Food Stamp Budget Day 2; Diabetic project

I begin my day with 4.68 and a cup of black coffee. I slept well and feel fine. The last time I did this I learned the later I ate the better I would sleep.


Today's breakfast
Omelet (with the cheap cheese and cooked in butter) .48
Coffee .20
1/2 cup pomegranate .50
Pretzels (9) .15
Total 1.33
Carbs 47 grams

Just slightly under the normal maximum of 1.41 per meal. I am hoping to find more ends and pieces at Zabars, the cheap cheese is keeping me going.

...and I took a walk to check for deals in the area. Chicken thighs with leg .69 a pound. My organic chickens set me back a pretty piece, while frightened of chicken this cheap I went into the store. The price was for multi packs...massive amounts of up to 10 parts in a plastic tray. I went to the meatpacking area and asked if I could get just one. They did it for me...came to .72.

I thought it might make a good lunch so I simmered it in seasoning and garlic and water and cooked it quickly. I took one taste. I got a little bit of the seasoning on the outside but the inside could have been tofu for all the taste it had.

There is no money in my budget for waste so I shredded it, mixed it with my garlic, ginger lime mix, added in black beans and a bit of my rapidly dwindling cheese and made yet even more quesadillas. I added up my costs...4.26, divided by 10 came to .43 cents for each. A coup in my mind.

I warmed one along with the chili cheese from yesterday I had planned on for lunch and had them both. They both tasted great.

Chili Cheese .63
Chicken and bean .43
Iced tea .03
Total 1.09
With 48 grams of carb

I took no photo because by the time I was done I was so famished I devoured them both.

...and the afternoon blahs hit. Around this time I typically have some fruit and coffee, but cannot afford both. If I brew one cup of coffee I only use .10 worth....

Coffee .10

Then after a hard workout at the gym I came home HUNGRY. I reached for a bottle of wine, but realized...not happening on this budget so I had an iced tea and cheese while preparing dinner.

Iced tea .03
Cheese .30

I hate brown rice. I really hate brown rice. I like sticky white rice, especially with Chinese food. However brown rice IS what we tell diabetics to eat, not because it is lower in carbohydrate than white but because it has fiber, which slows the absorption of the sugars.

1/4 cup dry is the maximum serving, which makes about 1/2 cup cooked.

I don't have a pan tiny enough to effectively cook 1/4 cup of rice and it is part of my quest to make brown rice taste good. (Does anyone outside of steamed vegetable vegans eat this stuff?)so I tried to cook it risotto style.

I added soy sauce to the water along with some 21 seasoning from Trader Joe's hoping to impart flavor.

After an hour of stirring and adding water I tasted a grain and determined that it was done. The seasoning sat on the outside of the grain and none of the flavor had penetrated it. Yuck!

I heated the wok and tossed in last night's leftover marinated pork and two cups of broccoli (1/3 of a huge bundle on sale for .99 a bunch)A little soy, a touch of hot sauce and yea...

I tasted the rice again...yuck.

On an impulse I threw the rice into the wok with everything else.



And it was good, not as good as white but good.

48 grams of carb...fine

Cost:
Pork 1.09
Broccoli .33
Rice .19
Total 1.61

Daily calories 1,800
Nutrition graph is at the top, because the top needed a picture.

My daily total  4.46, which gives me an entire .22 cents to squander tomorrow.

And