Tuesday 20 May 2008

Challenge time!

Well let's see how this one goes LOL.

My challenge to you all is this; devise a three course meal for six people for under $10.00 total! (I have done this for $5.00 myself last night but as I got a lot of the things from my garden I have doubled your amount). You don't have to include costings for things like salt and pepper, oil etc as every pantry has these.

Winner (just post your menu plan as a comment and I will get the Teen to draw the names out of a hat on Sunday 25th May) gets a gently pre-read copy of "The Ethics of what we eat" by Peter Singer and Jim Mason. I will pay postage to any Australian address.

Our menu last night was

Pea soup with garlic/parsley bread (500g Dried peas $0.70, carrots, garlic, onions from garden. Loaf of bread $0.80 for flour, yeast, sugar. Parsley, garlic from garden)
Salad (lettuce, tomatoes, capsicum from my garden, cucumber $1.00)
Apple pie and custard (I got 10kg's of apples for $2 a few months ago so defrosted a pack of the pie apples I had in the freezer $0.50, custard was skim milk powder and homebrand custard powder and sugar, let's be generous and say $0.50. I make my own pastry so lets say $1.00 for flour, butter and an egg)
Sugar pastries made from the leftover pastry scraps and sugar, don't how much 4 tablespoons of sugar costs, I buy 2kg's of sugar for $2.50.

So all up it came to $4.30 but I have allowed the seventy cents left over to accomodate the sugar etc. I was in a carb coma last night though, that's for sure!

So get planning and then post your menu in the comments!

8 comments:

Yarrow said...

Hello and blessings. Enjoyed your lovely blog, found via hedgewitch.

Anonymous said...

Billiant menu for an excellent cost! I love being able to eat from the backyard, all that goodness on our plates for next to nothing but some loving care!

Blessings:)

Cwm Goch Chronicles said...

I have to admit I am really impressed! You continue to inspire me. We're a year away from having our own carrots, onions and garlic (the basics) since we only started this year. I can't wait to be doing that!

naturewitch said...

What a challenge! I've been pondering this and have come up with the following . . .

Menu 1 (Summer)
* Gazpacho (cucumber, tomatoes, onions, herbs from garden)
* Pad Thai with veges from garden and 0.5kg prawns (pad thai paste $1, prawns 600g $6 (on special) and rice noodles $1.50)
* Fresh raspberries from garden plus ice-cream (if they're lucky!!! ice-cream probably remaining $1.50)
Total $10

Menu 2 (Autumn)
* Pumpkin soup with honey and coconut cream (pumpkin from garden; honey, coconut cream and spices $1 to $1.50)
* Chicken wings, roast potatoes, zucchinis, carrots, aubergines and onions ($5 for 2kg wings, veges from garden, $1 for oil, spices, etc)
* Poached pears (pears from garden, $0.20 for sugar in syrup)
Total: $7.20 to $7.70

Menu 3 (Winter)
* Vegetable broth from veges in freezer from summer garden plus onion and potato (about $2)
* Vege burgers from chick peas and soy beans (about $2) with tomato sauce made in autumn (about $0.50)and broccoli and beetroot from winter garden, along with sweet corn frozen from summer.
* Apple cake (made from bottled apples $1, flour $0.50, eggs $1, butter $1, sugar $0.50)
Total: $8.50

Menu 4 (Spring)
* Cream of asparagus soup (asparagus from garden, cream $1.50)
* Beef and greens (spring onions, spinach, broad beans, snow peas and broccoli) stirfry (Beef 600g $6, veges from garden, oyster sauce, ginger and garlic $1) with rice (about $1)
* Fresh strawberries (from garden)
Total: $9.50

My costings might not be as accurate as yours, but it is amazing just what you can produce for $10 if you are using a lot of your own produce. I've included meat in most of my meals, because as you know, I live with carnivores!

Happy eating xx

The Crone at Wits End said...

Thank you for your lovely comments guys!

NW, do you want four entries into the comp my love? :p

naturewitch said...

No, just showing what a varied diet we can have, depending on what our gardens are producing at the time xx

The Tin House said...

OK....from last night - feeding 2 adults, 2 kids & 1 baby

spaghetti with avocado and lemon, lettuce and rocket and herb salad from the garden followed by fruit pastries.

1 pkt aldi spaghetti 69c
2 x avocado $1.98
1 lemon 75c
salt/pepper
knob of butter - 25c
shaved parmesan - 80c

Add generous dob of butter to cooked spaghetti. Season with salt & pepper. To this, add chopped avocado, the zest of the lemon and the juice of about half the lemon (to taste). I added about 4 shaves of parmesan to each bowl which makes the 80c an extremely generous allocation for the cheese.

garden salad - homegrown.

dessert:
home made shortcrust - in a blob in the fridge - didn't use when making chicken pie on Friday.
recipe is flour & butter....it's one third of the original amount. The full recipe would cost 70c to make (125 gm butter, 1 cup P Flour, 1 cup SRF, salt)...so extrapolating this would be about 25c for the dessert pastry.

I rolled the shortcrust out - topped with homegrown and homemade preserved peaches..how to cost this out? The sugar in the syrup might have cost 10c per jar?
Peaches laid out over the pastry with homemade apricot jam and sugar generously sprinkled on top and baked. Again - not sure hot to calculate the cost of say 3 tablespoons of homemade jam. But for arguments sake - 50c?

This adds to $5.32

Each child added a mandarin (@ $2.99kg - so add $1) for supper, and a glass of full cream milk - about 60c.

Total: $6.92

Anyway, that's what we ate.
Happy days! Lisa x

The Crone at Wits End said...

Wow, I am impressed with your menu's guys!

Off to draw out a winner now :)