Simply Rurban

Food Stamp Challenge: Week 4 Groceries

Posted on February 24, 2014 by simply0637

We are down to our last week of our month long Food Stamp Challenge, and we are both glad about that. As I was putting the grocery list together and looking through the refrigerator and the freezer – I was shocked with how much food we still had. We had we had fish still from our purchase 2 weeks ago, so that would be dinner for one night this week. We also had burritos left, soup (enough for two dinners), pancakes and there was still apples and cheese and a little milk left. So the grocery list was not that large and it also helped that Stella will be doing school lunches again this week. Dinners are pretty well taken care of, but I will I will make a quiche with the carrots and onion and vegetables bought this week. I will also be able to make 1 more loaf of bread with the little flour left.

Groceries for Week 4

Whole milk yogurt, individual (5) $5.95
Brown rice pasta $3.29
Butter $3.41
Frozen Blueberries $3.22
Spinach $3.25
Broccoli $3.29
Eggs $4.89
Frozen Peaches $2.69
Wraps $1.99
Tangerines (3lbs) $4.99
Bananas $0.81
Sweet Potatoes $0.90
Kiwi $1.00
Tax $2.10

Total spent: $41.78

Our total budget for the month was $255.50 and at the end of week 3 we had spent $177.73, leaving us $77.77. I thought for sure that we would have very little left for the last week of groceries, not that we would have more to spend than any other week of the challenge. With only spending $41.78 we still had $35.99! When I was budgeting for the week I knew that we would be eating out one dinner and that I would just take that money from the week budget, but then I remembered that if I was on food stamps I would not be able to spend money on going out to dinner.

Knowing that we would be under budget out last grocery store shop I asked Stella what she wanted and that we could probably afford it, but even with that we still did not spend it all. I am not sure that we will have enough eggs or syrup for the week, but if we run out I know that I can go and buy it!

If we were continuing on with our challenge I would change some of our food purchasing. I would probably spend a good portion of it in the first week and spend the first weekend making food for the month and then the other weeks I would buy items that would supplement our meals with fruit and vegetables. This was quite a learning experience, but I will write about that this in a couple of days.

Posted in Homesteading, Life | Tagged food stamp challenge, groceries | Leave a comment

Food Stamp Challenge: Week 3, Mini Apple Crisps

Posted on February 19, 2014 by simply0637

Almost every night Stella and I say over and over again – I want something or my stomach is hungry. Not that we had dessert every night before the challenge, but we did indulge a couple of times a week. To have something sweet at the end of the day after a good meal is very satisfying. Dessert is one thing both of us miss, even though I am the sweet tooth in the house – I think Stella misses it more than me. Our snow ice cream was good, but I really wanted something warm and comforting with the cold weather and the snow outside.

Looking at what we had in the house – I had some apples, a handful of raisins, some oats, butter, a little bit of sugar left and some brown sugar, flour and cinnamon – light bulb! I decided I would make mini apple crisps. Using individual ramekins we could get 4 desserts, 2 for each of us.

Individual Apple Crisp

Ingredients

2 – 3 Apples, peeled or unpeeled, cut up
Handful of Raisins
1 – 2 tsp Cinnamon
1/2 cup Oats, not quick
1/4 cup Flour
1/2 cup Brown sugar
2 Tbl Hemp seeds (optional)
3 Tbl Butter, cold

1.Preheat the oven to 350.

2. Cut up the apples and fill the ramekins, half to 3/4 full. Sprinkle some raisins into each one.

3. In a glass bowl, mix together the oats, cinnamon, brown sugar, hemp seed, flour.

4. Cut the butter and put in the bowl with oats. Using your hands, mix and crumble the butter into the mixture. You want it to look crumbly.

5. Sprinkle on top of the apples and bake for 20 minutes.

I just love the way baked apples make the house smell!

My goofy girl – she gave it a thumbs up!

