This week is a week of serious austerity. In the run-up to Easter, when I know I'm going to be spending a little more on buying a couple of treats for loved ones, I'm cutting back hard. That means emptying my fridge and freezer down to nothing, and cracking open the store cupboard basics. I'm mindful of getting vitamins and minerals, but fortunately new job at a greengrocer's means I get to nibble on damaged fruit on and off throughout the day.
Today I have definitely OD'd on lactose - I'm lactose intolerant, but I had milk and cheese in the fridge that wanted using up, and a small tub of tomato and onion pasta sauce leftover from the night before.
Breakfast was super-simple porridge: 1/2 cup of porridge oats, 1/2 cup of milk (I use semi skimmed), 1 cup of water. Cook together stirring constantly until thick and bubbling. Decant into a bowl, allow it to cool slightly so a bit of a skin forms (yum) during which time you can be soaking the pan and the wooden spoon. Sprinkle liberally with demerara sugar (you'll use under a dessert spoon to cover the top of a bowl with a smallish circumference that is relatively deep). Fabulous. Ready, laid out, eaten and washed up in under 15 minutes. Got me through 7 hours of shop work.
Lunch (at 3:15pm) was leftover spaghetti, tomato and onion sauce and a little grated cheddar. Tastes of home and reassurance.
Dinner was a second pasta meal. That makes 3 pasta meals in the last 4 - that's probably a bit much. I'll have to eat extra fruit and vegetables tomorrow to make up for it. Pasta was served with a very simple cheese sauce. A chunk of butter was cooked until sizzling and just browning at the edges, then a heaped dessert spoon of flour was mixed into it to make a roux. I thinned the roux with milk to make a white sauce, shoved in about a teaspoon of fiery English mustard and ground an eye-watering quantity of black pepper on top. This was mixed in, after which, finely grated cheddar cheese was added. If I'd have had any, I'd have served this with kale chips on the side, or maybe some bacon pieces scattered over the top. As it stands, these things were not available, so I had a bland-looking meal that was made nose-twitchingly good with the addition of mustard and pepper. Next time, cayenne will probably join the party.
Snacks today: 4 pimientos de padron, cooked hard in olive oil, pierced before they exploded and served up with seasalt. Happened to have these knocking around - I received a handful of slightly sad looking ones as a bonus from work, and these were the last of them. My favourite treat at the moment. I also ate a rather indifferent satsuma that was on its last legs, a couple of leftover dried dates and a few raw carrots. I am about to treat myself to a rather small plum. You'll notice, possibly, that there is no chocolate. I've had to cut right back on chocolate as it was a serious food expenditure for me. I was also quite seriously addicted to it - if it's there, I can't say no. Dates are a reasonable substitute. I'm trying desperately to remind myself to enjoy it on Easter day rather than just plant my face into it and consume...
I don't like being short on cash, but I'm reminded often that it could be a lot worse. Living quietly like this is a great way to get myself into training for continuing to make sound financial and ethical decisions about food. My message to myself today is that I've cut my food wastage to almost nothing, and I need to keep going. I need to compromise on quantity, not quality - buy things because I know exactly what I'm going to do with them and when, and ask myself whether I can honestly say that the animals I have to thank for the meat and eggs on my plate (when I eat them, which is rarely) had a decent quality of life.
Camera currently AWOL -- once it has been recovered, I shall start posting awkward and badly framed photos of food. Promise. :)
No comments:
Post a Comment