Coping with celebrations

Food from the veg market

Even before we decided to do our £1/day project, the 4th December, being Natasha's 30th Birthday, was a long-planned family event featuring a meal cooked for her, her mum, one sister, her dad & his wife and stepson, and my mum.  When we started the scheme, sticking to £1 each was never the plan for today.  

Still, when I shopped today, I was in a somewhat parsimonious mode and actually it didn't go too much over-budget.   I had asked Natasha what she wanted for dinner, and she had requested pork-belly, it being one of her favourite things.  I figured I'd do some mashed potato and an selection of vegetables with it, as I knew that would suit her.  

It being Thursday, I went to the vegetable market which comes to the University on this day.  I went much later than usual -- around 3pm, and they were selling some things more cheaply than they do earlier in the day, so that was worth finding out.  I picked up an aubergine, a bag of 7 avocados, some tomatoes, some mushrooms, some spinach (on special offer) and some carrots.  I may have forgotten something else, but it came to about £6.  I then went to the supermarket to get the pork belly.  I was expecting that to completely blow the budget.  I don't buy meat very often (not eating it myself) and was a bit surprised to find that it didn't cost so very much.  For the 7 meat-eating diners it came to £10.   Already over-budget, but not terribly so.  Tesco -- the supermarket I went to (because it is a short walk) -- were selling 2.5kg bags of King Edward potatoes for £1.  This was enough to cover mash for 8 people, and then some.  I cooked a bag of kale (cost £1) from the veg market, and about £1 of cauliflower, and boiled up some celery, with a little mint, that came to about 10p.  For me instead of pig I had a couple of Tesco veggie sausages (50p for the two of them).

I made an error when serving the kale, which was to drain out the water.  I did this out of habit, but it was a rich green water full of goodness that I should have saved for soup stock.  Too bad.  I guess my dinner came to: sausages (50p) potatoes (10p), kale (10p), cauliflower (9p), celery (1p) = 80p. I breakfasted on a slice of melon I got form the veg market at Uni ages ago.  I bought it because it was cheapish for a melon (£1.50 for a cantaloupe melon), but it was really unripe.  I have let it sit slowly ripening.  I had a pretty measly slice for breakfast, but enough.  I didn't measure the angle I sliced, but it could have been no more than around 10p worth.  I'm ashamed to say that I missed lunch again, for various reasons, but it meant that I did come in under budget, even though I wasn't really planning to.  I should say, too, that my mum brought some birthday cake for Natasha that I haven't included in the calculations.

The meat-eaters would have come in over budget, because they ate a little over a pounds-worth of meat each.  There is some food left over, though so that will help us in the next few days.  As well as the genuine leftovers, there is also pork fat, which Natasha may enjoy some of her food being cooked in.