Latin American Night... an unfinished photodocumentary

Continuing our tour across the world, tonight was....

Latin American Night

For this meal, we had chayote squash from Brazil, burro bananas from Panama, steak in the Argentinian style  (no seasonings except salt and pepper), an avocado from Mexico, and... well, a malbec from Mendoza, Argentina.  We also had a slivered jicama appetizer and potatoes, because the other palate had eaten nothing but a couple apples all day and needed food NOW.

Clockwise from left:  burro bananas, chayote squash, 12 oz beef (defrosting, right), and avocado (center).

The malbec, jicama, and potatoes are not pictured because they weren't part of the initial meal plan and I got too busy once the other palate got home to continue photographing.  I'm a terrible food blogger - I can never remember to take photographs once I have a hungry audience in the house, whether that's me or another person.

Anyway, as usual, let's survey the damage first.

Costs:

Bananas: 0.38

Squash: 0.50

Steak:  2.07

Avocado: 0.69

Jicama: 0.22

Potatoes:  0.14

If you don't count the negligible costs of salt and the tsp of olive oil that went into this meal, the total for two people was $3.94 or $1.97 a meal.  We also have to leave out the wine, but hey, you can't buy wine with food stamps anyway so it's not really cheating (as we know, there are people on food stamps who still drink alcoholic beverages, they just buy these from their "splurge" budget and not from their food stamps budget, just as we are doing here).  This is double the dollar a meal budget on food stamps, but we are talking about a multi-course meal with steak.  At some point I'll blog about the food stamps challenge in enough detail to convince you that splurging tonight with steak still fits into the overall budget of a food stamps diet.

As for WW points plus, we lose about 5 points to 4 oz lean beef, a further 2 to half a potato, a further 2 to plenty of avocado, and let's count an extra 1 for oil.  Everything else was "free."  I'm being over-generous here in my estimates of potato, avocado, and oil points, but the steak wasn't that lean, so it probably all evens out in the end.  The total for dinner then is 10 points plus, which isn't bad given this was a Friday night multi-course splurge meal and all.

In summary:  $1.97 and 10 PPV for the meal.  Worth it?  I'd say yes, but only as a once-a-week pleasure.

Protocol:

Let's be clear here.  I'd never prepared chayote squash nor burro bananas before tonight.  This was an experiment, but I know I'm a decent cook so I went for it.  I looked up hints on what to do for both online, and it basically looked like chayote squash you can treat like any other summer squash (i.e. in my mind, anyway, you grill it dry then drizzle with a little olive oil and sprinkle with salt and spices), and burro bananas hold together well enough for cooked preparations like frying (i.e. in my mind, anyway, you grill it).  

First, let's address the chayote squash.  I'd read that they have one big seed in the middle.  I didn't know whether this was like an avocado seed or like a typical zuchinni seed, so I cut the chayote carefully around the perimeter and twisted it like it was an avocado.  I wound up with this:

That in the middle is half the seed, which sheared right in half when I twisted the squash.  It has roughly the same texture as the rest of the squash, which is rather like the flesh of a very firm cucumber and smells odd.  My husband variably compared the aroma to pumpkin bread and horses, even when cooked.  It's not unpleasant, but definitely odd, and probably why these inexpensive foodstuffs are not a mainstay in American kitchens.  I decided at that point that the seed must be just as edible as the rest of the squash, and chopped it up without thinking about the seed again.

Anyway, we grilled slices of the squash, then drizzled in a bit of olive oil, sprinkled them with salt, and ate them like chips.  They were crisp and firm like a fresh cucumber, even after being well-cooked, and the flavor was not wrong for a comparison to cucumber.  In fact, they were close enough to cucumber that the other palate in the household broke out a tupperware of tzatziki dressing I had made a few days earlier to dip them in.  All in all a good experiment, one I would recommend every person undertake, but unless they are cheaper than typical summer squashes, I'll stick to zuchinni.  Maybe.  Once I tried putting a sliver of avocado on top of a slice of chayote, I was pretty hooked.  The flavor combo and mix of crisp and creamy was so amazing that I'll definitely do the chayote again, just to see what I can do with this new ingredient.  Perhaps treating it like a zuchinni substitute was incorrect and I'll learn with time what the best way is to prepare this interesting new ingredient actually is.

