Day Six

Yesterday, we had friends over for a small Super Bowl party.  Every guest brought food, and also wanted to contribute something, while, of course, staying within our monthly food budget.  We decided that homemade buffalo wings would be a good, low-cost food that could serve many. The buffalo wings at the grocery store's buffet had an expensive per-unit price, and the night before the Super Bowl was sold out of frozen wings.  We saw a large bag of frozen, boneless chicken pieces for $9.00 and decided to improvise.  The bag was so large, we were able to use half the bag to serve 6 people and can use the other half for dinners throughout the week!  The only other ingredient we purchased was a bottle of hot sauce for $1.00. We had flour, butter, and spices at home. After having a similar dip at a friend's place, we made a dip out of cottage cheese and a bit of blue cheese dressing mixed in. At first, it sounded pretty gross to me, but it is actually quite good.

Several people have asked us our thoughts on eating "provided food."  These are legitimate concerns that initially we did not think would affect our challenge.  Further, Jeff and I are quite popular and routinely attend events with provided food. Nevertheless, we feel that it is in keeping with the spirit of the challenge to significantly minimize eating food provided by others.

Others have asked how we are incorporating food that was in apartment before our SNAP challenge began. Honestly, we didn't have much food: a couple of cans of soda, some condiments, box of frozen waffles, chips, flour, sugar, and a collection of spices -- nothing that could provide a whole meal. As everyone has some sort of legacy food products, we feel okay about consuming these small products throughout the month, especially since none of it could comprise a whole meal.