Budget: Eating in Day 2&3: Cold somen

Day 2 is pretty easy.  I was good at the Meetup and only got greek coffee for $2.70.  Wow!  that stuff really wakes you up!

I went to the library, visited Carol in the hospital and then tried to get to sleep.  I’d only had a couple hours sleep due to insomnia but …. see greek coffee above … I couldn’t sleep.  Since I expected to eat after I woke up, I did not eat either so very cheap today.  (Whispers: scale said I lost 5 lbs so have to admit I liked that but don’t want to do it again — I sure do love food)

Day 1 carried over $3 + Day 2 budget $5 – Day 2 spent $2.70 so $5.30 carry over for the next day.

Day 3, I actually slept 7 hours — thank goodness.  I can face the world.

Carol is being released from the hospital today.  Her sister is bringing her home and Kris and Lisa put the dogs in the backyard so they won’t run out the door.  My job is to meet her at the door with the transit chair as she still can’t walk more than a couple steps with the broken pelvis.  Since Carol’s call woke me up to say she was leaving the hospital in an hour, I needed to eat something quick.

So it’s somen — fast Japanese noodles.  Hmmm, beginning to sense a pattern here.  Oh well, at least I’m really good at boiling water.

Throw in the wakame seaweed (lots of iron) and somen into boiling water.  Somen cooks up quick, faster than angel hair pasta.

My soup base is also easy.  I just use Memmi.  It’s kind of an instant all-purpose soup base.  With somen, you just add 4 parts cold water to 1 part Memmi.  For an individual bowl, I usually do 1/8c Memmi and 3/8c water.  For myself, because the rinsed noodles also have water coming off of them, I don’t do the full four parts water.

Mom and my Japanese friends don’t add anything to the soup except sliced green onions and a couple of slices of meat or fishcake usually.

I like to add crush a garlic clove directly into the bowl — warning: raw garlic is spicy and you can’t kiss anyone afterward (unless you feed them the same thing).  If I don’t do the garlic, I add Thai sweet chili sauce or sriracha for a little heat.  I also like the sweet chili sauce as a dipping sauce when I eat just the cold noodles, no soup.

Rinse the noodles and seaweed in cold water. Dump it into the water.  You’re done.

You can get somen and memmi at almost any Asian market. I used to be able to get them at the regular grocery store but several years ago they’ve stopped carrying them.

For dinner, I am over at Carol’s house.  She didn’t want to go to rehab for her broken pelvis.  They would only release her if she had help at home.  Daytime her sister, Bev and her neighbor Kris can help out.  I’m spending the evenings here.  I didn’t cook.  She had some frozen enchiladas so I had that for dinner.  I am going to count it as eating in since she needs someone here.

Tomorrow is breakfast at home but I need to figure out what to make for dinner at Carol’s house.  She was exhausted so didn’t want to eat tonight but I’m hoping she’ll feel more the thing tomorrow.

Food cost today: $0.96 for the somen lunch

• $0.40   Somen (the pricetag fell off the package I used, so I took the price from a 12-pack which mom got for $4.85)
• $0.38  Memmi (10oz for $3.89.  1/8C = 1oz. )
• $0.10  Wakame ($2.59 for the package and I throw in a little bit)
• $0.08  Garlic (Trina’s mom gave me the garlic as she had a bunch extra. And it was already peeled.  So it is actually free.  Usually I get 4 garlics in a bag fromt eh $1 store so 1 garlic is $0.25.  they generally have about 10 cloves?  so about $0.02 a clove and I used 4 cloves so this is the price I would have paid if I had not gotten it for free.)

Actually money I spent today. I went to pick up lemonade to take to Carol’s as all she has is diet pepsi which I don’t like.  I usually get Simply O because it has sugar. However Minute Maid for 1.75L, which is $1.69 each, was on sale for 69 cents but you have to buy 5 so I did.  That was $3.45.

So $5.30 carryover + $5 – $3.45 = my carryover for tomorrow is $6.85.

Today’s meal cost I’ll have to figure out tomorrow and update this then as I’m at Carol’s house right now.  She’s asleep, her pomeranian Precious curled up next to her.  I’d take a picture but she would kill me.  She’s in her 70’s so doesn’t like her picture taken. I am tempted though.

This is her kitty Teddy.  He loves wearing his chest leash for some reason and won’t let anyone take it off.  As soon as he spied it, he immediately curled up on my laptop bag.

 

 

 

 

Amazon:  Somen noodles, memmi, and a couple cookbooks.  I don’t have the cookbooks but thought they looked cool

Hime Dried Somen Noodles, 28.21-Ounce	Kikkoman Memmi Noodle Soup Base 10fl.oz. They have bigger sizes which I recommend if you start using it for soup.  I find it useful for other things too — you can adjust how much water to add according to what you are using it for.
Japanese Cooking: Japanese Cookbook Quick and Easy Ramen Bento Sushi	Quick & Easy Japanese Cookbook: Great Recipes from Japan’s Favorite TV Cooking Show Host

I’ve been accepted as an Amazon affiliate.  Last month I got my first “buy”.  Haven’t gotten a second one yet.  Still I’m happy.  The first buy means they’ll review your site and officially accept you and I got accepted! Now, I’ll get a percentage usually if someone buys something by clicking a link — for books it’s 4.5%.  Amazon disclosure: “We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.”