Monday Menu
Breakfast (very early today): Julia: raisin bran and milk, coffee; The Boy: Hot Pocket; girls not at home; Patrick: oatmeal, grapefruit, hardboiled egg (at work, same every day)
Snack (second breakfast!): Hardboiled egg, grapefruit
Lunch: Julia/Simone: pasta salad, carrot and celery sticks, coffee; Patrick: green salad, leftover sliced ham and tomatoes.
Snack: Iced coffee (<<< photo!), homemade cookie
Dinner: Green bean-zucchini frittata with grated cheese; baked home fries, canned fruit salad (home-canned last year). $4 total meal cost; $1 per person.
Sprouty Goodness
I grow alfalfa sprouts on the kitchen counter. The total purchase price was about $4 for a pound of alfalfa seeds from amazon.com, and an old jar. About a half-tablespoon of seeds makes a full jar of sprouts –about 10 cents to grow them. I use a piece of plastic window screen on top, but a handkerchief, cheesecloth, scrap of fabric or mesh would also work. Soak the seeds overnight, then drain; rinse and drain well 1-2x a day and sit the jar in indirect daylight. Sprouts are ready to eat in about 4-5 days. Store the full jar in the fridge after they’ve grown — and start another jar to keep the crop going. (Only one jar? Remove sprouts to a tupperware and start over.)
Any kind of sprouts are easy to grow, cheap, and super-nutritious (<-- high-falutin' science talk). Good in a sandwich or salad. Grab a package of mung beans from the Asian food aisle/market and make your own bean sprouts for Asian stir-fry, pad thai, or salads. Raw sunflower seeds sprout easily, too, and are wonderful in a salad or sandwich. Sunflower sprouts are very pricey in health food stores. Eat well and prosper…
