Yesterday, I planned to go to the St Francis Food Pantry as an actual shopper, but my plans didn't work out. I spent the morning picking wild berries and the time just got away from me. That was my only opportunity to work the food pantry in with my schedule, so I will have to make the food I have on hand last one more week.
I still have plenty of oatmeal and pinto beans and enough rice for another week. I will have enough berries to get some vitamins and the green onions and arugula are coming nicely in the garden and there is a nice-sized Chicken of the Woods mushroom growing out of a stump in my yard. I have about six radishes left and most of the leaf lettuce that I bought at the farmers market. Celery, carrots and cabbage round this all out.
The only thing I'm really missing at this point is the meat. I have three eggs left and two and a half chicken breasts. I'm thinking chicken fried rice will be one of the main menu items. With the carrots and celery, it will look good and taste good. I also have the pasta left, so that can make a nice hotdish or pasta salad. Menu planning is critical, I'm finding, to stretching food dollars. I haven't connected in person yet with the nutrition educators at the Extension office, but when I do, that is one of the things I want to ask them about--how do they teach meal planning and budgeting and healthy eating?
One thing that has helped me stretch my food this month is the free meals at The Community Table of Eau Claire. After today, I will have eaten there four times this month. I also had a great meal yesterday at my niece's bridal shower. It's fun when the women in couple's families get together. In my family, the girls share a lot of laughter and wisdom (or wise remarks?) to start the couple along on their journey. All of the successful marriages I know have a liberal amount of laughter in them. Humor can go a long way to soothing the minor slights and the unintentional emotional bruises.
As for the meal, there was ham and beans and pickles and taco salad and pasta salad and a lot of desserts. I must have eaten a half jar of my sister's homemade pickles all on my own. And the pasta salad had vegies in it! Real vegies, like broccoli and cauliflower and carrots--ones that crunch! I was in heaven! The dessert section didn't appeal to me at all. I'm not really a sweets person, but after all of the starchy foods this month, I just have no desire for sweets.
That is one of the biggest things I've learned on this challenge--fresh fruits and vegetables are so costly that it is actually cheaper to eat unhealthy. I've heard that part of the reason is that we subsidise the corn growers and wheat farmers, so things with corn, corn syrup and wheat have some of the cost offset so they cost us little. I don't know if it is true, but maybe a visit to the local Ag office could shed some light on this. I wonder if there are any farm subsidies for perishable goods? What does the government do for those farmers? There must me some system in place for using all of the crops so they don't go to waste, right?
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