The Downshift: The Nacho Debacle and Week Two Recipes on $4/Day

This is part of an ongoing series that chronicles our challenges, shopping lists, meals, 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.

Who would have thought that winning free nachos could cause so much trouble?

On Monday night, eight days into our $4/day challenge, Drew won a twitter contest from Freeman’s Pizza. They run them quite often (their twitter game is on point). It usually goes along the lines of how it did last night.

“The first __ people to (retweet/respond to) this tweet gets ____ on us tonight at ____ location”.

Drew was #3 of 5.

Our house erupted in euphoria usually reserved for big occasions. And it was a big occasion. We were hungry, our dinner that night was our least favourite of everything we’ve had in eight days, and now there were free nachos.

But then reality started to set in. You see, the prize was meant to be dine-in. Dine-in = service. Service = tip. Tip = not in our budget.

It took about twenty minutes for us to process. Our high immediately sobered. We actually bickered a little (my fault)- the sense of loss of food was so great. But we couldn’t afford a tip, and we couldn’t not tip for service.

Drew had (of course) been tweeting about this the whole time. He had already given Freeman’s the play-by-play of our nacho elation. Now he had to tell them it wasn’t in the cards.

Freeman's Nachos

In the end, Freeman’s let us do takeaway (because they are awesome, awesome folks) though we would be missing out on their new Open Mic night (hosted by some of our favourite local musicians The Hearth and the Harrow) and Drew went to get our cheesy treat. While there, he found himself in a great conversation with others who were going through a necessary budget shift. More stories that there are people everywhere, and from all walks of life who struggle to put regular healthy food on the table.

Well, we’re finished week two, and while we are (clearly) hungry, things are looking up. This week brought with it pizza, popcorn, risotto, and cold and spicy noodles, and having more spice in the cabinet has been a lovely change. Here’s how week two played out.

Many of our recipes have been sourced or adapted from the Good and Cheap Cookbook. It is free, and you can download it here: http://www.leannebrown.com/cookbooks

Monday
Breakfast: Apple Oatmeal (From Good and Cheap Cookbook – still minus the apple juice because we can’t yet afford it)
Lunch: Squash Soup and Cold and Spicy Noodles (Noodles from Good and Cheap, Squash Soup our own creation found HERE – except we added every spice we had this week)
Dinner: “Things on Toast – Chickpea and Spinach” (From Good and Cheap. We didn’t like this one very much. Added Cayenne to try to save it. Was still only okay.)
Snack: Popcorn with Spice Oil (From Good and Cheap Cookbook)

photo 1

Tuesday:
Breakfast: Apple Oatmeal (From Good and Cheap Cookbook – still minus the apple juice because we can’t yet afford it)
Lunch: Squash Soup and Cold and Spicy Noodles (Noodles from Good and Cheap, Squash Soup our own creation found HERE – except we added every spice we had this week)
Dinner: Herb Tomato Risotto (Adapted from this recipe: http://www.itv.com/lorraine/food/herby-tomato-risotto)

Adaptations:
Rather than baking it, I used the same ingredients but prepared everything in a pan. I also skipped the wine and fresh herbs (because wine is expensive). Here is the order – heat oil, add garlic and onion, add spice, add rice and stir constantly a minute or so. Start adding broth a small amount at a time. Let each cup absorb before adding the next.  Stir constantly. Add tomatoes about half way through. I needed about twice the broth that the recipe called for. Once the rice is cooked, add in the cheese. Stir and serve.

This recipe is SO GOOD and it makes a lot.

Tomato Herb Risotto

Wednesday:
Breakfast: Apple Oatmeal (From Good and Cheap Cookbook – still minus the apple juice because we can’t yet afford it)
Lunch: Squash Soup and Cold and Spicy Noodles (Noodles from Good and Cheap, Squash Soup our own creation found HERE – except we added every spice we had this week)
Dinner: Left Over Risotto (see above)

Thursday:
Breakfast: Omelette (!!!YAY!!!) with chopped pepper and chopped onion.
Lunch: Cold and Spicy noodles (from Good and Cheap) and corn soup (From Good and Cheap, but pureed)
Dinner: Veggie Melts (see recipe from week 1 HERE).
Snack: Popcorn with spice oil

photo 1

Friday:
Breakfast: Apple Oatmeal (From Good and Cheap Cookbook – still minus the apple juice because we can’t yet afford it)
Dinner: Cold and Spicy noodles (from Good and Cheap) and corn soup (From Good and Cheap, but pureed)
Supper: PIZZA!!!!! made from our Schoolhouse Gluten Free dough. I topped it with spice oil for the base (rather than tomato sauce which didn’t fit the budget) and then stirfry leftover veggies (peppers, zucchini & onion), then topped the whole thing with shredded pizza cheese from Foxhill farms and let it cook on 375 for 25ish minutes. It was so, so, so, so GOOD.

Snack: Popcorn (just with salt because our spice oil has now run out).

Gluten Free Pizza on a budget

Saturday
Saturday was my parents 35th wedding anniversary. 35 years is a big deal, so, rather than buying a gift from a store, we took our gift money and took them on a tour of the annapolis valley. We played chauffeur, driving them to five wineries and one brewery and picking up a picnic basket of any of their favourite finds along the way as an edible gift for them when they got home. They bought us lunch (a huge crepe overflowing with delicious things which we thoroughly appreciated).
Breakfast: Scrambled eggs with pepper and onion
Dinner: Crustless Quiche (from good and cheap)

Planters Ridge planters ridge 2

Sunday
Breakfast: Scrambled eggs with pepper and onion and the last little bit of cheese (left over from our pizza)
Lunch: None – Sunday is our long run day, and then I spent about three hours shopping for food for next week, so we didn’t eat breakfast until almost noon and so we skipped lunch.
Dinner: Polenta and chickpeas (a la the shrimp and polenta recipe from Good and Cheap

On Friday, we had a little foraging date. It was our first foray into foraging. Not only did it result in 2 litres of wild blackberries, we had a lot of fun in the process. It was an extremely relaxing way to spend a Friday evening (especially knowing that we were going home to pizza) and it made for a free and unique date night.

Foraging for Blackberries Halifax

This week was hard, not as much for food but for food stress. On Wednesday, we’ll chat about a few of the non-hunger related side affects of eating on a limited budget. We’ll also chat about some of our perceived mistakes so far.

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

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.