Day 3: Florence the Machine

On Saturdays, if we aren't running off to a soccer game or some other kid-event, I like to take a little time to make something real for breakfast.

This morning I made biscuits with a little help from Florence the Machine. That's Florence back there - the upright mixer. Florence was a graduation present last year from my Texas family. I don't really know how I survived without an upright mixer, now that I have one. Kandie complains about always having to wash Florence's bowl. I think there might be a little bit of jealousy there. 

Florence is named after Florence and the Machine, of course.

My daughters like to eat the biscuits with honey. I haven't priced honey yet, so I just ate one plane, with two fried eggs, and yes, a little Frank's. Also coffee, with a little sugar. Total cost - $0.52

breakfast
eggs, fried, 2	$ 0.31
biscuits, homemade	$ 0.06
Frank's	$ 0.01
coffee	$ 0.13
sugar	$ 0.01

Lunch was left over Blackeyed Pea and Ham, with rice. Cost same as last night - $0.81 (with the Frank's). Also a biscuit on the side. Total - $0.87.

I decided to try to make crock pot chicken cacciatore for dinner. So I actually started right after I picked up from breakfast.

I was pretty excited about this recipe. I improvised quite a bit from a recipe I found on line to cut costs - no fresh tomatoes, no fresh peppers. But lucky for me I had picked up the cans of diced tomatoes and green chilies! 

To make the dish healthier, I removed the skin from the drumsticks. I haven't used bone-in chicken for years - Kandie and I always just buy boneless, skinless chicken breast - so I am out of practice with skinning. I muddled about with a knife for a bit, then remembered Kandie had bought kitchen shears a couple of years ago. Now, when she bought them, I thought they were the silliest things in the world. After all, I had a nice set of knives. And I kept thinking that until this morning. They worked great with the slippery skin -much better than the knife I had been trying to use. So now I'm not thinking they are the silliest things in the world anymore.

Anyway, 

browned the chicken a bit in a tablespoon of canola, then popped it into Dot. 

Then sauteed some onions in the remaining oil, then added the tomato and chilies to catch the rest of the oil.

Then all of that went into Dot, on top of the chicken. I added some garlic powder, a dash of red wine, a bay leaf (from my bay tree on the front lawn - I love having a bay tree!), a dash of red wine vinegar, and some fresh basil from my basil plant that I have brought inside for the winter and is growing slowly in my bathroom.

There's Dot doing her thing. Eight hours later, a little macaroni -

and, voila!

Crock pot chicken cacciatore! I had some Papa John's Pizza hot pepper packs laying around, so I used one of those to spice it up a bit.

crock pot chicken cacciatore
drumsticks, 1.33 lbs	$ 1.33
canola oil, 1 tbsp	$ 0.03
onion	$ 0.23
2 cans tomatoes and chilies	$ 0.77
garlic powder, 1 tsp	$ 0.01
dash of red wine vinegar	$ 0.01
bay leaf (from my tree)	$   -
basil (from my plant)	$   -
total	$ 2.38

I ate 1/4 of the recipe - so my share was $0.59. Pasta cost $0.15, for a total dinner cost of $0.74.

OK - truth be told, I wasn't wild about how this came out. There wasn't nearly enough sauce. I would have liked about double the amount of sauce. I think if I do this one again, I'll use a big can of chopped tomatoes, and maybe skip the onions and peppers. Taste was good - chicken was quite literally falling off the bone.

For snacks, I've had two biscuits (one with peanut butter), a banana, and some tea and sugar. Total cost: $0.36

Day 3 total cost: $2.49

Estimated calories consumed: 1,500

For exercise, Kandie and I went for a 55 minute walk with the dog this morning - about 3.5 miles. This afternoon I took the dog out again for a 30 minute walk - but at a much more casual pace - about a mile. Good to get a rest day in.

Continuing with the Surgeon General's Performance Triad, I got about seven hours of sleep last night. I feel pretty good with seven hours. I don't feel like I need eight. Less than about six and a half and I start to feel run down after a couple of days. Less than six and I get grumpy. So seven hours is fine.

Everything is going pretty well. I'm a little hungry most of the day, but given that I'm eating 1,500 calories, that's to be expected. With the money I had left, I could easily have eaten a few more biscuits, or even another serving of the blackeyed pea dish (one more left in the fridge).