The "Get Out Of Your Car!" Fund

Friday, September 27, 2013

My Pantry and Cooking Plans

This week I worked on the food situation.

The ice in the cooler in the trunk idea didn’t work. The ice melts and makes all my food soggy. The first week I did this, most of the ice stayed frozen all weekend. I’ll have to work on ideas to make this work so I can keep food in my car on weekends. For example, yogurt or a pint of ice cream if I can’t eat the whole thing right away.

I’m really getting tired of nonperishable foods and fast food, so I removed my toaster oven from storage and put it under my desk in a giant cardboard box. It warms food quickly, but I really want it so I can bake. I bought a baking dish to fit inside it.

I rearranged the food and dishes in my classroom cabinet so they can’t be seen as soon as I open the cabinet door. This is because the principal has a few books at the bottom of my cabinet to distribute to teachers during future teacher trainings. I don’t want him to see my stash.


I have potatoes and a packaged rice dish high on top of the cabinet. I have  in the white box on the second shelf. There are no crackers in the cracker box on the top shelf. On the second shelf there is food in the box to the left (cereal, oatmeal, sugar, popcorn, and canned food), dishes on top of that (in the plastic bins), dishwashing liquid, salt, and pepper in front. On the third shelf from the top – see the oatmeal, next to that is a container of kool-aid packets. See the boxes of books on the 2nd and 3rd shelves. There are food and more dishes stashed behind those books. The bottom shelf is all paper. Good thing there’s no food there, because the mouse has eaten through some of the paper at the bottom!


On the side of this cabinet, hanging next to the wall, is a dishrag.

For my storage unit, I bought a bin to keep my food in. It’s not as much food as I thought it was (or else I can’t find a box and it’s in there somewhere). Even though it’s not as much food as I thought, I don’t think I’ll be able to use all of it. I may have to take my sister back the big bag of sugar, rice, and popcorn she bought for me during my August visit, before I knew I’d be homeless.

I plan to go home at Thanksgiving. I found this awesome website called supercook.com. I can check off ingredients that I have in my limited virtual kitchen (my cabinet, storage unit, and school fridge). It will give me recipes that I can cook with the ingredients I already have. Totally. Awesome. I already want to try the mock fried rice. It only requires rice, garlic, salt, soy sauce, and an egg. I have all of those ingredients. I got excited looking at all the potato recipes, since I can easily store potatoes. I also have these eggs that I will need to use up within the next 2 weeks or so. Frugal cooking tips by other poor people can be found here: http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/903778

Finally, I'm using a calendar as my food diary. I jot down what I ate each day. My 1st goal is to eat a vegetable each day. My 2nd goal is eat a fresh fruit each day. My 3rd goal is to drink 2 cups of water a day.

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