Limited Resource Food Creations

Since water is scarce, water intense foods are also scarce. Things like meat, wheat, sugar. These foods are around but are so expensive, and we don’t have much money. So our diet is limited to mostly vegetables and a few fruits and grains. We have been able to come up with some new recipes despite the limited diet.

The first night, Saf put soybeans to soak and made soy milk the next morning. She put one cup of soy beans to soak in two cups of water, that water into the gray water bucket. The soy beans went into the blender, with five cups of water. The result was boiled for ten minutes or so, until it smelled roasted and nutty. Let to cool a bit, she strained the okara (pulp) and gathered the milk. This has become a regular event.

Nayara appears to know something about plants and cooking, for she has made breakfast for the past two mornings. She came up with a date syrup, which is dates and water in the blender, then boiled to reduce the water. Quinoa, chopped walnuts, sunflower seeds, ground flax, chopped strawberries and raspberries, soy milk and the date syrup has been our morning porridge.

Moso and Skip have made our lunches. Moso loves tortillas, so she roasted cauliflower in a toaster oven she brought, and sauteed some chopped zucchini. We ate it in some fried corn tortillas. Wheat-based flour is much too expensive. Moso also made some berry popsicles. Just water and strawberries in a pop mold, but it was a pleasant change.

BCC: soaked ground flax in some water, then mixed it with the soy bean pulp. She rolled this into balls and cooked in the toaster oven at 360 degrees for twenty minutes to make vegan meatballs. She also mixed the date syrup with a chili garlic sauce for a sour and sweet sauce.

Dinner the first night was a strange mix of chopped cauliflower, cooked lettuce, zucchini, and quinoa, but we we’re hungry and it worked. The next night, we grilled corn and zucchini on skewers. We are still working on dinner, but breakfasts and lunches appear to be figured out. This afternoon, we found that thinly sliced taro can be cooked in the toaster oven to make chips. With salt, they are really good.

With the trip to the market today, we hope to discover some new recipes and new foods to work with.