I’m not writing about Weight Loss Weekly today since I’m going to post about the Hunger Action Week in the next 5 days. But do go and visit Bernie, Sunny, and Joie de vivre who are discussing this question: How do your family and friends support you or hinder you in your weight loss efforts? Do they adapt easily to your changing habits and help you along, or do they confront your new habits with skepticism?

And now to the challenge.

I am feeling a bit nervous about this challenge. It is mainly the thought that to me it’s a 5 days experience but there are other people who face this challenge every day. While I usually shop at my favorite fancy food store, they have to rely on food stamps for much longer periods of time. It’s an everyday reality for them.

I don’t know anyone personally who relies on food stamps to eat – besides my grandmas who raised families during the previous depression years – and I don’t know how they do it. I’ve never been too smart or careful about spending money on food. Ever since I started buying my own groceries out of my own money, I always spent too much on food. I never planned a food budget. Not even when I was a student and working multiple jobs to support myself. I know I’m very lucky. In trying to prepare for next week’s hunger challenge, I realized I must know how much certain ingredients cost and I must plan my expenses.

We have decided to take this challenge as a family, meaning my husband and our two kids are participating as well. Our budget is $22 per day * 5 days = $110 for the 5 days’ challenge. We usually eat at home and I usually cook from scratch. It saves money, I believe, compared to buying pre-cooked, pre-packaged, or highly processed food, and it is much healthier and tastier. For example, if it costs $6-$7 to buy a take-out chicken teriyaki with rice and lettuce salad (and it’s a lot of food, enough for 2 people), I can buy for the same amount of money free-range, maybe even organic, chicken legs and make a home-made cooked meal with a side dish of rice and fresh salad enough for 4 servings. So that’s a good start. (And less Styrofoam.)

The food

Our meals in general, are simple and usually look something like this:

Breakfast is tea,coffee, milk for kids, bread, butter, jam, cheese, yogurt, fruit, maybe 1 egg is involved too.

Lunch: Baby eats lunch and snacks at day care. My son’s school lunch is food from home, either leftovers from dinner or a sandwich and fruit. My lunch is the same. My husband usually eats at his work’s cafeteria. The cost is $4-$6 per lunch and he doesn’t enjoy the food so much so for the challenge I will cook our lunches and he will take food from home. (He would have been very happy to take lunch from home every day, I’m sure.)

Snacks between lunch and dinner can be a fruit, yogurt, crackers, milk/smoothie.

Dinner: See recipe page for dinner ideas.

The plan

I am planning to use pantry items that I already have such as sugar, coffee, tea, olive oil, spices, but I will deduct them from the $110 budget. I estimate the cost of using those to be $2 per day + I add baby’s food at day care (I think it’s around $2 per day). Let’s say it’s a total of $20 for 5 days. That leaves me with $90 for the groceries. It doesn’t sound like much, does it?!

I have to cook 5 lunches and 5 dinners and I’ll be using recipes I have already posted on the blog. Yes, the kids will probably be happier to eat more pasta, pizza, and hotdogs, but I would like to see if what we normally eat would work on a budget.

Estimated cost of 5 dinners for the family

#1 Chicken liver – $3 and Yellow rice – $1

#2 Sweet and Smoky pork chops – $6 (4 servings) and Mashed yams $4

#3-4 Roasted Lemony Chicken Thighs – $8 (8 servings), leftover sides, and Roasted vegetables, like carrots, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts – $5 (4-6 servings)

#5 Upgraded pizza – $6 or Ravioli – $6 and Top Secret Orange Marmalade Salad – $4

Anything that’s left – $0

Estimated cost of 5 lunches for 2 adults

#1-3 French Onion Quiche – $10 (8-10 servings) and Simple salad $10 (6 servings)

#4-5 Black-Bean Burgers $9 (4 servings)

#4-5 Leftovers – $0

That’s $66 for lunch and dinner. So I have $24 left for breakfast and snacks. 

This morning my husband and son took leftovers from last night’s dinner to work and school, Mac and cheese and roasted chicken. The cost for both is $3 which I will take it off of my groceries budget.

… I have no idea how many hours it took me just to plan, estimate, and calculate all these things. Probably 2-3 hours. I could have done so many other things during that time.

OK, I’m going to do the grocery shopping now. I’ll post later about how I did.

Leave a comment, I’d like to know what you think.

Thanks, Nurit

Other food bloggers taking the challenge:

All You Can Eat, Cook & Eat, Eat All About It, Eric Rivera’s Cooking Blog, Favorite Freezer Foods, Foodista, Julie Jams, Live To Eat, Mirch Masala, Musings on the Path to Frugality, NOMalicious, Savory Sweet Life, Self Rising Flour, The Curious Domestic, The Gastro Gnome, What’s For Dinner

I follow many food blogs and plenty of times I find gorgeous food with beautiful photos that I really really want to try and make at home.
For this week I picked a few recipes, the Husband went grocery shopping with the Kiddies, and we’re going to have…

Organic Carrot Risotto from Foodie Tots

Roasted Cauliflower and Red Pepper Farro Salad from Closet Cooking. I never ate or cooked Farro. This will be interesting and new as well as Mushroom and Thyme Farro Salad.