Posted in Dessert, Homesteading, Life, Recipes | Tagged apple crisp, dessert, food stamp challenge, recipe | 3 Comments

Food Stamp Challenge: Week 3 Oat Muffins

Posted on February 18, 2014 by simply0637

One of the biggest challenges for Stella has been a snack after school. Stella eats lunch around 11am and get home around 4:30 – we don’t usually eat dinner until 6pm. By the time she gets home she is famished! Usually she will have some fruit, hard boiled egg or cheese – but since we are on such a limited amount of food and money – there has not been anything for her to really have for snack. I have been letting her eat some of my lunch items – but then I am without a full lunch – not a winning situation for either of us!

After making another batch of soaked oats pancakes – I still had some oats left – so I went through a couple of cook books and found a recipe for oat muffins. I altered the recipe some to make it more nutritious and filling.

Oat Muffins with Raisins and Carrots

Ingredients

1 cup milk $0.72
2/3 cup oats (not quick) $0.24
1 1/3 cups flour (I used organic white) $0.40
1/2 tsp sea salt
4 tsp baking powder
3 Tbl sugar
3 Tbl hemp seeds
1 Tbl olive oil
1 egg, well beaten $0.34
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup shredded and chopped carrots

Total cost of ingredients, with estimates for what I could not price out = $2.70. This equals $0.23 per serving.

1. Heat the milk until a film shines on surface, but do not bring to a boil.

2. Plump the raisins, but soaking in boiling water.

3. Grate a carrot and then chopped the grated carrot.

4. Put the oats into a glass bowl and add the milk – let soak for 5 minutes.

5. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

6. Drain the raisins and set aside.

7. Add the oil to the oats mixture and mix.

8. Add the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and hemp seeds) to the oats mixture and blend well.

9. Add a beaten egg to the oats mixture and blend well.

10. Add the raisins and carrots and mix well.

11. Spoon the batter into your muffin pan – I lined with muffins cups. Fill each to about half way. This will make 12 muffins.

12. Bake for 15 minutes, remove from oven and allow to cool.

These had a really nice flavor and the raisins and carrots added nicely. Stella could not wait for them to cool completely before putting butter on one and eating it right up!

Posted in Homesteading, Life, Recipes, Snacks | Tagged food stamp challenge, muffins, recipe, snack | 2 Comments

Food Stamp Challenge: Week 3 Groceries

Posted on February 17, 2014 by simply0637

I have to say I am glad that there is only one more shopping excursion in the month of our Food Stamp Challenge. As I put the list together, looking what we have in the refrigerator and freezer (soup, pancakes, wraps), what our menu will be for the week and how I am going to prepare what needs to be prepared – the stress already builds. It is then off to the grocery stores (at least 3, but up to 4) using my calculator as I go down the aisles, looking for what is on sale and wondering if I will have enough money to buy all that is on the list. After each store I go back out to my car and subtract what was spent against my budget to see how much I still have left. I think the trip to the grocery store after next week I will through caution to the wind and buy whatever my heart and Stella’s heart desires! We are already planning our celebration dinner on March 1.

Food is key part of our life and much planning goes into what we eat and purchase, but I have a whole new appreciation of the challenge of eat well on a very limited budget and feel so very fortunate that we have the means to purchase what we need to eat healthy and nutritiously and to not go to bed hungry.

I still have pumpkin soup in the fridge and freezer, along with wraps – both veggie and sausage and I had enough buttermilk and oats to make another batch of soaked oats pancakes. Bread was made, but will probably make another loaf this week.

Grocery list

Tea $2.50 (not my usual brand, but it was on sale)
Smoothie juice $4.59
Bananas $0.47
Clementines (3lbs.) $4.99 (not on sale like last week)
Organic, low fat plain yogurt $3.89 (on sale)
Whole milk mozzarella $3.59
Parmesan cheese $4.79
Broccoli $3.69
Whole milk yogurt (8) $9.52
Eggs $4.09
Organic Cheddar Cheese $4.03
Apples $7.50
Whole milk $2.89
Tax: $3.00

Our budget was $58.09, plus I added the amount that we did not spend from last week of $3.77, giving us a total budget for the week of $61.86.

Total spent was $59.54 and I did not get two items on the list, spinach and another bag of broccoli. Due to our weather our stores were pretty barren. I only have $2.32 to spend, which will not be enough, but I may just go ahead and go over since Stella will be doing school lunch again next week and she can do 2 lunches this week since she missed 2 days of school last week!

