I like to cook pretty cheap meals anyway.  Over the past year we’ve eaten more and more meatless meals, but even when I am cooking with meat I like using cheap cuts–not just because they’re cheap, but the fact that they tend to taste better than the premium, leaner cuts.  I have a well-stocked pantry and a freezer that already has plenty of cheap food that’s ready to go.  I have spices and oils and cookbooks and knowledge that all make the job of cooking cheaply much easier.

It’s not about the budget, it’s about time and knowledge.  My job is flexible, both my wife and I work day jobs that allow us to come in a little earlier and leave a little earlier so that we can transport the kids to where they need to be.  We get our salary, and have sick days and vacation days galore.  We and our kids have our share of activities during the week that can make the dinner prep schedule a little tight, but we have the means to pick up a pizza every once in a while when we don’t want to cook.  On the weekends I can spend luxurious hours in the kitchen preparing lots of food, or elaborate dishes that don’t fit in during the week.  This is time that people facing poverty often don’t have.

Even more important than time is knowledge.  Everyone can think of beans and rice… but canned beans are relatively expensive and dried beans take hours to cook (after hours of soaking).  I know that lentils are just as cheap, just as (if not more) nutritious, and can be prepared in as little as 15 minutes.  Some of the best dishes you’ll ever eat are those that are borne out of the poor, working class people of those places.  As a great example, Indian cuisine is full of dishes that at some point were conceived by poor people who wanted to get a good-tasting meal out of cheap or bad-tasting ingredients.

Beyond learning different cuisines, people need to learn basics that can save them money.  I used paneer in a dish earlier this week that I bought from an Indian grocery store, but I could have made it myself for half the price if I needed to.  I bought bread for my daughter’s sandwiches, but anyone can whip together a loaf in 5 minutes (plus the time to let it rise and bake).  Flatbreads are even easier… like the chapatis I made on Monday.  I made enough for 6 people with 30 cents of ingredients in 10 minutes.

These are all lessons we hear everywhere.  ”Shop the perimeter of the grocery store.”  ”Avoid processed food.”  ”Learn to cook.”  But what are we doing, as a community, to make it happen?  There are classes and recipes at Common Ground as part of their Food for All program on how to cook healthy meals on a shoestring budget, and I think that’s a great start to helping educate people.  What other resources are out there right now?  How are people learning to overcome the convenience of unhealthy pre-packaged foods?

I hope that there will one day be a larger facility, a community kitchen, where people can not only learn how to make (good, healthy, delicious, cheap, easy) food, but maybe have a chance at starting their own business venture.  Community gardeners could have a place to process a neighborhood’s crop of tomatoes or pumpkins into canned goods to last for months.  I want this community kitchen to come together because people need to be sharing their knowledge.

Like many people, I have the luxury of a pantry so full I could not buy food for at least a week and still be very well-fed.  On the other hand, a growing number of people are starting to face the reality that they are struggling each week to put anything into their pantry.  That balance needs to be shifted.  As I mentioned during the Million Meals for Haiti event, hunger is a global problem, but it’s also a local problem.

There’s no single solution here, but I hope that people will do whatever they can to make a difference.  You can donate money to your local food bank, or donate your time to places that package or distribute food.  Support the Flatlander Fund in its mission to create a community kitchen for Champaign and Urbana.

Nearly 1 in 5 kids in Champaign county live below the poverty line (18.7% according to a 2008 report).  Over 900,000 Illinois residents depend on food pantries each year, a number that’s grown during this economic recession.  September is Hunger Awareness Month, but I hope that you can find a way to remember each month that you can make a difference.  I don’t know how they do it, but the thought that our food bank can turn a $1 donation into $10 worth of food for needy families is a clear example of “every bit helps.”  Try this: each month, instead of going out to dinner one time, spend a little time in the kitchen and donate some of those extra bucks you saved.

