Eastside Hippie

We’ve done so much this weekend. Carl installed 2 new hall lights, a new kitchen light, and a new plug (with night light) in the hallway. We planted our anniversary cherry tree, spinach, mustard greens, romaine, garlic, thyme, peas, and pansies. The “ointment” color is about 99.5% covered, and shortly we will use a ladder to get to the last bits of it. It’s been a really good weekend. I’m covered in dirt and paint.

Pansies

Spinach

Peas

Peas

Romaine

Mustard greens

Garlic!

Anniversary cherry tree

So much work!

I got so dirty today!

New kitchen light and freshly painted window trim.

New and old paint.

The kitchen is super bright now!

Lisa and Xavier

Carl has no idea what to do with Xavier.

The old window trim color.

A friend left this comment earlier and I wanted to address it in full here.

I personally think using any kind of kitchen machine is cheating. If we are doing this hunger challenge to bring attention to low income families and their eating dilemmas, I wouldn’t expect most of them to have such machines or the will to want to make such foods.

I disagree with this assessment for a variety of reasons. First off, used pasta makers can be found for fairly cheap. I’ve also seen many kitchen machines for free on Freecycle and or for cheap on local Craigslist posts.

Second, not everyone currently on food stamps have always been poor. With the downturn in the economy, visits to area food banks and applications for food stamps have increased, showing the need from many who previously did not need these services. My household for example, has the funds right now to buy kitchen appliances with cash, but if say Carl was laid off and neither of us could find work for a year, we would still have our kitchen appliances (if we hadn’t sold them for food).

Third, just because someone is poor doesn’t mean they do not have the inclination to cook. Consider this: many in the cooking industry do not pull in large salaries, but maybe they just love to cook so much that they make it happen at home. There are also those who are going to school and working only part time (or receiving unemployment) who are eligible for food stamps.

I think there are many different types of people who can be considered poor, due to different circumstances. Those living in poverty very well likely have not always lived in poverty. All in all, these are a few of the reasons why I do not consider it cheating to use kitchen appliances during a hunger challenge.

May I please bring to your attention the fact that 90 minutes ago I consumed stir fry and rice? I present the evidence, clearly visible to my right: a bowl, spoon, and napkin with traces of said food on them. I can still taste the soy sauce on my tongue.

Wait, even confronted with the evidence, you still insist that you are hungry? Well, I am sorry dear stomach…I have nothing left to feed you. See, we are still in the midst of the Hunger Challenge, which means we eat what we tell you to eat, and nothing more. No, we can’t go over and purchase a muffin. No, no bag of chips. No, we cannot grab a motherf**king Snickers bar. Tongue doesn’t like Snickers bars, remember? It says they taste chalky and you always complain after that it wasn’t satisfying.

OK let’s make a deal. I’ll refill the bottle of water and that should tide you over until we get home at 3:30. Then we can eat a bit of bread and butter. Oooh, what’s that? Caught your interest with that statement right? Yes, we haven’t had much of that loaf of homemade bread yet. Carl hasn’t been able to chew it after getting his wisdom teeth out. Why did that stop us you ask? Well…I haven’t wanted to be unfair to him. That has nothing to do with you you say? Dearie, you and I are connected. What controls me thus controls you. Wait, it’s also the other way around? No-no please don’t growl during lecture. Please. I just have one more class to get through before we go home. Pinkie swear?

You’re such a pal.
<3,
Wesa

(P.S. I did not realize the full swear word was printed and have since made it more polite)

Here is a part of the entry I posted on Seattle Metblogs this evening:

Here is the current breakdown of food. We have just under $28 left for the week, which gives me some leeway to pick up a few more vegetables and some tofu for tomorrow’s stir fry. For lunch tomorrow, one of us will have leftover lentils from Monday and the other will have leftover red beans and rice. Thursday, I think we’ll have leftover Megadarra for lunch and I’m still thinking of ideas for Thursday’s dinner: maybe a simple winter squash soup with some of the Greek yogurt.

