[Food Stamp Food] November wrap-up and a new challenge for December

This hardly ever happens  but we’re at the end of the month and there’s a balance of $161.00 left on our EBT card.

It wasn’t a result of my super frugal domestic goddessly skills, unfortunately. Faux-Hubby works at the grocery store we usually shop at.  We’re a car-free family and hubby usually uses the bus to get back and forth from work ,except for a couple days a week when he works a shift that isn’t compatible with the bus schedule. On those days, a co-worker who lives in our general vicinity is nice enough to give him a ride home and since he has a ride home ,   those are the times he’ll bring home some groceries. But this month, his work schedule was shifted and long story short….it’s a pain in the ass to walk a mile to the bus stop carrying a ton of groceries. So, we didn’t really go real grocery shopping at all until this past week. I cleaned out the freezers and cupboards and used up what we had.

Our Thanksgiving was not bad compared to some. We scored a turkey for 49¢ a pound with $25 worth of groceries. We had the usual Turkey Day fare. Made Turkey Soup with the carcass and stretched the leftovers over a couple of days.

I’m relieved we have a positive balance. We don’t get our next month’s issuance until the 9th of December but we won’t need to go grocery shopping until after that, anyway. It’s going to be really important that we shop frugally this month. Last week , Faux-Hubby hurt himself at work and is out of work until further notice. It’s a preexisting condition exacerbated by work , so he’s not eligible for worker’s comp, just disability. So, money is going to be even tighter than before , which means we won’t have cash to fall back on if we use our whole SNAP allotment. SNAP is supposed to be a “supplement” to household income but there are actually some people who’s only source of income is food stamps. I’ve always been grateful that , even if we have to do some clever shifting of finances, we at least have some cash we can resort to when our SNAP balance is at $0.

This month might be interesting.

The advantage to having Faux-Hubby home is that I can focus on my Etsy shop. It’s been super hard with my toddler home with me. I know…it doesn’t seem like it would be that hard but gah, that kid is into everything and he likes to help (which is the exact opposite of helping).

I have no doubt I’ll be able to pull a holiday dinner off but as someone mentioned in the post-Thanksgiving summary that readers generously submitted to, the holidays are at the end of the month and they’re mostly worried about taking care of the entire month ,not just one day.

Now, I was wondering…with a lot of people eager to do a SNAP Challenge to gain perspective on what it’s like to shop and eat with a food stamp budget…is anyone willing to do a Christmas Meal Challenge?

This would follow the same guidelines as my Aw, SNAP! Challenge but would specifically apply to shopping for the whole week of Christmas using a budget of the state average where they live (generally, around $33/week….which I have to add, no one ever seems to receive nearly this amount so you’ve got an advantage over most people who actually receive SNAP). Your average amount includes ALL food and drink you have during the time you’re doing the challenge. If you can’t buy it somewhere that doesn’t accept EBT,  you can’t buy it. Yes, this means you have to make your own coffee at home for the week and no eating meals out.  If someone wants to participate  but doesn’t have their own blog, they’re more than welcome to do a guest post on mine.

For anyone who receives SNAP, I invite you to do the same…share your Holiday meal experience this December. If you’re not able to have a holiday meal, tell me about it. If you are, tell me about your shopping and meal planning . You can send me your submission at jupitersinclair[at]gmail[dot]com. I will publish in a post a few days after Christmas.

[Food Stamp Food] Thanksgiving

42 million people used food stamps this year to pay for their Thanksgiving meal. There’s no telling how many people living below the poverty line who don’t receive SNAP spent their Thanksgiving struggling with food security.

I asked readers of the blog and followers on Twitter and Facebook to share how they celebrated Thanksgiving while receiving SNAP or just living “below the line”.