Next are the burro bananas.  I read online that I should slice them thin and fry them.  When I peeled the first one, which for all intents and purposes looks like a short, fat relative of the standard Chiquita banana or a ripe plantain, it looked like a normal banana, tasted like a normal banana, but I was impressed with how well it held together with handling both pre and post peeling.  A light-bulb went off in my head, "Ah, we don't cook normal bananas because they'd turn to mush upon heating!  This banana obviously can stand up to the heat!  Now I wonder what it will taste like grilled?!"

Well, here's the answer: heaven.  They got nicely browned on the outside, and formed a tough (by banana standards) coat around the perimeter.  This served to keep the tasty, sweet, creamy mush on the inside in one place.  The tough perimeter was actually no tougher than say a typical banana.  In other words, despite my language here, these were like little banana cream filled packages of goodness, and the crust was just a really good sweet and savory slightly chewy skin that lent the perfect contrast of texture and flavor to the super sweet and creamy interior.

At one point the other palate suggested that the only thing missing from the burro bananas hot off the grill was ice cream, and I immediately started fantasizing about the perfect banana split.  I've never really liked banana splits, I've always just eaten a couple bites of ice cream and been done, but a banana split with hot grilled burro bananas, the ice cream getting soft and melty where it hits the hot banana, the creamy goodness of the grilled banana....  suddenly I understood the attraction, that's all I'm saying.

The rest of the meal was pretty standard.  Sliced jicama as an appetizer, avocado as side dish, appetizer, and garnish, and of course, the steak.  By the time we got to the steak, we were pretty full on everything else, and it wasn't even appreciated as much as back when we'd have 4x the quantity of steak per person.  The other palate only ate half his, and I offered to cook it with eggs in the morning and he was like, "Why would we have steak for breakfast?  I'll take this to work as lunch on Monday."  We're talking about 4 oz scrap steak, here, people.

As an aside, when I went out into the world, I left a home where beef was such a staple that we ate it with every meal.  It was considered dog food if the steak was too fatty or bony to be easy to eat, because the meat was as close to free as you can get (and that poor dog isn't quite too fat to run yet, obviously he needs more meat).  It's a very different world I live in now.  

I'm so blessed to have experienced such abundance in my life.  I never go hungry, I am never wanting for variety, and I can almost always find something new at the market to bring home, look up on the internet, and try.  Rarely am I unpleasantly surprised, and sometimes I find a new "staple meal" to add to the weekly rotation.  I know the hubby is already looking forward to the next "Greek night" as he calls it when I make the Mediterranean tour, and I'm looking forward to his "Mexican night."  

He still talks about burdock root from our Asia food tour wistfully, so I know that one will be making a visit soon. The only reason I haven't brought it back out is that it does require a fair bit of prep work what with peeling, soaking, etc..., so it's a special occasion food.  And honestly, I liked it a lot, but not enough to do all that work on a daily basis!  If we're going to bring in another "blast from the past" I'd prefer to bring in bitter melon again.  It was easy and relatively tasty.  Cactus is on sale right now, maybe next you'll be honored with photos of me pulling catcus splinters out of my fingers.  I've done that one a few times, and honestly?  Cactus is a LOT of work.  I can't imagine any reason you'd eat that unless you had to, or unless you were just in love with it.  It's like eating turtles.  I can't imagine why you'd do it unless you had to or if you were one of an odd few who just really loved it.

Well, sorry to leave you with the image of cactus turtle soup in your head, but good eats to all, and to all a good night!

Meals on a Budget - Baingan Bharta (warm, creamy eggplant salad)

Meals on a Budget

Recipe: Baingan Bharta, or Eggplant from the Gods

Recipe courtesy of Aarti Sequira of Food Network

Cost Analysis

First, let's do a cost analysis, just to see how badly this meal sets us back monetarily:

Eggplant (2): 1.38

Onion (1): 0.17

Garlic (4 cloves, roughly 1/4 a whole): 0.20

Cilantro (1/4 cup chopped, roughly 1/2 a bunch): 0.17

Greek yogurt: 1.43

Rice:  Because you need rice to make a meal here...

If you buy in bulk, let's say all the rice needed costs about 0.50.  We're being generous, and assuming you have sumo wrestlers in the house that really like their rice.

