Day 13 - Passed it's best before date

I woke early today 5:30am. My stomach was playing up and it felt a bit like an IBS episode which have been rarer over the last few weeks due to the lack of really spicy food and no booze. On the plus side Mary was working out at the Gyle today and the alarm was set for 6:30 so didn't have to lie there for 2 hours. Once I got out for the walk with Bails I realised my back was feeling a bit tender. Having had 2 slipped discs in the past and back surgery to 'fix it' I have recurring back problems. I suspect the carting heavy gear about all week and being bent over a table doing food photography has taken it's toll. Anyway that's the excuse out the way for the lack of photos during the day.

Two guesses what breakfast is?

Porridge + cuppa - 11p

A day of lying on the floor for periods and sitting on the sofa with a hot water bottle had me reflecting on last night's "Eat Well for Less". Don't get me wrong I've spent a lot on food in the past but I can't work out what the family on the show were spending their £300 a week on for 4 of them. It's not like they were feasting on fillet steak and lobsters. I did watch them throw out what looked like totally perfectly looking vegetables. She seemed obsessed by "the dates" on food. She talked about buying a broccoli at the beginning of the week and having to buy a 2nd through the week as the first one had gone past "the date". My experience of fresh broccoli is it will last a week. I'm just wondering how wide spread this problem is. How have the we survived for millions of years without someone putting dates on our food.

My advice is ignore "best before" dates and decide yourself it its fit for eating. "Use by" on the other hand is there for things when they do go off could make you pretty sick. Typically used with fresh meat and dairy.

Anyway here is a wee link probably explaining it better than me http://ni.lovefoodhatewaste.com/node/2285

So rant over lunch was tomato lentil soup and slice of bread.

Soup + bread - 13p

My back had eased a bit in the afternoon so I decided to use the rest of the "heart attack in a bag" mince from last week to make a chilli. You may remember it was 25% fat so I decided to check Baileys raw beef food to compare its nutritional breakdown. It only has 11.8% fat. Less than 1/2 that of HAIAB mince!!!! It also has more structure to it. The HAIAB mince is very finely minced. Not much chewing in it.

This time I decided to cook it then pop it in a sieve to drain off the fat.

.... and the fat once it cooled down. Luckily not in our arteries!!!

Well that's us sorted when the butter runs out next week!!!

This was going to be tight tonight between chilli, tortilla chips and cheese so we worked out the cost of the chilli and split it into 3 double portions and then worked out a gram of cheese and weighted out what we could use to get us to 99p for the day so we could still have a tea.

The finished item.

Nachos - 75p

Walk time for Mary and Bails. Hot water bottle and another wee lie on the floor for me. Just enough left for a wee cuppa later.

Cuppa - 1p

Total for the day £1 each.

Please use this link if you'd like to donate to Fairshare Just Giving Page.

Total raised so far £787.18. Thanks again for all the support.

Paul & Mary