The Downshift: $4/day Food Menu – Week Four

This is part of an ongoing series that chronicles our challenges and (hopefully) successes living on a $4/person daily food budget. For the what and why of this series, please read our first post HERE.

As hard as it’s been learning to live on a $4/day food budget, the payoff has been my newfound kitchen skills. So far on this challenge, I have made my own gluten free wraps. I’ve made gluten free bread that actually looks and tastes like bread. I’ve made hummus from scratch ( a HUGE cost savings and excellent source of protein). I’m taking every excuse to make gluten free pizza for anyone who will eat it, because it is so good.

I’ve made curry and I’ve made Jambalaya. I’ve made beautiful cream-based pasta…

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I am killing it in the kitchen.

But listen, friends – I work from home. And while working from home is really (REALLY) not all it’s cracked up to be, my kitchen is less than 20 steps from my office.  I can cook bread at 5 am while I’m checking my emails. I can make pasta while jotting out notes for my next post.

My food has been fresh and delicious and exciting, and cheap, but how many would really have this much time to take the time required for all this home cooking? We are also fortunate to have the space to cook in and the tools to cook with.

Here’s the other question – how many carb-based meals must one have before it starts to become unhealthy? Sure, there are no cakes on our menu. No doughnuts or chips. Our bread is homemade and our local potato-laden breakfasts are made from scratch each morning.  But there are carbs at every meal. Why? Because they are cheap. Because they taste good. Because they are filling. Because I can now make a loaf of gluten free bread for about $1.25 instead of $10.

We’re living within our budget. We’re hitting our local targets. The food tastes good. But oh man, I miss digging into a huge salad. I miss serving up a board of fruit paired with lovely Ratinaud charcuterie. And I miss dinner out, where I don’t have to go anywhere near a kitchen.

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Last week (and this week), we have finally felt full. Full, satisfied, normal. Normal, except that there are still many things that we can’t do that we’d like – like join a friend for a coffee. Or a beer.

And even though we’re finally past the hunger stage, we’re still both constantly spinning food fantasies. We talk about food all the time these days, a growing list of “once we finish, let’s get…” food items. We got to have one of those “food fantasies” this week. On Saturday, we made a magnificent gluten free pizza to feed us and two friends. As our dinner guests, they brought a pizza pairing – ice cream.

Now, I’m not talking mass produced, big bucket ice cream. I’m talking those tiny containers that you pay way too much for and which come in all sorts of gourmet flavours and are made with real ingredients. They brought salted caramel ICE CREAM. Yet over the course of dinner and dinner conversation, that tub of ice cream was completely forgotten. I didn’t think of it again, until early the next morning, when I shot straight up in bed, and frantically woke Drew up.

We jumped out of bed, grabbed spoons, and had an ice cream breakfast. There is still some sitting in my freezer as I type. We have become very good at rationing.

Okay, enough food fantasies, onto our week four menu.

Breakfasts: Egg and potato skillets (with some veggies and cheese when they could be spared) and “Forraged Smoothies” – forraged blackberries, frozen banana, and milk.

Lunches: Hummus and cucumber sandwiches for Drew and open faced harriet the spy sandwiches for me.

Monday: Risotto

Tuesday: Risotto left overs

Wednesday: Mexican Street Corn (our new favourite thing – from the Good and Cheap Cookbook)

Thursday: Chana Masala (From the Good and Cheap Cookbook)

Friday: PASTA!!! (From the Good and Cheap Cookbook)

Saturday: Pizza (GF crust recipe HERE – but I use equal parts rice flour, potato starch and tapioca flour instead)

Sunday: Crustless Quiche w. leftover broccoli (From the Good and Cheap Cookbook)

Snacks: Popcorn, apples, and the lovely trail mix that @Allisomething gave us.

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Thanks to everyone who has been contributing, asking, and otherwise discussing these posts with us, both online and in person. It’s led to interesting discussions and ongoing “food for thought”.  If you haven’t joined in the conversation, and want to highlight some of the many factors that contribute to food insecurity, we would love to connect in the comments, by email, or on twitter @GillianWesleyNS.

 

Read Our Past Posts in This Series Here:
Post 1: The what and why of our $4/day food budget
Post 2: Preparing to eat on $4/day (and our week 1 shopping list)
Post 3: Week 1 meals and recipes and how it went
Post 4: Week 2 Shopping List and Prep
Post 5: The Nacho Debacle
Post 6: Week 2 Results and Week Three Shopping List
Post 7: Week Four Shopping List

About the author

Gillian Wesley

Since getting together six years ago, we have given away our television, begun weekly DIY nights, experimented with urban homesteading, challenged ourselves to drive less (100 days car-free in 2013), and have learned more about food security. We have experimented with a range of budgeting strategies, all of which involve consuming less stuff. We buy food with reducing packaging in mind. We got a dog. We have been doing these things for a variety of reasons: financial, social, environmental, to achieve a better work-life balance. It has resulted in us enjoying an increasingly simple and satisfying lifestyle. We’ve been influenced by a lot of people we’ve encountered and things we’ve read about along the way, notably the Transition Movement, the Antigonish Movement, and, more recently, traditional Acadien living. And we’ve learned that we are by no means alone. There are many, many people who are taking steps to downshift their lives. Sign up for our eNewsletter, and we’ll send you a round-up of our new and upcoming projects once a month.