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Our family of five fully intends to chow down at Granny’s house on Thanksgiving day. However, with this many mouths to feed in our house and having my husband out of work for the past two months… I have been taking advantage of the holiday promotional prices in order to make the most of our SNAP dollars. Here is an example of what my last grocery shopping trip looked like:

1) 11-lb ham… regular price $1.99/lb… ad-matched at $1.69/lb. Sliced that bad boy up and then divided it into separate freezer bags. For a little over $18, we have enough ham for numerous suppers and/or hot ham and cheese sandwiches. Compare that to purchasing packs of lunch meat for $5/lb. Score!

2) Green Giant & Del-Monte canned vegetables ad-matched for 25cents a can. Even better… salt-free products were included in the sale.

3) 10lb bag of white potatoes… regular price $4.50… on sale for $2! Chopped up about half the bag and placed in the freezer for potatoe soup.

4) Cream cheese… regular price $1.50… on sale for .88 cents… checked the dates… good until March. So I purchased several. They are great for making cream sauces to pour over chicken or just for spreading on bread and bagels.

5) 1-lb Sausage… regular price $2.50… on sale for $1.75. I put one in the fridge and four in the freezer. Breakfast, supper, snacks… sausage is awesome.

There were also sales on flour, corn meal, and sugar. All items that are extremely versatile and can create many, many meals. So I didn’t plan specifically for a holiday meal, but I did take advantage of the holiday sales in order to extend our limited benefit dollars as far as possible. -Anonymous

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We don’t receive food stamps, but have applied. My husband and I both lost our jobs recently and have four children. We both start new jobs next week but these last two months with no income has forced us to move. For food, I’ve been food basket give away hopping. Extremely embarrassing. Just two months ago we grossed on average $750 a week, now I borrow gas money to beg for food. For thanksgiving a couple that are friends of ours had us over. They canceled plans with their family to celebrate with us. I am so grateful that I cry. Food stamps would have been a blessing, I couldn’t even take deviled eggs to help.

- Jenny

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Thanksgiving is toward the end of the month.I’m more worried about making sure the rest of the month is taken care of. By the time Thaksgiving rolled around, I only had about $15 to spend on groceries. I’m not blowing it on just one day.  -Toni

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the holidays make shopping so much harder i get 320 for a family of 5 and im on disability i fill like such failure to the kids on Christmas and birthdays – Jolene

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We’re going to a dinner a local church serves up. We just applied for food stamps but haven’t been approved yet. My husband lost his job 2 months ago and I’ve been a stay at home mom. We’re both looking for work now but haven’t been hired anywhere yet. We have zero income right now.The food pantry has helped a little but the one woman who works there told me that they have had 3 times the usual amount of people showing up and  they don’t have enough to hand out. – Anonymous

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yeah,right. We could go to relatives who live 50 miles away but I can’t afford the gas.- Anon

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 A Thanksgiving supper wouldn’t really be much different than any other dinner. If we were cooking for ourselves on Thanksgiving, we would have a main dish and a couple sides. I’m thrifty- use coupons & ad-match. That said, it’d be very difficult to fix a huge meal and invite the entire family over. We get $400 for a family of five. We make it work. And it’s my understanding that it is a supplement to our income… so we expect to also end up buying food with our “cash” as well. 
But extra for the holidays? Wouldn’t that be a nice treat.

-Shari

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My son and I are probably going to the soup kitchen.- Safira

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Meanwhile, the media has been all over Newark Mayor Cory Booker taking a challenge to live on a food stamp budget.

Fox News contributor Andrea Tantaros  thinks it sounds like a great diet plan.

I’ve been told that my foul language (aka ‘sentence enhancers”) is a distraction and does not do justice to the issues I’m trying to address. So, my apologies in advance  to those who feel like the language is a negative aspect of this blog series but I feel I really MUST say…

Diet plan? Oh,yeah? Fuck you,Andrea Tantaros .

I would also like to point out that the AVERAGE amount may be $133/month per person but many SNAP recipients don’t even receive that much .

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To see all posts on my blog related to eating on a SNAP (Food Stamp) budget, go here.

I always welcome comments and suggestions for future topics for future posts , as well as tips to news articles and blogs that relate to food stamps and food justice. If you don’t feel comfortable commenting here on the blog, there are other ways to contact me.

