I’ve just made my last supper for the Living Below the Line Challenge.
During the prep of my fish cakes I realised that my fish paste had barley in it – damnit! So, I had to revamp my idea. I made a hash of all my remaining ingredients and fried it in a pan – it was pretty tasty actually.
Living on a pound a day makes life very difficult. It’s the end of the week, my house is a tip. I haven’t washed any laundry, the hoovering hasn’t been done, Mount Clothes in my bedroom keeps avalanching onto the floor, but I’ve no desire to fold things and put them away.
There are two reasons for this:
- I have spent more time in the kitchen this week than any other week. Hours and hours and hours of grinding rice into flour, making bread, boiling rice, boiling lentils. Looking at my supplies, weighing food out so I can spread it out evenly over the five days, cleaning the kitchen. I cook things from scratch normally, but this week was mad!
- I have been so exhausted once I’ve spread my day between work and the kitchen, that I just couldn’t deal with housework.
Another thing that I have noticed is that food fills most of my thoughts. I’d be having a conversation with my other half and in the middle of it I would stop and say something like; “I know! I could make soup out of nettles!”
What I am really looking forward to is some bacon. And some orange juice. And a giant fruit salad.
If I was to carry this challenge out again, I would buy less rice. I am so bloated right now. More potatoes and less rice. Every day I craved more potatoes. The tomato puree and split peas were an excellent brainwave. The fish paste was a waste of 25p. The milk was unnecessary, but a different breakfast was needed to avoid getting bloated first thing in the morning. The market was an amazing resource for a variety of fresh cheap veg. I wish I had fruit! The lemon curd gave me a sugar burst when I needed it (yes, I have been spooning it into my mouth today).
Here is the curry I had for last night’s dinner. I had a course to go to in the evening, so the split peas didn’t have time to cook well enough. They weren’t as soft as I would have liked, but I had no option but to eat it.
The success dinner of the week was the roast. Split pea, tomato, carrot and rice roast, with roast potatoes and peppers.
Recipes to follow.
Thanks to everyone who donated money on my behalf, it means a lot to me that we can help people that live below this line every day.
There’s still time to donate, if you want to, please click the link
jennypiccalilli 