imple Vegetarian | The One Harvest challenge, part 2

As I cited within the day past's publish, figuring out how our regular grocery price range compares to a package deal deal from One Harvest Food Ministries became out to be loads more complex than it checked out first blush. My first idea changed into really to take all the gadgets within the organization's $36 Family Box and discern out how a good deal we'd spend at the equivalents (along with free-variety variations of all of the meats). But I brief observed out this will now not be an correct evaluation the least bit, due to the reality their Family Box contained a ways extra meat than our two-person own family should usually consume in a month. So figuring out how lots we might pay for that lots meat wouldn't provide a practical photograph of our real grocery spending.

So alternatively, I determined it might make more enjoy to discern out what food a hypothetical family could make from the food on this container, and then calculate how masses we might pay to make similar but now not identical meals. For instance, if the own family used its 1.Five kilos of boneless hen breast to make meals?Stir-fry with fowl and chicken pot pie?Then I'd decide out how masses we might spend to make a stir-fry with tofu and a chicken pot pie with unfastened-variety chook legs. And due to the fact our family has handiest two human beings in it, I'd depend each of the imaginary own family's dinners as being same to two dinners for the two of us, and double our recipes as vital.

However, as soon as I started looking to make menus out of the materials in the Family Box (reiterated beneath), I ran into a snag:

• 1.5 lb Boneless Skinless Chicken Breast
• 1.25 lb Homemade Style Salisbury Steaks
• 1.5 lb Flounder Fillets
• 1.3 lb Kielbasa Sausage
• 1 lb Premium Ground Beef
• 12 oz Ground Turkey
• 1 lb Lee Breakfast Sausage
• (2) 8” Deep Dish Pepperoni Pizzas
• 32 oz Crinkle Cut Fries
• 1 lb Fresh Frozen Green Beans
• 1 lb Fresh Frozen Stir Fry Veggies
• 1 lb Fresh Frozen Shoe Peg Corn
• 1 lb Fresh Frozen Sliced Carrots
• 1 lb Fresh Frozen Sliced Peaches
• 8.5 oz Jiffy Cornbread Muffin Mix
• 1 Dessert Item

See the trouble? There aren't almost sufficient vegetables in this subject to stability out the quantity of meat you are getting. Even in case you served conventional American-fashion food, with a massive hunk of meat followed by means of smaller hunks of potato and vegetable, you would not have sufficient greens to transport round, and there honestly aren't enough to stretch the pork out right into a month's in reality really worth (or maybe 1/2 of a month's honestly really worth) of meals. So I figured, to make this a more reasonable test, I'd add a Fresh Frozen Veggie box, for $25.50, into the mix. That gives us this an lousy lot more fabric to paintings with:

• 1lb FF Strawberries
• 12 ct Frozen Southern Biscuits
• 1lb FF Sliced Carrots
• 1lb FF Corn on the Cob
• 1lb FF Broccoli Florets
• 1lb FF Green Peas and Carrots
• 1lb FF Mixed Vegetables
• 1lb FF Vegetable Gumbo
• 1lb FF Sliced Yellow Squash
• 1lb FF Breaded Okra
• 1lb FF Speckled Butter Beans
• 1lb FF White Shoepeg Corn
• 1lb FF Field Peas with Snaps
• 1lb FF Stir-Fry Mixed Vegetables
• 1lb FF Green Peas
• 1 lb FF Green Beans

So, in this corner, proper right here is the Harvest Food Ministries menu:

1. Chicken-veggie stir fry: ¾ lb. chicken breast, 2 lbs. stir fry veggies, served with rice
2. Chicken pot pie: ¾ lb. chicken breast, 1 lb. mixed veggies, 1 lb. beans, biscuit crust
3. Salisbury steaks, served with carrots and corn (I figured this was a bit too much food for one dinner for four and not quite enough for two, so I counted it as one meal plus leftovers)
4. Fried fish, with fries, squash, and peas (enough for two dinners for four)
5. Broiled sausage, with carrots and corn (enough for two dinners for four)
6. Meat loaf, with corn and mixed carrots and peas (in real life I'd probably try to stretch the ground beef more by making chili, but that would have involved bringing in too many ingredients that weren't in the Harvest Food boxes)
7. Pasta with ground turkey and broccoli (I found the recipe for this online after a quick search on "ground turkey recipes")
8. Sausage with biscuits, gravy, and peas
9. Vegetable gumbo, served with rice
10. Pepperoni pizza, served with green beans
11. Butter beans and corn muffins, served with okra

I came up with a menu that I thought was roughly equivalent to the one above, using recipes that Brian and I actually use at home. As I noted above, in most cases, I multiplied our usual recipes as needed to make an equivalent volume to the ones from the Harvest Food boxes. However, I made a couple of exceptions. For instance, kielbasa sausage is one meat that we do occasionally eat straight up, with potatoes and veggies on the side. However, there's no way we'd ever have this meal four times in a single month; the free-range sausages we buy at the Amish market are just too expensive for that. So instead of assuming we'd have this meal four times (four meals for two equals two meals for four), I figured we'd have it only twice and increased the volume of the next meal on the menu (chili) to compensate.

I assumed that we'd buy all the ingredients for our meals at the price we usually pay in the store, regardless of whether that's a regular price or the sale price at which we generally stock up. I also didn't include any of our own garden produce in our meals, since I figured that wouldn't really be a fair comparison. The Harvest Food boxes provided all the veggies for the first batch of meals, so I included all the veggies for the second batch in our grocery list. The one exception I made was for the dandelion greens included in the final meal on the list. These aren't usually sold in stores, and I think it's safe to assume that most people could manage to pick a bunch of them somewhere if they looked.

