Chinese Bread...

Meal: breakfast (Thu 9/16)
From: some Chinese bakery

Cost: free

Location: Chinatown

Someone bought some Chinese bakery bread instead of regular bread yesterday. The key difference is Chinese bakery bread is sweet tasting, probably because they add a lot of sugar into the dough.

 

 Please note: this bread is oddly shaped because it was crushed by something, normally this type of bread is square.

Even after only being in the fridge over night, the bread had developed some moisture, so I gave it a good toasting to get rid of that. The bread smelled really good after the toasting, and a tried some, it was sweet. Literally very sweet, so no need to add any jelly or jam.

Taste: as expected this bread was pretty sweet, all it needed a a little toasting, but it was good.

Conclusion: this bread tastes good because of all the sugar in it.

Monday Night Football!

When I got to work on Monday, I had fully intended to go to the gym after work. However, by the end of the day I was completely exhausted and it was pouring out. So I decided to go home and relax, at which time I realized it was Monday night and the first week of the 2010 football season, Monday Night Football on ESPN! I am not a Jets or Ravens fan, but I had a a player on each team starting in my fantasy team this week, so I had vested interest in the game. Luckily there was a rain delay (never seen one of those in football before, but okay) so I had time to rummage around in my fridge before kick off.


Meal: snack (Mon 9/14)
From: my fridge (dip from Costco)
Cost: [to me] FREE!
Location: my kitchen (Costco in Brooklyn)

I felt like having something that would be appropriate to snack on while watching some football, and I think I found it. There was some Spinach Dip in my fridge, and some organic wholewheat bread.

The dip was really good (probably because it was really unhealthy, but I did not care).

I threw the bread in the toaster on high, to give it some nice crunchiness.

Taste: GREAT! I wanted more but I did not want to die of a heart attack or something.

Conclusion: using the spinach dip more like spread on the toast = an awesomely good snack.

Drink: I mixed some orange juice (Tropicana - Pure Premium, Calcium+Vitamin D, with Lots of Pulp) and sparkling water (Pellegrino). (Sorry no pictures.)

Remarks: the food was good, but the game was ugly, I felt like I was watching a replay of the Redskins-Cowboys game from Sunday Night.

Same lunch with a twist.

Meal: lunch (Mon 9/13)
From: my fridge
Cost: cost to me less than $1
Location: my kitchen

After a relatively expensive weekend (notwithstanding the 20 pairs of Hanes brand socks I purchased for $0.50), I needed to go back to my money saving roots. Another cheese and cold cut sandwich was in my future. I found some lettuce in my fridge, to make the sandwich a little "healthier" and I poured on sriracha sauce to give it some kick/favor, and maybe even burn off some taste buds so I could not taste the usual blandness. Thanks to a Costco run on Thursday I had some more cheese options than normal. I decided to go with swiss cheese, I was sick of yellow American cheese, the the exact opposite (white cheese with holes created by a neutral nation vs. yellow cheese without holes created by a "not so neutral" nation) would hopefully be a nice change.

Ample amounts of sriracha (chili) sauce.

(As I usually do, I lightly toasted the bread to eliminate all fridge induced moisture.)

Swiss Cheese Please!

The Finished Product

Taste: it was pretty good, the lettuce some how made it a different sandwich that I have been eating in the last few weeks.

Conclusion: next time I need to put less sriracha sauce, or cut it with something, as my mouth was burning for several minutes afterwards. But the sandwich taste good, we will see if I get heart burn later.

Drink: a nice cold can of Coke Zero.

Yes, I do have a snap on top to keep in the fizzy...

I am sick of ham and cheese already!

Meal: lunch (Thu 9/10)
From: my fridge
Cost: less than $2
Location: my kitchen

Ham, Turkey and Cheese Sandwich with Mustard on Wholewheat Bread

Nothing special here. Same lightly toasted wholewheat bread (to get the fridge made moisture out), same Target house brand ham, same Kraft Singles American Cheese. I added some Met Food house brand turkey and used French's Yellow Mustard. Strangely, the taste of the turkey and mustard was different enough that the sandwich had a different taste.

