Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Living on a Food Stamp Budget Month 2 Day 5

If you read the birthday post you will understand about the 'lost weekend'.


I begin the day with my 3.66.

I have a new fear of fat. All of my brothers are carrying around too many pounds and one is borderline obese. Seeing two of them for the first time in decades frightened me a bit. While it is possible fat is not in my genetic makeup I am not taking any chances.

For breakfast I had the last of the strawberries, which I admit were a little tired so I sliced them and sauteed them a bit topping them with a touch of yogurt. That and coffee were it.

Coffee .25
Berries .50
Yogurt .20
Total .95

By lunch I was hungry and despite a little travel bloat I opted for pasta with garlic and oil. I went to the garden for vegetables and added masses of chard and some snow peas along with a little parmesan.

This is the simplest of Italian dishes and one of the most difficult to make. You have to get the garlic just right, that barely tan color without any serious browning. Garlic turns bitter when overcooked and can be sharp when undercooked. I got a perfect balance today and tossed with the chard and peas some of the much needed vegetable.

Pasta .19
Garden Vegetables .10
Parmesan cheese .37
Total .63
The oil and garlic fall into the .33 a day I set aside for seasonings and oil. I needed very little oil, it is best to coat all the strands but the pasta should not be swimming in olive oil.

My motorbike needed a small repair so while it was at the mechanic I walked down to the Mission to shop.

Certain communities are very fortunate to have entrepreneurs in their midst who open stores to cater to them. In both Spanish and Asian communities you can find locally owned stores with an abundance of inexpensive vegetables along with a whole host of native ingredients to play with.

I remember in New York, when I lived in Harlem had no locally owned businesses that provided fresh healthy food but Spanish Harlem had a whole host of them with the myriad of peppers and vegetables spilling out of the bins. I would take my bike to Spanish Harlem or the Subway to Chinatown for great food.

San Francisco has the Mission and I got lucky. Locally grown organic black grapes for .99 a pound. Green beans for .33 a pound. Gorgeous local bacon that came to .20 a slice.

So for dinner I had a feast. I cut 3 slices of bacon into tiny bits and browned them. I added in some of the Puttanesca I had pulled from the freezer and cooked a pound of green beans in the bacony sauce.

It was a salt fest, which for me is an ideal dinner. I ate the entire pound of green beans. With a little rice I was very happy.

Green beans .33
Puttanesca sauce .77
Rice .10
Bacon .60
Total 1.80



I made up some of the nutrition I had been lacking but probably under did it on the calories with only 1,406. Too few calories can be as bad as too many so tomorrow I will bump that up a bit. My day total 3.38 I carry over .28.

One of the things I have mentioned before is finding the balance between calories and nutrition. I did much better on nutrition today and as a result had too few calories.

3 comments:

Marcia said...

I found your blog via a comment you made on Huffington Post. I look forward to reading through all your back posts. I've enjoyed reading other people's blogs when they try to live on a food stamp budget. Some are better at it than others!

Karl said...

It is a hard discipline so I can see how easy it would be to fail.

If there are others who have some great tips feel free to link them.

Elaine said...

Well, your sister isn't carrying any excess weight. XXOO. :-)