2008
The €50 Challenge: Day 2
I started the day by going for the paper and being tempted well beyond endurance.
For a long time I’ve been making occasional forays to Ardkeen Food Store in Waterford, which may just be the best supermarket in the world, not for cheap food, but for very, very good food.
Always on my list is a selection of goodies from Glenilen Farm – yogurt that tastes better than any I know, mousse and cheesecake bursting with fresh fruit, sinfully rich clotted cream. Delicious things, but rare treats for me because they didn’t distribute to where I live.
But this morning there they all were, all these precious treasures arrayed on a shelf just a five minute walk from my house!
Considering that my instant reaction was classic Pavlov – I may even have squeaked out loud – I was pretty good. I just bought yogurt, which at €1.80 for a big pot barely counts as extravagance even this week, though it does reduce my kitty to €11.55.
l’m going to deal quickly with breakfast and lunch to-day and get to dinner, and to dessert, which thanks to this find was yum, yum, yum.
Breakfast was 3 eggs scrambled and divided between both of us, with a slice of sunflower bread toast each.
For lunch he had a packed lunch of salad made from 2 tomatoes and the half mozzarella left over from yesterday, much like this one, but dressed with olive oil and pesto, plus a couple of slices of crisp bread and a little tub of peanuts for afters.
I reheated last night’s left-over stuffed cabbage which was if anything nicer than it had been the previous evening.
For dinner I sliced 2 turkey breasts into strips and stir-fried them with onion, a few broccoli spears (half a small head), sugar snap peas, mushrooms, red pepper (which I am now out of) and garlic. It was seasoned with red pesto.
And then we had dessert.
I don’t quite know what to call this – it’s sort of a cross between a sorbet and a mousse with a touch of granita – but I suppose Spiced Melon Sorbet will do!
The picture does not do justice to this at all, it was really very good indeed. Here’s how it was made.
1/3 of a Galia Melon
1/3 of a pot of Glenilen Yogurt (about 160g)
1 teaspoon sugar (or 1/2 spoon of Splenda, which I used)
Good pinch each of ginger and cinnamon
Squeeze of lemon
In the morning, peel and chop the melon into small pieces, put in a bag and into the freezer for the day.
Remove from the freezer about 5 minutes before you start making dessert. Then put the frozen melon pieces into a food processor or blender and zap till it’s fairly mushy. If it’s too hard still, just wait a minute or two and try again. Add the sugar, spices, yogurt and lemon and blend well. Serve immediately.
It’s easy and quick and extremely nice. If I’d had some, I think a leaf or two of fresh mint chopped over this would be a good garnish.
Cost: Melon 17c; Yogurt 60c; sugar and spices about 5c, so 82c in total.
That brings today’s total spend to €6.22. Still comfortably on target.
July 30th, 2008 at 11:32 am
I love scrambled eggs…
For the record, that stuffed cabbage looks amazing!