Posted in Homesteading, Life | Tagged food stamp challenge, groceries, shopping | 2 Comments

Food Stamp Challenge: Week 2 Notes From Stella & Dessert

Posted on February 14, 2014 by simply0637

Hi, Stella here. Today I’m going to be writing about my school lunch. When my mom talked me in to getting school lunches I was like hey whatever. Here’s how it went.

99% of the my school’s lunches have meat in them which is really unfortunate coming from a vegetarian. When I g0t the school lunches this week I had chef salad , and I was usually the only one ordering it.

The chef salad was pretty good, it comes with dried fruit, but I was not sure what kind it was. It also came with bread and ranch dressing. The first day on the side I had seeds, but the other two days the school was out of seeds and I was given chicken in a container. I don’t eat chicken and I told them that, but I got it anyway. Luckily someone at my table was there to rescue me and the chicken so it did not go to waste. It is a lot of food and it filled me up. Lucky me I only had to do school lunch 3 days this week because we had a major snow storm and no school for 2 days.

Who said that you can’t have a dessert when taking the food stamp challenge and ice cream at that! We got hit hard with the winter storm that started on Wednesday and ended on Thursday – at last measurement we had 19″ but it continued to snow after that. I think all in all we had at least 2 feet of snow and now the winds are suppose to get up to 40 mph tonight – can’t wait to check out the drifts that come from that.

With all the snow and with conditions as they were – couldn’t really go out and play in it – so instead we decided to make snow ice cream. Stella was a little skeptical when I told what were going to do – but by the look on her face – she ENJOYED it!

Snow Ice Cream

Ingredients

1 cup whole milk
1/3 cup sugar
1 – 2 tsp vanilla
pinch of salt
8 + cups fresh snow

1. In a bowl combine the milk, vanilla, sugar and salt. Whisk until the sugar is completely dissolved.

2. Stick the bowl into the freezer.

3. Go outside and fill a bowl or two with fresh snow.

4. Take the bowl out of the freezer and add the snow, cup at a time, and mix. You want the consistency to be firm enough to be scooped and the looks of crumbled topping.

5. Scoop into a bowl, add some sprinkles and enjoyed! Really delicious – smooth, sweet, cold and tastes like ice cream!!

Posted in Dessert, Homesteading, Life, Recipes | Tagged dessert, food stamp challenge, ice cream, recipe | 1 Comment

Food Stamp Challenge: Week 2 Another Dinner

Posted on February 13, 2014 by simply0637

I think I mentioned this earlier, but Stella is ecstatic that we have 4 choices for dinner this week. A friend was going out of town and gave me half of a pumpkin – so I decided to make a pumpkin soup with what I had on hand. This turned out to be Stella’s favorite soup of all the soups I have ever made! It also helped that there were two sweet potatoes left in the pantry.

Roasted Pumpkin Soup

Ingredients

Pumpkin peeled and cut into cubes (4 – 6 cups)
2 Sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
3 – 4 carrots, cut up
6 – 8 cups of broth (chicken or vegetable)
1/2 large onion, chopped
3 – 4 cloves of garlic, chopped
2 cups water
2 – 3 Tbl soy sauce (I used Organic Nama Shoyu, unpasteurized soy sauce)
Lard, tallow, olive oil, ghee (for roasting and sauteing onion & garlic)

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

2. Place tallow into a roasting pan and place in the oven to melt. Once melted take the baking dish out of the oven.

3. Prepare your pumpkin, carrots and sweet potatoes. Add to the roasting pan, stirring to coat all. Season with salt and pepper.

4. Roast the vegetables for about 40 minutes, stirring several times during that time.

5. Heat your broth.

6. In a large soup pot, melt some lard, butter, ghee, olive oil.

7. Heat your broth in a small sauce pan.

8. Prepare your onion and garlic.

9. Add the onion to the soup pot and saute until they begin to brown.

10. Add the garlic to the onion and saute for about 5 minutes more.

11. I used a combination of chicken broth and vegetable broth. I poured hot water into the chicken broth container to get all the fat from the side and poured into the soup pot – it was about 2 cups. I let that mix with the onion and garlic for about 10 minutes.