I love clementine, so I plan to try the Clementine-Cranberry Bread from The Kitchen Sink

15-Minute Fried Herbed Chicken from NY Times Mark Bittman looks delicious.

Now I only need to find a new and exciting recipe for a cake for the weekend. Any suggestions?

Entrées:

Have a wonderful time in the season to be jolly…
Nurit

Dear blog readers and subscribers,
It’s time for another weekly meal plan suggestion. As always, mix and match according to what you and your family like to eat.

A reminder – one day left to vote for your favorite animal – is it chicken/fish/lamb/beef/pork, so I know what kind of recipes you are looking for. The poll is on the right side column.

So what’s on the menu?

Entrées:
Balsamic and sweet roasted chicken
Fresh Wild Pacific Northwest Salmon
Thanksgiving-y chicken dinner with carrots, butternut squash, sweet potatoes
A simple yet delicious fall stew beef with butternut squash, Jerusalem artichokes, potatoes
Grilling in the rain – Balsamic marinated lamb, Tomato and mint orzo salad, and Hummus

Side dishes:
Garlic & Thyme Roasted Brussels sprouts
Light-as-a-feather potato pancakes
Orange marmalade salad
For more side dishes, click here.

On the sweet side – NY Times Chocolate Chip Cookies
For snack – Pumpkins Seeds Roasted With Curry Seasoning

Weekly meal plan – October
Weekly menu plan – September

Have a wonderful wonderful week!

* Save time on planning and thinking what to cook (that’s the part that takes most of my time, going through recipes and cookbooks and trying to choose what to prepare)

* Make a grocery list through copying & pasting the ingredients in the recipes

* Print the recipes to make a collection

* All recipes are easy and/or quick to make

There are a lot of chicken recipes since this is a kids’ favorite ingredient. I always have a success with chicken.
So, your weekly menu plan can look like this:

Monday – Grilled potatoes, corn, and lamb with yogurt-mint sauce

Tuesday – Chicken thighs, Israeli couscous, steamed cauliflower, and salad with feta

Wednesday – Rib-eye steak, grits, cherry tomatoes and butter lettuce salad

Thursday – Pork schnitzel, potato-yam mash, roasted cauliflower

Friday – Roasted chicken with orange-mustard marinade, yellow jasmine rice, steamed broccoli

Vegetarian meal – Artichokes, Brussels sprouts, Eggplants, Simplest vegetable salad/Love-ly Heirloom tomatoes salad, Easiest corn on the cob ever, with good bread, cheeses, etc.

Let me know if you like this idea and would like to have more weekly menu plan ideas.
E-mail me: chef@wflavors.com, Post a comment below, or forward this to a friend (click on the little envelope icon below).

Have a wonderful week!
Nurit

It all starts with having a weekly meal plan.
Choosing recipes with no more than 20-30 minutes of prep time (That is the time you have to be active to prepare the recipe, unlike the cooking time which is usually inactive and allows you to do other things while the food cooks.)

Here is an example for a summer weekly meal plan. These meals are quick and easy to prepare. If you keep it simple, like in the example below, you will find that you have more time to do fun stuff like go to the park with the kids, because you have it all figured out and dinner is almost ready and all you need to do is 1-2 quick side dishes!

I find that in the summer, the main advantage for grilling is that you can have fun outside in the backyard, deck, or porch and play with your kids, water the plants, or just sit and have a drink, while the food cooks.

Monday
Grilled Salmon
Grilled baby potatoes
Grilled asparagus
* Do ahead – cook Bolognese sauce for Thursday on Monday/Tuesday night

Tuesday
Grilled steaks
Mashed sweet potatoes
Steamed broccoli

Wednesday
Grilled lamb chops or pork chops
Israeli couscous or orzo salad
Cinnamon glazed carrots

Thursday
Spaghetti with Bolognese sauce (reheat)
Pasta
Small salad

Friday
Buffet = take all the leftovers out and “clean” your fridge before Sunday’s grocery shopping* OR Pizza party = put it all on flatbread and make “pizza”, OR Light dinner of fried eggs, cheeses, deli meat, veggies, tuna salad, etc

* Do the grocery shopping on Sunday and you are good for the week.
* Do ahead the prep or cooking is best to do in the evening after the kids are in bed. I know it might be the last thing you feel like doing at the end of the day when you can finally rest, but he next day you will be happy you did it. You will feel so wonderful when you know you don’t have the pressure of cooking dinner fast and can do something “funner” instead.
* If you have leftovers, that is the best. Pack everything and have a picnic dinner in the park, or the backyard.

Make your life and easy, keep cooking simple, and you’ll see that having a home-made dinner everyday can be easy. It just takes some practice (or a cooking class, see World Flavors).

Enjoy summer.
Nurit