I Lived On A $5 A Day Budget For A Week In New York City

I Lived On A $5 A Day Budget For A Week In New York City

- This is a disaster. Do you hear this pot hissing at me? It's mocking me. I deserve to be mocked. Good morning.

Happy Sunday. Yes I am filming on a Sunday because what are days anymore? We're going to try to feed ourselves on $5 a day in New York city. I went grocery shopping yesterday, I spent just about $35 for the entire week. I'm excited to show you what I got and I'm excited to cook with you throughout the week.

But first, I have not fed Tom yet. He's a hungry boy. We're fostering him until his dad feels better, so let's get Tom some food. How is it? Does it taste good?

Is it acceptable, your highness? I'm hungry, let's start planning. Let's see what we got diced tomatoes, canned tomato sauce. We got my all-time favorite natural peanut butter.

Some chick peas, which were outrageously priced at $2.20. Split peas, a little bit cheaper. Lentils, always delicious. We got brown rice, only a buck O nine.

And some sushi rice, which I can't say no to sushi rice. We got two bags of oatmeal. These were only $1.99 each. We got some eggs.

These absolutely killed me. They were like 4.40 for a dozen and that's from the least happy chickens ever.

Some tortillas. 1.34. We got some four bananas that I'm hoping they will ripen by the time we use them. Carrots, a buck a bag. A stock of celery. A single pinata apple.

I love the name. 54 cents, I believe. We got two onions. We got four red potatoes. I think these came under a dollar.

Two sweet potatoes, I think also under a dollar. Three russets. Woo hoo. And the total for that came to be 34.94.

(cash register chiming) I feel like this is a good amount of food for a week for a single person. I definitely went a little bit heavy on the carbs. I think I did fairly well. Stores were crowded, so I tried to make it as quick as possible. For this challenge, I will not be counting in the cost of minimal amounts of cooking oil, salt, spices that I already have in my pantry.

I am especially excited to take you through the week with me because now you'll see how I actually eat at home when not developing recipes for Delish. ♪ Take a shot at love ♪ ♪ Take another, take a lover ♪ ♪ Take a shot at love ♪ - Did you just black out.

- My at-home diet is a completely different side of recipes. I mean, they're not even recipes, I just cook on the fly, you know? I don't really measure, I don't really scale things, I just freedom.

Breakfast, day one. Banana oat peanut butter pancakes. It was $1.99 for two pounds of oats. Flour can be hard to find nowadays, and I actually really like baking with oat flour, so the first thing I'm gonna do to this bag of oats is grind it up into a flour.

All right, here's meal number one. One day at breakfast, banana peanut butter oat pancakes. I really want some maple syrups on this baby, but you know, not in the budget. I only used half a banana because I only got four bananas for the week and I need to ration them. But the banana flavor is still coming through.

The peanut butter adds a little bit of nutty saltiness. Oh my god, if I could have maple syrup on this, it would be probably in my top five pancakes.

As is, I would rate this dish six out of 10. I'm a harsh critic. Lunch time, we gotta plan ahead.

Let's get started on that split pea soup. I'm thinking super simple. I have onions, carrots, celery. Rinse the peas, boil them. I'm gonna parboil some of those potato as wedges and then roast some of them.

Okay, so big pet peeve of mine is turning on the oven when I'm only baking one thing, 'cause I just feel like it's wasteful. And I'm thinking maybe for tomorrow, we can make a sweet potato oatmeal gnocchi. I'm gonna go ahead and wash those sweet potatoes. I'm gonna wash some extra carrots, maybe slice up another quarter of that onion and then we're gonna toss 'em all on a tray and just let them bake. Heat plus time plus stuff equals flavor.

Science. These potatoes are looking nice and golden.

Steamy. An hour at 400. Nicely completely tender.

Let's eat guys. Definitely not the prettiest meal in the world. But man, I look forward to it. If you are doing any sort of budget eating, spices, condiments, all of that is extremely crucial. You're my victim.

Hm. I think I need hot sauce. Not too much hot sauce. Just a little bit. Just for that acidity.

You want some? I don't think you can eat onions, dude. Sorry. I'm gonna give this one like a seven out of 10.

Cool.

Let's make dinner. Mujaddara. I have brown rice. I think it'll go really well with lentils because the dish has caramelized onions in it. I'm just now realizing I only grabbed two onions for the entire week, which was a dumb decision.

