Living Below The Line - Day One - Dinner

Aside from feeling a bit peckish this afternoon (don't worry I resisted temptation) I've been fine. That pasta really did fill me up and I'm looking forward to having it again tomorrow. I'll admit that I did fancy grabbing a piece of toast when I got in from work, but I just kept myself busy and got on with cooking tea.

And so... tea was bean casserole, which is actually a bit of a favourite in our house. I just had to hold back a bit on the ingredients and I used celery, carrot and onion rather than the likes of aubergine, pepper and courgette. The idea behind this dish was getting a decent amount of veg down me along with some low fat protein. And beans are the most magical form of protein ever as they're a good source of vitamin C and carbohydrate. I stuck some wild garlic in too which has a few of its own benefits.

Here's what I did to make up two portions...

• Heated up some oil that I'd drained from the tin of sild in a small pan and added 3/4 of a finely sliced onion (don't worry the fishy smell of the oil subdued once the onions went in!).
• Sliced 3 sticks of celery and added them to the pan.
• Let this cook until the veg was soft then added a sliced carrot.
• Once the carrot had softened a little I added a spring of thyme, a bay leaf and a handful of wild garlic. 
• I then mixed everything up and let it all cook for a minute or two, until the garlic had wilted.
• A 400g tin of chopped tomatoes went in next with 1/2 tsp of paprika and 1/2 tsp of dried chilli flakes.
• I let that simmer for 10 minutes before adding a 400g tin of kidney beans and let that simmer for a further 10 minutes.
• Served.

Well, I think I'm onto another winner. It was really tasty thanks to the paprika and chilli and filling thanks to the beans. The only thing it was noticeably missing was the huge scattering of Cheddar that I usually have with this meal. Oh well.

One thing I have to point out is that, despite the restrictions on the ingredients I can buy, I'm free to use as much power as I like and I can use whatever gadgets I have to hand. I'm guessing that this wouldn't actually be the case should I truly be living below the line... So, please don't forget to sponsor me! I'm doing this to help fight poverty and your donations will go to Oxfam. We have already hit the original target, but it would be great if we could totally blast it! Click here for the link.

Cheers

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Day One - Round up - 88.98p - on target

Breakfast - Pitta (6.66p) and Lemon curd (1.6p) 8.26p
Lunch - Pasta (6p) with sild (24.5p), 2 tomatoes tomatoes (9.08p) and thyme (free) 39.58p
Dinner - Bean Casserole with half a tin of kidney beans (10.5p), half onion (4p), 1.5 sticks of celery (4.99p), half carrot (4.65p), half tin tomatoes (14.5p), handful of wild garlic (free), thyme (free), bay leaves (free), paprika (1.25p), 1/4 tsp dried chilli flakes (1.25p) 41.14p