Summer time, and the livin' is cheaply

It’s DONE! The Good, the Bad, and the Eggless it is! I love it! Thank you to everyone who voted, and a huge huge huge shout out and thank you to Nikki Shaffeeullah, punner-extraordinaire for her suggestion –and to everyone else who sent in ideas. THANK YOU! It really means a lot to me to have received so many wonderful options.

Now, back to business. Although it’s hard to imagine from within this debilitating pre-storm heat that has completely overtaken my deep and dreamy love for Montreal… I was freezing cold the other night, and decided to heat things up with a bit of spice.

If you didn’t already know, I am in a deeply committed relationship with quinoa. Quinoa, I am convinced, is the ultimate gluten free super-food. It’s super high in protein and super high in fiber... it's pretty much just super. Plus, it can easily replace rice, couscous, noodles, etc. It’s healthy and delicious, and if I'm a firm-believer in anything, it's that you should cook some and invite me over for dinner.

ANYWAYS, today I’d like to share with you an ORIGINAL quinoa recipe.

YUM!

It all started when I was hungry, as most things that end up on this blog do.

I decided to take a stroll to my favourite cheap (and horrendously sketchy) grocery store a few blocks away from my apartment. It was a beautifully sunny day, and as I was skipping gleefully down my street, I realized I had forgotten my wallet –and the only mula I had on me was a couple of measly (or so I thought…) nickels and dimes.

Simple, you would think. I was only at the bottom of my street, and could have easily backtracked my way up to my third-floor apartment to grab my wallet. But something told me not to. And that something, of course, was laziness –the sort of laziness your mind tries really, really hard to justify.

So I began to wonder… what could I buy from The World’s Cheapest and Most Sketchy Grocery Store for thirty-five cents?

I decided it was worth finding out. I walked into the grocery store with a giant reusable bag and thirty-five cents, and left with a giant reusable bag, zero cents, and…

3 slightly overripe peaches!

YUM!

So I went home, and threw the peaches (yes, the peaches) into the oven, and baked them for about 7 minutes.

Meanwhile, I cooked a bit of quinoa (and you know how I feel about quinoa…), and sautéed some chickpeas, spinach, and tomatoes that were starting to see the end of their time in my fridge. I sliced the baked peaches, mixed everything together, and put a tiny bit of super spicy peanut sauce on top to bring out the nutty flavour or the quinoa (and to warm me up).

Voila!

I ended up with a quite delicious dinner, I must say… and only using thirty-five cents worth of new groceries!

So, obviously, I was a little proud of my innovativeness (cheapness), and have been thinking about it ever since.

How often do I buy a ton of new things at the market or grocery store even though I still have perfectly good food in the back of my pantry?

And similarly,

How much fun is it to use things you’ve had forever in new, creative ways?

In light of all this thinking, as well as my generally itty-bitty-sized budget, I’m giving myself a REAL challenge, based on curiosity and thriftiness, as opposed to laziness and apathy:

Yesterday I took $100 out of the bank, and I am going to see if I can only use this $100 to get me through until July 1st, for food, coffee, drinks, everything but rent (though wouldn’t it be awesome if I could throw rent in there too?), and all, of course, while cooking delicious veggie meals. No ramen noodles here.

I’m curious to see how this pans out… what, if anything, I’ll have to sacrifice, and what new discoveries come up.

But first, I want to know how YOU ‘eat cheap’ as a veggie?

Any tips or wise words for me?



*****On a side note, I wanted to add that I am LOVING (and I mean really, really loving) all of the questions you guys are emailing me! Please keep them coming, and expect a blog post with answers in the near future. If you have any questions at all for me, please feel free to email me at MarleeRubel@gmail.com, or leave them in a comment! Again, thanks for all of the enthusiasm, support, and inquiry!