Less than 3 weeks to Christmas which means we are coming to the year end of 2021. Getting rid of yet another miserable year, though it has becoming better but suddenly a new variant emerged. Haiz.
Anyways, to usher 2022, decided to do a good clean up of our kitchen of impulsive buys like condiments, frozen food and many more as we need a little more space for Lunar New Year. Shall cook them all for every meal.
Many years ago, I watched a show called Extreme Couponing and am so impressed by how these people saved money through couponing. Erm... that's in America. In Singapore, there isn't really such culture, maybe discount coupons but simply not like theirs. I don't know how true was that but wanted to be like them saving lotsa money. Since there is Extreme Couponing show already, I do a Extreme Thrifting in the form of a blog post for 7 days straight.
Condition of this Extreme Thrifting:
- Clean the fridge by using whatever is available to prepare every meal;
- Force the creative cooking mind outta me;
- Prevent food wastage;
- Reduce spending on grocery or impulsive buying;
- Live like a pauper;
- Or just pure stingy maybe.
Wanna make this post more realistic and meaningful in promoting food wastage reduction and also teaching ourselves to good meal planning. Plan properly and you won't buy and waste food. And let's see what the good or weird meals we gonna have for these 7 days.
DAY 1 BREAKFAST
Mister doesn't like bread crust so I have to cut them out to make his breakfast (sandwich with 2 hams and 1 egg). Instead of throwing away, I have it along with a sunny side-up and a tea for my breakfast. Accumulated from a few slices of bread over the weekend to get this much. Although I shouldn't touch on bread when on Keto diet, I just have to go for a run to lessen the guilt later.
DAY 1 LUNCH
From the luxury of having a big bowl of salad, I reduce it to a small bowl, enough to feed myself. Added some nuts and drizzled with my favourite sesame sauce. Plus some fruits to make it more nutritious. Keto diet on point at least, after a short run during 1 hour lunch break.
DAY 1 DINNER
Our dinner on the 1st night of Extreme Thrifting. Fried Luncheon Meat, Omelette and Stir-Fry Mushrooms. Plus leftover soup from the previous day. Phew... easy peasy. Must cook something to arouse his appetite.
Left 4 pcs in the fridge so fried them all instead of airfry. Why? Because Mister said we put in the fridge for quite awhile and it might have some sort of funky smell (not spoilt okay?). Fine.
He saw it on FB and got me to cook this Omelette with Chilli Padi and Scallions, season with Fish Sauce and Oyster Sauce. I liked my Happy Call Pan because I can flip without spoiling the entire looks.
So this was a mix of black fungus, oyster mushrooms and tau kwa. Season with oyster sauce only and some minced garlic for its fragrance. Airfry the tau kwa separately at 150°C for 20 mins.
✅ Got passed the 1st day. Just a $10.40 for my weekly Vitagen delivery. That will last us many week (2 pax drinking). Sometimes if I remember, I will bring over to my parents. And my tea time snack be like Dark Choc Milk and 1 Ferrero Rocher.
DAY 2 BREAKFAST
Each of us had a slice of bread with Taiwan peanut spread. This spread is really good because is not too sweet. As usual I will go with tea and him, milo and banana. Added my intake of almonds and also the bread crust from him.
DAY 2 LUNCH
Guilty. Totally out of my Keto Diet principle. But I have to because for my readers. Doing reviews and much needed to taste it on my own and not always from Mister. But fruits intake makes it less guilt. Okay fine. I shall go for a run after work.
DAY 2 DINNER
It's been long since I had Campbell soup and so decided to have it for dinner. Not caring any Keto diet so long as I can have different kinds of food on the table for Mister because he gets bored after 1 time with certain food.
Don't really recommend this because Mister doesn't like it and black face thru out. Said it doesn't goes well with rice and when rice and the mock meat meet, the taste was sour. To me it was normal, not that terrible probably because I ate with no carbs. I even added my last tomato and some garden peas to it. In the end, I finished all up. I think the saving grace for him will be the soup and fried popiah.
✅ Another day of zero spending. Had nothing during tea-time, maybe just some 无花果.
DAY 3 BREAKFAST
Asked him what he wanted for breakfast and the answer: a slice of Garlic Bread. Great. Time to clear the Garlic Butter too. Each of us a slice will do. Now we have variation of bread. Not that boring after all. I can bake my own bread too. Shall see where to do it again.
DAY 3 LUNCH
No more tomatoes but I still have tau kwa and also 2 hardboiled eggs. Wanna make a Keto lunch to make me less guilty plus protein packed lunch.
