Category Archives: United Way King County

Hunger Action Week: Day 3 Dinner: Puerto Rican Style Dinner

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This will fill you up quite nicely. I’ve eaten this same style of meal my entire life and I still love it.

Ingredients:

Yuca Root

Peel and slice Yuca into 2 inch disks then boil for an hour

What is Yuca? (Click)

Roasted Chicken Thigh

4 chicken thighs roasted in a pyrex 9×9 dish at 275F for 2 hours and covered with aluminum foil
Season with a little salt and pepper

Rice

2 slices of ham, diced
1/4 onion, diced
1 can black beans, drained
1 can yellow corn, do not drain
1 tomato, diced
1/4 bunch of cilantro, diced
salt and pepper
1 1/2 cups white rice

Saute the ham and onions for 3-4 minutes then add the black beans, corn, tomato, cilantro, a dash of salt and pepper, and the rice.  Add a cup of water then cook uncovered for about 5 minutes on high heat. I took a picture so you can see the point at which you need to cover the pan, it’s when the water level meets the top part of all the mixed ingredients. Too much water when you cover equals soggy rice, too little water equals very dry rice. Reduce heat to medium, cover, and cook for 15-20 minutes.

Tostones

1 plantain cut about an inch thick
Vegetable Oil

Deep fry the plantain for 3 minutes, remove from deep fryer then smash flat. Place plantain back in the deep fryer for 5 minutes then remove, let rest, and serve.

Get ready for leftovers!!!!

Enjoy,

Eric

Hunger Action Week: Snacks: Corn Tortilla Chips

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Very simple, very tasty, and they taste better than the chips you can buy at the store.

Ingredients:

8 corn tortillas, quartered
Salt
Vegetable Oil

Heat up the vegetable oil then add the corn tortillas. Cook for 5-6 minutes then remove and shake salt over the tortillas once they are removed from being fried.  Let rest for 2 minutes, then serve.

Enjoy,

Eric

Hunger Action Week: Day 3 Lunch: Ciabatta Ham & Mushroom Sandwich

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Ciabatta bread is awesome.

Ingredients:

1 Ciabatta bread bun, sliced
3 ham slices
2 tbsp. sliced mushrooms
2 basil leaves
1 lettuce leaf

Multiplied by 2 for my wife and I.

Oh, I made a pasta salad with the left over pasta I had from this recipe (click)

Hunger Action Week: Day 2 Dinner: Crispy Chicken Thigh Salad

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I had other pictures for this but they turned out fuzzy, oh well. I used 1 lb. of my chicken thighs then shredded them over lettuce and carrots.  I know, not very exciting. I had other plans for this meal but I was out and about all day and didn’t have time to really do anything exciting.
Here is my recipe for crispy chicken thigh  (Click) Instead of using olive oil and Sel de Mer I used canola oil and regular table salt. I’m not a big fan of using canola oil to cook, it’s super greasy and it doesn’t enhance the flavor of anything. bleh.

Eric

Hunger Action Week: Snacks Plantain Chips

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I love plantains! You can do just about anything with them in the kitchen. Give them a try sometime if you have never tried them. They’re awesome baked or fried. Here are some other recipes I have made using plantains:

Mofongo

Sauteed Sofrito on a bed of baked plantains


Tostones with shredded, smoked paprika chicken

Tostones with Seared Ahi Tuna

Ingredients:

1 plantain, sliced very thin

1/4 cup vegetable oil

Bake for 1 hour. Let rest for 10 minutes then serve.

Enjoy,

Eric

Hunger Action Week: Day 2 Lunch: Tuna Fish Sandwich

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I know, it’s not very exciting and/or fun but it’s lunch, I save the good stuff for Dinner.

Ingredients:

2 1 inch slices of french bread
1 can tuna
2 tbsp. mayonnaise        (use my recipe)
Small slice of cheese
1 lettuce leaf
Pinch of fresh cilantro

Mix the tuna with the mayonnaise the place on the bread, as shown. When you eat this you can heat it up with the cheese to melt it, just remove the lettuce and cilantro when you do. Serve.

Enjoy,

Eric

Hunger Action Week: Day 1 Dinner. Soffritto Pasta with a Tomato Finishing Sauce and Salad

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Soffritto???? (Click here for my post about this).  I love food like this. It’s comforting, it’s filling, and it makes for great left overs. Greg at Sippitysup.com has labeled me, Mr. Pasta. Honestly, I think he might be right and I’m happy with that. The thing I like about pasta is that it doesn’t need to follow a set of rules. You can pretty much put anything on pasta and it will be fantastic. Give it a try, go crazy! This will feed two.