Total cost:  $3.87

Cost per meal: $0.97

Weight Watchers points per meal (if you watch the rice): 4

So.. is it worth it?  I say yes.  I feel like I ate well and bountiful.... after all I'm doing this for the health benefits right now.  We're only looking at the monetary cost as an aside at the moment.

Recipe

I got this straight from the Food Network, let me state that up front.  I'm not this creative, nor do I have the experience with creating such wonderful Indian yet tailored to American palates as Aarti does.

Anyway, with that disclaimer, you start with a few items.  First, you need eggplant, two whole, which you stick in the oven to roast for a long, long time.

Then you need the other stuff:

This is one whole chopped onion, a minced serrano chili, 4 cloves of minced garlic, 1/2 cup minced fresh cilantro, and salt.

While the eggplant is doing its thing in the oven, get the onions nice and brown in as little oil as you can:

When they look like this, you're good:

By now the eggplant must surely be done.  Peel it with your Kevlar fingers:

What, you don't have Kevlar fingers?  Use a fork or tongs or something.  I honestly have no clue how to advise you on this if you are unable to turn veggies on the grill by hand or peel an eggplant with fingers fresh out of a 350 F oven.  Figure it out.  You're smart, you can do this.

When the eggplant are peeled:

Chop them up:

Add them to the onions:

Add the other stuff, too:

Sautee for a short bit (a min or two) and add the spices:

A half tsp each ground cumin and ground turmeric...  Turmeric makes it look great, cumin makes it taste great.  Good eats, my friends, good eats.  Add 2 C greek yogurt, mix well, and this is what you wind up with:

It doesn't actually photograph that well unless you have it positioned on top of a bowl of really white rice in a white bowl in good, natural light.  It's a beautiful yellow from the turmeric, with flecks of bright green from the cilantro, and I would've photographed it better for you had I not been so hungry by the time dinner was finished that I ate quite too quickly and now have a tummy ache and next to no motivation to photograph any more food.  It was that good.

Yum.  It was so good....  I wish I had  bigger stomach.

And that, my friends, is what 4 WWPPV and $0.97 can buy you.

Stay hungry and good eats.

Coming home to abundance

Abundance...

That word can mean so much for us.  It means plenty, not doing without, living well....

Well, I came home to abundance tonight!

The other palate in the household had prepared Mexican night, and did so with gusto.  It was so bountiful, with avocado and queso fresco etc...

I ate and ate and ate, well past content into gluttony, and I do this every day, and yet I've still lost 8 lbs.  In two weeks.

If you have a mind like mine and want to drop a few lbs, it seems Weight Watchers is the perfect combo of science and competition.

I'm not competitive at all.... hahahaha...

Good eats!

Meals on a Budget - Recipes without pictures

You know I love to post pictures of food....

However, I've been both too lazy and too busy to either photograph or post pictures of food lately.

Still, I wanted you to know how the last few nights of meals on a budget have gone.

Last weekend, I took all my veggie and chicken scraps out of the freezer, and put them into two large stock pots (one for veggie scraps, one for chicken bones), covered them with water, and let them simmer for several hours.  I wound up with over a gallon of good, homemade, "free" because it didn't cost me anything but freezer space and half an hour of work, soup stock.

It's hard for me to use up soup stock, especially chicken soup stock when I butchered the chickens myself.  I force myself to use every bit of the chicken, so I know there's bits of heart and liver and kidneys in that stock.  It's worse than pork how gross and dirty that stock is.  Major mental block.  Even worse is vegetable stock, which to me just smells like rotten, boiled vegetables.  I don't know why it smells rotten to me when everything that goes into a soup stock is pristine and good, and I know it because I'm the one to put those veggies in.  Somehow, once it becomes stock it nearly becomes unpalatable unless it came out of a can or a carton.

Well, I made a concerted effort to overcome those blockages this week.  I made a stew of carrots, celery,  onions, and potatoes with homemade chicken broth, and it tasted quite excellent if I say so myself.  The trick was to cut the onion very fine, add in minced garlic, and sautee those together.  I added in the carrots and celery in a rough, homey chop. and sauteed several extra minutes, until the onion started to carmelize.  Then I added the potato, chicken stock, and all the herbs I could easily find: rosemary, sage, parsley, thyme, and bay leaf, and let simmer for an hour or so.

