Monday, June 18, 2007

Day 18 - and leftovers are ruling my life...

Food is taking up more and more of my brainspace as my Fiscal Fast continues. (The parts of my brain that aren't devouring the huge backlog of books I have piled around the place, that is.)

More to the point, not wasting said food is starting to feel like a bad game of Tetris...

Today's a good example:

For Breakfast I had a cup of tea (no surprise there). And toast with apricot fruit spread as I still have half a loaf of no knead bread from Saturday which I'd like to eat as much of as possible before it starts growing a beard. Plus some yoghurt which I'm not worried about as I opened it yesterday and pretended it was sour cream to take the heat off the (left over) Mexican chili pie. Which I was only eating because it was in the fridge as I'd run out of containers for leftovers in the freezer. (Still with me?)

At Morning tea I had: A cinnamon pinwheel scone (to use up the batch I made yesterday - I could try freezing them I suppose but I've never tried freezing scones. In retrospect I should have made muffins but scones seemed so much quicker, easier and, well, more Winter Sunday afternoon ish.) Apple - from the lot I bought the weekend before last. Which I probably should fast track in terms of eating.

Then there was Lunch: And the problem of the leftover pancakes from Saturday. Which I heated up and wrapped around the last of the spinach (wilted) which I mixed with the last of the corn from Thursday and a wedge of melted Blue Brie. This was delicious, I have to say.

By Afternoon tea time I was overwhelmed so just had a handful of almonds.

And, finally, Dinner with a menu decided based on the fact the tofu had been open since Friday.

I tried a new recipe for me from Alison Holst's Meals without Meat (again!): Sweet and Sour Tofu.

Which would have been very nice, I'm sure, if I'd only followed the recipe. I had less soy sauce than she listed and the only wine vinegar I had was Balsamic (which is not quite what she was meaning) but I could sort of see what she was getting at and would try it again once I've restocked the soy sauce, bought some proper wine vinegar and maybe had some red pepper to go with the green.

And it was really nice to have rice. I don't think I've had rice since I started the Fiscal Fast...

The recipe was for two. I ate one serve. The other is sitting in the top part of the fridge, in a bowl, next to one of the serves of last night's cream of lentil soup (which I made because, dammit, if I'm spending $7 on a bunch of celery I'll use every last stalk of it - and this recipe called for two stalks) (See previous comment re: lack of containers for freezing leftovers)

So I already know what I should be eating tomorrow. But I want oven baked fish! With wedges! Who cares if I have nothing resembling tomato sauce anymore?! I want to at least pretend I'm eating junk food!!!

Then again, there's a pumpkin which is approaching two weeks old. And some coriander (that maybe I should freeze.) And some of that tofu marinade from Day Seven (which I can now add garlic to) plus half a packet of udon noodles and about 100g tofu....

Finished today:

* Spinach (on the list for the weekend)
* Corn (I think I'd prefer mushrooms or zucchini this week, if they're available...)
* Soy sauce (who knows...)

Total spent since June 1: $107.58

Boredom level: Very high. Especially as today I found out the dates for this year's Sydney Design and was sent a presale invite for The Cure in Sydney in August. Both of which would have meshed rather well, assuming I had a spare day's annual leave (which I don't) and the ability to spend money at the moment (which I also don't). Blergh!

6 comments :

jewellspring said...

Isn't it great that tea can be considered part of frugality? I wish Americans could figure this out~course we have a lot we could learn in this area...

AMCSviatko said...

*Looking puzzled* Tea is an integral part of LIFE!

I can live without coffee (and often do) but if I don't have my first-thing cup of tea the rest of the day is all akimbo.

gemma said...

Dear Not Shopping Sherpa, scones freeze just fine, wrap individually, and as for apples, slice and preserve some in vodka for apple vodka (yummmm), also apple sauce and freeze in ice cube trays? Works, I have done it, but like you say boredom factor is high (at my place too, if I turn one more group of oldish veges into some kind of weird soup I will scream). Turn the left over bread into croutons for the soup, and before they are croutons, you can freeze (crap there's that word again) the bread cubes.

Taphophile said...

I've got some smallish freezer containers if you'd like some. Brand new, still in packets.

Anonymous said...

It's a fine line between saving some leftovers so there's always spare dinner in the fridge, and fighting for freezer space and living on secondhand food.

We're doing the 3D freezer jigsaw puzzle at the moment too.

AMCSviatko said...

Oh God, the mere thought of soup makes me want to puke (Hey! That rhymes!). Unfortunate as I've just found the Moosewood celery soup recipe which would sort out the celery situation nicely. And give me enough leftovers to last a lifetime...

Three words I'm not liking right now:

* Soup
* Leftovers
* Frozen

So the phrase "Frozen leftover soup" is about my least favorite phrase in the world at the moment.