[Food Stamp Food] Steak & Shrimp!

It’s been quite awhile since I’ve updated with a food stamp related post.

Honestly, I am pretty overwhelmed right now by what it means to blog about living on food stamps. Attention the topic has received here has made me feel more like I need to represent (yo?) food stamp recipients with a certain decorum. I can’t sound ignorant. I can’t swear like I’m some white trash mama who was raised in a trailer park. I can’t talk about doing leisurely, fun things. I can’t talk about buying things. I can’t bitch about how my “many” kids drive me a little crazy some days. I can’t complain about how my Kindle always fucks up my typing and autocorrects the most ridiculously substitutions. I can’t talk about taking the kids camping for vacation. I can’t talk about selling things on Etsy or Ebay (“Do you report all that income?” , a very concerned taxpayer asked). I can’t post pictures of my life with my “fancy” camera.

I can’t have nice things, period.

I may not even be entitled to rights as an American citizen.

Not only is The Farm Bill occupying my thoughts, but it’s an election year. Like any citizen who believes that voting is first hand participation in democracy, I talk about the candidates. I perhaps engross myself a bit too much in the whole media spectacle that politics can be during an election year but I believe it’s important to be informed. Recently during a political discussion, someone felt the need to tell me that because I receive food stamps, I should not be allowed to vote.

That’s right. Receive government assistance, get your right to vote revoked. If you receive food stamps, you have the same entitlements as a convicted felon.

The basis of this belief is this : Food stamps recipients will only vote for a Democrat because it’s Democrats who are allowing people to have food stamps.

Much in the same way a soldier will only vote for a Republican because that’s who keeps them “employed”?

It’s a flawed reasoning,anyway. The most states with the highest food stamp pay out are controlled by Republicans. If food stamp recipients make up a goodly percentage of that state’s population and those recipients are voting, then why aren’t all the political reps in that state Democrats?

As far as Obama being The Food Stamp President, Luis Gutierrez has an excellent explanation of who the real Food Stamp Prez was.

The most intimidating thing about blogging about living on food stamps isn’t the personal criticisms. It’s the daunting task of trying to educate ignorant people about food scarcity in America. It’s about the misconceptions people have about the political & social culture surrounding food stamps. It’s about trying to reverse the frustrating stigmas that so many Americans have about the average person who relies on food stamps. It’s the anger & outrage I feel every single day when all of these things collide and I realize there are people in this country who don’t give a shit if another human being doesn’t have enough food to eat.

I will never,ever be able to wrap my brain around the idea that food is a privilege and not a basic human right.

Don’t worry,though. I’m not shutting up about being a Po’ ‘Ho, living on the dole. I’ll keep on talking about it.  The issue of poverty needs to have visibility. The ones who don’t want to hear about it or only want to judge are not going to make me shrink back away from loudly discussing  the issue.

To help ease the pain the food stamp haters feel about me feeding my kids on their dime, I’ll show you the steak we had last week!

Aren’t they gorgeous? Ok, if you’re a vegetarian,I guess they won’t be so pretty but seriously, those are some great steaks.

It’s venison. It was free, shared from a friend’s freezer.

We also had shrimp and pasta the other night. The shrimp was $2. Sale and a store coupon.

My point in throwing the steak and shrimp out there is to just give some brain food for thought. If I had said, “I has steak and shrimp this week.” , the food stamp haters would have been outraged and I would have heard, “Must be nice to eat so well at my expense!”. Things are not always what they seem. There are plenty of SNAP recipients who are also freegans out of  the necessity to stretch their food stamp budget.  They pick out of the trash and dumpsters and yes, sometimes they find some pretty nice steaks. Maybe not the safest to eat steaks but no one else was using them. There are lots of ways to eat steak when you live on food stamps.

You can also relax a little about the amount you pay for a SNAP recipient to eat whatever they deem worthy to spend their food allowance on. A person making $50,000 a year pays roughly a dime per day for food stamps. It works out to be about $36.82/ year.  Please take that into consideration, judgmental,food stamp -hating taxpayers. Next time you bitch about some kid not going to bed hungry on your dime, remember that it’s only a little over $30 for an entire year that you’re complaining about. And that’s only  if you make $50,000/year.  That’s probably about what you spend on your own coffee habit every week.

