Many obligations, one big pot

Donate $5 to Capital Area Food Bank - it provides $25 in food for the hungry.

When the Hunger Awareness Blog Challenge started last week, I looked at the list of food from the food pantry and thought, well, that’s do-able. I’ll get a chicken. Potatoes, mmm, we could eat potatoes all week. Spaghetti, sauce; there’s a meal. Jalapenos, pintos, rice; another one. Factor in the  $50 SNAP allowance for things like eggs, tortillas, and spinach, and this could be decent eating.

Then there was a last-minute family trip, a drive from Austin to New Orleans and back, 66 hours that included 20 hours in the car, 22 hours of work on the house we’re hoping to sell there, and a couple of spider bites that led to groggy-inducing Benadryl dosage. I had to plunge right back into work when we got home, at the food bank and for my husband’s small safe-plastics company. An ongoing medical issue had to be dealt with. There were still things to be dealt with to be able to list the house, repairmen to find, house visits to schedule long-distance. My husband and I were both exhausted, wrung out and stressed out, ready for bed before the sun had even gone down. The idea of being creative with Tuna Helper or green beans was just too much. We weren’t even hungry.

So until today, all we’ve had so far is the chicken, roasted, a few bites here and there with some crackers before bed. Cereal for supper. Nothing inspired, nothing much at all. And in the meantime, I was being both impressed and intimidated by my fellow bloggers, who have been producing meal plans, delicious sounding recipes, such unexpected dishes as dumplings and cong you bing. I’d look at the list of blog entries and feel guilty for not even writing about why I wanted to take part in the challenge (spoiler alert: green beans play a starring role).

But Lisa Goddard, the online media director at Capital Area Food Bank, put it into perspective for me. “That’s a real story,” she said, reminding me that people of all income levels and needs lead busy lives, with unexpected twists and obligations. It’s one (unhealthy) thing if you can pick up the phone and order a pizza, or if you can stop by somewhere like Central Market to get the bits and pieces of a healthy take-out dinner on the way home from work. It’s another if you’re on a SNAP budget, if there aren’t frozen dinners in the freezer or extra dollars in the budget. What do you do then?

Tonight, I looked at the pile of food pantry cans and at the remains of the chicken and just started cooking. I stripped the chicken and sauteed the bits in olive oil in a big saucepan. Then I added one of the cans of spaghetti sauce, half a container of fresh spinach, some crushed red pepper flakes, and a couple of handfuls of shredded parm from the fridge. While it cooked down, I boiled up some spaghetti and opened an off-project bottle of Malbec. That was our supper. It was tasty, inexpensive, and comforting. And already we are ready to get some more sleep.

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