Last thoughts

  I'm happy to be back to normal today. Normal meaning I don't have to give much thought about worrying how I'm going to stretch my food budget. I love eating, love cooking, it is a big part of my life. I think I would get grumpy and bitter if I had to live like that all the time.


Could we possibly change our priorities as a nation on how we address food insecurity? How can we be okay knowing 40 million people have to rely on SNAP to get by, even when having that is not enough and families have to turn to food banks. Could we exchange the cost of making one of these for food, or just a portion of the 2012 base military budget of $531 billion dollars? And hey, that figure does not even include the cost of Iraq and the Afghanistan war.

Huge Kudos to Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn, King County Executive Dow Constantine, and everyone else taking part in this years United Way Hunger Challenge. And thanks to United Way for raising our awareness of the issue of hunger in America.

www.uwkc.org

I'm happy to have been part this collective experience and wish for every person who has a say in how much people should eat, determines whether or not someone makes a living wage or even gets to have a paid sick day, that they too would try to take on this Hunger Challenge.

 I hope we all can imagine a world where we have a place at the table.

Good Friday Last Day

Fine Dandelion Greens

 Found these on our walk Thursday. Picked them where no dog would pee and washed them very well. Quite tasty pan fried with garlic. After breakfast of toasty oats with apple and rice milk, I packed my meal to go and added the greens to left over refried pinto beans with Serrano pepper and turkey with brown rice and the tasty last half Japanese sweet potato.

Happiness is sometimes having exactly what you want when you think need it most. On my way to work I spent $4.25 + tip for a iced soy triple shot dark chocolate latte I bought with my big cash fortune of seven bucks and fifty two cents left over. I was a happy nurse fueled with chocolate and caffeine.

Food I ate Thursday

 Maybe I did too well, I was very frugal and did not eat enough. I had a fair amount of money left over from last shopping at Grocery Outlet. Most of the food I ate was from scratch except the stuff I bought from Grocery Outlet.

Money not to be used to bribe politicians.

Thursday was my day off.  It is a luxury having time to relax and eat. When I'm working, like most nurses, I eat on the fly. Well you know, we are angels of mercy. Breakfast was the last of the mesa flakes with half of my last banana and ironically dinner was on the fly because we meandered too much on our lovely walk in the sun with our sweet dog Matson. Had a play to go see! Good People at the Seattle Repertory Theatre. Terrific production with fine fine acting. So for dinner I had the rest of my canned organic chicken chili with rice and blue corn chips. You know how hard it is to eat and put on makeup at the same time?

After the show we walked over to Dicks on Queen Anne. This one is nice because you can sit down inside instead of standing out in the cold. Big treat. I was craving for (fat) french fries. Had to have the side of tarter sauce too. Almost as good as dunking in Molly Moon milkshakes.

Another treat coming home was the chocolate ice cream I topped off with the fried red banana I bought from the co-op. The ice cream wasn't bad really, especially for $.50. It was chocolate.

An End to My Hunger Challenge

I wish I could say there is an end to hunger

I really believe we could end hunger in this world. We could grow enough food, produce the right amount of healthy food and we could end waste. You know the saying, "If we put a man on the moon".

Its astonishing really

Taking Stock

  

  Or making it that is. Turkey back bones with saved (collected in bag and put in the freezer) veggie peelings, including the top of the Serrano pepper I bought. Simmered down for a rice base stock I used last night for a lentil carrot and corn soup with the left over curry fried tofu. Not bad. I discovered the co-op sells organic frozen corn and peas in bulk. Great idea. I just bought what I needed.

I've been eating less. I wanted to make sure my food lasted. When I think about mothers with children, I wonder how many women go hunger because they feed their children first. Mothers are so inventive when it comes to stretching food. I think my kids remember fried corn patties, probably not fondly.

    

What day was Wednesday?

The Great and Tasty Fuji

After a morning breakfast chopped fuji apple and toasted oats, this time not cooked, no mush, I prepared my take along for the evening. Thankfully, Tuesday afternoon before work I made a quick stop at Grocery Outlet. I was searching for something to snack on and some hot sauce.  Can you believe it? There was no hot sauce! I asked a worker who said "I'm sorry we have no hot sauce at all." I'm thinking, what is going on with this Grocery Outlet? Anyway, I was able to really score some great foodie hits.

Organic Cheeeeese!

                        This made a fabulous dinner. Had lots of nibbles on the cheese too.