12. Add the heated broth to the soup pot.

13. Add the roasted vegetables, the liquid to the soup pot, let the flavors meld together for at least 30 minutes.

14. With a hand held blender, puree the soup.

15. Add the soy sauce, blend and serve.

Posted in Homesteading, Life, Recipes, Soup | Tagged food stamp challenge, pumpkin, recipe, soup | 3 Comments

Food Stamp Challenge: Week 2 Dinner

Posted on February 12, 2014 by simply0637

We are a week and a half into our challenge and I am not sure that Stella is going to make it. I have really seen a change in her moods, energy level and color of her face. I keep thinking she is getting sick because she looks so pale. We are eating less, with no snacks and smaller portions and yes I am hungry -but I am not sure if all of it is truly hunger or if it is the fact that I know I don’t have as much food as I want at my reach. Stella’s moods seem to be mellower and more melancholy – when I ask her what is wrong she can’t explain why she feels so low, she just does – which now is turning into tears. I am getting lots of hugs and I love you’s from her – which is wonderful, but not the norm – now don’t get me wrong I get lots of hugs from her – but now she needs to hug me more. She also seems more tired.

I will not take this challenge so far that it effects her for the long haul, but I think this week might be different. She is getting her lunch at school and because of that I was able to buy fruit for her afternoon snacks along with having a hard boil egg for snacking on when she needs it. Because we had food left over from last week – I was able to buy more this week to add to what we have. She is very happy that our dinners this week will not be just raviolis or burritos, but we now have 4 choices: raviolis, burritos, fish and soup! She requested her favorite – Mac & Cheese Fish and asked if she could have 2 fillets instead of 1 for dinner – and she can. I bought a package of flounder for $5.00 and their are 8 fillets. She was so excited to have this for dinner last night!

This is a recipe that I have posted previously – it is wonderful and pretty easy to make.

Mac & Cheese Fish

4 flounder fillets $2.99
2 Tbl lemon juice
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese $1.80
1/4 cup butter, melted $0.65
3 Tbl mayonnaise (I used an organic, full fat mayonnaise)
1 tsp dried thyme (I crushed it in my hand before adding)
1/4 tsp salt

Total cost: $3.22 per serving

Posted in Fish, Homesteading, Life, Recipes | Tagged dinner, food stamp challenge, mac and cheese fish | 2 Comments

Food Stamp Challenge: Week 2 Breakfast

Posted on February 11, 2014 by simply0637

So far our breakfast menu had not really changed. We still alternate between soaked oats pancakes and eggs over easy with toast – both are paired with a smoothie. Our smoothies are made with either raw whole milk yogurt (when we can get it) or store bought yogurt, preferably whole milk plain, but here that is hard to find. We had flax oil, coconut oil. banana, blueberries and peaches. When not doing the challenge we also add mango, pineapple and hemp seeds.

We are very fortunate to be able to get local, organic eggs either from the health food store – Harvest Moon, The Bread Basket (local, non-chain store) or from friends who raise their own chickens. This is paired with homemade bread and grass fed, raw milk butter. This bread recipe is now Stella’s favorite! It took me awhile to get it just right, but I think this is pretty good and oh, so easy!

No Knead Rye Bread

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups organic rye flour $0.27
1 1/2 cup organic white flour $.045
1 1/4 tsp yeast
1 1/4 tsp sea salt
1 1/2 cups water
1 Tbl+ caraway seeds

Total cost for 1 loaf of bread: $0.92 (so much cheaper and better than store bought)

1. Mix the rye flour, white flour, yeast, salt and caraway seeds in a glass bowl.

2. Add the water and combine with a wooden spoon – until a ball of dough is formed.

3. Cover the bowl and leave on the counter overnight.

Dough the next morning

4. The next morning, turn your oven to 500 degrees and place a dutch oven with the cover on inside the oven while it heats. I usually coat the inside of my dutch oven with some lard, but you don’t have too. It will take about 30 minutes for the oven to get to 500 degrees.

5. Take the dutch oven out of the oven and scrape the dough into the dutch oven, cover and place back in the oven, baking for 30 minutes.