I think I'll reserve half an onion for other recipes later on in the week. And caramelize the rest. I am sweating. So traditional mujaddara, I believe has a lot of herbs on top, so I'm just gonna take some from my window sill because I have it, I'm gonna use it. 'Cause I'm also gonna be using a pat of butter because you can't stop me.

But also I would like some butter, please and thank you. And then I'm gonna throw in some ground coriander, cumin seeds, an aleppo pepper.

We don't wanna burn the spices, we just wanna toast them. I'm gonna go in with a cup of rice. I'm gonna hit it with equal amount of lentils.

So one cup of lentils. It's looking pretty crispy, pretty golden. Rice, lentils, caramelized onion. White sauce, herbs, all of our spices. Crisp, tender rice.

Soft, mushy lentils with a nice white sauce and some herbs. When food smells good, you know it's gonna taste good too. Hm. Pretty well cooked rice with that extra bit of crispiness from the high heat and the cast iron. This has been a delicious Monday.

I'm gonna take a break from cooking and then I'll see you tomorrow, Tuesday, a whole new day. It's Tuesday. You ready for breakfast? I have to come clean about something. I was awake all night last night.

Got really terrible sleep because I was lying to you and lying to myself and the banana pancakes weren't that good. They just were too dry. So we're gonna make them again today. The secret ingredient is Bailey's.

Okay yes, I recognize this is not really within my budget, but it's Tuesday and it's already feeling so hard and I feel like alcohol, put it in, I don't care.

Look yonder, what is this I see? A new and improved stack of pancakes? My lord, do my eyes deceive me? Pancake success though. Super moist.

Nice and fluffy still. Nice pancake. Okay guys, I think for our snack today we're gonna try to make peanut butter granola. Got an egg, crack it in here, I'm gonna save the yolk for something else.This might take a while by hand.

-Five hours later. - This is good for me. It's starting to get nice and shiny. Okay I'm gonna call it. My hands are dying.

Shiny, runny, but still voluminous.

Nice, nice, nice. Hm. That's not scientific at all. Fold it in gently.

It's been 28 minutes and I just pulled them out because it's looking nice and golden. Smells peanut buttery. It's perfect. I do miss the sugar in it, but on its own, perfectly perfectly delicious. Six and a half out of 10.

6.8 out of 10, I change my mind. Yum. I have been thinking of what to cook for today, but I think I really just want more split pea soup, and I thought, I bought those tortillas, let's make some tortilla chips. Using some grape seed oil here.

Black pepper garlic salt. I have some more of that miscellaneous spice thing that I still don't know what's in here. Gosh yes. Love cumin. And I have some Japanese togarashi here.

A little bit spicy, a little bit nutty. Crunchy. So today I seasoned my soup with a little more lentil broth, let's call it.

And I also put in some turmeric. Made the color a lot more vibrantly green, I love it.

Like a split pea tortilla soup baby. I dig it. Dinner. Dinner. Okay.

I think for dinner I'm gonna make use of some of yesterday's brown rice and I'm gonna make one of my favorite childhood eats, which is tomato and egg over rice. I just got some canned diced tomatoes, they were the cheapest ones. Stir fry some scrambled eggs into it. And then plot the rice in the same pan and then I'm gonna eat it. Did you know that red and yellow together make you hungry?

Eggs, garlic, chives, tomatoes, brown rice, a little bit of salt, a little bit of seasoning, a little bit of sugar, what's not to like, guys? I miss my mom's cooking, that's for sure.

This probably won't beat hers by miles, but. Needs more salt. Oh yeah, when in doubt, add more salt.

Exactly what I needed. Gonna give this a 7.1 out of 10. See you tomorrow. I'm gonna eat this, I'm gonna go watch some YouTube videos, bye.

Tom and I are not on speaking terms. He tried to eat three, broken, moldy bones on the side of the street and I was very stern with him and now we're not talking anymore. Breakfast. (blending whirring) Oat milk. A little bit of granola, a little bit of oat milk.

Hm. Once you put the granola in milk all of the sudden it tastes way more peanut buttery. This gets a seven out of 10 for me for now. I think for lunch we're gonna make some vegan sloppy Joes today. Maybe we'll take our potato wedges from two days ago, smash 'em, and then we can dip into our sloppy Joe with that.

