This September 17, you're invited to help take back the 'value meal' by getting together with family, friends and neighbors for a slow food meal that costs no more than $5 per person. Find an event happening near you, host a dinner, or have a potluck.
That's a pretty high bar, and even a crock like me can do the limbo under it. I'm sure you can, too. The question is, how low can you go?
It needs to be a full meal- main dish, side dish or two, and dessert. To be fair, they may be assuming the meal includes a bottle of nice wine, which mine wouldn't. We'd be drinking milk, water, or, if company was coming, a lovely pitcher of herbal tea. Of course, they're comparing it to a fast food meal, and a fast food meal doesn't include wine, either.
Here's one example:
Tonight's meal is a start- two pounds of beef heart at .89 a pound- I cut it into chunks about 4 inches wide, and put the frozen chunks through the cheese grater blade of my Bosch food processor
(I'm not sure the 30 dollar food processors could handle it. Next time, I will call my order in and ask if the meat market can grind it for me).There is always some extra meat that got too soft to go through the grater blades, and it can gum up your food processor, so watch closely, removing that meat and setting it aside. Once all the meat is ground, put it in a nice sized pan for browning- this is my grandmother's dutch oven.
Take the meat that didn't grate nicely, and put it in the food processor bowl with the s-shaped blades. Peel and cut into quarters two medium onions, put them in the food processor, too. (I think this was about .50 worth of onion, but I'm not sure. Grind these up and add to the pan above.
Now add some spices as you brown the meat and onions- I used Fiesta Chili Powder, black pepper from the Philippines (freshly ground), garlic salt, and freshly ground cumin.
Brown and add to the crockpot with about four to six cups of cooked beans - we are using black turtle beans because that is what I had in my freezer. That's another trick to 'slow' cooking- advance prep. Make up a big batch of legumes and then freeze the extras. I buy them in bulk, organic black turtle beans. This month it's 1.15 per pound of dried beans. One pound of dried beans makes about 4-5 cups of cooked.
Next, well be adding tomatoes from the garden, peppers, and possibly a little cocoa powder. I'll share more about that later. If we didn't have the tomatoes and squash, we'd use canned tomatoes purchased on sale, and the side dish would be whatever vegetables were in season
The side dishes will be cornbread and butter (crackers would also work), with sour cream or cheese for topping the chili, and probably some stir fried zucchini and green beans, because we have them and they were free or nearly so. I'll have a price breakdown later tonight.
Our company is bringing dessert.
We expect to feed at least ten people, possibly 14 with this. My guess is that will be less than one dollar per person, but I will figure the price out more precisely later tonight.
So how about you? Do the Five Dollar Challenge Limbo with me.
I'm feeding my family of four (two adults, two small children) this month on $20/wk. That's less than $1/day/person (even if you count the two kids as one person, since they eat so little). While we usually don't do dessert, I have been on a chocolate pudding kick lately (from scratch).
ReplyDeleteWhile I normally spend more than $20/wk on groceries, I can't imagine cooking a meal that would cost as much as $5 per person! That's $15 per meal for us! And yes, I mostly cook from scratch, because the price of processed food is unconscionable.
Here's my end of the month post.
http://trialanderrorhomeec.blogspot.com/2011/08/my-grocery-challenge-week-iv-part-2.html
I think a more normal budget for us would be $30/wk, but I can cook comfortably for us on $25.
In a somewhat similar vein, the US Catholic bishops have called for the faithful to eat according to the budget of the USDA's Modified Thrifty Food Plan on the first Friday of each month:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.usccb.org/about/justice-peace-and-human-development/upload/september-2-kids-and-hunger.pdf
Now for our family, or for the Common Room or for Rachel, that level of spending on food would be an increase, and it's easy for us to be snarky about the idea of it as a challenge. But as the bishops rightly point out, for many Americans it *would* be a cutback, and one that might open their eyes to how poorer people eat. Similarly, there are many, many people who regularly drop $5 or more per person on a fast food "value meal," and to them a $5 slow food meal could be a revelation that makes eating better seem more doable.