SNAP: DAY ONE

Monday, Day One of my SNAP Challenge. 

How did it go!? Well, pretty darn good! I keep thinking about my meals though. It's like this constant counting and planning.. and worrying. Will my food go bad? will I be hungry later and not have enough? After dinner tonight, I decided that I might actually have more food than I thought... I  need to sit down and plan things out so I can STOP stressing and carry-on with my life. Writing a menu will help ease my mind about planning for the week.


Breakfast:
The morning started out with cinnamon banana oatmeal and a small side of berries. Seriously, don't buy the $1 berries unless you have to.. or if they are from the Farmer's Market. These were horribly sour. I threw mine in the freezer and plan to blend them up at the end of the week.

Oh and my coffee... I am not a black coffee kind of girl. I prefer a little dark cocoa powder in there with a splash of Almond milk. I know drinking coffee/ tea with your milk/ plant milk isnt the best for optimal nutrition (there are binders in the tea and coffee that inhibit absorption of minerals). I drink my coffee this way out of luxury not out of nutrition. I am "privileged" enough not to have to worry about those kinds of things...

I worked out before my class today, and had to contemplate if I wanted to eat my apple as a post workout snack. I opted not to. I decided to wait... I knew I was going to be hungry again come 2-3 pm. My glycogen stores will just not be prime today. Maybe tomorrow I will have to eat breakfast after I work out instead of before?

Lunch: 
Pumpkin soup: (Click me for recipe)! It was so tasty... except the microwave was broken at school, so I ate it cold. None-the-less, it was filling and held me over for the next 3 hours.

Thank you to my friends in Haiti for teaching me to make this!!! 

I drank a lot of water today. Well, actually no more than usual. Filling up my bottle really made me think.... you know, I am privileged to have access to clean drinking water and a BPA-free water bottle that gets cleaned in a dish washer. I am able to drink water that's CLEAN.. for free. I just kept thinking about what my (soon-to-be) sister-in-law was telling me about the water in El Paso, Texas. People can't drink out of the faucet. Water is muck brown and people get sick if they drink it. So what do they do? They have to buy water. Yeah, and mind you many of these people are not rolling in dough... This is something I take for granite EVERY SINGLE DAY. I don't have to make a decision between water or food.

SNACK: 
Just what I needed.... Something naturally sweet and chrunchy! Hmmm mmm

Dinner:
Well, I came home and was hungry. So I ate a small bowl of pumpkin soup.... (that soup will be never ending. I might have to freeze it by Wednesday). And I got to work on my master piece of a dinner.

I found the recipe first at the No Meat Athlete. And then followed his link to the burger recipe here: Lentil Burgers.


What did I do to modify my burgers?

1 cup lentils (40 cents)
1 1/2 cups oats (24 cents)
2 carrots (16 cents)
1 cup or so of spinach/ kale (25 cents)
A dash of garlic and basil (???)


....and then followed the instructions on the original recipe.

I contemplated topping them off with a little tomato paste, but decided to save that for the end of the week. I have some other creations up my sleeve!


Total cost of one burger?

Hmm its about 15 cents. 
THE DOLLAR MENU HAS NOTHING ON ME! 

Seriously, sometimes I think I eat like a queen.

I served my lentil burger on a bed of spinach with some roasted garlic squash and broccoli on the side. Nom Nom NOm..

And did I mention, I have six of these left in my possession! Looks like I can eat a vegg burger every single day of my SNAP challenge if I really want to! Maybe I will have to have friends over for dinner on Sunday to eat veggie burgers to celebrate the end of a successful week.....



Life is NOT boring eating plant-based on a budget!


Oh and about these little buggers....

Yeah, like I always say: SAVE THOSE SEEDS.  I roasted up the seeds from my squash this evening, and will be using them for some snacks throughout the week. Seriously, squash has to be the world's perfect food; starchy vegetable rich in vitamin C, beta carotene .. (that's just to name a few)... and packed with a center of proteins and fat (THE SEEDS).


So how much money did I spend on food today?
That's to be continued... time to get some actual homework done!