Is January really over already?

In week four, all of our dreams came true. By “all of our dreams,” I mean that we could afford everything we wanted, and we called it a victory.

I’m also using “we” liberally here. I could afford everything I wanted this week because I was the only one who set foot in a store. Jake’s feet were shuffling so quickly between work, the theater, and home that he couldn’t go shopping any of the times I could. I planned for us both, though. I knew he would want as many greens as possible and any fruit we could manage. I took care of those first, along with the staples we had been buying all month: potatoes, onions, beans (I got two kinds this week, black eyed peas and black beans), and corn tortillas. Collards and kale were only 99 cents a pound as usual, and grapefruits, though nowhere near as cheap as earlier this month, were affordable.

The best nacho rice ever

I stopped at Trader Joe’s a little later in the week hoping peanut butter would be on sale still. It was. Scanning the isles for anything else I might be able to squeeze in, I saw the soy chorizo and got bold. It was only $1.99, and the only thing I actually still needed was lentils, which are only $2.79. It was an easy choice. After picking up a few lemons and oatmeal, I picked up that chorizo and cradled it all the way to check-out. That set us up for the most delicious meal of the month and I kept it a surprise from Jake until he got home from composing and rehearsal around 11:30. Remember the nachos we made the first week of January? Well forget them. Those nachos are dead to us.

There are a few reasons for this: either I can cook better now, chorizo really made a difference, or after not eating crazy salty and fatty foods this month, our taste buds were once again sensitized. I didn’t even have all the ingredients that I needed the first time like soy sauce or almond butter, but I had learned how to improve and improvise.

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Jake, on said improvement:

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I’ll admit, I wasn’t really a magnificent chef this whole week. I made one really awkward casserole, which we still ate because there wasn’t actually anything technically wrong with it. I was tired a few nights and just roasted some potatoes in the oven — not really a complete meal, but if it was okay for the Irish, it’s okay for me. Even if we weren’t always having the fanciest meals, we almost always had plenty.

We still haven't even opened some of this

Rationing was a crucial factor to our success this month. Sometimes when we wanted a snack, we had to get over it. Eating has become more than just fulfilling hunger to most of us — we do it out of boredom or habit. This month we knew that we only had a certain amount of food, so we’d each eat one fourth of dinner every night so both of us had leftovers for lunch the next day.

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Jake:

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That’s what it costs to eat healthy on $30 a week: time. Eating well certainly doesn’t have to cost a lot of money, whether you’re a vegan, vegetarian, or omnivore. If you’re willing to spend the time you can save the money, and you’ll be investing in your own future, which seems pretty worth it.

Two recipes of Liz’s partial invention seem appropriate for this last week: the flat breads (which are really Indian roti bread), and chili potatoes. Chili potatoes probably exist already, but Liz had to invent something one night when there wasn’t much time, and no Internet to look up a recipe.

Whole Wheat & Flax Flat Breads

Chili Potatoes

Food Challenge Pt. 5 – week 4 from Jay Sanchez on Vimeo.