So, in this corner, here is the Ecofrugal Living menu. I've included the ingredients for each meal, along with their cost.

1. Stir fry: 18 oz. tofu $1, 1 lb. broccoli $1.50, 2 peppers $1, 1 jar sprouts $.20, 1 bunch scallions $.30, rice $.40: total $4.40
2. Chicken pot pie: ¾ lb. free range chicken legs $1.50, 1 lb. potatoes $.40, ½ lb. organic frozen peas $1, ½ lb. organic mushrooms $1.15, 1 large leek $1.50, 2 carrots $.20, milk/butter/flour/baking powder/salt $.50: total $6.25
3. Tuna potato cakes, with applesauce and peas (this was my equivalent to the Salisbury steak, so I made enough for three meals for the two of us): 2 cans tuna $2, 1 lb. potatoes $.40, 2 carrots $.20, 1/2 bunch scallions $.15, 4 free-range eggs $.80, 1 sm. jar applesauce $1, flour/mayo/oil/seasonings $1: total $5.55
4. Fish tacos with slaw (this was my equivalent to the fried fish above, so I made enough for four meals for the two of us): 1.5 lb. catfish nuggets $3.75, 1 pkg. corn tortillas $1, 3 lbs. cabbage $1.20, ½ lb. tomatoes $1, 1 bunch scallions $.30, other ingredients $.25: total $7.50
5. Broiled sausages, with baked potatoes and peas: ½ lb. sausage $3, 1 lb. potatoes $.40, 1 lb. organic peas $2: total $5.40
6. Chili and corn bread: 1 tube Gimme Lean beef $4, 2 peppers $1, 2 onions $.30, 1 lb. beans $1.60, 2 cans tomatoes $2, 1 c. corn meal $.45, 1 c. flour $.20, 1 egg $.20, 1 c. milk $.17, ¼ c. organic sugar $.21, garlic/spices/lime/baking powder $.30: total $10.43
7. Pasta with chick peas and spinach: 1 lb. pasta $.80, 1 lb. organic frozen spinach $2, ¼ lb. tomatoes $.50, 2 c. chick peas $.80, garlic/pepper/salt $.25: total $4.35
8. Casualty Eggs (this is my equivalent to the sausage and biscuits above: a recipe from the Small Potatoes Cookbook, containing eggs, bacon, potatoes, and veggies all fried up together): 4 oz. free-range bacon ends $1, 1 lb. potatoes $.40, 8 free-range eggs $1.60, 1 pepper $.50, 1 onions $.15, garlic $.10: total $2.95
9. Mushroom/barley soup with biscuits (this recipe I actually cut in half so it would make an equivalent volume to the vegetable gumbo above): ½ lb. organic mushrooms $1.15, ½ c. barley $.30, 2 onions $.30, 2 carrots $.20, celery/garlic/spices $.20, milk/butter/flour/baking powder/salt $.50: total $2.65
10. Veggie pizza: 2 c. flour $.40, 1 can tomato sauce $.40, 1 onion $.20, 1 pepper $.50, ½ lb. organic mushrooms $1.15, ½ lb. mozzarella cheese $1.25, yeast/spices $.10: total $4.00
11. Butter beans and cornbread, served with wilted dandelion greens: 1 lb. butter beans $1.50, 1 onion $.20, 1 bunch scallions $.30, 1 c. corn meal $.45, 1 c. flour $.20, 1 free-range egg $.20, 1 c. milk $.17, ¼ c. organic sugar $.21, 4 oz. free-range bacon ends $1, flour/butter/garlic/spices/baking powder/brown sugar/vinegar $.30: $4.53

For my three dessert items, I chose these three simple recipes we use often:

1. Wacky cake (an extremely simple, vegan chocolate cake that you can whip up in about five minutes): 1½ c. flour $.30, 1 c. organic sugar $.85, 5 Tbsp. cooking oil $.15, cocoa/baking soda/salt/vinegar/vanilla $.15: total $1.45
2. Apple crisp: 2 lbs. local apples $2.50, 1 c. oats $.20, ¾ c. flour $.15, ¾ c. organic sugar $.63, ½ c. butter $.50, lemon juice/cinnamon $.05, $4.03
3. Chocolate pudding (four batches of it, to make four nights' worth of dessert for the two of us): 4 c. milk $.68, 1 c. organic sugar $.85, 6 Tbsp. organic cocoa $.60, 4 free-range eggs $.80, oil/salt/corn starch/vanilla $.10: total $3.03

And the total for all these dinners and desserts together is...$67.32, virtually the same the price as the Harvest Food Ministries menu. And moreover, we spent the same amount while using only free-range meats and eggs, organic sugar and cocoa, and some organic and/or locally grown produce. So if you believe that organic foods are better for you (or, as I believe, better for the world as a whole and thus worth the extra money), then you're getting better value for about the same dollar amount—and if you don't, you could substitute conventional meats, eggs, and other ingredients and make the Ecofrugal Living menu for even less.

So I'd say the takeaway from part 2 of this challenge is this: Harvest Food ministries does, in fact, offer pretty good value for money, particularly for heavy meat-eaters. But it's certainly possible, and not even that difficult, to get just as many meals for the same amount by eating less meat and cooking everything from scratch. Moreover, by doing so, you can enjoy free-range meats and at least some organic ingredients on a limited budget. So for those who care about such things, the Ecofrugal Living menu is the better deal, hands down. (P.S.: If you'd like to know how to make any of the specific dishes I included in this menu, say so in a comment and I'll post either the recipe itself or a link.)