You can read the full entry here. I’m currently experiencing the dullness of mind that comes with taking a migraine pill (Imitrex), which was brought on I believe from carrying too much stuff in my backpack yesterday….anyway, I just don’t have it in me at the moment to really write a separate entry at the moment. I need to do my homework and head to bed, have a good night!

I just posted the breakdown of today’s cooking on Seattle Metblogs (direct link) but wanted to expand a bit more on the personal level here on my blog. On United Way’s blog, they quote Eric Rivera take on how he is conducting this challenge. It’s similar to what we are doing: eating similar to how we normally eat and how it’s not the point to go out and buy frozen pizzas, Top Ramen, and eat off the value menu at McDonald’s. The point, in which I am in agreement, is to eat a healthy and varied diet.

Today, we did fairly well, but definitely did not eat as many vegetables as we should/could have, and no fruit at all. I have spent just a smidge over half our food budget for the week (which is $60) and we can afford, at this stage, to add some fresh vegetables to our diet. Eric also points out that it really helps to know your way around the kitchen in order to create healthy meals. This morning’s example is perfect to demonstrate what I mean by this. I woke up early, panicking about how we didn’t have lunch to take to work/school. In about 30 minutes, I had cooked up a batch of simple lentil soup. If I haven’t had experience in trying out different types of lentil soups, I may not have been able to sleepily grab what was on hand (as allowed by the Hunger Challenge) and put this together. Healthy cooking is for those who have the time and enthusiasm to learn it, there is no doubt about this.

All in all, the hardest part has been not just grabbing any old thing out of the fridge to snack on when I got home from school. I have some leftover brioche (that may very well go bad before the week is up) that looked mighty tempting, but there is no way I could afford to spare enough money in the food budget to make this now. Brioche requires 2 sticks of butter, and I’d rather save our money to perhaps splurge on splitting 22oz beer on Friday instead. Tempted to make cookies? The ingredient list adds up. PB&J? Jam is fairly expensive, at least the jam that isn’t packed full of sugar and preservatives. Cream for our coffee? Forget it! While 1/2 and 1/2 is still cheaper than those liquid margarine knockoffs Coffee Mate and other non-dairy creamers, it’s still expensive. Chicken? The price of chicken on Capitol Hill runs almost $8lb at most of the nearby stores. It’s ridiculous. I can make it stretch for a long time by using it sparingly and for flavor, but still!

I better go make dinner now.

Carl and I are participating in United Way’s Hunger Challenge. The idea: to eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner for $7 per day for 5 days (or $12 a day for two people). It starts on Monday and I will be blogging about it each day here and on Seattle Metblogs. My personal goal is to avoid eating Top Ramen and other similar foods, to eat a balanced and healthy (if not slightly limited) diet.

I’ve been writing down meal ideas w/ ingredient lists and today I scoped out prices at Madison Market. If we use leftovers for most lunches, we should be able to pull this off w/out resorting to Top Ramen.

Breakfast: rolled oats for oatmeal (less than $1.00 each), or an egg, slice of homemade bread, 1/2 an apple, and a slice of bacon (roughly $1.29 each).

Lunch/Dinner ideas include Megadarra (lentil, brown rice, and caramelized onions w/salt, pepper, and oil, red beans and rice (kidney beans, jalapenos, carrots, celery, onion, brown rice, cumin, salt, pepper, garlic), lentils w/kale or chard (green lentils, chard/kale, carrots, cumin, salt, pepper, onion, bacon), stir fry (broccoli, carrot, celery, onion, brown rice, oil, soy sauce**). I can also make a pretty cheap soup using onion, celery, carrot, potatoes, garlic, rice, beans, and a slice of bacon.

