What's Cooking?

Chicken Noodle Soup - $35 a week challenge

So, to start on this challenge, I've picked Chicken Noodle Soup. Since we have to assume that this is a new person starting out with no or very few staples, I've included the prices for each thing. This is a base for some future recipes, so as Mr WhatsCooking points out - in a real kitchen, the noodle is the garnish for the chicken noodle soup. So we'll cook the noodles separately and add them to the bowl before the broth. I'll start with the recipe, and put the shopping list at the end. This is my recipe for the whole family, not just one person, so I've added a little extra chicken for flavour. If you don't have any leftover chicken carcasses lying around, you can just use 3 or 4 chicken leg quarters and brown them first. The challenge is for one person, so there would be plenty of soup leftover. 

$35.47 ($39.59) per week Grocery Challenge

On one of my favourite sites to visit, the Simple Living Network, there is a great discussion about feeding yourself for $35.47 U.S. per week. Could you do it? I honestly think that my family does this every week, but we do have some advantages (such as living on a farm). $35.47 per week in U.S.D equals $39.59 Canadian Dollars per week. Would that make it easier? What would you buy, and what would a week of cooking look like? I've decided to put up a sample shopping list with a sample menu, to see how feasible this could be. We have to assume that there are few staples in the house (salt, pepper, soy sauce packets, ketchup packets, sugar packets). A lot of my items are sale items and from the wilted veggie bin - if they weren't on sale or in that bin, I wouldn't buy them. I only shop loss leader sales. I pass 5 local markets on the way home from work so with some looking it is easy to find this source of cheap food. I have also made the assumption that there is a chest freezer available to this person. As my sister pointed out, this is practically how I feed my family of five, let alone one person. Once I get my staples bought, it's going to be much easier (I think).

Oatmeal Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

So after a month off, and the back to school rush, I'm finally back to my blog. These Oatmeal Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins turned out awesome, and they are low fat as an extra bonus. For an even healthier snack you can substitute some or all of the white flour for whole wheat, and use splenda instead of sugar. I've used regular chocolate chips in this recipe, but I think I will try the miniature chips next time. Either way - bananas and chocolate are a great pair!