Foodie Gifts

My Christmas gifts this year are bought, and to be honest, I don't know that unless I had really planned ahead, that I would have been at all interested in doing homemade gifts. Actually, I don't really like giving people the same things because it seems to denote that I *thought* less about them. Except in the case of me giving all my friends tickets to booze cruises. In that case, I was thinking *a lot* about them. Lol.

I have realized, however, that premaking homemade foodie gifts for friends and family to give them for host gifts and birthdays might be pretty worthwhile. Here are a few ideas I'm throwing around:

1. Limoncello. Yes, this goes back to my boozy friends, but hey, they have good taste and I'm sure would love a little homemade limoncello.

2. Homemade marshmallows w/ hot cocoa. Use a special valrhona chocolate for the cocoa and some tahitian vanilla for the mashmallows and you've got a gourmet gift guranteed to impress some people!

3. Chocolat liquer. Also a delicious treat. I personally think it's better than the standard bottle of Patron we've all been passing around. Lol.

4. Herb gardens in beautiful containers. What foodie wouldn't want their very own herbies? Get a beautiful container, add rocks on the bottom for drainage, add soil and some herbs at varying heights and voila! You could even take some of the pretty herb plants multiplying in your garden!

There are a few critical things that you might think of doing to kick these gifts up a notch like personalized labels, decorative bottles (go vintage if you can) and jars, and a high quality ribbon.

$3ADDP: You Can Do It Too!

When talking to people about this project, and in my own experiences, it seems that the most difficult part really is the record keeping. The minutiae of tracking calories and cost is a bit much for most people so I think going forward for the project, I'll be posting recipes instead. You don't really care what I ate for the day, what you probably care about was how I made it and how you can do the same.

Though I do already have some recipes up, you might want to ease into this project yourself, especially if you're looking at doing this for the long term. Here are a handful of things I would suggest for you to start saving now and eating healthy!

1. Cook all your meals at home. Yes, eventually you might be able to swing a quick an easy meal out ala Ten Ten Chinese Food Restaurant, but cooking your meals at home prepares you for the time commitment of actually cooking! Once you make this part of your routine, it will make is significantly easier.

2. Plan out your meals, especially if you have a family. I would plan for 4 meals a day because as I started to eat the smaller portions I saw that I got hungry every 3-4 hours and that a snack was usually necessary. Use the local supermarket advertisements to see what's on sale for the week and plan your meals around it. This is particularly important because you'll need to start mentally tracking where you can buy what for cheapest.

3. Only buy enough food to eat for one week of perishables. I found during this project that I was buying more food than I needed and as a result as things got on the older side I was less inclined to eat it. Once you plan out your meals though, you'll know exactly what you really need and will be less likely to eat more of it because you know it's already planned for.

4. Buy pantry items in bulk when it's at it's lowest price. For instance, I went to Big Lots and saw Annie's Organic Salad Dressing on sale for $0.80. No, they weren't about to expire or anything, it just so happens that they overproduced a handful of their flavors like Pomegranate Vinaigrette and Garlic Asiago, which is good for me because I love both flavors! I picked up 4. Same goes for anything else that won't go bad before you get a chance to use your whole stock.

5. Make one day a week your serious prep day. If you are planning on making bread or pizza dough or crockpot meals, prep it all on one day. It'll make cooking every meal everyday less daunting.

$3ADDP: MIA days

I have to apologize, Dear Readers, for being MIA for almost a week! I recently picked up the Event Chair position for American Cancer Society's local Relay For Life and have been attending meetings between having an all out catastrophic work week. As a result of these factors beyond my control, though I have been spending less than $3 a Day on food, actually, I've been spending near nothing on food, because it has been free food almost all week.

The meals I have been making, however, have been all less than $1 per person which got me to thinking about how I've come to a point where I can normally just wing it. I realized that as long as you could follow along the guidelines below, you should be able to eat for the most inexpensive way possible.

1. Buy things as cheap as possible. I recommend starting at the 99 cent store, Big Lots, Farmer's Markets, 99 Ranch and then Food 4 Less.