   Then again, I could have bought a few bags of these. Walk away from from the potato chips now.

I Left Off At Roasted Oats

For breakfast, day two. Oats spread out in a single layer, toast in a 350' oven for about 8 minutes. Brings out a nutty crispy flavor without having to add oil or sweeteners. Cooked up with some water and chopped half of a large fuji apple, splashed with rice milk. Not bad, yet seemed like standard old time New England mush sadly without the maple syrup.

 Lunch/Dinner is always a take along. Im trying to be creative so as to reward myself in the middle of a hard shift at the hospital. Bunch salad greens, glorious greens, needed some boosting with protein. Easiest go to, tofu. Wrap the chunk in paper towels to absorb moisture for about 20 minutes, slice into nice rectangles. Pan fried in canola oil (bought in bulk at the co-op) and sprinkled with salt and curry powder (also bought in small bulk quantity) Tasty, spicy, and a little crunchy. Perfect for salad, or a sandwich even.

Salad construction, how to keep your greens crispy and dry before you eat them. Chopped up carrot, fuji apple, grated ginger, splashed with canola oil and apple cider vinegar (bought in bulk at the co-op), salt and pepper. Kept separately in a small container, allows the dressing (oil & vinegar) to marinate the veggies. When you are ready to eat, just combine and toss. Delicious. I LOVE the taste of apple, carrot and ginger together!

End of shift snack I had half of a sliced banana with rice milk. Okay, that tasted like baby food, yes but good baby food.  Late night snack, wanting something more grown up, I air popped some popcorn. I really love my air popper! My beautiful daughter-in-law gave me one for Christmas two years ago. I use it a lot! Truly it is the cheapest, at about $.25 cents a serving, and healthiest with great fiber, snack you can easily make. Unfortunately I didn't have any of my favorite butter alternative, Earth Balance. I just couldn't see spending $4.50 on a tub to blow on my pretend SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) dollars.

SNAP is the official term for the food stamp program. www.fns.usda.gov/snap. Check it out. I do believe you can't get the old actual food stamps dollars or coupons as they were also called, US$1 (brown), $5 (blue), and $10 (green) bound into booklets of various denominations. Now there is a type of specialized debit card called Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) .  So if you hear people saying food stamp recipients misuse them by buying and exchanging them for cash or beer or cigarettes, ask them how do they think they do that with a EBT card?  I'm just wondering.

Stay tuned later today for Wednesdays Hunger Challenge travails.

A Place at the Table

This movie was a must see for me knowing I was going to do the Hunger Challenge again this year. A Place at the Table is a good movie and even if you are not a fan of social-justice documentaries you should see this film. My one regret after watching the movie, even though I reeled from stunning facts about food, poverty and politics, I wished there was a more positive push for people to do something. The most stunning fact, and one which is in direct correlation to obesity, the price of processed food has decreased in almost the same proportion to the rise in cost of fresh fruits and vegetables. Think about that, and check it out. Really, shouldn't that be the opposite?!

Toast and Roast your Oats

                                  Lunch/Dinner to go go

Cooking. I love cooking, but this is a quick fire challenge and I felt I must just cook what I had in front of me and then see how it all comes together. Bought a free range turkey part that was on reduced sale. The back has little meat but hopefully it will produce good stock too. Roasted it up in the oven with canola oil, salt and pepper. Pretty good, there is a little bit of fat that makes it crackling and tasty. Shredded meat off and saved the bone for stock. I had soaked pinto beans the night before, cooked them up soft. Finished part of them up fried in a pan with tiny bits of serrano pepper and bits of turkey meat. Paired with some jasmine rice, steamed broccoli  and this amazing delicious Japanese sweet potato. Firmer and smaller than regular sweet potato, more dense but sweet and smooth! I washed and scrubbed it up good, dried it, rubbed it with oil and sprinkled coarse kosher salt on it. Prick with a fork (harder because it's so firm and dense) and roasted in the oven at 350' F for about 45 minutes. Outstanding! The best sweet potato I've ever had. Thank you Hana for telling me about them. In Japan they are called Satsuma-imo. Sweeter and less watery mushy than plain American sweet potato.

Real First Day

Still just enjoying my coffee. Using the same get all you can from it technique Di taught me. Coffee ground to espresso grind and then french pressed. Wish I could remember the name of this Woodstock bulk coffee, it's fabulous. Nice deep dark chocolate overtones, added bonus.