When served with rice, lentils are one of the few vegetarian sources of complete protein.  Along with their protein comes iron, B vitamins, and fiber–all very important when on a restricted diet.  Adding in some vegetables helps round out the nutrition, and ethnic stores often have inexpensive produce.  I chose some tindora (technically a fruit), available for $2.40 per pound.  If you’ve never seen or eaten tindora, I’d describe it as somewhere between okra and zucchini.

The flatbreads in front are chapati, made with a finely ground whole wheat flour.  Not pictured, but also on the table was some plain basmati rice.  The dal (lentil dish) on the left is a simple red lentil dish, cooked with a touch of ginger and turmeric, tempered with some cumin seeds, mustard seeds, hing, dried chillies, all fried briefly in butter.  It’s a favorite in this house, and costs only a few dollars to make 4-8 servings (depending on how many other dishes).  I’ll try to recite the recipe below.

The dish on the right is an improvised tindora curry.  It was inspired by this video made by a Chicago chef who has become a YouTube star under the name vahchef.  The tindora was sliced into 1cm rounds and fried in a little cumin and mustard-scented oil with a diced onion and then a few cloves of sliced garlic until they softened a bit.  I added a can of tomatoes and let it simmer until everything was cooked through.  More spices were added to adjust the final flavor, like coriander and a little home-ground garam masala.  While that was going, a pot of split moong dal was cooking until the lentils were tender.  I added the lentils in and let it all simmer for about 10 minutes to let the flavors meld together.

Both dishes were delicious.  Even our guests (one of whom is Indian) really enjoyed everything.  Looking back, I thought that we overspent yesterday, but our total for the day was only about $15.70 (compared to our daily allocation of $18 for 4 people).

Today I made matar paneer (a tomato-gravy curry of peas and cheese, seen above), which left plenty of leftovers.  Breakfast was similar to yesterday, and Megan’s lunch was the same.  I had food from yesterday (already counted in that total), and dinner for us included the matar paneer.  Our younger daughter had some yogurt and a banana… she ate very well at daycare today.  Our older daughter ate some leftovers from the weekend (cost accounted in today’s total).  Today’s total is only $13.69!

To be honest, this week isn’t terribly different from how I cook sometimes.  Okay, I didn’t even make it to the farmer’s market this past weekend (like I normally do), and only a couple ingredients were organic (because that’s what I had).  So far, I haven’t made any big meat dishes.  When I look at it, we’re all full, happy, and have many different flavors to keep us interested.  It may not be 100% nutritionally complete, but we have fruit, vegetable, dairy, grain, and fiber all represented.

Our Favorite Dal

The toasted spices in the tempering give this dal a rich, smoky flavor that goes well with any Indian dish, or by itself with some rice.

serves 4-8 (depending on whether it’s a main or a side)

• 10 oz. red split lentils, washed
• 1/2 – 1 tsp dried ginger powder
• 1/2 tsp turmeric powder
• 2 Tbsp butter
• pinch of asafoetida (hing) (optional)
• 1 tsp brown mustard seeds
• 1 tsp whole cumin seeds
• 2-4 dried red chillies
• salt

1. Put lentils, ginger, and turmeric in a heavy saucepan with enough water to cover by 1/2 an inch.
2. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally, reduce to simmer, covered loosely, until lentils are tender, about 15-20 minutes.
3. Add salt to taste, about 3/4 – 1 tsp.
4. In a small heavy frying pan, melt the butter.
5. Add the asafoetida, if using, then immediately add the mustard seeds.
6. After a few seconds, add the cumin seeds, then after another 10 seconds, the dried chillies.
7. In about 30 seconds, when the mixture is very fragrant and the seeds and chillies have darkened just slightly, dump it all over the cooked lentils and stir to combine.
8. Taste for salt and adjust, as needed.

P.S.  If the recipe seems a little daunting, don’t despair!  I hope to be starting up some ethnic cooking classes through Common Ground.  I’ll show you all the techniques and shortcuts you can use to make these kinds of dishes at home–fast, easy, and cheap.