We’re trying to figure out if we can afford enough coffee for 5 days. The cheapest coffee at Madison Market runs at $7.99lb, so half a pound would likely last us that long, but that would cost us $4, plus the cost of sugar/cream if we used them. I am not a huge fan of black coffee.

I found some pork for $2.89lb, and could use 1/2 lb in one meal fairly easily.

Here’s a list of some of the prices:
**Soy sauce: $2.40lb (in bulk section)
Pork: $2.89b
Coffee: $7.99lb
Kale/Chard: $2.49-$3.99 a bunch (can likely split a bunch into two meals, w/stems)
Yellow onions: $0.59lb on sale (picked up 2.69lbs for the week already)
Eggs: $0.19 each (bulk section)
Flour: $1.39lb (need 14oz to make a loaf of bread)
Yeast: $4.29lb (need 0.25oz to make a loaf of bread=$0.07)
Olive oil: $6.29lb (in bulk section)
Safflower oil: $2.88lb (in bulk section, will likely skip olive oil and use this instead)
Rolled oats: $0.89lb
Wheat berries: $0.99lb
Fuji apples: $0.79lb
Broccoli: $1.99lb (can use stalks too)
Winter squash: $1.99lb)

Debating whether to buy sugar. We would only use it in the oatmeal, stir fry, and coffee. Also I would love some butter, and I can buy a single stick if I wanted to, but I didn’t grab the price of that.

Homemade no-knead artisan bread costs an entire $1.02 to make.

Full set here.

First off, my life is complete again. Ronan is currently curled up on my feet keeping them warm. (Actually he’s sighing heavily, he wants to go for a long walk) I knew I missed him, but didn’t realize just how much he is a part of our lives. Carl was saying the same thing last night, after finally breaking down and inviting Ronan on the bed. He gave a happy sigh and said “this feels right”.

Last night, it took Carl just over 30 minutes to dig the car out and put chains on the front tires. The car handles like a dream in the snow, so we’re very happy about this. When we buy a place, we’ll have a set of winter tires in the garage for times like this, but for now, the ancient chains we have are the way to go. It took us an hour last night to get off the hill. We live 1.10 miles from the freeway onramp, but traffic was so bad we averaged 1 block every 10 minutes down Pine. We first attempted to go to Broadway where it turns into 10th, but traffic moving towards Roanoke/520 was even slower, so we turned around and went for the Olive Way onramp. Sheesh, it was bad. People were forcing their way into the line of cars, sneaking around to the right whenever there was a bus stop, using the oncoming traffic lane to pass people…people were fighting dirty. Got onto I-5 and flew to Mukilteo with no problems. Whidbey’s main highway was bare pavement, and we stuck to 20mph on the street to the Mother in law’s and didn’t have to put the chains on. We left the apartment at 3:30 and arrived at their place at 7:30.

I hear it’s snowing again at home, but not here. I’m glad we got out when we could. I spent 12 days cooped up in our apartment without being able to go anywhere for the last 9 of that, and was more than ready for a change of scenery.

“We get the biggest snowstorm of our lives and you are home bound due to surgery. There is no justice.”

I stood out on the balcony last night and took a few pics.

Our car covered in snow.

Snow accumulation on the balcony railing.

I have been in the apartment since last Friday with only 2 short outings on Wednesday to the doctor and the craft store. That’s 11 days folks. Think you’re going stir crazy?

This is what comes of patience and relinquishing the kitchen to Carl while I recover from knee surgery. Thank you Carl! You’ve been keeping me well-fed.

Kale acorn squash penne paired with a not-too-dry chardonnay and ginger-glazed carrots.

The best stir fry I’ve ever had! Duck breasts from Denver, via Carl and his father’s last hunting trip together last Thanksgiving. Breasts defrosted in milk overnight, marinated in a ginger-soy marinade for 90 minutes, then lightly stir fried with carrot, bok choy, broccoli, onion, celery, and bell pepper, touch of hoisin.

Grilled cheese sandwich with fresh baked sweet potato wedges.