Sunday, June 03, 2007

Fiscal Fast, Day Three

And still straight sailing. For breakfast I eat wholegrain toast with honey and a banana on top and spend the morning out of the way of temptation, tucked in bed knitting the second pair of wristwarmers and reading issue 37 of Urbis in a bid to lessen my pile of unread magazines.

There's an "Uh oh" moment when a subscription offer card drops out of the middle specifically targeted at Australian readers and offering a good discount. But it would seem I'm too late to take up the offer as it closed at the end of last month (really must catch up on the magazine reading...)

At lunchtime I realise the bag of salad mix in the fridge (with a best before date the same as the tomatoes I used yesterday) is definitely departed from this world and give it a decent burial (in the compost bucket).

Damn! There goes my plan to have a lovely healthy salad with lunch, which is smoked salmon and blue brie pizza, chosen as my packet of smoked salmon has been open almost too long and the spinach is best before tomorrow (and I don't want it turning to slime along with the Salad Mix.)

I scrape the last of the salsa out of the jar for the pizza. I doubt I can justify replacing it this month but I'm not too concerned as I still have tomato paste, Dolmio and at least one can of tomatoes in the house.

The afternoon is spend at home pottering - catching up on the bits and pieces I've not got to over the past few weekends. The pile of junk mail I pulled from the letter box stares balefully at me from the corner where I placed it when I came back inside. To read or not to read, that is the question...

I decide that since I enjoy reading junk mail I can flick through it as long as I'm strong enough to resist its siren call. Big W has cute shoes but I decide they're probably plastic and I don't need them anyway. Aldi have their Tevion digital photo frames back in stock for $119. I rip both pages out, put them aside and pretend I might just decide to buy either but knowing full well I'll forget about them within 24 hours and both bits of paper will end up in the recycling bin.

For dinner I'm having vegetable soup and toast from the freezer. I'm pasta-d out after yesterday (the usual quick and easy option) and really can't be shagged thinking about what to cook. It's Sunday night, after all!

Finished today:

* Bag of salad mix (not replacable. Must buy a head of lettuce or decide that autumn is not the right season for lettuce and stop with the salad stuff already)
* Jar of Salsa (see discussion above)

3 comments :

Anonymous said...

I've been thinking of a subset to the fiscal fast - "Cook from the Cupboard". Not completely thought through, but something along the lines of only FRESH produce can be bought (toilet paper and tampons being major exceptions) and everything else has to come out of the cupboard (or freezer).

Also, I have a set of sprouters you could borrow if you'd like a go at growing your own greenery. In warmer weather I sprout alfalfa, radish, mung beans and sometimes mustard and onion as an alternative to buying lettuce which ultimately goes to slime. It takes 3-5 days to get a crop and you just keep rotating them.

AMCSviatko said...

Please join in, no matter what your criteria are. I'm lucky that tampons aren't something I need to buy. :-P

But your mention of sprouters got me thinking and remebering. Boyfriend I lived with in the 80s used to do magic things with Agee jars and sprouts (and homemade bread, but that's a whole new story). Now I just have to remember where he got the actual seeds from and what the sprouting process was...

Anonymous said...

Alfalfa and mung bean seeds available from your local health food shop. Mustard, water cress and onion seeds from the garden centre.

I found half a tablespoon to be about the right amount. Cover with warm water overnight, then rinse twice daily. It takes longer in the cooler months to get a crop going. I start new crops every 3 or 4 days to keep the supply happening.

To do it in jars, make sure it is a wide one and cover the top with a piece of old panty hose secured with a rubber band.