Served up "American style" with a 16 ounce steak, it would've broken the bank and possibly my last belt.  Served with a 4-oz steak for me and an 7 oz steak for the other palate, it was perfect.

Last night it was too chilly to grill and eat out on the deck, even the other palate agreed, and he thinks its rather ridiculous the way Los Angeles eating establishments put gas heaters out on their outdoor patios...

So I wanted soup.  Good, hot, warming soup.  Not just any soup, though, I wanted good, old-fashioned, from a can chicken and rice Campbells soup.  Cans are actually pretty pricey, though, at a dollar or more a can.  Fortunately I still had 2 cups of chicken stock in the freezer and some random scraps of chicken all tucked into a tupperware at the back of the freezer from a week ago.

The usual soup approach ensued: half an onion, minced fine, with a few cloves of garlic, a couple carrots cut small but not minced, a couple sticks of celery, chopped.  Sautee everything until nearly brown, add in chicken scraps, a quarter cup of rice, and sautee until the rice is brown, too.  Add the stock and enough water to cover, bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and walk away for half an hour.  Yum, good eats.

Today was a different day.  There are only maybe two mornings a year when I wake up thinking, "You know what sounds good?  Oatmeal!"  Usually the answer is eggs.  When the answer is oatmeal, I DARN well make oatmeal.  So I made oatmeal.  It was especially good with pecans and maple syrup and black coffee to offset the sweetness. Just saying.

Lunch was some cottage cheese, an apple, carrots. and cucumber.  Nothing special, just a working person's lunch.

Dinner was a feast!  We had chicken shawerma with pita and lavash and tomatoes and onions and tzatziki and tabouleh.  The other palate in the household had never seen a full lavash before and he brought it into the living room, "Honey, did you realize how big this is?!"  "Yes, dear, just cut it in half, please."

A good night all in all, and always a good night when I can make the other palate ask pointed questions .....

As though I didn't know what I was buying and neglected to inform him

Food Stamp Challenge!!

It's official!!

After telling the other palate in this apartment how close we are to living within a food stamp budget ($25 per person a week) here in California given our normal eating patterns, he said, "Okay, let's do it!"

So let me make some ground rules.

Just like with food stamps, our budget will not be permitted to include alcohol.  Additionally, due to some considerable debate whether food stamps should or should not include the beverages, our budget will not include things like Diet Coke or Dr. Pepper or even coffee, as essential as the latter might be to a functioning blogger.

Don't worry, we like functioning bloggers here, so we'll supplement the food stamps with enough $$ to maintain healthy levels of caffienation.

Already I've been hearing comments along the lines of, "they're giving out too much in food stamps!"  This is not a political blog, but hey, I hear Jack In The Box is now accepting EBT!  If you want to live on a dollar or less per person per meal from an establishment that takes food stamps, they have one of the best and most varied dollar menus around.  I'm only saying that because I used to eat 3 meals a day there, but I gained nearly 30 pounds doing so....  I'm ready to demonstrate that a person can eat well and healthy on a food stamp budget without resorting to fast food $ menus.

Food stamp challenge, here we come....

Meals on a Budget: Shop Around: Super King, Pt. 2

Last week I posted our meals budget and take-home from Super King.  I divided the total into rough categories of "consumables" and "staples," and estimated a monthly food budget of around $259 a month.

I'd like to update on that post with what we bought this week, what was cooked, what went bad, and what carried over to this week.

We bought too much fresh berries.  Half of the strawberries and blackberries went bad before we could eat them, leading to $2 wasted.  We've been doing pretty good otherwise about actually eating the food we've bought and not adding it to the landfill.

Of everything we bought, many things carried over to this week, including a fair number of limes, carrots, yogurt, meat, lettuce, squash, cantaloupe, mushrooms, tomatoes, etc..

The items we used up completely or went bad only accounted for roughly $10 of last week's purchase.  It's a lot harder to account for items partially used up, so I will just not count those at all right now.