Ingredients:

-3 tomatoes, diced then crushed in your hands……………..use the remaining tomatoes from the Heston Blumenthal Tomato Sauce (click)
-1 lb. ground beef, cooked
-1/2 white onion,  diced
-2 carrots, peeled and sliced thin
-3 celery stalks, sliced thin
-1 1/2 tsp. black pepper
-1/2 tsp. salt
-2 tbsp. sliced mushrooms
-7 basil leaves, crush them in your hands before adding to the sauce

4 tbsp. Tomato Sauce  (Click for recipe)

2 1/2 cups egg noodles, cooked

In a medium sauce pan saute the onions, carrots, and celery. Cover and cook for 15 minutes then add the ground beef, pepper and salt. Cook for another 10 minutes then add the mushrooms and basil. Cook for another 5 minutes then serve over pasta and spoon the tomato sauce mixture on top of the pasta to finish. Serve it!

Enjoy,

Eric

You should have about 3/4 cup pasta and 1 cup “sauce” left over.

Cost: $7.15, way over budget for one day but this fits into the overall budget of $60.00 for the week. I’ll have left overs for this so this will transform into a different meal during the week, stay tuned. :)

Hunger Action Week: Heston Blumenthal’s Tomato Sauce

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Heston Blumenthal is my favorite Chef. He’s self-taught, incredibly smart and is willing to take chances. His show, In Search of Perfection, has blown my mind. The concepts he uses are simple yet extravagant. I’ve watched every episode and there is always a “why didn’t I think of that”, moment.

Check out this video to see where this idea came from (Click)

Ingredients:

3 tomatoes, quartered.  Save the seeds and jelly from the inside in a separate bowl, as shown.

Get a strainer and place over a small sauce pan then press the seeds and jelly over the pan to get the fantastic juice into the pan. Set the oven to medium heat then stir vigorously and reduce mixture by half.  Serve over pasta.

Enjoy,

Eric

Hunger Action Week: Day 1 Lunch

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I was making a sandwich for Mindy to go to work today. I kept asking, “is this going to be enough”? She said it was perfect but it seems a little lean to me when I compare it to other sandwiches I’ve made (click)

Ingredients:

2 carrots, peeled and julienned
Served 3 tbsp. zesty italian dressing               (normally I make my own dressing but the oils are too expensive for a $12 per day budget)

Sandwich:

French bread, sliced about 3 inches from the original loaf
2 pieces of lettuce
1/2 tomato, sliced thin       (this was from the other half of tomato from breakfast)
Small piece of cheese
1 slice of ham

Put them all together and turn yourself around, that’s what it’s all about! Serve.

Enjoy,

Eric

Cost: $1.68 for two people.  This is approximate, I don’t know how to exactly gauge how much two pieces of lettuce leaf will cost, you get the idea.

Hunger Action Week: C.O.A.B.B.

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Child of All Breakfast Burritos.  This shows you a bit of how living off of $12 per day for food effects my cooking style. Check out my M.O.A.B.B. (CLICK) for an example of how much I had to tone this C.O.A.B.B. down. Smaller tortilla, no real spices (well, to me salt and pepper aren’t real spices), and 2 eggs instead of 4.  I’m already starting to ration food and it’s day #1.

Ingredients:

2 eggs
2 tortillas
2 pieces of thinly sliced ham
1/2 tomato, diced
Small amount of cheese, shredded
Dash of pepper

In a large skillet cook the ham for 2-3 minutes then add the eggs and scramble. Cook for another 3 minutes then remove from heat, place on tortilla, place tomato on top then sprinkle cheese and pepper on top. Serve

Enjoy,

Eric

Cost: $1.39 for two people once you break down each ingredient

Spice of the week: Salt and Pepper

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Salt and Pepper

It’s Hunger Action Week (click), so the only spices I am allowed to use unless I want to purchase them are salt and pepper. Regular table salt and black peppercorn will see a lot of use this week!

Side Note:

It’s going to be 70+ degrees today in Seattle. Do you know how bad I want to BBQ right now? I’ve been working on a BBQ sauce recipe for 2 years now………..it’s sunny……..in Seattle……..must resist temptation to BBQ.