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To see all posts on my blog related to eating on a SNAP (Food Stamp) budget, go here.

I always welcome comments and suggestions for future topics for future posts , as well as tips to news articles and blogs that relate to food stamps and food justice. If you don’t feel comfortable commenting here on the blog, there are other ways to contact me.

[Food Stamp Food] Write your Congressman

June is Hunger Awareness Month. There has been much talk about food stamps in the news due to the cut backs the SNAP program faces with the Farm Bill and possibly because it is so in the forefront right now, many have taken Food Stamp Challenges.

The Food Stamp Challenge isn’t a new concept. It’s a common challenge issued by compassionate churches,food pantries and social activist groups to help people gain perspective on what it’s like to be one of the 46 million people in the US who rely on food stamps to feed themselves.  It was last October that I came across Michael Nolan’s food stamp challenge and besides Sean Callebs experiment on CNN , I had never heard of any one doing this.

People willingly eating on a food stamp budget? It inspired me to blog here about what it’s like to live on a food stamp budget, more than a month or a week. And here we are. Like I said when I began, I love that people are inspired to do this. People don’t do these challenges for themselves. They are doing it to open up a dialogue about food scarcity that is essential , not only for Americans but on a global scale as well.

I receive Google news alerts about food stamps in my email daily. I’ve seen many articles over the past months that mention lawmakers who have accepted the food stamp challenge. Typically , this is the end of the story. There tends to be little follow-up on the participant and how they did or what they gained. Recently though, NBC10 in Philadephia  did an excellent job covering and tracking participants of a food stamp challenge issued by Greater Philadelphia Coalition Against Hunger and the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia. Mayor Michael Nutter, Congressman Bob Brady, Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Annette John-Hall and Brian Gralnick of the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia were among the notable participants ,with locals also making the commitment. The local news tracked participants progress and feelings during the week via Twitter and blogs.

Participants reported such things as, ““I am starting to feel a certain detachment,” said participant Mariana. “A shutting down, a sadness that’s hard to describe.”
At the end of the week, columnist John-Hall had this to say -“It was one thing to talk about hunger and be empathetic with people who are on SNAP or take a benefit.But it’s another thing to do it yourself.”

Congressman Brady started the week saying,“We’re here to prove a point.Hopefully the visibility and awareness will make some people aware.”  The problem is, the people listening are almost always already aware ,or at least are very open to having this conversation. The lawmakers who participate, gaining knowledge of the problem first hand through experience are time and time again, are men and women  already supportive of SNAP and will vote accordingly. They are almost always Democrats.

The Food Stamp Challenge needs to have a new face, some fresh blood to this real life hunger game. Let’s get some Republicans in on this thing.  If you know a Republican, ask them to take this challenge. $35 a week per person in their house.  If you’re feeling ambitious (and I hope you are), write,call AND email (all of the above, not either or) Republican representatives  and encourage them to take this challenge. Well, you could also ask your Democrat Reps ,too…just to cover all the bases.

Dear [Congressman],

More than 46 million Americans rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to feel their families. With high unemployment, record numbers of families are depending on federal nutrition programs to provide food for their children. These programs are critical in making sure all American children get the food they need to reach their full potential.

As a constituent, I am asking you to take part in a Food Stamp Challenge. For one week, I challenge you to eat as if your food budget were than of an average SNAP recipient - $1.48 per meal.  The challenge gives participants a view of what life can be like for millions of low-income Americans. This experience could be beneficial as you work to authorize The Farm Bill and consider sparing cuts to SNAP.

Sincerely,
[Your Name]
[Your Address]
[City, State ZIP]

This letter can be adapted to encourage politicians on a local level. Even though they may not vote on a Congressional level, their support is still needed for local supplemental food programs,too.