Let's make some rice cakes, yeah? (blender whirring) Ta-da. Oh, this is fun. Here you go Chels, you wanted camera angles. - So you can see - It's time to check on our potatoes and rice cakes and who's that you hear?

Why it's Julia. Let's give these a flip. Another 10 minutes. Let's watch more Julia. - If I were a vegan, I would like this as an option.

The veggie burger. Our test kitchen manager, June- - I miss you. Oh my god, she just said my name. - Or she just told me to try it. I don't know that she said that she loved it.

- do love it. - Just make sure you try it. - I love the veggie burger. I love you too. First parboiled, then baked, then squished flat and baked again.

And our tomato-y vegan sloppy Joe with our lentils, our roasted carrots and onions.

We say vegan sloppy Joe, I think it taste pretty close. But really it's just like a lentil tomato-y stew. And it's absolutely delicious. It's so hearty.

This is really good. I'm gonna give this an 8.5 out of 10. Rice cracker. (crunching) Thin, crispy, well-seasoned.

I need to make this more often, my gosh. Gonna go watch YouTube. Maybe more Julia, you know? See you at dinner. Dog bowl's gone because we just said bye to Tom.

I'm pretty tired, so I think to end today I'm just gonna heat up some split pea soup, eat it with these rice crackers. Makes me feel a little bit better about saying bye to Tom. But, I'll miss you Tom.I think that's it, guys. It's a Wednesday.

I also made these dang delicious chips. Gosh. Forget the soup. Bye. Are you guys bored of this angle yet, what if we switched this angle to this angle.

First thing today, I'm going to drain, rinse, drain the chickpeas. We're gonna set it to a boil and we're gonna let them cook until they're nice and soft with one teaspoon of baking soda in the mix. And then we're gonna make some brown rice pudding. I'm down to my last serving of brown rice, so I figured we'll make some brown rice pudding to eat for breakfast and we'll go from there. How does that sound?

Sounds great, I'm talking to myself, obviously. Brown rice oat milk rice pudding. Honestly surprised by how naturally sweet this is already with only a tablespoon of sugar in it. That cinnamon really helps it along. The surrounding porridge portion of it is so creamy that I don't mind the texture contrast.

Gonna give this one a 7.1 out of 10. I keep waiting for birds to land on the fire escape 'cause I just wanna see something alive, but there's nothing there. But our beans are ready.

Steam. Very nice. I think I'll just eat a bowl of it for lunch.

 

Maybe we can steam some rice to go with it. Here is what's happening to our pot.

Chick pea stew. Tomato, our roasted carrots and onions, some celery, a lot of spices. Cumin, paprika, dried garlic, pepper, some salt, some togarashi, which has red chili pepper flakes in it. Put a little bit of fresh basil on there. It's a complete meal, y'all.

Love it. I love that little hint of spiciness from the togarashi, too. The sauce and the rice are just like. Yup. Yup, yup, yup.

I'm gonna take a lunch break. So, I'm ashamed because I just ate all of the tortilla chips that I made two days ago and basically all of the granola that we made two days ago.

Stress eating, you ever heard of it? Not really about anything in particular, just existential stress. We'll make that sweet potato gnocchi as well as the matzo balls for tomorrow.

I will not be making anymore of this granola maybe I'll make more of those chips because this is dangerous stuff. Oh boy. We'll fridge it, we'll roll it and we'll shape it tomorrow. I think I'm gonna cut it into quarters. Here are our gnocchi, cut.

For now I'm just gonna put 'em in the fridge, cook 'em off when I'm hungry, maybe that's tomorrow. Matzo ball. I don't have matzo meal, I don't have chicken, I don't have chicken broth. Maybe a little bit of peanut butter. Is this supposed to be loose like this?

I don't think so.

Oh. I'm a little bit scared and I'm just gonna see how it looks tomorrow and if it still looks not shapable tomorrow then we'll add some oats to it and wing it, I guess. I'm gonna go take a nap. See you guys tomorrow.

I woke up late today and I have a Zoom meeting in about eight minutes, so, happy Friday to me, let's get this started. Okay, so now somebody else entertain us, please. I'm feeling a little bit chilly and I feel like I need some warmth. So I'm gonna turn the oven on. I'm gonna try to bake some peanut butter oatmeal cookies.