As for this week's purchases, here's the breakdown:

(No staples, all "consumables")

Item	Pounds	Cost ($$)
Lebanese pita bread	1	0.99
Bagels (mini, double-fiber)	1	1.99
Lavash	0.5	1.25
Light sour cream	0.5	3.39
Greek yogurt, nonfat	1	4.39
Large white eggs (18 ct)	1.5	2.99
Queso fresco (SPLURGE!!)	0.8	2.00
Lebne cheese (SPLURGE!!)	0.5	2.19
Ground beef	2.02	4.02
Tilapia, whole	2.40	2.14
Chicken breast, bone-in	4.35	4.31
Apples	5.18	3.57
Avocado	(2 fruit)	1.38
Burro bananas	0.97	0.38
Yellow bananas	1.92	0.63
Carrots	2	0.66
Collard greens	(1 bunch)	0.79
Cucumbers	(4 ‘cukes)	0.99
Cucubmers, Persian	1.44	0.99
Blackberries	0.8	1.29
Eggplant, large	(2 fruits)	1.38
Garlic	0.46	0.46
Ginger (fresh)	0.28	0.09
Jicama	0.86	0.43
Kiwi	(4 fruit)	0.99
Lemons	(5 fruit)	0.99
Honeydew melon	3.06	1.01
Oranges, navel	2.96	1.15
Parsnips	1.50	1.49
Chayote squash	(2 squash)	0.50
Mexican squash	0.86	0.43
Tomatoes	1.24	0.86
Ice cream (SPLURGE!!)	1	3.49
Total	40.1	53.61

Despite the fact that we now have enough food in the apartment to not have to go shopping next week at all, and have blatantly splurged a fair bit, let's assume that the last two week's spending is representative of an average two weeks.  Our total food spending for these two weeks is $111.  If we double that for a 4 week month, we're at $222, well under the USDA's "thrifty" plan for a family of 2 at $375 a month.

Well, I did a little looking around the internets, and found out there is a "food stamp challenge" that some people attempt to subject themselves to for a week or two in order to experience the "social, physical, and emotional difficulties of poverty and food insecurity by living on a food stamp budget for just a week."  http://povertyandpolicy.wordpress.com/2010/03/14/what-good-is-the-food-stamp-challenge/  The take-home message from that blog, and I would like to re-enforce it here, is that "Let's not confuse a short-term, voluntary experiment in self-deprivation with the real thing."  By no means do I ever want to convey that my experiments with eating well on a low budget has anything to do with how people who are seriously poor can live on a similarly low budget.....

...also remember that no where did I suggest this was an experiment in self-deprivation.  We're eating on a low budget here, but we're by no means giving up tasty, healthy food.

Anyway, I tried to find the food stamps budget here in California, where I am making our budget, cooking, and dining.  It's apparently around $25 per person per week, lining us up nicely with a roughly $200 a month budget for two people.  We're a little over that at the moment (by $22, but remember we've not only purchased staples but also splurged a little), but we also now have enough food to last us another 2 weeks, probably.

Hmmm....  while it's not EASY to live within the $25 per person per week goal, it's a LOT easier than living within the $25 per 2 people per week goal that we once had.  I'll post a synopsis of yesterday's and today's meals as an overview on "eating well on a low budget," and soon I'll get back to less math and more photos as a way to show you how we're handling the experiment....  And maybe one of these days I'll be able to say, with confidence, that assuming you can invest in the necessary infrastructure of a freezer/fridge combo (~$400 new from Home Depot with delivery), a decent set of pans and a reasonable knife (free if you hit the right estate sale at the right time), and live where I do, that you can not only eat well but really healthy food on a food stamp budget.

I'm pretty sure I'll be able to say that.  Now, there may be political ramifications of making such a statement, but those are beyond the purview of this blog!  I'll let you Californians now go and discuss among yourselves and leave comments....

Meals on a Budget - Eating well

At this point you're familiar with meals on a budget as a theme.  You should also be familiar with the USDA poverty level food-at-home costing:
http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/usdafoodcost-home.htm
A family of two spends approximately $375 on food a month according to this authority.  Perhaps in winter in Michigan or a dry summer in Oklahoma... but definitely not in Boston or in Los Angeles, if you know how to work things in your favor.

We already discussed buying in season at length.  We also discussed the best way to implement this strategy: go to the cheapest produce market in town, and buy only the really good deals.  For example, potatoes were on sale for 5 lb per dollar, while mushrooms were one pound for 2.99.  Which do you buy?  *Crickets*  Okay, math is hard... let's go shopping!