 

If you’re looking for my own personal posts about my own experience living on food stamps, they’re in the Food Stamp Food category.

If you have a past or current food austerity challenge on your blog, let me know about it!  If you are participating in a challenge and don’t blog, send me your thoughts. My email is on the sidebar of the blog or you can send me a private message on my Facebook Page

[Food Stamp Food] Not Approved & Food Stamp Challenges

We’ve been food stamp free and paying cash for food  for a bit here because of paperwork stuff. We needed a landlord statement. We got it this week and turned it in yesterday so hopefully soon, they will re-open our food stamps.

Bank account balance as of this morning: $1.85 .Woot, it’s not negative!  Pay day is Thursday. Can we do it? Well, hell yeah. It might not be pretty but it can be done.

I had a terrible realization the other day,though. Summer vacation from school is almost here. Do we get extra food stamp allowance for school age children being home in the summer? During the school year, they get free lunch at school. As I’ve said before, those free school lunches make a HUGE difference when we have to stretch a food budget of  less than $500 for 8 people over a month.  Do they adjust for them being fed at home instead of at school? I have no idea how that works. People send me emails all the times ,wanting to know the ins and outs of food stamps  and obviously, you’re asking the wrong person. I don’t know as much as I probably should.

If the amount stays the same, even with all kids home, we’ll still manage somehow. There’s always extreme frugality measures and during the summer months, there’s always gardeners who are willing to share directly to us or through the food pantry.

I’ve noticed a growing trend in the past few months of  humanitarian and religious groups challenging others to eat like they’re a food stamp recipient . Much like The Justice Journey’s  Rice & Beans Challenge , the idea is to live in austerity for a time, experiencing what it’s like to center your life around a food budget of $1.48 a day per person.Mario Batali (ok honestly, I don’t know who he is but I’m assuming he’s someone a lot of people know and someone I’m “supposed” to know)  has asked that people take this challenge. For one week, eat like you’re on food stamps. During his week, “ instead of filling up on fresh, organic vegetables, he’s been feeding his family more beans and starches like egg and bean tacos and lentils and rice.”

The challenge, which Batali says he plans to do several times a year, is changing the way his family thinks about food. While his kids are still eating what seem like everyday meals, including eggs for breakfast and lentils and corn bread for dinner, it has started a greater philosophical conversation.

“It’s an interesting conversation to think about what food is, what hunger is, what nutrition is in a way that makes us think about it on a much more personal level,” Batali said.

According to the Food Bank of New York, more than 1.8 million New Yorkers rely on SNAP, a supplemental food program included in the current farm bill, to put food on the table.  The $35.8 billion in proposed food stamp cuts would “cripple” this program and others, according to the Food Bank.

Batali sees the proposed cuts as a direct indicator of America’s food philosophy.  “Are we Darwinists — where we live and let live? Or are we nurturing as a society?”

The chef puts himself in the latter category.  Ultimately Batali said he believes that “there has to be a standard of living that we [nationally] decide to support.”

That said, Batali recognizes that “it’s easy for us because next week we’re going back to whatever we [normally] do.”

I appreciate so much that even though this guy owns the most expensive restaurant on the planet , he recognizes that unlike people who actually live on food stamps, he and his family can go back to their usual way of eating. It also seems that the challenge had the impact it should have – to help open up a dialogue about food scarcity and gain perspective on the real challenge those with food scarcity face.

A couple of readers here have mentioned to me that they’ve been thinking of taking their own personal challenge like this. I would love if anyone who chooses to do this would blog their experience so I can share it here, or if you don’t blog,  keep me posted on how you did (my email is on the sidebar of the blog). The more people who share their experiences, the more open the conversations of food scarcity can become and possibly inspire more people to be effective activists for food justice.

 

[Food Stamp Food] Thanksgiving and beyond

Sorry I haven’t blogged in a bit.I think I just came out of my Thanksgiving Coma.

We pulled off Thanksgiving dinner and basically have lived off of leftovers since.

