Fifth day

This was an easy day for some reason, probably because the end is in sight and our food supply is holding up pretty well. I had tea and buttered toast for breakfast, and Paul had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. For lunch I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on toast, because our bread is getting rather stale. Paul had Tuesday night's dinner, rice pilaf and fish for lunch. For dinner we had chicken paprikash (sans sour cream) and cabbage and noodles, called haluski when it is properly made. This was a cinnamon cookie night.
Recipes:
Chicken paprikash
5 chicken thighs
1 onion, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
2 teaspoons paprika (I use half hot, half sweet)
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
Pull the skin away from the thighs, but don't remove it. Rub some of the paprika/salt mixture on the flesh, then replace the skin. Dredge the chicken in about 2 tablespoons of flour, and brown on all sides in 2 tablepoons of oil. Remove the chicken and brown the onion and carrot, scraping up all the burnt bits. Add a quarter cup water. Place the chicken over top, put on a tight lid, and bake in a 325 degree oven for an hour.
Haluski
1 batch noodles, using the recipe in Joy of Cooking
1 cabbage, sliced very thin and steamed until crispy-soft
1 sliced onion
2 tablespoons oil
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon butter
In a very large skillet, cook the onion in the 4 tablespoons of oil & butter until soft but not colored. Add the cabbage and cook, stirring, for about 10 minutes until the cabbage has a few brown spots on it. Add the cooked noodles and the rest of the butter. If you are feeling profligate, add some more butter. Stir until the noodles are heated through.

What I learned today: A nice Welsh girl like me is not a natural noodle maker. I never like my noodles all that much. If I had it to do over, I would buy a bag of noodles for about a dollar and use the egg and 2/3 cup flour for something else.
Marilyn

Dinner was so good that it was just like a normal day at our house ... which is quite good. While I have read that some people can't get enough calories on the Food Stamp Challenge, calories don't seem to be a problem for us. We are simply used to eating a bit differently ... many more fresh vegetables for example. We seem to be counting on fats and carbs for most of our calories. I wonder how that would play out over a longer period.

I am working on our last loaf of bread after dinner tonight. I hope to get the starter working enough to mix the dough tonight and then shape it tomorrow morning. Marilyn can bake it off tomorrow. Looks like it will be a 1.5 lb loaf.

Marilyn and I were talking today about how much more efficient it would be if we were doing this for a month rather than a week. We paid more than we had to for some things because we bought smaller quantities than we could have and usually paid inflated prices for the smaller quantities. We noticed that for a wee bit more we could have doubled or tripled our quantities of beans and rice. As a baker ... I would buy a wholesale bag of flour ( 100 lb). Even protein would be cheaper in bulk.

I will probably wind up losing a small amount of weight this week ... mostly because of no whim snacks (even fruit), not over-eating, and very small desserts. On the other hand, we are into good weather and, since I ride my bike to and from work practically every day, I usually lose my winter weight this time of year. Hard to say which is the cause here.

One last point is that there are lots of people blogging about this right now ... most of whom are not really informed. For example, people talk about, "buying a bag of apples cheaper than buying junk food". That is what you learn when you really study consumer food issues ... junk food is really cheap and that is why we consume so much of it. And, fresh fruit (even gnarley apples) is expensive.

Paul