You go to a shoe sale, and you only have $10 to spend.  The store is running a deal where you can get either 5 pairs of decent shoes for your $10, or you can spurge on a $30 pair of sexy flats.  They're not even heels, but they're really cute.

What do you do?!  Well, probably you first text photos of all the shoes to all your girlfriends for advice, but after all that, you most likely decide to choose a few pairs from the 5 pairs for $10 batch and leave the store a little frustrated from having to wait in line for an hour but happy that you have a few extra dollars in your pocket and some much-needed new shoes.

Food is the same way.  Sure, you could splurge on Jimmy Choo out-of-season-entirely spring raspberries that you love so much, or you could settle for a few pounds of totally cheap store-brand in-season butternut squash.  The raspberries will be cheap again in a few months, and you will love them all the more because you waited.  Also, that squash can be easily all done up for a night on the town if you cut it in half, remove the seeds with a spoon, roast it for an hour at 350, then sprinkle liberally with pumpkin pie spice.  Just saying.

Also, apples are so cheap this time of year, and make a really sexy desert when cored, coated in Thanksgiving pie spices, and toasted in the microwave for 5 minutes.

If all this worries you, just remember that seasons are short and we'll soon be back into a new season where your favorites are back in season.  Autumn is short, and winter can be long, and soon we'll be looking at the months of beans and rice as the only option....

Think of yourself as the artist, the foods that are on sale the palette, and your own palate the audience.  Explore your creativity!

Do you have creative ways to make meals on a budget?  Can you make a meal amazing with only seasonal, locally-grown items?  Comment with your suggestions!

At 15....

Taylor Swift probably made this happen with her hit "15."  It seems a lot of high profile ladies out there are taking the challenge of saying something great to their 15 year-old-selves, but most of them are actually trying  to talk to those that are 15 years-old-now and, well, failing to do much good.

Here's what I'd say to 15-year-old me.  This was a trying year, mind you, I got accepted to a new school and everyone knew I had only a few days left with them and they all wanted to be going where I was going...

Stop worrying!  You worry all the time about how you sound, how you come across, how you look.  You look fine, you come across as qualified but a bit nervous, and you sound scared to death.  You'll get better at this, just give it time and practice.  Before you know it, you'll be standing in front of a room with one hand in your pocket feeling like you're owning the audience and putting on a good show.  Just give it time, stop worrying.

Stop worrying!  You might not be good enough right now, but you will educate and fine-tune yourself enough so that you will be good enough when it matters.  Listen to those that would teach you, study what you should study, and you'll be fine.

Stop worrying!  That boy that broke your heart last week?  You'll find it challenging to remember his name in  10 years.

Stop worrying!  And start living, as though my 15-year-old self needed to hear those words.

You know what?  I did a pretty darn good job of being a 15 year old.  It's a tough time, as anyone over 16 can tell you.  But you may not have an easy time.  Hang in there, it gets so much better.  It gets so much better.

Meals on a Budget: Shop Around: Super King

Super King Markets

Super King is a small chain here in Southern California with 5 convenient locations if you live in the greater Los Angeles area.  For the other palate in the house, they are just too big a conglomerate to be counted under his umbrella of "small local ethnic / international markets."  I probably shouldn't tell him that Lotte is like Korean WalMart....

However....

Super King offers us everything Concord Produce (our favorite ethnic / international store up North, by the Wall) did, but yes, with more of a warehouse feel and less of the "everyone who works here is related to each other" feel.  That's okay, though....

We're trying to eat really healthy on a really tight budget.  I may have mentioned the budget before on this blog:  we're shooting for $200 a month on food, which is less than $1 per meal per person.  You have to have some planning and creativity to hit that mark.  Which is why I suggested "shopping around" for ethnic markets in the first place.

What did we get?

I'm looking at the week's shopping receipt now.  I'll divide this into "consumables," i.e. the things we will probably eat or have to toss within a week, and "staples," the things that will last us longer than the week.  If we did this right, we should have less than $50 total going to food for the week, i.e. "consumables," and  "staples" that last much longer than the week.  Let's see how we did!  