DAY 3 DINNER
Frying fish and cuttlefish chips which have been in the freezer standing in the way, 2 sunny side-ups (for him) and fry noodles using Taiwan Steam Cook Noodles. Mister later sent me a video on Fried Noodles and I remember there are carrots in the fridge so immediately brought out and julienne 1 of 2 carrots. Phew...
I used 2 packs of noodles (65g each) to yield this much. The seasoning will be 2 tbsp oyster sauce, 2 tbsp soy sauce, 1 tbsp sesame oil, salt and pepper, then mix well.
Setting up like the 经济米粉 economical beehoon stall style. Hopefully he can eat well. Hahaha... after a 'bad dinner' previous night.
✅ Another day of satisfaction. Zero Spending!!! More stuff in the kitchen cleared. I'm so happy on lesser food wastage and more money saved.
DAY 4 BREAKFAST
Making him ham egg sandwich again. Repeat mode. And I'm having ham and egg with bread crust as usual. Guilty of having noodles the previous night.
DAY 4 DINNER
Gonna clear that frozen Batang fillet in the freezer instead of wasting it. Season with salt, pepper and tiny bits of turmeric then fry it. Then do a baked beans with luncheon meats (fry the latter first before pouring in the beans) and fry the last 3 popiahs. That's it.
The baked beans with luncheon meat was a childhood dish. I can remember this version but was told by my cousin her version with minced meat and Mister's version with hotdogs. So nostalgic.
✅ Quite persistent in what I wanna do. Another zero spending day. And I skipped my lunch with just a dark chocolate milk (finally finished a carton). Then towards the evening, I got hungry so have my fruits and almonds. Healthy and Keto friendly too.
DAY 5 LUNCH
Discovered the last, miserable slice of instant prata in the freezer for lunch, doing a Taiwan 蛋饼with an egg on top. Oh I miss Taiwan so much. And wrapped it with leftover baked beans from last dinner.
DAY 5 DINNER
Mister felt miserable already when I said whatever we have in the kitchen shall go into his fried rice. Basically left with miserable piece of homemade char siew, last few frozen prawns (finished them up), eggs, carrot saved from almost rotten condition (a little only) and green peas. The seasoning: pepper, salt, MSG, Hao Chi All-in-One seasoning.
✅ Shall skip talking about breakfast because repeat mode: Garlic bread for us as it was the last 2 slices. Yeah! 2 more days of thrifting. My happiness in clearing the food at home is built on his misery. Hahaha... save the earth!!!
DAY 6 LUNCH
Mine salad. Finishing up the last bits of greens with tau kwa and almonds. And my Keto muffins that I baked. Putting Ferrero Rocher to good use by adding into the muffins.
Cooking Fried Beehoon with almost rotten but saved in time carrot. Another 经济米粉 economical beehoon stall set up with last few pieces of cuttlefish chips. How about topping with omelette cut into strips when the beehoon is done? Yes I will.
✅ Tonight's dinner skipped. Because he didn't finished all beehoon so he had the leftovers.
DAY 7 BRUNCH
Cooked porridge to go with silverfish. Wanted a setup of Teochew Porridge stall but he wanted noodles to go with so I used those not so nice instant noodles and do fried noodles. Like Hong Kong style of eating ya. A mouthful of porridge, a mouthful of noodles. 👍👍👍 The noodles and silverfish provide the perfect complement to the porridge.
Sometimes we tend to try different instant noodles and when it doesn't meet our expectation, we tend to leave it in the cabinet. For us, we will use it to fry noodles instead. No waste and you can enjoy it in another way instead of its usual.
DAY 7 DINNER
Fly us to Japan. He having Ichiran Ramen with 2 eggs. Put the rice into the broth and have it right after the ramen is done. Doing it the Pao Fan 泡饭 style. Nicest Ramen ever but we left with 1 pack. Never mind. Shall buy again when we crave.
✅ Spring onions price go up so high, please fully make use of it for your cooking. I usually can get at $1.15 at supermarkets and now $1.65. I cannot accept. Yes I understand from different countries but why so EXPENSIVE??? Maybe is best to go traditional markets to buy. If it is the same, I resign to fate.
I couldn't believe I actually did it and get to clear lotsa stuff in the fridge. Lesser impulsive buys means lesser food wastage and more savings. 👍👍👍 So you peeps out there, plan your meals properly and buy only what you need and not leaving it to expire. Help reduce food wastage and you get to save money too. Cheers.