We had turkey, of course. Sweet potatoes( $2.50 for 6 lbs), cranberry sauce( made w/ fresh cranberries), cauliflower-feta bake and a very failed mushroom-spinach roulade (this killed me…it used a lot of eggs & cheese, not to mention spinach & mushrooms). And pumpkin(2 fresh pumpkins for $5…with lots left over to bake muffins & such) & apple pie.

My mom brought Ambrosia Salad. Ya’ll know what Ambrosia Salad is? I mean besides gross? Marshmallows with a little fruit. And sour cream & coconut. My kids were trying SO hard to be polite about it. My Mom asked if they liked it. One says,”Welll….I don’t like coconut,soo…” . My Mom says,”Well, I probably could have left the coconut out”. Kid says ,”Well, the marshmallows…..there’s too many of them. And I don’t like to eat marshmallows except in s’mores”. My mom thinks a minute and says,”Well, then all that would be left is mandarin oranges and pineapple!”. Daughter says,”That would be a perfect salad.” Of course the one person who loved the salad was the diabetic hubby. Der.

There were pictures of the Thanksgiving dinner but I haven’t the slightest idea where they wandered off to. You’ll just have to believe me – it was delish.

 

Yesterday I boiled the turkey carcass to make stock…today,I shall scrounge together stuff to make a soup. I have some beans soaking and I think I even have some fresh kale left in our little potted garden.

About $20 left on our food stamp card until December 9th. Fun times.

Food Stamp Food- 11/16-11/20: Planning for the holidays,using leftover carrots and more

One of this week’s most popular search terms that brought people to my blog: “extra food stamps in November  and December”  or more directly,“Can I get extra food stamps for the holidays?”. Sorry…it doesn’t work that way. If you really need help putting together food for your Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner, contact your local food pantry or call your food stamp caseworker for a list of organizations that distribute food. In my area,for example, beside the food pantries there is a network of people & groups who rescue food and distribute to those in need. When I say “rescue”, I don’t mean they picked out of the trash. They have an arrangement with grocery stores,caterers,restaurants and other food service to collect food that may otherwise go in the trash for some reason or another. There’s nothing wrong with this food – it truly would be completely wasted if not for food rescuers.

You could also try calling a local youth group ,such as 4H to see if they’re organizing anything for families in need during the holidays. My daughter signed up this week to sort canned goods and bake goodies for families (ironic ,I know).

For those on the opposite side of the food scarcity dilemma, especially those who garden, Growing a Greener World’s  episode 220: Gardening for the Hungry  has a wealth of information about growing food for the hungry and how to get it where it needs to go. There’s also a great post on GardenHelp.org on Feeding the Hungry from Your Home Garden. If you do contribute in some way, make sure you tell The Gay Vegans about your do-gooding.

Speaking of Thanksgiving, we have our turkey. 48¢ a pound. Nope, not the most ethically grown turkey,as I would prefer but it’s a turkey. Someday, we’ll raise our own.

My family has decided (not the family in my own house but extended fam- my mother,aunts,,uncles,etc) have decided to not have Thanksgiving at a family member’s house and instead , “Let’s all go to a nice restaurant for Thanksgiving!”. Um, no. Not only can I not afford to take my 9-person family out to a restaurant but I have a toddler. Toddlers don’t necessarily mean you can’t eat out but at this current stage in his life, he doesn’t do restaurants. We went out for brunch this week and he was much more interested in checking out his surroundings, which meant I had to chase toddler instead of actually eat…and when I did eat,I was trying to hurry so we could get out of there and didn’t really enjoy it.

So, we’ll be at home, which actually sounds nicer to me than spending Thanksgiving in a restaurant. Besides, who wants to eat out and miss all those awesome Thanksgiving leftovers? Not I!