2. Use only the cheapest, leanest meats. This is typically chicken breast, lean pork and low fat ground beef. Almost any dish, with the exception of seafood, can be altered to use one of these meat sources in lieu of a more expensive cut or type of meat.

3. Use only 4 oz of animal protein per day per person. Yes, portion control is so VERY important, not only to the budget aspect, but for the health aspect.

4. Use bean based dishes often and with variety. There are so many different legumes that can be used that are not only healthy, but very filling and extremely cheap.

5. Use a high fiber carbohydrate at every meal. By this I mean brown rice, whole wheat bread, wheat noodles, etc. Carbohydrates are not only very inexpensive, but when using high fiber options will guarantee you something that will keep you full longer and keep you healthy!

$3ADDP: Day 10 and 11

Sorry for lagging a bit behind by these updates. Life has gotten in the way of writing but not of the project.

I do have to say that I ate out quite a bit the past few days so I'm unclear on calories BUT I can provide you with prices and where to go:

Day 10: Skipped breakfast and had a bean and cheese with lettuce burrito from a local Mexican food place. $2.00. Alternatively, I could have gone to Taco Nazo, now known as Senor Baja, and had 2 - $1.00 fish tacos filled to the brim with cabbage and fish. What's my point? Mexican food places can be your friends! For dinner I had about $0.50 worth of Brie Mashed potatoes leftover from thanksgiving. I'll post the recipe for that soon because it was a huge hit. Total for the day ($2.50) but a very unhealthy day. I vowed to do better tomorrow by getting in more veggies and prepping for the rest of the week.

Day 11: A local authentic Chinese restaurant, Ten Ten, has single dishes you can buy to eat with rice for less than $2.00 a togo container. I picked up a napa cabbage and mushroom dish that was enough to split and share with my mom. I had a bowl of rice to go along with it bringing my lunch to $1.25. When I came home I had the last of the mashed potatoes, which I'll estimate to be about $0.50 and a homemade croissant sandwich which came out to $0.93 making my day total $2.38.

All of this doesn't matter though because for the days I was off the diet my digestive system really made me pay for it. I'm actually feeling the effects of the overload of bad food immediately after I eat it.

In Japan, they recommend eating only until you're 80% full because your body is late to register when it's actually full, so when you stop eating at 80% your body is really 100% full. So when you eat until you're stuffed, you could be well into 150% full which is just a waste of food.

Speaking of Japan, I need to find some way to work some raw seafood into this project. I hear a local supermarket has 12 raw oysters for $6.00! I could swing a $1.00 for 2 oysters for my protien for the day. Woo hoo!

Keepin in Cheap in California,

Leah

$3ADDP: Day 9.5

Hello Dear Readers, I have been on hiatus since the 26th because of Thanksgiving and my trip to Las Vegas. I am hopping back on this wagon tomorrow.

I'm doing a Day 9.5 post today because since taking a break from the $3ADDP I found a few interesting things that carried over into good habits.

1. For the drive to Vegas I packed leftovers in the form of sandwiches and miscellaneous fruit for my brother, sister and mother to eat. I found that if I prepared the food ahead of time and said nothing about what a cost savings it would be to eat the leftovers, they all ate it. In fact, the first day in Vegas we didn't buy any food at all because they were all so happy eating healthy leftovers and fruit.

2. While I was gone Hubby ordered himself a pizza, a pizza he automatically packed for himself to take to lunch on Monday. It seems that if I get him used to the idea of expecting to eat home packed meals, he'll follow through with it on his own most of the time.

3. I ate less in general. Normally, at one of my sister's softball tournaments I would be raiding the snack bar under the pretense of supporting whatever league was hosting the tournament but during this trip I focused more on finding healthy and cheap food alternatives in smaller quantities. I didn't eat just to eat. And when we went to brunch buffets I just simply wasn't able to eat more than a plate of food. In fact, the full plates of food I did it didn't sit well with me because it was too much.

4. I get a buzz a lot faster. The complementary cocktails throughout the strip had me feeling tingling a little faster than normal and though the drinks weren't strong, my body gave me negative feedback on the effects quickly also. I didn't end up drinking very much at all.

So here I am, prepping for the next 20 days of eating on $3 a day and totally excited about it!