The Hillbilly Housewife Challenge - Prep Day

I love my food challenge weeks, I really do.  I love trying to decide what I'm going to push myself to do.  Is it going to be as simple as recording what we eat and snapping a photo for a week, or am I going to have to re-vamp our way of eating entirely, perhaps going vegan, or raw food, or dairy free?

Well, this week's challenge is a fun one, in my opinion.  It's based on the blog The Hillbilly Housewife; she has an emergency menu that she claims can healthily feed 4 people for a week for $45.  It's nothing fancy, but she claims it's filling and tasty, and that piques my interest.  I did the Big Shop today to prepare for the meals ahead.

First off - my grocery bill was $76, not $45.  Now, that being said there were a few things I bought that she hadn't asked for, and a few things she asked for that I didn't buy.  Her menu plan assumes a bare pantry, and I am well stocked with spices, salt, flour, etc. so those weren't purchased.  Instead, I bought some fruit, which is completely lacking in her meal plan.

There were also a few 'switches' made.  In some cases it was a simple switch, for example she asked for canned tomatoes, but I bought fresh because I prefer them and they were on sale.  In other cases, I 'upgraded' my ingredients; she simply asked for hot dogs, by which I assume she meant the cheapest there were, and I bought the natural hot dogs that are chemical free and cost three times as much as the cheapest no name brand.

Is this cheating?  Maybe, but I abhor wasting food and I refuse to cook something (taking the time, hydro and money out of my allotment) just for the fun of it and with no serious intention of eating the finished product!  In the long run, though, and after reading a lot of comments about the meal plan, I can also see that there isn't much of a chance of me reaching the $45 mark and having enough food.  I know from past experience that I can, with a lot of squeezing, feed two adults on $50 per week.  But I am nursing two children, David is working 40 hour weeks on his feet, and we walk everywhere, not to mention a toddler shares our table; these days I'm doing well if I can keep our bill at $75 per week.

We eat a LOT of food.  Just sayin'.

This is all to say that I think the switches and so forth even themselves out.  Yes, I bought fruit, but I didn't buy flour.  Yes, I bought expensive hotdogs, but I bought cheaper beans, etc.  And it came to $76.  So there you have it.

I intended to start today with the challenge, but after a close look at the menu I realized that I was going to need a 'Prep Day'.  Here's what we'll be eating tomorrow, then:

Breakfast: Pancakes, syrup, orange juice, hot tea, milk.

Lunch:  Lentil and vegetable soup with dumplings, milk.

Supper: Pinto beans, onions, hoe cakes, collard greens, iced tea.

Snack: cinnamon toast and milk for children, tea for adults.

Can I tell you what immediately hits me like a tonne of bricks from that menu?  The beans for supper.  Just...beans.  Beans soaked, drained and then boiled.  Oh my goodness how do people eat just beans?  Nothing on them?  Like, nothing?

I also had to look up what a hoe cake was, and it so wasn't what I thought it was.  It turns out hoe cakes are fried cornbread.  I'm trying to picture in my mind what Samuel's face is going to look like when I present him with fried cornbread tomorrow.  I'm guessing we'll be using that syrup again come suppertime.

My prep today, then, involved making a loaf of bread so that we can eat our cinnamon toast.  I also decided not to use the bouillon that the Hillbilly Housewife suggested for her soup broth, and instead I'm making broth as well, from turkey.  I've also been wracking my brain on what to do about those beans, because that is going to be really tough for me.  I settled on a roasted garlic butter, and I've roasted three heads of garlic in the oven and put them in the fridge ready to go.

She suggests soaking your beans for a few hours, but with dried beans I prefer to soak overnight using this method from Keeper of the Home (and here's a great link as to WHY I prefer that).

Other than that, I think we're ready for tomorrow.  Let the beans shine on.