6. After baking for 30 minutes, take the top off and cook an additional 5 – 10 minutes – this brown the outside. I find that 7 minutes is perfect in my oven – it gets a really nice color brown.

7. Take out and allow to cool slightly, cut, slather with butter and enjoy.

This bread has a wonderful hard crust and a soft inside. You can leave it out on the counter, cut side down. About day two I place inside a plastic produce bag. For breakfast I slice and toast, then slather with butter – so delicious! 1 loaf lasts us about a week, 3 – 4 breakfasts and to snack on, but at less than $1.00 a loaf, we could make 3 and still not break out budget.

Posted in Bread, Homesteading, Life, Recipes | Tagged bread recipe, food stamp challenge, no knead rye bread | 2 Comments

Food Stamp Challenge: Week 2 Groceries

Posted on February 10, 2014 by simply0637

Last week I tried to buy our groceries using a fourth of the amount that we would receive for a month, but I went over that amount – so that left us with $174.26. So, again I decided that I would take the remaining amount and divide by three since there are 3 weeks left in the month. This week’s budget was $58.09. We still had some food leftover from last week: butter, apples, some cheese, butter, eggs, burritos, pancakes and beans and rice. Also this week Stella will be getting school lunch so that was 5 lunches I did not have to include in the grocery shopping.

Forgot these when I took the first photo!

This week’s purchases:

organic, whole milk yogurt (5) $5.95
Organic, lowfat (all they had)large yogurt (for smoothies) $3.89
Organic broccoli $3.89
Organic spinach $3.59
Eggs $4.09
Raw, whole milk cheddar cheese $3.29
Carrots (1 pound) $0.79
Local ground pork sausage $7.19
Wraps $1.99
Blueberries (3 cups) $3.22
Peaches $2.69
Bananas $.089
Clementines
Onion $0.64
Fish (flounder) $5.99
Tax $2.73

The grand total $54.32 ($3.77 under budget!)

I was also given some pumpkin from a friend that was going out of town and was cleaning out their refrigerator along with some more ravioli splits! Stella is very excited that we have 4 choices for dinner this week! One choice is her favorite fish dish!

I spent Sunday making bread, soup and a batch of burritos using the ground sausage and the leftover beans and rice from left over from last week. I was really surprised that the beans and rice that I made last week was enough for 9 burritos and 2 lunches!

Posted in Homesteading, Life | Tagged food stamp challenge, grocery list | 2 Comments

Food Stamp Challenge: Notes From Stella

Posted on February 7, 2014 by simply0637

We are almost done with our first week of our Food Stamp Challenge and I asked my daughter if she would blog once per week and share her experience, here is what she had to say.

This month my mom and I are taking the food stamp challenge. Now I know how this works. Your probably wondering where is she going with this? Well I’ll tell you where, to the worst subject ever possible… HUNGER!!!!!! Yah that’s right hunger the worst thing known to man. Now I knew this wasn’t gonna be easy but I never thought it would be this hard. When I get home I’m so hungry because I can’t have a snack after school.

The food stamps are terrible

I feel so bad for any one who has to live on them. Do you want to know? ok I’ll tell you because every night I have the same thing for dinner burrito’s. It get’s a little annoying after a while

Now let me tell you about lunch. My mom finally got me to do school lunch every other week which I am not looking forward to. School lunches are terrible, but I guess I’ll give this school a try just in case.

I guess I’ll give this food stamp thing a try but my stomach is still gonna take it’s lunch money because it’s dying of hunger.

Posted in Homesteading, Life | Tagged child's reaction, food stamp challenge | 8 Comments

Food Stamp Challenge: Week 4 Groceries

Food Stamp Challenge: Week 3, Mini Apple Crisps

Food Stamp Challenge: Week 3 Oat Muffins

Food Stamp Challenge: Week 3 Groceries

Food Stamp Challenge: Week 2 Notes From Stella & Dessert

Food Stamp Challenge: Week 2 Another Dinner

Food Stamp Challenge: Week 2 Dinner

Food Stamp Challenge: Week 2 Breakfast

Food Stamp Challenge: Week 2 Groceries

Food Stamp Challenge: Notes From Stella

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