, because it seems stupid to make a point about poverty by buying non-fair trade. What I will do instead is find the cheapest cheap coffee and take the cost of that off of my budget, then I'll weigh out that much of fair trade coffee and use that. Going without coffee is not an option.

My current shopping list is standing at £14.01 and doesn't include bread, anything sweet, eggs or any fruit. I have margerine down instead of cooking oil cos it looks like I can't afford both. No spuds, oddly, but I do have rice and pasta - I will post the list later if people are interested, but it's going to be refinded as I look in places other than Tesco value foods.

There will also be an opportunity to sponsor me by donating to Village Reach. Let me know if you're interested in that.