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!