£100 challenge – day one

Total spent today = £0

If you divide £100 by 31 you get £3.22, and I thought I’d be generous and put £3.50 into my little purse. I knew I probably wouldn’t need it today though.

Instead, today has been a day of receiving free food. First, the manager at work who grows chillies she can’t eat had been harvesting some more of those plus a handful of runner beans, and this afternoon I received a prize box of goodies, courtesy of a Vegan MoFo competition and Vegusto

I promised to blog about the Vegusto, but I’ve still not decided what to do with most of it. Just to get the ball rolling I made a cheese and tomato sandwich from some of the piquant flavour no-muh cheese.

it’s been a really long time since I ate dairy cheese. I’m not confident I remember what it tastes like, but this does seem to tick a lot of the same boxes. It reminded me of a cross between cheddar and something a bit harder that would have a rind on it. It’s not quite the same consistency if eaten on its own, but it was really nice in a sandwich, where all the textures blend together. What I appreciated about this was that it tastes thoroughly pleasant from start to finish, there’s no unpleasant aftertaste, which I’ve unfortunately noticed with a couple of other brands of vegan cheese sub. It also grated nicely, without leaving smears on the grater or crumbling.

Below is a picture of my total Vegusto haul. If anyone has any interesting recipe ideas please leave a comment, otherwise I’ll probably end up eating everything in sandwiches!

I was going to do a full foodstuffs inventory today, but only got as far as the fresh stuff. At present I have (all weights are estimated):

About 400g carrots
1.7 kilos of potatoes
150g mushrooms
Maybe 5 kilos apples
4 lemons
6.5 kilos onions (I gave some away!)
2 tomatoes
A few runner beans
9 red chilli peppers
Half bulb garlic
Fresh coriander going to seed in a pot
Rosemary in a pot
Mint and bay in the garden.

Tomorrow I’ll make my way through the cupboards and freezer. I suspect it’s about time I overhauled my herbs and spices anyway…