Breakfast, bulk Mesa Sunrise flakes, gluten free. Very good with sliced banana and rice milk. I swear I've been so lucky finding large containers of cheap rice milk on my challenges. Happy happy.

Year three. I would think I have learned a few things about taking a personal hunger challenge by now.  Mostly the challenging part. This takes a lot of work, just having to THINK about food, and not the luxurious inconvenience of  "oh where should we go out to eat now", like we did last night after a SAM art event we attended.

I didn't really go very hungry in the past two challenges, mostly because I tried to plan my food a lot. This is a luxury, having the time to do so. A blogger on the Hunger Challenge in California wrote about the honestly of the time factor. Points in fact; I have a car, I don't spend hours on a bus looking to buy good fresh cheap food, I am not sick (I have great health care), I don't have hungry children to feed, I don't have to wait for hours trying to fill out forms to get assistance.

                  This is what I start with, $35.00 dollars for five days. Seems so meager.

What sticks out for you when you look at this photo? Not the amount or the twenty or the five or the George Washington's. What stood out for me is THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. This Hunger Challenge takes place here, in America.

So in honesty I need to start by saying I completed most of my shopping before the first day of the Hunger Challenge.  

I imagine I will be able to cook a few good dishes out of this group of lovely food.

HUNGER CHALLENGE: YEAR THREE

Taking the Hunger Challenge Part Deux: Last thoughts

This was not about me. Really. Yes really Amy.

This is about the United Way of King County's annual focus on hunger, public awareness campaign.

Think you know anything about hunger? We don't see starving children begging for food on our streets, yet 1 in 5 children in our community is at risk of going hungry.
Hunger and food insecurity affects 1 in 6 Americans. That's 6 people, sitting at a table, and 1 of them will either go hungry, or will not have enough food to sustain them! In the last four years, Seattle food banks have seen a 30% increase in the number of clients coming to them for help. At the same time, they've had a 31% decline in donations. Read up on this, and other dismaying facts at www.unitedwayofkingcounty.org/hunger

I think the Hunger Challenge was harder this year. It is the same $7 a day, yet food prices are higher. The more gas prices go up, the more food suppliers pass on the added costs to the consumers. This just makes me angry. Are there things I would do differently? Eat more simple bean and rice dishes, try to find cheap produce in bulk. And if I truly had to rely on food stamps, I doubt I would have a car. And I would forage, mmmmm dandelion greens. And I would try to grow some vegetables. And I would fish. But right now, I'm not going to stop talking about this. Hunger awareness needs to be talked about every day.

Day Five. Hunger is not a Game.

Last day of the Hunger Challenge. A review of the current box office smash hit movie
The Hunger Games says hero Katniss makes "impossible choices in the arena that
weighs survival against humanity and life against love."

Wow. Does it come down to that? When you have to make choices about survival, what happens to you? Odd food for thought. If you are interested, go back in this blog to Thursday March 24th, 2011. I mention and reference a book I've read by anthropologist Colin M. Turnbull. A fascinating and frightening account (not a work of fiction) of a REAL LIFE timeline of the displaced Ik people living in the mountains of northeastern Uganda. In his book The Mountain People, Dr. Turnbull describes the Ik as a people forced to carry out extreme personal practices in order to survive.

Frankly, my darlings I think we are all being prepared for real time roles in The Running Man.







Right, now where was I? Food for Day 5. Started the day with the last of the barley flakes, with just a splash of rice milk. Had this with a delicious smoothie; a banana, half of the leftover vanilla soy yogurt, and the last of the Rice Dream rice milk. Lunch: tofu salad and rice crackers. Dinner was what I was really looking forward to.

As Forrest Gump would say, "Shrimp is the fruit of the sea. You can barbeque it, boil it, bake it, saute it. There's um, shrimp kebabs, shrimp creole, shrimp gumbo, pan fried, deep fried, stir fried. There's pineapple shrimp and lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, shrimp sandwich...That's about it."

So I chose to stir fry it in olive oil with the last of the garlic and green onions, splashed with the remaing half Meyer lemon. And remember the pickle juice I paid so dearly for? I put that to very good use. The night before, after I squeezed out all the juice, I minced up the rind and let it marinate in the pickle juice. This I also added at the last minute to my shrimp stir fry. It was REALLY good. Had that with the last of my brown rice.