Hunger Action Week

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The United Way of King County’s Hunger Action Week begins this week. I was contacted a few weeks ago and asked if I wanted to participate in this challenge of living off of $12 per day for food for myself and my wife. Since I was contacted to do this I have been stressed out ever since because I have been running through every scenario of how it would be possible for me to eat the same way that I do now with only $60 per week for food.

I started my blog in January and has grown into something that I could have never imagined. Along with the growth of the blog, my cooking skills have also grown and the recipes on here get more and more complex. I have 45-55 spices in my house (I couldn’t fit them all in the picture below), I have two refrigerators (one is for my cooking experiments), I have a pantry that was converted from a closet, and I have about 5 cabinets loaded with food. Plainly stated, I have a lot of room for food.

Check out the picture with all the food on the table. That’s all that I could afford to buy. That is $56.59 worth of food. Like I said, one of the goals of mine with this challenge was to eat how I normally eat but stay within the budget. I’m not sure if I’m going to make it the whole week. Luckily, I do have a little time to think about what needs to go into each meal and I have a few skills to make that happen. I know most people who face this real life challenge of living on $12 per day don’t have time or the skills to pull something like this off. I’ not even sure if I have the skills to pull this off.

I could have easily bought frozen pizzas, ramen noodles, and ate at McDonald’s for the week just to be a smart ass and say “this is easy”.  That’s not the point of this challenge in my mind. This isn’t a contest, I’m not looking to beat anyone or win anything. I’m just trying to lend my ideas to people who actually live like this so they can maybe get a few new recipes for themselves or just be inspired a little to create some of their own recipes. Also, it is important for everyone to realize that food is essential.

There is no reason that in today’s society that anyone should have to worry about their next meal. I’m not going to get political or point fingers at anyone and I’m not suggesting everyone needs to eat Filet Mignon or Foie Gras for every meal but I am suggesting that $12 per day for food and trying to eat healthy is extremely hard if you don’t know what you’re doing in the kitchen.  Like I said earlier, I have a little time to do this. The majority of people out there don’t have that time so they skimp on healthy food and go for “easy” which usually consists of overly processed foods that are terrible for your health.

Click on the picture that I took of my refrigerator with about 80% of the food that I purchased inside of the refrigerator. That is depressing for me to look at. My wife and I looked at that for a few minutes in silence just thinking about how there are people who don’t even have $12 per day for food.

I purchased all this food at Winco foods. They are consistently the least expensive grocery store that I normally shop at. No frills, no gimmicks, just food at a great price. I could have split this shopping experience between a few other grocery stores to save myself another few dollars but I wanted to live this experience. I can’t imagine someone in this scenario driving to three different grocery stores just to save a few bucks on food while spending that savings on gas and simply not having the time to do it so I kept it simple.

What did I buy (Just in case you can’t read the receipt)

4 Ciabatta rolls
1 bunch Cilantro
1 lb. ground beef
1 bunch celery
Guerrero Corn Tortillas
Head of Lettuce
2.28 lbs. of hot house tomatoes
2 lb. bag of carrots
Sliced mushrooms
1 loaf french bread
1 bag wide egg noodles
1.81 lbs. of broccoli crowns
Mission Fajita Tortillas
1.42 lbs. plantains
1.09 lbs. Yucca Root
1 can kidney beans
2 cans corn
1 sweet onion
1 bottle zesty Italian seasoning                 (I’m going to use this in a few different ways)
2 cans tuna in oil
1 can black beans
1 lb. rice
Fresh basil
1 dozen eggs
Sliced ham
5.65 lbs. chicken thighs
24 ounces vegetable oil
.72 lb. cous cous

I have $3.41 left to spend. I have an idea of what I can spend that money on but for now I’ll see what happens during the week.

If you click around this blog a little bit you’ll realize that I’m not a writer, I get straight to the point and take a few pictures and post a recipe, so I would like to say sorry to any English teachers out there who are looking at my run-on sentences, grammar mistakes, and improperly placed punctuation marks.  I just cook, that’s what I’m good at. This Hunger Action Week has been in my mind since the day I was contacted to do it so this post is just a collection of what I’ve been thinking about. I’ve run through tons of scenarios and recipes in my head in order to present the best product for anyone who reads this blog. Let me know what you think as the week goes by.

Thanks again to the United Way of King County for approaching me for this project. Please visit their site and donate to their cause. United Way of King County Blog

Eric