Cool, so we have our dough now. And then I'll probably make some more tortilla chips while I have the oven on.10 minutes. It looks a lot stiffer, which is good. I'm getting so hungry just smelling the peanut butter.

In you go. Slightly golden on the bottom, if you can see that. Here they are. Our peanut butter so-called cookies. Do I think they feel like cookies?

No.

Do they look like cookies? Maybe? I'm thinking we can shake a little bit of cinnamon sugar on top. Does that look more like dessert?

I don't know. They smell like peanut butter banana oatmeal thingies. It's really pretty, actually, with the cinnamon sugar. Hm. Actually, tastes way better than it looks.

Good breakfast cookie. Maybe that's a 7.2. I feel like I'm already eating a drunk food diet right now. Don't know what's going on.

Up next, matzo ball soup. Let's get our broth started. Some celery, some onions, some carrots, some chicken bullion, some water. I'm going to be cooking the balls in the broth itself. I know some recipes call for boiling it in salted water and then plopping it into the broth.

We're just gonna go one pot for this. It's only been about five minutes and they're already bobbing up to the surface.

Woo, they're getting big. Puffy boys. The broth looks so silky.

Hm. Definitely a little bit gooier than your traditional matzo ball. I'm gonna give this like an eight out of 10 for how impromptu everything was. And I'll be back, dinner time, gnocchi. I took like a 19-minute nap, I feel pretty good and I feel a little bit hungry.

Let's make some gnocchi. I think I'm gonna boil them until they float and then I'm gonna pan sear them really fast and then we'll coat them in a spicy peanut sauce.

Does that sound good to you? Maybe some sesame seeds on top? I don't know let's wing it, let's do this.

Okay with the spicy peanut sauce this almost smells like, weird, chicken nuggets? (laughing) cheers. Whoa. These are pretty darn good. Really soft, not quite as pillowy as I would like it because we used oatmeal instead of flour.

It really really works with the crispy outside. And also with this peanut sauce.

I was really hungry when I started making this but man this is pretty good. I'm gonna give this one an 8.4.

I hate this angle. Better? Maybe I just hate myself today. I made consecutive bad decisions yesterday because I ate both trays of the tortilla chips that I had made. I feel a little bit hung over from the chips and I think I'm going to make some rice milk to start with so I can just liquid my way through breakfast and then maybe we'll make some hummus and I can finally eat my celery and eat my veggies and have some fiber in my diet and not feel like (beeping).

Saturdays are for redemption. Pretty light in flavor. It's a little bit grainy and gritty. I probably should have used raw rice grains because that's how you make like horchata and stuff, you just soak the rice a little bit and then blend it. But I had cooked all my rice.

So here we are drinking cooked rice soup. AKA cooked rice milk. AKA rice-y tasting water. It's not bad. It's still a little bit creamy at the end.

Maybe I should have put less water. I don't know, I'll live with it. I was thinking of making this weird rice cake aloo paratha thing later, so I'm going to blend up some rice so that maybe we can make a pancake out of that rice mash. Just eye-ball it. (blender whirring) We're gonna call that quits, that looks good to me.

I think we're gonna cook some potatoes next. I'm thinking we take the left over matzo ball soup, the liquid portion of it and then we peel our potatoes, chop them up, boil them so that all the flavors from the stock get infused into the potatoes and then we can mash up the potatoes.

Just goes right through, perfect. That looks pretty smooth to me. Yes.

So I have no idea what I'm doing with this recipe. I thinking rice mash flattened on the outside sandwiched with mash potato on the inside and then pan sear it. I'll just keep swishing my pan, you know? Nice. Here are our potato and rice pancakes.

Mushy, creamy potatoes on the inside, sandwiched. That's hot. That's delicious. A little bit spicy. A little crunchy crisp on the outside.

Wow, this is really good. I am so proud of myself. The rice milk this morning was definitely like a 1.5 out of 10, it was very disappointing.

But this solid 8.

5 out of 10. Happy Saturday to me. Oh we have to make hummus next. I don't have tahini. I'm probably just gonna save this for garnish on top and I'm just gonna go ahead with some chickpeas, some seasoning, I found some fish sauce in my pantry.

(blender whirring) That was definitely way too much liquid in there. Whoops. (blender whirring) (blender

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