Midnight. Challenge over.

This is what I have left, Most of the tub of Melt, to use with the last of my popcorn, I guess. A package of lemon grass noodle soup. Smidgens of honey and olive oil. A few dustings worth of curry powder. About 1/4 left of a box of rice crackers, and enough yerba mate tea to make a least four good cups.

A dietary personal challenge for me this year, besides trying to eat mostly organic, was to stay away from wheat- and gluten-ladened products. I've discovered I'm wheat sensitive. How can I tell? I feel lots better when I don't eat wheat. No bloating, no gastrointestinal issues.

This could be very difficult for someone who has an allergy or intolerance to certain foods when trying to live on a very limited food budget. Most carbs for the buck contain wheat. Well, I say we food allergy suffers must stand up and show some pride!

Coming next, Conclusion of the Hunger Challenge. Stay posted.

The conclusion of day four. A Happy Ending Ending.

No Mr. David, not THAT kind of happy ending.


My last visit to QFC. Motivated by an advertisement of fresh caught wild dover sole for $4.99 lb. Except when I get there after 8 pm the fish counter is closed and the wrapped fish section does not have any sole. How sad is that? However, there was fresh wild caught USA shrimp on sale for $8.99 lb. Bought a very good serving size for $2.88. Exciting in the mouth drooling way.

Feeling sassy with still money in hand I bought a vanilla soy yogurt for $1.19 and a caramel fudge chocolate LUNA bar for $1.00. This was my very tasty late night desert mixed together. A very happy ending indeed.

Now any ideas on what I can buy with $0.32?


Next post will be about the last day of the Hunger Challenge. Right now the sun is out!

Thursday Day 4. A better day

What I ate.

Breakfast. You should always eat breakfast. I'll tell you why at the end of this Challenge -- and how I was able to lose 15 lb.!!! by eating. And this is BEFORE the start of the Challenge. One bowl of steel cut oats (I really like these better than rolled), chopped apple, splash of rice milk.

Lunch. Now this is a dish I often make for myself.

Washed and dried mixed greens, chopped green onion and celery, sliced carrots. Dash of olive oil, lemon juice (from the yummy Meyer) and a can of high protein, calcium rich, lemon cracked pepper herring. Salt and pepper and delicious.

For dinner, now I'm feeling good about eating well; a bowl of rice penne pasta with steamed broccoli and the last of my zucchini, sauteed with olive oil and minced garlic. This satisfies my carb urgings too, in a healthy way.

My next posting will be about a shopping spree with $5.00 and change, and a happy ending.

Wednesday. A not so good day.

But at least I've been enjoying my coffee, Dude.

Thanks again to Diana for the tip on stretching coffee beans. Grind on 'espresso' setting, then use in a French press. Enjoying two cups per day, and will have enough coffee to make it through this Challenge. This is something I can believe in. I'm not a nihilist.

So coffee in the morning, then tea in the evening. This is a fine cup of yerba mate.

Yeah, I know, it's an elephant cup. Don't mess with it.

Cooking and then eating. Had barley flakes for breakfast, sliced banana, splash of rice milk. I thought of toasting the barley flakes, but because they are a hardier grain, I thought not. You even have to cook the flakes a little bit longer to make them truly palatable.

For lunch and nibbles, good with rice crackers, I made a tofu salad. I steamed the tofu for about 8 minutes or so. This gets rid of the beany taste. I drained it and chopped it up with some minced carrot, green onion, celery, curry powder, salt and pepper, and pickle juice. Not bad, actually, pretty good.

I made a sad attempt at zucchini patties. But hey, when you don't have something to bind them, it's a bit harder. Grated zucchini, a little minced garlic, fried in olive oil. I should have also tried to squeeze out more liquid but I was in a hurry to get to work. They tasted okay.

With this I took the rest of my black beans, refried, with some slices of an oven roasted sweet potato and a few pieces of steamed broccoli. Truly woofed this down at work.

Ah, some woofers are better than others. And hey, if you have someone with eyes like this staring at you to step away from the computer and please take me for a ride? What are you going to do?

Day Three, sidetracked by pickles.

Should have never seen this. "I don't want a pickle. Just want to ride my motorsickle"


Shopping visit to Central Market. Don't know why, but I always wind up spending more there than I intend to. They have a way with food layout. I had this craving for vinegar something. Did not want to buy a bottle of vinegar or a whole jar of pickles, so I had this idea I could just buy a very small amount of pickle juice and a few chips of pickle to dress up salads. Humph, 0.17 lb. @ $9.99/lb. (! forgot to look at price) cost me $1.70. Now where is my vintage Ducati Cucciolo?