Anyway…

Here’s what we’ve been eating:

Wednesday 11/16

I felt like crap all day and the toddler wasn’t quite feeling up to par,either. I don’t quite remember eating much of anything. I made dinner ,though. I had 5 lbs of ground beef to use up (it had already been frozen and thawed) so I made meatloaf with some of it. It was all I could do not to hurl while cooking. I’m not a huge fan of beef but then feeling ew… not good. It was basic meatloaf with mushroom gravy. Used up the last of the potatoes for mashed potatoes and cooked carrots for a side dish. They were honey-glazed. I don’t normally sweeten veggies but I hate carrots so I’ll do anything to make them more palatable to me. Carrots are the only food I really don’t like at all.

Thursday 11/17

Remember how I broke my front tooth ? I called every dentist  in the area to see if I could make some arrangements to pay monthly. Without insurance, no one would see me unless I agreed to pay 100% of the bill at the appointment. So, Thursday I went and applied for Medicaid . Very heavy sigh. I just didn’t know what else to do. The sad thing is , even if I get approved, it’s no guarantee I’ll be able to see a dentist .

We had to take an early bus into The Little Big City for my appointment. We had hours to kill before my appointment so we ran errands and went and ate waffles for brunch. Obviously, not a food stamp transaction…cash money but it was frugal.

Dinner that night:

I had garlic scapes, thanks again to the Veteran’s Sanctuary.

Nobody was very excited about eating these,except for me. but then? Some chicken breast, feta cheese and the garlic scapes tossed with pasta and some herbs – yum.

Some roasted red peppers on top for garnish. By the way… go visit Red, White & Grew to see her Roasted Veggie Spectacular.

Friday 11/18

Kids had the day off from school for some conference thing. Pookie made pancakes for everyone, all by herself. Lunch was a combo of leftovers and tuna fish sandwiches.

For dinner, I made a pizza that some cooking mag I have refers to as Pizza Bianco. It’s a sauceless pizza topped with a combo of ricotta & mozarella and basil, then topped with mushrooms,garlic & onions.

yum.

Saturday 11/19

We ate pretty crappy all day. The toddler hasn’t been feeling well and Saturday was the worst. I personally didn’t cook anything all day…older children made eggs & toast in the morning, then PB & J for lunch. My oldest son made dinner….leftover cooked pasta from Thursday with some browned ground beef,salsa & cheese thrown into it.

Sunday 11/20

Kids all went out to breakfast with Grandma and I didn’t feel like anything besides coffee in the morning.

My fabulous hubby made these sandwiches for us for lunch:

They’re pitas stuffed with ground beef (did I mention we have a ton of ground beef to use?), cukes,tomatoes and sprouts w/ a greek feta dressing drizzled on.

I had intended to make sweet rolls for breakfast that morning but with no one around,I just made them later on. Earlier in the week, we had carrots. I was waiting to see if they go gobbled up like the other leftovers but no one seemed too crazy about them. I swear, I try very hard to keep my disdain for carrots to myself for fear of infecting the kids with it. I know adults who tell me they never ate certain foods as kids because their parents didn’t like them. If my kids end up liking carrots, that’s awesome.

I hate wasting food so I needed to figure out how to use up the leftover carrots (a little less than  1 cup ,originally honey-glazed ) .I hate a lot of suggestions for what to do with them (as a dip,in soups,in cake,muffins,etc)  but I think most  required more carrots than I had .Someone passed on a recipe for sweet rolls, made like cinnamon rolls but filled with a carroty-mixture. The dough was straightforward cinnamon-roll dough but the filling called for an entire container of cream cheese, a box of vanilla pudding, a jar of baby food carrots & a whole half cup of sugar. Wow. And that’s for just 12 servings. One thing I notice with a lot with recipes is that they’re WAY too extravagant ,both with calories & finances.

So, here’s what I substituted for the filling:

mashed cooked carrots

1 cup of ricotta cheese

3 tablespoons cream cheese ( because that’s all I had left)

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

I blended this and spread it on the dough , just like when you make cinnamon rolls. Over the mixture,I sprinkled brown sugar . not a ton, just enough to cover the area lightly. Instead of making these super sweet I let the cinnamon & nutmeg dominate and the sugar accentuate.

The result was a slightly sweet rolls with a very slight carroty flavor.

