We had a late start to the challenge as we received our food hamper items on Sunday March 20th and our Good Food Box today. We made some assumptions about what would be in the GFB so we used onions, mushrooms and garlic in our supper last night.
So…to begin with, Zoe, who is 9, was very interested in this project. She went through the food hamper supplies thoroughly and her first comments were: “This is interesting” and “can I have a cookie?”. She was also VERY excited about the chocolate pudding, chocolate cake mix, spaghetti, candy, Cesar salad mix and the juice boxes. She said to let the readers know that “we don’t normally eat a lot of this food…like chocolate pudding and chocolate cake mixes. Mama sometimes buys cookies but not very often and she NEVER buys juice boxes.” We sat down to plan the week of meals and discuss the pantry items. Our pantry items initially were: butter, coffee, olive oil, cheddar cheese and flour. When Mark arrived he said that he wanted to add beer to his pantry as well. We had a discussion about this and in the end decided that beer was off the list even though he argued strongly that it could replace flour as a grain product. He did drink a beer prior to our official start and Zoe had a final Rolo candy that her grandma had brought her.
Our first meal was spaghetti with diced tomatoes in herbs combined with sautéed onions, mushrooms and garlic with cheddar cheese on top and milk to drink. We also had salad thinking that since there was a ceasar salad mix that we would get lettuce in the GFB…we ended up not getting lettuce so we cheated the first night.
For breakfast today we had oatmeal with milk and sugar. We also shared an orange.
Since we cooked the whole package of spaghetti, we were all able to take some for our lunches today. Plus I had an apple. Zoe had a ½ orange in her lunch, two cookies (which she is insisting on having every day since we calculated that we could have 4 cookies per day for 7 days) and a juice box. She also said, being resourceful, “If I run out of food, I can ask the teacher for some from the “extra food” supplies in my class.” I think she’ll have plenty for lunch though.
Prior to reading Kendra’s note in response to Mary’s, I had saved two free Country Style coupons and drank a coffee and ate a cookie today as well…we also had a friend deliver lemon squares unannounced to our house and we ate some of those last night as well. We’ll try not to do that again!!
Over all our initial planning went well and I think we’ll do ok for the week. Suzanne said today that EACH of us could chose 5 pantry items but I think it is just 5 in total. I think we will miss grains, more fruits and veggies and MAPLE SYRUP which, sadly, got knocked off the pantry list even though we spent 8 hours making it on Saturday.
I think the discussions with Zoe have been the most interesting…I’ve explained to her where the food is from and how we have to think ONLY of the food we have been given. She was helpful in planning the meals and made the ceasar salad and cooked the pasta almost by herself. She LOVES getting the juice boxes!!! And can’t wait until Tuesday (chocolate pudding night) and Wednesday (chocolate cake) night. Mark, as well, had some interesting comments…one being that there is “not a lot of fiber or protein in the choices”. We also wondered about the expiry dates on eggs and had to get rid of a can of mushrooms (expired) and a can of tomato sauce (leaking). I discussed this with Zoe too and said that we could probably go back to the Food Bank with these items and get them replaced (had we obtained them with real need from the Food Bank) so we are going to replace them.
That’s it for now…tonight for supper we’ll have rice and a veggie stir fry! Plus cookies!!
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