Other items purchased, 0.08 lb. of almond butter for just a taste to go with a few crackers or celery. Rice penne pasta. Wish I had some of Diana's tomato sauce :( 0.06 lb. of mixed greens, one nice sweet potato, a small Meyer lemon, steel cut oats,and a new twist for breakfast, barley flakes, on sale for $.79 lb. A forty cent difference from all the other oat and grain options. I mean come on, $1.29 lb. for oatmeal? Total outlay for this trip, $4.67.

And I have to ask, does anyone remember Arlo Guthrie?

Playing Ketchup. For day 2 on day 4!

Without the ketchup. This is why I think I'm a terrible BLOGGER! I can't seem to get it together to make entries in a timely manner. You know, work, sleep, and not to mention COOKING. Which, sorry Martha Stewart, does take time. I really can see why people eat out, eat on the run so much. It's a time crunch thing and it is not healthy.

One has to give thought to food. What is the end purpose? Eating. And by the way, if you've never heard of Mindful Eating (which is the OPPOSITE of Mindless Eating!) look it up. There was a great article in the New York Times a few weeks back.

Started DAY TWO with the dilemma of boring oatmeal again. The fix, toasty roasting. Dry on a pan in a 325 degree oven for about 5-8 minutes. Watch closely! Burning is bad. Unless you need the charcoal. Toasting gives a nutty sweetness to grains. Add to that sliced banana and a splash of rice milk. Good. Martha and Wilford would agree.

Later in the day, I think I had the most delicious cheap meal ever. A $.50 package of Lemongrass Rice noodle soup with a few pieces of olive oil panfried tofu. (1/4 package). Total cost about $1.04.

I did another foray to a different Grocery Outlet. Mostly disappointing. Where is all the cheap hot sauce, I ask? No one has an answer. Just three good items. An 8 oz bottle of organic apple cider. Something to add flavor to plain old water. An interesting find and splurge for $2.98, "Buttery Spread." Made with an organic mix of oils including coconut oil... and look closely and read the fine print, my vegan friends: butter. A happy break down for a prepared food, a package of Dal Tadka. Okay, so not organic, but wheat free and full of wonderful spice which I've been longing for. I brought this home and heated about half of it up and had it over the brown rice I cooked up. Delicious. I imagined I had mango chutney with this. I can dream.

Late night snack. Air popped popcorn with melted buttery spread and a fine drizzle of honey. Heaven! Good to eat while even watching gruesome scenes from CSI. I'm a nurse, nothing daunts me.

Food Simple

A bowl of oatmeal


Okay, so that's pretty boring. Rolled oats. So good for you in a boring kind of way. Yawn. The Wikipedia search for Quaker Oats Company has a underlining disclaimer, "Not to be confused with Quakers" Unless you refer it as thee oatmeal. Actually, Quakers don't come to mind as much as I think about Wilford Brimley and how I would like to have a talk with him about diabetes.

These were plain rolled oats. Need fruit. I cut up one of my large fuji apples, saving skin, and cubed it up. Not having lemon on hand so I could prevent it from turning brown, I drizzled a little of the raspberry honey into it. Sort of like a fresh compote. Ta-da! Fruit to dress up boring oatmeal. With a splash of rice milk, real good. How's that Wilford?

Now get cooking. Soaked black beans the night before, cooked up easy in the morning. Long grain brown rice, done in 20 minutes. Add to that vegetables. Zucchini, garlic, bits of green onion and chopped red pepper from Fresno thank you. All cooked in about a teaspoon of olive oil in a cast iron pan. Dinner to go.

I brought some carrots and rice crackers for a later snack at work but didn't feel hungry yet. I had a cup of yerba mate tea and I think it squelched my appetite. I may be on to something here. I've read mate is good for bone formation. With my sponge bones I'm all for that.

Home, now hungry. Ate 10 little crackers (approximate serving) and 6 baby carrots. Then my sweet tooth struck about forty minutes later, dun,dun, dun!!!!! Break open the chocolate brownie cliff bar. Snipe off about half of it. Add to that a third of a sliced banana and a splash of rice milk. Happily temporarily satiated.