Taste: bland, bland, bland...
Conclusion: I am sick of eating this crap, thank god for the weekend, when I can eat some good unhealthy stuff.

Drink: a can of Coke Zero.

Coke Zero

Remarks: wish I could afford an unhealthy lunch...

Ham and Cheese w/ Sriracha?

Meal: lunch (Thu 9/9)
From: my fridge
Cost: less than $2
Location: my kitchen

I am really trying to save money right now, at least until the end of the month. Therefore, today was yet another sandwich from home day. Yesterday I had a ham and cheese sandwich... today I was going to have another, but I wanted to change it up a bit. A friend suggested I try putting Sriracha (chili hot sauce) instead of mustard. To be on the safe side I put Sriracha on one side and good old light mayonnaise on the other. As usual I lightly toasted the bread to get out the moister accumulated from being stored in the fridge. I then added two slices of American cheese and put ample amounts of ham.

My Sandwich

Materials
-Boiled Ham (Target house brand)
-American Cheese (Kraft "Singles")
-Wholewheat Bread (Arnold's "Soft")
-Light Mayonnaise (Hellman's)
-Sriracha (Huy Fong)

Taste: not bad, not bad at all. The Sriracha gives it a nice kick to change the flavor and make it less bland, although the texture remains the same as my sandwich from yesterday.
Conclusion: Sriracha is an easy way to make my sandwiches not taste all the same.


Drink: a nice cold can of Coke Zero.

Homemade Italian Dinner

Meal: dinner (Mon 9/6)
From: my girlfriend's fridge
Cost: N/A
Location: my girlfriend's kitchen

Spaghetti and Sausage with Marinara Sauce

(topped with mozzarella cheese)

Bruschetta

(toasted Italian bread with tomatoes and mozzarella cheese)

Taste: really good.

Conclusion: a solid inexpensive meal.

Drink: a nice tall glass of ice water.

Cheap Lunch From Home

I needed to save some money for this weekend so I bought lunch to work today.

Ham and cheese sandwich with spicy mustard on wholewheat bread.

Meal: lunch (Fri 9/3)

From: my fridge

Cost: unable to be determine (I paid less than $3 for a loaf of bread and a bottle of mustard, but the cheese and ham were in my fridge already.)

Location: my kitchen

I bought the bread and spicy mustard from Target, the cheese was from Costco, and I think the ham came from A&P supermarket.

The cheese was pepper jack and the ham was your standard boiled ham cold cut. I had to lightly toast the bread, because it had been sitting in the fridge for a while and was getting a little moist. 2 slices of cheese and 4 slices of over-sized ham = just enough to get me through the end of the work day.

Taste: only acceptable because I think I spoiled myself with delicious food for lunch this week.

Conclusion: an adequate cheap meal so I can save money for using doing the long weekend.

Drink: a can of diet Pepsi, I was going to save it for later, but my office water cooler was out of water and the water cooler guy is not coming until later today...

Yellow Eggs And Ham

So I woke up early enough today to have a more proper breakfast. Nothing special, a fried egg with a piece of fried ham with wholewheat toast with some ketchup for flavor.

Ham and Egg on Wholewheat Toast

Meal: breakfast (Thu 9/2)
From: my fridge
Cost: still free for me!
Location: my kitchen

Not much to write here, just something to get me going for the day.

Taste: nothing to write home about, but good enough.
Conclusion: better than my normal breakfast of one granola bar.

Drink: some water, although I wish I had a nice big glass of orange juice.

Midnight Snack Made of Throw Aways

So my "frozen" dinner was not filling enough, so I needed a little extra. I found a bag of bread in my fridge with only the ends left (the throw aways). I was not sure how old the bread was, but it did not look moldy, but for good measure I toasted it with the hope that the heat would kill anything bad. Also bread from the fridge is usually soggy, so the toasting dried it right up.

 

 I found some forest berry preserve in the fridge, not sure what the difference between jelly, jam, and preserve is, but it all tastes good.

I found some Skippy creamy peanut butter to complete my snack.

My Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich

Meal: midnight snack

From: my fridge

Cost: throw aways are always free!

Location: my kitchen

Taste: hit the spot.

Conclusion: not starving anymore.

Drink: a glass of Pellegrino with ice.