Lunches for today were no different than usual.  My wife and I had some remaining leftovers from the weekend, including a decent balance of carbs, vegetables, and protein, even a can of soda for each of us.  Our older daughter brought her bento with salad, some egg, a snack stick from the UI meat salesroom, somen noodles, some bean sprouts, crackers, and a couple other items.  Our younger daughter goes to daycare, and as part of her weekly tuition they serve lunch and snacks.  I’ve got to be honest, I have no good way to account for that food.

Children living with food insecurity (17 million, or about 1 in 6 kids in the US) often rely on school food programs to meet their daily nutrition needs.  Our older daughter’s lunch is relatively expensive (about $2.43), including organic lettuce and locally-produced meat, but school lunch programs have to make choices on how to feed a large number of kids on what is usually a shoestring budget.  Studies show that kids receiving poor nutrition don’t succeed as much in school, and have higher rates of behavioral and emotional issues.

Hunger is about more than just having energy to get through the day.  It’s more than just figuring out how to get your coffee fix in some other way than the $5 Starbucks coffee.  It’s important to look at how to keep our kids healthy and full.  It’s important to know about the resources out there.  In Illinois, 16.7% of residents are at risk of falling into poverty.  Keep in mind that “poverty” means just over $22,000 for a family of four.

Later today, I’ll talk about our dinner.  I’ll post up a recipe or two, along with a photo of what we ate for dinner last night.  I’ll also share some more details on how much we spent Monday and how it will impact us the rest of the week.

Yesterday was the first day of the SNAP Hunger Challenge and boy did we fail.  The day started off great.  I kept detailed records of how much of each ingredient went into each breakfast and what everyone was having for lunch.

Then I came to the realization that we didn’t do a good job purging our fridge of high-cost items, like leftover Chinese take-out and potato salad made with local, organic potatoes.  In the grand scheme of our normal food budget, these things are pretty cheap, but when you’re limited by $4.50 per person each day, even the half order of sizzling rice soup that was left adds up to more than half that amount just for one meal.

On top of that, I forgot that our plans had shifted from last weekend, so we had friends over that were making dinner for us.  In the spirit of the challenge, I really can’t take it for free, but adding up all the components of the delicious Asian meal (recipes our friends learned from Tien) it would surpass our daily budget.

Because of all those circumstances, we’re starting fresh on Monday.  It’s hard to manage all of it with two kids who (naturally) want to forage in the pantry for snacks.  Above all else, I want to make sure that they have what they need first.

Many stories I’ve seen/read/heard about families struggling with hunger share how one or both parents sacrifice their own nutritional needs for their kids.  While it is a noble cause, it can often mean that the parents have a harder time staying healthy.  A sick parent means lost wages, only worsening the struggle they face.

I’ll be posting more this week as the challenge continues, but take some time to read how others taking the SNAP challenge are doing on the Feeding Illinois blog.

PS – If you’re a fan of Clever Food Blog and would like to vote for me in the Project Food Blog contest, click here to vote, then click the heart under my entry.  You’ll have to join Foodbuzz (free), but that’s no big deal, right?

The reason I’m reposting this is to reiterate the idea behind the Flatlander Fund.  The mission of the Flatlander Fund is to create a community kitchen, which encompasses a lot of things–one role being as a “kitchen incubator”.  I had heard about this idea from a great NPR-distributed podcast called Good Food (from Santa Monica radio station KCRW).  I talked about it with Dan on many occasions and he was really excited about actually moving forward with it.

I could talk, but Dan was really making it happen.  When he was signing the lease for his factory space, he was constantly considering how it could be a shared-use facility with a community kitchen/kitchen incubator.  His plan was selfless, only wanting the community kitchen to cover the absolute minimum of rent and utilities for its share (i.e. not a strictly for-profit kitchen rental).  As we walked the space, he asked me what kinds of things I could imagine doing there, and my head spun with ideas.  He just listened and smiled and took it all in.

