Living on a Food Stamp Budget Day 30

I begin today with 4.85 which seems like a fortune to me at this point.

I begin my day with fruit and coffee.
Nectarine .54
Coffee .25
Total .79

I know that I will be having dinner with friends and they eat early so I am trying to stave off hunger until I do an early lunch.

For me the best lunch to stave off hunger is pasta, so I made a sauce, a real puttanesca.
Can tomatoes .97
Can anchovies .89
Olives .39
Capers .40
Garlic .25
2.90 divided by 4 is 72 cents a serving.
Sauce .72
Pasta .19
Total .91

Off to take care of my day until Dumpling time.

My friend Penny makes legendary dumplings. When spoken about people use reverent tones. She agreed to give me a lesson.

Rule 1. never use a food processor, it makes a paste. Chop every tiny morsel by hand then stir with chopsticks.

Rule 2. Spoons are no good for filling dumplings they pack the ingredients too tight and they they expand and can break in the water. Use chopsticks and keep filling loose.

Rule 3. After filling dumplings seal twice, once with water and finger an a second time by giving dumpling a two handed hug that crimps it.

Delicious, loaded with Chinese leek, ginger, and pork.

But there were only a portion of what we were to dine upon.

Penny made a dish of fermented tofu and long beans with garlic, shrimp with cabbage (I ate the shrimp heads)and a roast chicken. I made Sezchaun braised pork belly, (Cathy bought the belly) and a green salad from my garden (.10) Cathy also bought a roast duck that I deboned(Those bones go in the soup pot)

It was such a feast of abundance and everything was so delicious I went from dish to dish and ate far too much.Plus wine...we had wine. 

This was followed by some sugar free ice cream. Despite feeling stuffed my calories for the day were only 1,718.
My cost was nothing for the day 1.80. My vitamin D went way over 100% as a result of those shrimp heads.

I am fortunate to be eating often with friends but this is the point for many families where they would be out of the month's budget and at the local food pantry for whatever they can hobble together to fill them for the weekend.

I carry over 3.05