#foodstampchallenge Saturday Summary & Thoughts

Saturday started out great. We made a couple nice omelets with 4 eggs, some of the ham and a few sliced of sweet pepper and diced onion. Total cost about $1.25. Then we went crazy and drove out to Atlantic City. Not exactly a food stamp friendly move, eh? (I did hit my first ever royal flush on video poker at Revel so maybe it was meant to be.)

If we had stayed home, we would have eaten the last two servings of leftovers, the frittata and eggplant pasta, for lunch and a potato curry with rice for dinner. So now we'll have the last of the leftovers for Sunday "late lunch" and depending on how hungry we are the potato curry for a late supper. Because we skipped Saturday's food stamp lunch, we still have two apples one of which might turn into some sort of chutney for the curry.

This has been quite a process and we made quite a few mistakes. What I thought was good planning carried an unconscious assumption that I could run out and buy whatever I happened to need if I forgot something. Including a variety of foods, especially protein, was far more difficult than I imagined and although I though I'd done pretty well at that the leftovers did indeed prove boring.

Shopping at our two local supermarkets was a mixed blessing. I was able work the sale brochures pretty well but the lack of bulk options for things like legumes meant my main protein sources were repeated doses of chicken and eggs. In addition I should have exercised the Fair Food Farmstand double dollars deal for it's full value. They have, for example, a locally sourced beef bologna that, while relatively expensive, could have been "free" with their $10 in matching food. That would have provided a savory boost to weekday lunches that the relatively bland ham did not.

Interestingly, we have quite a bit of food left. There are a few mushrooms, some potatoes, 2 chicken leg quarters, a whole loaf of bread, a little ham, half a pound of rice, two apples, scallions, and most of a celery. That could probably stretch to two more dinners (for two) and a lunch.