Second Day

Today was challenging, but we had an amazing dinner! (Thanks self! Your welcome, Tay!or.) I made Grilled Pineapple Chicken with Peanut Rice! I know- yum!! It really was delicious. I added some pineapple juice to the canned chicken, grilled it on the George Foreman, and topped it with a grilled slice of pineapple. I also added some pineapple juice to the rice along with peanuts! [Don't you wish you were eating out of a box?!]

Ok, so we mentioned this week's blog would be a little different than the last and we want to mention some of the specific costs of the food. Check this out:
Tonight's meal cost a total of $2.36!! Last night's dinner cost only $1.56!! That's it, for both of us. I hate to admit this, but when we eat out we sometimes spend $10-$15 per person. A meal like this can purchase an entire Food Pak!

It's just plain crazy to look at these costs and not cut back, at least sometimes, somehow.

Look at some of these other (approximate) prices per serving:
canned tuna - .40
noodles - .15
tomato sauce - .09
canned carrots - .23
canned pears - .33
pinto beans - .06
peanut butter - .08 (This was dessert tonight! "Delicious, nutritious!" as Brogie and I like to say!)

It's hard to comprehend. Even harder to live out.



On a different note to end today...
It's only the second day and we are quickly reminded of the difficulties we experienced last time around. We easily erased those parts of the project from our mind after experiencing an exciting, successful week followed by lots of encouraging words and satisfaction of completing our project. We entered this week thinking of all the fun we had before and forgetting the hunger that went along with it. One of the main reasons for doing this project was to feel the hunger that others experience when living on a tight grocery budget...and we're feeling it. It's nothing to complain about, just part of the learning process.

Day 1

Well here we are again, back at day one.

The Grocery List:

2 canned meats – Tuna and Chicken
1 bag of rice
1 bag of pinto beans
1 bag of pasta
2 small cans of tomato paste or sauce
2 cans of vegetables – Mixed Veggies and Carrots
2 cans of fruit – Pineapple and Pears
1 can of salted peanuts
1 box of crackers
1 box of granola bars

Additions
Peanut butter
Soup – cream of broccoli
Trail mix
Refried beans
Dried Fruit - Apples

The Rules:
The rules are the same but a few things have changed. Last time we prepared three dishes using our Food Pak and relied on leftovers to feed us for a week. This time around we are only cooking what we need. Each meal will be enough for that meal with maybe an extra serving for later. It becomes more of a challenge trying to come up with 10 meals out of the box instead of 3. We are sure that some of them will be similar but this helps us set our portions.

Today's Menu:

Breakfast:

Trail Mix

Lunch:
Broccoli Tuna Casserole
Two servings of Pasta
Half a can of cream of broccoli
Two servings of Tuna

Dinner:
Chicken and Rice
Two servings of Rice
One and a half servings of mix veggies
Two servings of Chicken

Not too bad for the first day. :)

Food Pak Project: Part 2

Ok, so our original plan was to eat from a Food Pak for one week in order to save enough money to purchase another Food Pak through Children's Hunger Fund. The experience was great, and with the money we usually spend on groceries we provided food for two families- ours and another. We thought that was simple enough.

But God had a bigger plan. Our blog seemed to inspire and encourage many. We received enormous amounts of support from readers everywhere and so many had begun to follow our adventure. But all of this seemed to happen at the end of the project. So what do we do with a bunch of readers who have nothing to read? We start over!

So in the words of Mom, we need to “keep thinking inside the box”! Round two is going to have the same basic ideas with new recipes and new strategies. This will allow a new group of followers to journey with us through this experience and possibly some of you not-so-new readers a chance to join in!

For us, round two gives us the opportunity to help feed more families, and to once again reap the physical benefits that we discovered the first time around. Yes we were hungry, but our appetites changed and we were eating healthier. The Food Pak doesn’t allow for sugary junk food and over indulgences.

Thank you so much to all who left comments here and on Facebook and in person, and to all those who followed along! You're support means a lot to us and we are so thankful that God has used this project to teach us and reach others! Make sure to keep visiting- the journey continues tomorrow!