Consumables:

Item	Pounds	Dollars
Gopi Non-fat Indian Yogurt	1	2.59
Boneless chicken breast	3	8.49
Beef shoulder roast	2	6.04
Apples, Red delicious	1	0.55
Bananas	2	1.01
Beans - green	0.55	0.54
Cabbage, green	2	1
Carrots	2	1.06
Celery	(1 bunch)	0.5
Serrano chiles	0.26	0.13
Cilantro	(2 bunches)	0.29
Cucumbers, Persian	0.68	0.67
Strawberries	1	1.49
Blackberries	0.5	2.58
Eggplant	(2 large)	1.38
Lemons	(2 fruit)	0.4
Limes	(7 fruit)	0.35
Lettuce, green	(1 head)	0.5
Cantaloupe	3.51	1.16
Portabella mushrooms	0.23	1.15
Mushrooms, general	0.85	2.54
Green onions	(2 bunches)	0.5
Onions, white	5.09	1.68
Plums, red	1.82	0.6
Potatoes, red	1.75	0.43
Squash - zuchinni	1.21	0.6
Tomatoes - grape	0.8	0.79
Total food	31.25	39.02

Mind you, that's mostly fresh produce we're talking about, and we got all of it for just under $1 a lb because we shopped in season.  I'll have to adjust my recipes to match the season, but it won't be hard, just look at that variety!  I can cook almost anything and already have everything I need in the fridge without having to go to the pantry, the store, or the substitution list!  Remember, we are shooting for a total food budget of about $50 to hit our "$200 per month" mark.  We spent about $40 in "consumables," some of which will carry over to next week, many of which will not.  Fortunately, the higher-ticket items like the meat and the yogurt will be fine for most of the month, and the meat is already in the freezer so it perhaps should be counted as a staple.  However, for the sake of argument and because I'll repeat this next week with an update, let's move on along to staples, those things that occasionally must be replenished but are generally just there.

  Staples

Item	Pounds	Dollars
Cured black olives	3	5.39
Chicken buillion	2	5.99
Black beans (dry)	4	4.59
Shawerma seasoning	1	2.49
Total food	10	18.46

Okay, so cured olives, buillion, and shawerma seasoning are only staples in the first world.  I'll readily admit to first world staples if my food budget is still first-world-poverty level.  The USDA "thrifty" monthly plan is nearly twice the budget of $200 per month I'm working with - they say a "thrifty" plan costs a couple $375 a month!

Anyway, here it is:

Weekly Breakdown

Consumables: 39.02

Staples: 18.46

Total weekly cost: 57.48

Total projected monthly cost, based on this week alone: $259

Caveats

There are good reasons to not compare our food costs with those of really low-income families.  We could afford the up-front cost of nearly $400 for a nice, big fridge with a nice, big freezer.  Therefore, we can buy meat in "family size" quantities without worrying about spoilage - we partition out what we will use and when, seal it up in baggies and aluminum foil, and freeze it until we want to cook it.

We also have a fully-stocked pantry with dry beans, flour, yeast, salt, baking soda, etc... and a spice cabinet to rival any ancient royalty.  Just because I happen to always have any spice, herb, or seasoning on-hand to make something palatable doesn't mean your average low-income person has those means.  Of course, I built most of my spice cabinet off great finds of half-a-pound for 99 cents at ethnic markets, so maybe that's not the best reasoning.

Your very low-income person, someone without a house, apartment, or kitchen, can't cook, and therefore can't make much of my tips and tricks that center strongly on cooking, saving, prepping, and learning the tools to make your own.  If you don't have a pan to put over a cook-fire you don't have, there's not much you can do with $20 in your pocket.  (But if you have $30, you can buy a gas-fired grill, gas to power it, a cheap knife, and an eggplant to grill on it.  I keep an extra $40 in my car's astray just in case I get stranded - the $30 for a decent meal and a new grill that doesn't catch fire every time you light it up count as staples for me when I'm on the road.)

Epilogue

Seriously, $375 per month on a"thrifty" budget?  http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/usdafoodcost-home.htm  We decided to refuse to compromise our health or culinary enjoyment and wound up at a roughly $250-$300 a month budget.  The extra $75-125 a month would mean the luxury of fine cheeses and good wines in addition to really good home-cooked meals.  Please post with your comments and food-budget experiences.