1/5/09

Breakfast
I went for simple and practical this morning: I needed to find a use for the rest of the cream cheese I bought to make the enchiladas last night, so I had a bagel. I don't usually eat bagels, but we are leaving for a trip tomorrow and I wanted to buy some inexpensive transportable foods to bring along. Bagels made the list, and the most nutritious bagel I could find at a reasonable price was Lenders. They make a whole wheat variety, plus they were on sale this week. Bingo! I toasted the bagel and used about 2 tablespoons of Schnucks brand light cream cheese (not enough to count toward any serving of milk, due to the high moisture content). I also had a glass of orange juice and a latte made with 3/4 cup of skim milk. I forgot to take a picture of the latte...oops. It was a pretty good breakfast. I forgot how much I like bagels!

All together, this meal provided:
Grains: 2 1/2 oz whole (bagel)
Fruits: 1 cup (orange juice)
Vegetables: 0
Milk: 3/4 cup (skim milk for latte)
Meats & beans: 0
Oils: 0
The cost of this meal was approximately: $1.01

Lunch
The leftover enchiladas were too good to let go to waste, so I brought one with me for lunch today. I also had 1/2 cup of canned fruit cocktail sitting in the fridge, so I brought that along too. To continue keeping up with the milk products, I also had a 6 oz. cup of fat free cherry vanilla yogurt. The enchiladas were just as good the second time! I am so making these again!


All together, this meal provided:
Grains: 1 1/2 oz whole (tortilla)
Fruits: 1/2 cup (fruit cocktail)
Vegetables: 1/2 cup (salsa and beans in enchilada)
Milk: 1 3/4 cup (cheddar cheese in enchilada and yogurt)
Meats & beans: 0
Oils: 0

The cost of this meal was approximately: $2.37



Afternoon snack

I had 12 baby carrots as a snack...this counted as a cup of vegetables. Sorry no picture!

The cost of this meal was approximately: $0.31

Dinner-another experiment
I have been having a lot of luck with my meal experiments lately, so I tried another one tonight. It's from-you guessed it-CookingLight.com again. This one is called Spicy Soba Noodles with Chicken in Peanut Sauce. I wouldn't know where to find Soba noodles (recipe says they are buckwheat), so I figured the whole wheat egg noodles I had on hand would work just as well. I had everything else, except for fresh ginger and green onions, so I used dry ginger (about 1/3 of what it calls for when going from fresh to dry herbs and spices) and left out the green onions. I didn't even miss them! I only made about 1/2 of the recipe, since we're leaving town for a couple of days tomorrow and I didn't want to have leftovers. I also added extra carrots (about a cup total) and about double of the peanuts. It turned out pretty good-I will probably make it again sometime, maybe with some different veggies for variety. For my portion, I had about a cup of the noodles with 3 ounces of chicken. This is definitely one of my less expensive dinners, and relatively easy to prepare, too!

Recipe:
http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=665587

All together, this meal provided:
Grains: 1 oz whole (noodles)
Fruits: 0
Vegetables: 1/2 cup (carrots)
Milk: 0
Meats & beans: 5 oz (chicken, peanut butter and peanuts)
Oils: 2 tsp (peanuts and peanut butter)

How did I do today?
Grains: 6 oz out of 6 oz (all were whole)
Fruits: 1 1/2 cups out of 2 cups
Vegetables: 1 3/4 cups out of 2 ½ cups
Milk: 2 1/2 cups out of 3 cups
Meats & beans: 6 oz out of 5 ½ oz
Oils: 2 tsp out of 6 tsp

Total cost for the day: $4.90