$3.33 a day: A Chickpea Tale..

Traditional Hummus with Raw Crackers

Dried legumes are your best friends! Trust me on that. I cooked up a pound of chickpeas ($1.59) and put them to good use. I even have 2 cups left to play with after making all of this food!
I made hummus two ways; traditional and spicy red pepper. Siracha and red bell pepper colored and flavored the spicy variation. Total yield: 2.5 cups. (1.5 c traditional and 1 c spicy)

Spicy Hummus

Spiced Chickpea Salad (2 servings)

Here's the recipe:

1 c cooked chickpeas

¼ c diced red bell pepper

¼ c diced carrot

2 T scallions (you can sub red onion or shallot, but reduce to 1 T)

2 T chopped olives (I used green, but use what you have on hand)

1 T fresh herbs (I used basil)

Dressing:

1 t yellow mustard

½ t garlic powder

½ t cumin

1/8 t cinnamon

¼ t oregano

2 t golden flax meal

1 T vinegar (I used white balsamic)

1 T Nutritional Yeast

3 T Water

Salt/pepper to taste

Method: Chop veggies, make dressing and pour over chickpea/veg mixture. Allow it to sit in the fridge for at least 2 hours or overnight before serving.

Chickpea of the Sea Burgers (before cooking)

Another cup and a half of chickpeas went into these four burgers. I was thinking of different things to do with my pantry staples, and figured I'd try my hand at making Arepas. They came out pretty well. I did split them completely and toast the insides of them on the cast iron skillet while I was cooking the burger. I like that I didn't have to turn my oven on to make them and they are gluten free. Unfortunately, they are pretty refined, so I won't be eating them every day. I have some more dough in the fridge. We'll see if it holds up?

Ok... back to the sandwich. I used the arepa for the bread, covered it in homemade tartar sauce, tofutti cheese (I only have 2 slices left!), cabbage and tomatoes. On the side I had some wasabi slaw that I'll talk about later.

Chickpea of the Sea Burgers on fresh Arepas

As I mentioned earlier, I still have two cups of chickpeas left. I will probably use half of them to make a Chickpea/Basil pasta sauce and freeze the other cup.

Wasabi Slaw with Lentil Sprouts

Cabbage, carrots, red peppers and scallions were dressed with a wasabi/mustard/vegenaise dressing. The dressing was thinned with a little bit of the chickpea cooking liquid to reduce the amount of vegenaise. I have around 2 cups leftover.

Polenta Homefries with Ketchup

Just polenta, cubed and "fried" in my cast iron with cooking spray and spices. I used some of them as croutons as well.

Smokey Potato Kidney Bean Stew with Polenta Croutons

I ended up using the last 2 cups leftover from my the kidney beans (see last post) to make this stew. My friend and I had it for lunch and I have around 4 cups left. I'll probably have it for dinner and then puree the rest of it and put it in the freezer for enchilada bake. Potato chunks do not freeze well, so pureeing it is a must.

My friend surprised me with coffee and soymilk yesterday! She read my blog and took pity on me! The funny thing is that I relented and bought crappy coffee yesterday along with some coffee soymilk to use as creamer. I spent a whole $4.68. I'm set for a while now. I have been drinking black tea and not liking it much.

I also splurged yesterday at the store and bought fresh basil for $2.99, a head of cauliflower and the pound of chickpeas for a total of $10.58. My target this week is to keep it under $15.00 so I can bank another $10 in my Bulk Food Fund.

Total spent this month: $45.38!!

Now, finally.. if you have made it this far.. I am creating a website for my $3.33 a day..

It is still under construction, but here it is so far:

http://333natural.com/

Let me know what you think and if you have an questions you'd like me to address on the site I'm going to set up a message board and maybe an "Ask Melody" page or something.