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.

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?

Another local food blogger, Scott from Fight the Fat Foodie (his post about the project), and I were asked by a reporter from the local paper, the News-Gazette, to contribute to a piece on a local Million Meals for Haiti meal packaging party, where more than 1,000,000 meals were put together to be sent to Haiti.  (If/when it goes on their website, I’ll be sure to link to it here.)  Edit: The reporter, Meg Thilmony’s, reflections are online. I was given one of these packages, designed to feed six people, and asked to make something with it and reflect on the notion that my ability to do so was far more than the people this food is intended for.

The bag came, filled with rice and other stuff inside.  According to the Numana fact sheet, “rice, soy protein, freeze-dried vegetables, and 21 vitamins and minerals targeted to help the immune system of malnourished people.”  The bag is just a functional means of conveyance to people who tend to understand how to prepare rice and beans.  That’s a good thing, because the information and instructions on the bag are riddled with typos and mistakes.  For example, the instructions call for too much water (6 cups for 2-3 cups of rice) and too little cooking time (5 minutes).  It does include a genuine request from the Numana organization that it is “Not to Be Sold” for “This food is to be given freely because Jesus loves little children.”

I prepared it according to the instructions and was underwhelmed.  The stuff is bland if prepared by the basic instructions.  Of course, it’s food, and as I remind everyone in my tagline, “we all need to eat.”  For using as a recipe component, I felt like it was just too starchy for me to use it as-is.  I browned some ground beef and mixed in some tangy tomatillo salsa to add a little kick.  As universal as stuffed peppers are, I wanted to bring something genuinely Haitian into the dish, so I made a traditional black bean sauce called sauce pois noir based on this shell of a recipe.  I’ve been wanting to give the odd tuber jicama another try, so I made a basic salad with it, which added in a great crunchy element on the plate.  The delicate purple chive flowers were a beautiful (and tasty) garnish, adding in a reminder of the fresh growth of Spring.

I’ll share recipes and a delicious photo further down, but I have to go back and reflect on how lucky I am to have those choices.  I can go to a grocery store and buy fresh produce from around the world all year.  I can choose organic and locally grown products, or visit the farmers’ market.  And I do do those things, because those things are important to me and I (usually) have the means to do so.  I’ve always grown up understanding that food should be a source of joy.  It doesn’t have to be great, it doesn’t have to be expensive, but sharing a homemade meal with people is one of the things that makes me happiest.  From the looks on the faces of family and friends who join us for meals, that joy tends to reach across the dining table.  Organizations like Numana, in partnership with the Salvation Army, are making that feeling happen for hungry people all over the world.

Numana is a Kansas-based non-profit international hunger relief organization formed in August, 2008.  They partner with organizations like the Salvation Army to deliver much-needed food to people all over the world.  From the literature available on their website and the bag they provide, they focus on feeding school children first.  Feeding children not only increases their chances for success in their scholastic endeavors, but they are at lower risk for being exploited by their families in order to get food.

Food insecurity, not knowing where your next meal will come from, isn’t just a problem in areas devastated by earthquakes or stricken with poverty.  According to Share Our Strength, food insecurity exists in 14.6% of US households, meaning that nearly 50 million Americans, including around 17 million children, are not able to regularly provide nutritious meals for themselves.  This is a global problem.  This is a local problem.

Sauce Pois Noir (Haitian Black Bean Sauce)

• 2 T oil or butter
• 1/2 medium onion, chopped
• 1/2 jalapeño, seeded and chopped
• 1 14-oz. can black beans
• 3 T cilantro, chopped
• 1/2 t. salt, to taste
• 1/4 – 1t powdered chipotle pepper (optional)

1. Heat oil in a saucepan over medium heat.
2. Add onion and jalapeño and cook about 5 minutes, or until softened.
3. Add beans and cilantro and cook for 5 minutes.
4. Blend in a blender, food processor, or with an immersion blender until smooth.  Consistency should be similar to a thick cream sauce, so add a little chicken stock or water to thin if necessary.
5. Add salt, to taste, and chipotle powder, if using.  Keep warm until serving.

Easy Tomatillo Salsa

• 1/2 pound tomatillos, about 7-10, husk removed and washed
• 1/2 medium onion, chopped
• 3 T cilantro, chopped
• 1/2 t salt, to taste
• 1 jalapeño, seeded
• flesh of 1 avocado, chopped

1. Put half of the tomatillos in a microwave-safe bowl, cover, and cook on high for 2 minutes.
2. Put all the ingredients into a blender or food processor and blend until mostly smooth.
3. Taste for salt, but be careful not to add too much.
4. Chill until ready to serve.

Stuffed Peppers

I really want to mention that this is not well-tested because I used the Numana meal, not rice and beans.  The Numana meal left plenty of leftovers after making the stuffed peppers, but it was still delicious.  Taste along the way and make sure you like how it’s going!

• 4-8 bell peppers, tops and core removed
• 2 c long grain rice, cooked (about 4 cups cooked rice)
• 1 14-oz. can beans (pinto or kidney), drained
• 1/2 cup of Easy Tomatillo Salsa (recipe above), or more, to taste
• 1.5 pounds ground beef
• shredded cheese, for topping

1. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.
2. In a bowl, stir together the rice and beans with the salsa.
3. Brown the beef in a pan over high heat, and drain off the fat.  Stir into the rice mixture.
4. Spoon the rice mixture gently into the bell peppers, being careful not to pack it down too much.
5. Arrange peppers in a baking dish, standing up, and top each pepper with cheese.
6. Bake for 15-25 minutes, or until peppers are tender and cheese has melted and begun to brown.

Jicama Salad

• 1 jicama, peeled, sliced into matchsticks (julienne)
• juice of 1-2 limes
• 1/2 t salt
• 1/2 t cayenne pepper
• 2T cilantro, chopped finely
• chive flowers, to garnish (optional)

1. At least an hour before serving, combine all ingredients except the cilantro and toss to combine.
2. Just before serving, add cilantro and toss to combine.
3. Taste for salt, and adjust if needed.

• more than 12.4 million – 1 in 6 kids live with food insecurity, and are at risk of hunger
• nearly half of US children will be on food stamps at some point in their childhood, and
• 90% of black children will be on food stamps at some point in their childhood
• over 900,000 Illinois residents rely on food pantries
• In Champaign County, over 32,000 people (18.8%) live below the poverty line
• In Champaign County, over 7,000 children (18.7%) live below the poverty line

- stats from Share Our Strength, Feeding America, Associated Press article (link broken), and the Eastern Illinois Foodbank

Please click on some of the links to the sources of this information to learn more about how childhood hunger affects our country.  With Thanksgiving and the holiday season are coming up, we are blessed to have an abundance of food in our house, enough to share with friends and family, but others don’t have that luxury.  Giving just a few dollars can make a difference.

If you want to help fight childhood hunger across the United States, donate to Share Our Strength.  $25 dollars can provide three meals a day for a month for a child.

Since this is a food blog, your special incentive here is to donate through fellow (much more famous) food blogger, Carol Blymire, who writes Alinea At Home, and wrote French Laundry At Home.  She is giving away some great cookbooks to five lucky winners.  The only way to get a chance is to donate through her link.  Read all the details and donate to Share Our Strength through her link.

If you want to keep the money local, donate to your local food bank.  Find yours through Feeding America.