If you think that Champaign-Urbana needs a community kitchen, focused on sharing knowledge, or a kitchen incubator, giving food entrepreneurs like Dan an easier start, then donate to the Flatlander Fund.  Get involved in the effort to create a place where the love of food can spread to an entire community.  As the Flatlander Fund progresses, I hope that we get closer to having this much-needed resource in our community.

–

If you’ve been going to the Urbana Market at the Square (a/k/a the farmers’ market), you’ve probably noticed a number of stalls offering baked goods of various types.  Just this summer, the Champaign-Urbana Public Health District (CUPHD) decided to being enforcing a (10-year old) rule that requires all baked goods sold at farmers’ markets to be prepared in certified kitchens.  This was covered by many local outlets, including Smile Politely.  Numerous market fans were outraged by the CUPHD’s decision, especially given its short notice to the affected vendors.  I could go on and on about how silly it is that they’re regulating small-time bakers in this way, but there is precedent in many jurisdictions to disallow sales of home-baked goods.

Luckily for us, all the vendors found accommodations at various certified kitchens in the area.  That means all potential vendors, from teenagers to retirees, must now spend odd hours in commercial kitchens to bring their goods to market.  While this market season was bursting with now-certified baked goods, next year may not be as fulfilling.  Some vendors have been put off by the burden of spending time and money to work at another facility.  Many baked goods take time–time to mix, time to rise, time to bake.  With the new arrangement, this part-time activity has turned into a full-time endeavor for some vendors who now have to make time to attend to their products at their commercial kitchen.  This has forced at least one vendor to consider alternative arrangements.

You may have heard of various “underground” food vendors in the area.  If you haven’t, I urge you to look around.  You might find a dinner deliverer or charcuterie slinger.  They are making some of the best products you can find out of great ingredients.  I love that the C-U food scene is vibrant enough to demand great local products, no matter the circumstances.  Problems arise, however, when the underground food producer wants to open up and sell their goods to the public.

There’s no easy route for people to take here.  The CUPHD doesn’t want numerous dens of underground food filth, they want inspect-able businesses.  On the other hand, small time food producers don’t want to immediately put in the investment to scale production and rent out a commercial kitchen every week.  While there are kitchens available in town, a new “wanna-be” vendor is going to have to fit into their schedule.  Despite still being in development stages, they are forced to immediately start paying for kitchen time (ETA: and certification/licensure).  They may end up failing before they even get a chance to start.

What I think C-U needs is a kitchen incubator.  Never heard of that?  The idea is to offer up kitchen space that offers something to its users–a chance to start a food business.  First, it would need to be accessible enough that food entrepreneurs can find a time that matches their schedule.  The fees to use it must be low enough that a small start-up can actually get started.  It should have a wealth of resources, at least links to people in the community who can help entrepreneurs with marketing, packaging, and product development.  If it offered some small amount of space (e.g. for serving meals, retail sales, cooking classes), that would help get people started faster.

Now, a kitchen incubator isn’t going to answer all the issues faced by the displaced farmers’ market vendors, but there is a sizable group that it could help.  There are plenty of very talented people who could be making money with food.  For many, the barrier is time and start-up costs.  For some, they just don’t know how they would get their product to the people.  A kitchen incubator could be helping these people become small business owners.

In the new year I plan on exploring local underground food further and working with others to make it easier for food entrepreneurs to bring their products to market.  Maybe that’s with a kitchen incubator, maybe there’s another solution.  If you think C-U would benefit from something like a kitchen incubator, supporting and encouraging the creation of new businesses, leave a comment or get in touch.  If you want to have a food business or if you’ve already got one running underground, write me.  I’d love to create a community where entrepreneurs can work together and learn from each other to bring the most delicious, locally made food to the people of C-U.