Day One

I woke up a little discouraged that I had no food for breakfast but quickly regrouped, put myself together and headed to the grocery store. There, I thought I had a good game plan in place but soon realized trying to add up the cost of food in my head was stressful.  My husband, a math whiz, is usually on hand for quick calculations.  But being a 9-5 er and at work I was on my own.  By rounding up on prices I guessed the total cost pretty accurately leaving some room for a stop at the local fruit stand. I noticed recently my favorite Tony's Fruit Stand had opened again for business.  Their fresh produce is always delightful at great prices and within walking distance from our house. Despite this convenience I realized that planning and buying one week of food is challenging.   Lots of the ingredients I normally have on hand to make food for a number of days, such as flour, oil, butter where going to be costly in a budget of $35 and I omitted them from the list.

This left me with eggs ($0.70), a whole chicken at $5.15 (plus tax), a tube of Italian pork  sausage, a head of lettuce, broccoli, 3 carrots, 3 oranges, 1 grapefruit, 1 carton of strawberries, 3 cans of tuna, a russet potato, an onion, a tomato, a loaf of bread, a box of whole wheat pasta shells, and a carton of plain Greek yogurt. I took out 5 bags of green tea at $0.20 cents a bag and that left me $8.19 for the remainder of the week.

Breakfast was an easy start. Not having any oil or Pam I decided to poach my eggs. Lucky for me its my favorite breakfast.  Lunch also was fairly easy. I toasted 2 slices of bread, mixed a can of tuna with a little Greek yogurt, no mayo, added a slice of tomato and some lettuce accompanied by three very ripe strawberries.

Dinner almost put me in a tizzy.  I had planned a recipe that baked a whole chicken thinking I'd have leftovers to add to all my meals going forward.  Unfortunately I read the recipe wrong.  Instead of 30 minute cook time it was 60 minute cook time.  I quickly boiled up some water, cooked up some of the pork sausage, remembering to save half to use later and made a simple meal of pasta, lettuce and sausage.  My husband got to add a touch of Pecorino on top for flavor.  All in all, day one a success.  I felt nervous about not being able to include vegetables, fruit, protein and whole grains into my meals but with a little creativity came out on top. Luckily I had today off and was able to prepare meals for the next 2 days and 12 hour shifts. Time will tell how well my planning will work for the remainder of the week.