Thursday 30 May 2013

Day 2 - Kidney bean catastrophe

Indigestion gone and breakfast decided upon, I was feeling quite chipper at the start of day 2 of my "£1 a day for food" challenge. 

I spread the half-tin of mushy peas I had left over from yesterday's lunch on two slices of very crispy wholemeal toast and ate them with a mug of hot water for breakfast.  The toast/mushy pea combination is one that I have had many times because I actually do enjoy it, although I usually garnish it with a soupcon of salad cream, being the classy eater that I am!

It's also a good breakfast, because I didn't feel in the least hungry all morning, so I think I'll be repeating it.  As I may have mentioned I have a real problem with being hungry, it makes me anxious, which is why I have been going for the maximum quantity of food and chucking quality out of the window on this challenge. 

This morning's work was taking a gentleman in his 90s shopping.  It is his pleasure to buy me a drink in the Costa cafe afterwards, to thank me.  This was a bit of a challenge, because I can only drink tap water unless I count the cost into my day, and things don't come cheap at Costa!  So I screwed up my courage and asked for a glass of plain tap water, burbling as I did so about living on £1 a day for charity etc.  The young man behind the counter turned not a hair and said, "Of course, no problem at all, would you like ice and a slice of lemon?"  I will be going there again.

Lunch was a mistake.  I reasoned that baked beans - especially value ones - usually come with too  much sauce, which I generally tip down the sink.  So if I were to cook some spaghetti and add it to a tin of baked beans, the sauce would cover the pasta too.  Well it did, but it was bland and frankly unpleasant, and guess what?  It gave me indigestion!  It seems best to avoid a combination of pasta/noodles and pulses, although my breakfast of mushy peas and (wheat) toast was fine.  Go figure!

I have not resorted to eating houseplants. My meals are so beige/orange and samey,
I thought I'd inject a bit of colour into my photos.  

I blew it at dinner time, too.  I was intending to make a sort of bean bake, with value kidney beans as the base, but after half an hour rummaging in my voluminous and very inconveniently-sited cupboard, I was forced to the conclusion that I didn't have any.  Well I did, but both tins I unearthed expired in 2011 and I'm not up for botulism.  Lesson of the day - clear out your cupboards, woman!

By the time I got to this stage I was very hungry indeed, so I lined up my meagre store and debated combinations in my head.  I decided upon a tin of new potatoes warmed through with a tin of value spaghetti, with two sandwiches of peanut butter and grated carrot on the side.  This seemed like a good, substantial meal.  One out of two's not bad I suppose - it was substantial.  I couldn't finish the spaghetti/potato combo.  I hate wasting food with a passion, but this was not only bland, it was slimy and the sauce was so sweet it was more like dessert than dinner.  Ack.  It's very rare that I don't finish my food and I feel bad about it, but I just could not.  The peanut butter and carrot sarnies were good though, I'll definitely have them again. 

More beige and orange!  Beige good, orange BAD.

I consoled myself with 4 rich tea biscuits for pudding.

Breakdown of day 2 costs:

Breakfast:   Bread 4.2p, peas 8p
Lunch:  Baked beans 25p, 100g dry spaghetti 3.8p
Dinner:  Tin potatoes 15p, tin value spaghetti 15p, bread 8.4p, 40g peanut butter 7.2p, 90g carrot 7.2p biscuits 2.3p

A smidge over 96p, so that's 2 days down and three to go and lots of lessons learned!

I bet Mamy would have eaten the orange stuff.


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