5th and Final Day

Well, the last day itself wasn't that
interesting. We snacked on the odds and ends that we had left and worked our way through some more leftovers. We packed a dinner of rice and beans with tortillas as we hit the road for SA. And for dessert we had peanut butter spread in tortillas with dried apples! That was a treat and a great way to finish of our project! (It was really tough, though driving past every McDonald's between here and home, smelling the greasy french fries, and not being able to stop!)

The cool part was getting to church on Sunday and seeing all the boxes being delivered! This was JF's 2nd Sunday collecting and the Food Paks were stacked high, inside and out! Way to go team! I'm glad we could sacrifice a little, to give to someone who needs it just a little more.



These are our leftovers: the oatmeal shouldn't have really been included but we thought we were being smart by adding it in- we hardly ate any and really didn't need it, the peanuts tasted funny so we didn't eat much of those, we ate well over half the jar of peanut butter (mostly just by the spoonful! Yum!), there was about a serving of each dried fruit left, and half the box of crackers (which was supposed to be a small box, anyhow), and some leftover, uncooked rice. We also still have plenty of rice and beans in the fridge which we are gonna work through this week (with a little seasoning added!) to accompany our tacos! [A small edit about the first post- the box actually feeds a family of four for 1 week. So mathematically it could have fed us for 2. I think we could have made it with a little stretching.]

In the end, I can honestly tell you that my food purchasing ideology has changed. We had been spending about twice as much per week on groceries plus eating out multiple times a week. Here we were eating for about $5 a day!! Knowing that you can live on less than half of what you are used to spending, makes you feel comfortable cutting back a bit. And guess what?! Today I went grocery shopping for this week and spent about $25! Sweet, huh?!


Thanks for your prayers and for following along as we ate from a box! It was an experience I won't forget and we may try it again sometime! Stay tuned to this blog for more exiciting adventures in the lives of Taylor and Frankie! :D [*Coming soon: awesome cupcakes for a great cause!]

Cuatro Dia

I did it! I am officially a Rodriguez! I made rice! Tonight we had rice and beans (beans by Taylor). Rice and Beans is nothing special but it was what I was raised on, and boy do I love it.

This week seems to have flown by for me. And the best part now is that we have one more day to go. That means eating all the left overs! YAY! Tomorrow is our last day and I can't wait! Goodnight until then.

Third Day

Well, it's mostly just leftovers from here on out. Other than the beans that are finishing cooking as I type! (I need to mention these so I don't forget about them before I go to sleep!!) There is plenty of tuna melt left and some chicken and rice casserole, plus odds and ends of other things...

The hunger keeps building as our project continues. The food we have is less and less satifying with each meal. I can't begin to imagine what it would be like to live in a sitution where you are truly dependent on these food paks.

The interesting thing about this project though, is that I was comparing it to fasting in my head (thinking that it would be much easier), but it is very different. There is such careful planning of when to eat and what and how much. When you fast, you don't have options, it's just understood that you will not eat. This box is like a mind game, where you think you can rely on your food but you still never really get full. I'm not saying that I'd rather go without any food for a week, but this box thing is tricky.

Some things that I am missing the most are: cheese, milk, yogurt (I love dairy!!), juice, and fresh fruit! Now, I'm thinking that most people who receive these actual Food Paks may have WIC or Food Stamps or some small income that helps purchase the types of things that can't be put in a box. But for the sake of the simplicity and the project we decided to just eat from the Food Pak. Certainly there are people who eat less than this and even nothing at all.

Well, enough rambling for tonight. I'm going to take the beans off the stove and finally fall asleep, tonight... with a grumbling stomach... Again, I can't imagine living like this and going to bed hungry every night. Especially as a growing child. Or the parent who struggles to provide for that child. God, help us to realize the injustice of hunger, and help those of us who have so much to reach out to those who have so little.

Day 2

For dinner tonight we had a favorite of our's prepared with only minor alterations to use Food Pak ingredients. It's Frankie's Chicken and Rice Casserole with Veggies. Yum! :) Just thinking about it is making us hungry again!

It's pretty simple really:

1. Lay a foundation of uncooked rice.
2. Add a can of Cream of ____ (fill in the blank, we used Broccoli) + a can of water.
3. Add vegetables (We used our can of mixed.)
4. And add chicken. (We usually use whole chicken breasts, uncooked, but replaced it with our canned meat product. ;)
5. Bake. Eat. Yum.

Bon Appetit!