My daughter was half finished eating one and asked what was in it. “Carrots”, I told her.

“But I hate carrots! But these are actually ok”. Yay!

For dinner, I made chili in the crockpot.  Using the very last of that ground beef. Thank the gods… I was getting tired of that ground beef.

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I’ll be using hashtag #foodstampfood when I tweet about food. If you use food stamps to eat, feel free to use it,too.

Food Stamp Food: 11/13-11/15

Note to self:  Remember to take pics of food BEFORE everyone eats instead of looking at an empty plate and saying,”Oh,shoot..I forgot to take a picture!” . Blogging fail.

Pictures or not, we ate:

SUNDAY 11/13

Sunday brunch, the twins had a friend over. Thing 1 wanted to make Banana Waffles but her friend said she didn’t like to eat bananas unless they had peanut butter with/on (hey, I can’t judge. The only way I can eat a carrot is if it’s in a cake). So, we decided on Peanut Butter Banana Waffles   .We did not follow ←that recipe to a tee…we used real dairy ingredients but they turned out nice.The whole house smelled like peanut butter cookies.  I didn’t change the amounts at all but obviously for my crew, I had to double the recipe. Normally I’d be feeling anxious about using that much milk for one meal but I had 3 WIC checks that needed to be used before the 14th, and each had 1 gallon of milk on it. I haven’t been able to use the WIC checks because , like an idiot, I lost my WIC ID and had to wait for a replacement before I could use them

That evening, I made macaroni and cheese. Just basic homemade mac -n-cheese.

MONDAY 11/14

Breakfast: bagels & cream cheese. 3 of the kids decided to eat breakfast at school that day.

Lunch: Normally, it’s only me eating lunch at home and I typically have leftovers.  I had 2 sick kids home so I made us some wraps…. whole wheat tortillas filled with sauteed mushrooms,melted cheese, a little salsa and a dab of sour cream. Hubby ate lunch out w/ his Mom, her treat.

Snacky: Kids ate grapes after school.

Dinner: Spinach & Black Bean Egg Rolls  and some quinoa-tofu thing I whipped together. Thinking about it now, the quinoa dish was protein overkill. Not that that was a bad thing but it had quinoa ( a complete protein source by itself), sunflower seeds (27g per serving)  and sugar snap pea pods (3 g) . The peas had been in the freezer for quite some time so they really needed to be used up. They were looking on the verge of freezer burnt. I like using quinoa now at least once a week  - my hubby is diabetic and it’s a good source of fiber & plant based protein for him. A bag is around $4.75 and goes a long way.

TUESDAY 11/15

Breakfast: bagel & cream cheese again

Lunch: Um…. hmmm. I think I ate a banana? Hubby ate at work.

Snacky: Pookie cooked tater tots with cheese after school.

Dinner: So, I don’t know who Julie is but her Noodle Casserole caught my eye in an old issue of Family Circle (free box at the library snag).

This is exactly what it looked like:

The only change I made to the recipe was I didn’t use cottage cheese….I used about 1 cup ricotta instead. Also…I forgot to add the marinara and it was just fine without it.

There was a head of cauliflower that needed to be cooked. I was inspired by this recipe from Rachel Ray for Cauliflower-Feta Pasta Bake…except my main dish had pasta so I just excluded the pasta from this. It was awesome. I did not use all the feta the recipe called for and it was still great.

Foodie Fail of the Week: The remaining  black beans I cooked on Monday for the egg rolls got left out somehow. by the time I discovered them, they already smelled fermenty and there was no way I could risk saving them. Into the compost they went. It was only about a cup of beans but on the other hand,it was a whole cup of beans.

Other food stamp related bits:

Michael Nolan’s Food Stamp Challenge  has ended. His final thoughts.

Religious leaders have issued a challenge to lamakers: Eat on a food stamp budget for one week. The article says there are a dozen democratic Congressmen (persons?) taking part in the challenge. I would love to see a follow up .

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I’ll be using hastag #foodstampfood when I tweet about food. If you use food stamps to eat, feel free to use it,too.