Eating Vegan on $3/Day: Day 5

Thursday, Day #5, was a little weird. I did the thing I've been afraid of doing: I forgot to take my food to work. Fortunately, it was only snacks, but it still created a dilemma. I ate breakfast at home, left home to do an outcall, then didn't have to go to my office until late afternoon so I went home for lunch. I wouldn't finish work until about 9 p.m. but I planned on taking celery & carrots for snacks (I have peanut butter in the fridge at work) and would eat dinner at home. Well, I forgot the carrots and celery. I have other things to eat at work but they wouldn't fit into my $3/day budget, or would strain it, so I had a choice: eat plain peanut butter, go hungry, eat some of my other snacks and blow my budget, or eat other snacks and lie about it. I decided to have 3 Tablespoons of peanut butter, instead of the usual two, and have a cup of tea. I thought that would hold me over but shortly before my last appointment, I began to feel just a tad shaky. I thought it would be stupid to make myself sick when I didn't need to. I've got a bowl of hard candy in the office for clients (and, in particular, for those rare occasions - which do happen - when a diabetic client has an insulin reaction during a session and needs sugar) so I had one hard candy. It did the trick and I was fine until I got home.

I'd made a small batch of bread dough (half white, half whole wheat, using the Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day method) during my lunch break and it was risen by the time I got home. I popped that into the oven, roasted some garlic in the microwave and blended it with a little olive oil and salt in the blender to make a garlic spread for the bread. Had a nice dinner of black bean soup and bread and ate the other portion of soy milk chocolate pudding I'd made the night before. I put it into the freezer and it was like a fudgecicle. It was really good, but I think I like the pudding the best.

I'd decided I wanted to make tofu again (something I don't necessarily advise, I'll write about that another time) but the best coagulent to use, nigari (the minerals left in sea water after the salt is taken out) is not available locally as far as I know, so I had to order some. You don't need a lot but the shipping costs as much as the nigari itself so that the cost of the coagulent is almost as much as the cost of the soybeans. Still, I had to do it and it arrived. I'd already had beans soaking in the refrigerator so after dinner I made tofu with nigari for the first time in probably 25 years. It was beautiful and, as my custom has been in the past, once it was done, I sliced off a piece and had it with a  little soy sauce. Love it.

I came up a little light on the calories but I was not hungry. As before, I'm coming up short on calcium but not as bad as some days. I'm actually feeling inspired by this whole challenge. I'm starting to think of other things I can make that would be cheap, tasty, and nutritious.

Total for the day: $2.24



Thursday, Day #5

Breakfast:
The usual (soy milk, bran flakes, & a banana)
                                     .30

Lunch:
1 cup chili                    .26
2 tortillas                     .14
Kale                             .15
Cantalope                    .17
Tea                              .01
                                   .47
Dinner:
Bread                                 .04
Garlic spread                     .07
Black beans (no rice)        .32
            Total                      .43


Snacks:
Chocolate pudding      .21
2 oz. tofu                     .10
1 tsp. soy sauce           .02
3 Tbsp PB                   .25
Peach                          .46
                                  1.04

Thursday:
Breakfast:                 .30
Lunch:                      .47
Dinner:                     .43
Snacks:                  1.04
            Total          2.24


Calories:   1479
Protein:     60 g.
Fat:           51 g.
Carbs:       225 g.
Calcium:    53% RDA