Day 2: Enter Dot the Crock Pot

Today started out virtually identical to yesterday - oatmeal and blueberries (this time just one ounce), banana, and coffee. Cutting the blueberries to one ounce cut the cost of breakfast to $0.59.

But before I headed out of the house, I also did some preparation for tonight's dinner - I busted out Dot the Crock Pot.

I only have names for two of my kitchen appliances, but if you have suggestions for others, I am open to them. There's Dot, shown above - a two quart crock pot - very efficient because usually when I cook with the crock pot I am cooking just for my wife and I. The other appliance is Florence the Machine. I'll introduce her later.

So this morning Dot was loaded up with the initial ingredients for "Slow Cooked Black-Eyed Peas with Ham", a recipe I got from the food blog, "Skinny Taste" - http://www.skinnytaste.com/2010/09/slow-cooked-black-eyed-peas-with-ham.html I halved the recipe because I knew it was only going to be Kandie and I eating it.

I think slow cooker meals are really cool. There's something about coming home to a house full of the smell of cooking.

I didn't eat breakfast at home. I had to be across town for eight, so I ran around for the last half hour before I left making the breakfast, getting Dot started. The thing about this whole not eating out business is you have to not only budget money, you have to budget time. Not something I did particularly well this morning. After getting Dot started, I poured my oatmeal into a plastic container, grabbed my banana and coffee, and ran out the door. I ate the banana in the car, and reheated my oatmeal when I finally got to work after my meeting. it worked out OK because I'm not usually a big eater first thing in the morning. I really crave something at about 10.

But I also knew I was going to have lunch with my buddy Joe, and I knew he wanted to go out somewhere. So I also had to pack a lunch, which I did in between dealing with Dot and my breakfast. I packed a very simple meal of bread and cheese - about 2 ounces of bread and 3.3 ounces of cheddar.

We had lunch at HEB Central Market on Broadway - or as we like to call it, The Gucci B. Sorry for the crappy photo - I guess I was too quick given the lighting. Since the Gucci B has a little eatery, Joe was able to buy some food and I was able to sneak mine in. And ask for the complementary glass of water.

This actually was a pretty good lunch, but again, pretty high calorie - 558 calories to be exact. Or at least to estimate. It was on the pricey side, too, coming in at $0.10 for the bread and $0.78 for the cheese - total of $0.88. Joe had a pre-made salad and a Diet Coke (drool) that cost almost $10. The contrast was kind of humorous.

When I got home this afternoon - about 4:30 (that's 1630 Army time) - I was feeling a bit run down, so I ate a banana. I also fried up some peppers and onions to finish the preparations for the Black Eyed Pea dish. I added those to Dot, cranked up the heat, and went to the gym to burn some calories.

Here's the ingredients for the Black Eyed Peas with Ham:

4 oz ham	$0.94
8 oz black eyed peas	$0.77
bay leaf	$ -	grows in my yard
1/2 tsp olive oil	$0.05
garlic	$0.01	use powder
1/2 bell pepper	$0.25
onion	$0.49
canned tomatoes	$0.39
1/4 tsp chili powder	$0.01
3/4 tsp cumin	$0.01
salt	$0.01
pepper	$0.01
total	$2.93

I found a sale yesterday at HEB on canned tomatoes with Hatch chilies mixed in - the sale was 3 for 2, so the average price per can was $0.39.

I came close to cutting out the ham because it represented a third of the cost. I actually put it back from my cart twice before I finally broke down and bought it.

Regarding the spices, I went on Amazon to do some price research. I found if you were willing to buy a fairly large quantity of the any of the spices - usually in the one pound range - you could get really cheap prices. One pound of cumin ran you less than $10. If you really wanted to economize, and you used the spices regularly, it would make sense. Alternatively, you could go in on it with a neighbor. Sharing is not something we think to do much these days, but I think it was more common once upon a time.

So how did it come out? Pretty good!

We served it over brown rice ($0.07). The ingredients above made about four servings, so I charged myself $0.73 for the Peas, for a total cost of $0.80 for dinner.

The Pea dish tasted quite good, especially with some Frank's ($0.01).

I realized I was only at about 1,450 calories for the day following dinner, and only $2.50 in expenditures, so I decided to make some toast (about an ounce of my bread - maybe $0.04) with peanut butter (0.7 ounces - $0.08). 

The peanut butter toast was just what I needed. Now I'm sipping my last cup of tea for the day.

So the days totals: $2.62, 1623 calories. Still a little low on the calories, but again, I could have easily ate more bread if I just wanted to increase calories and still been well below my resource limit. I also did about 40 minutes of cardio and 20 minutes of weight lifting at the gym, for about 700 calories burned.

I think the lesson from two days of the $3 diet is that it takes some effort and thought, but it's doable. The main change for me at this point is the lack of convenience. I'm used to just running out the door in the morning and figuring I'll pick something up for breakfast either on the way or at the convenience store in the basement of my building. This is not a small thing in my life. But it is often an unhealthy one (Kerryn met me for the first time with a Little Debby Oatmeal Pie wrapper next to my coffee).