Yesterday I went through the annual ritual of cleaning and rearranging the house to accommodate all of the house plants moving back into our living space. By the time I looked at the clock is was 5:30 and I figure I might as well spend the rest of the day in pajamas.
The whole point of these posts and participating in the #SNAPchallenge is to raise money for Double SNAP Dollars, which doubles the purchasing power of SNAP benefits spent on fresh fruits and vegetables. So please, if you have the resources and value expanding access to fresh fruits and vegetables, take a moment to DONATE HERE! My family has lots of practice cooking on a limited budget, because SNAP used to be our food budget. These posts might make it seem too easy, but it wasn't. I am calculating the Double SNAP Program into my daily expenditures, which helps a lot! I also have the benefit of being raised in a family that cooked and gardened, and receiving SNAP forced me to budget, plan, be creative and look for ways to supplement our "supplemental" benefits.
For a late weekend breakfast we doubled the Puff Pancakes recipe and served them the options of Plum or Apricot Sauce. Puff pancakes have been a family favorite for years, and I posted the recipe HERE back in 2012. It has survived the passage of time.
4 eggs (4 x .25 = $1.00)
1 cup flour (0.09)
1 cup milk (0.25)
Plum and Apricot Butters (practically free - lets estimate cost at $0.21 for sugar)
Coffee (daily cost of our coffee share - $1.52)
Total Cost $3.07
In spite of being completely overwhelmed by my day to day, I have been canning a few of my favorite foods. I'm not sure if that grounds me in my day to day or just adds an extra layer of stress, but fruit sauces are simple and quick. We opened a jar of Plum and Apricot butter yesterday, and both of these were practically free. The apricots came from the small tree in our yard and the plums came from a neighbor. Canned fruit is expensive - organic canned fruit is ridiculous - and so, for years I have picked and canned, dried or frozen summer bounty.
I halved and dried bags of plums, already made plum butter, and yesterday I canned 7 half pint jars of Chinese Plum Sauce. We use it as a dipping sauce for egg rolls or as an ingredient in stir fries for the cost of spices, sugar and half a cup of dried plums. The plums came from a neighbors tree. The kids picked them for me. I bought the spices a few days ago.. but I think the total cost of ingredients used came to somewhere around $4.00.
We had such a late breakfast, that lunch turned into snacks.
Milk ($0.50)
Carrots (CSA)
Apples (CSA)
Tortillas ($0.60)
Cheese ($0.64)
Total Cost $1.74
Sylvan requested mac and cheese for dinner. Made from scratch mac and cheese is one of my favorite, quick recipes that has great left overs. I have included the recipe in past posts as a good way to use up WIC eligible ingredients. I left out the Worcestershire Sauce, because we were out, and I was still in pajamas and there was no way I was going to leave the house.
1 lb pasta ($1.38)
butter ($0.54)
flour ($0.04)
milk ($0.25)
cheddar cheese ($1.28)
corn (CSA)
salad (CSA daily cost with Double SNAP Dollars $2.04)
pork roast (left over from a weeknight, slow-cooker dinner)
Total Dinner Cost $5.53
Just as I was headed to bed, after folding the most ridiculous pile of laundry, Adam came inside from applying the first cost of finish to most of the school bus floor. He turned on the burners on the stove for a late night snack.
2 tortillas ($0.30)
left over pork roast and gravy
The total daily cost of our food today, and a little food that is stashed away on the shelf for later: $14.64.
The prickly pots of cacti still need a home. They usually end up on the only south window sill in the kid's bedroom. I spent all day organizing the downstairs, and taking those plants upstairs, will start another ripple effect. Right now, I am promising myself, that I will change clothes and leave the house, prior to my 5:30 yoga class.
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