nu fu:d plæn

The month of austerity rolls on. Let me confess right now that I haven't been entirely faithful to the plan, but despite my having bought a little something here or there, and despite my having used transportation here or there, I've easily cut my monthly expenses by over 90%. One welcome side effect is that I produce so much less trash. I'm used to taking my bags of recyclable and regular garbage down to our building's B1-level drop-off area at least once a week. The thing that piles up fastest is plastic containers—soda bottles, plastic meal boxes, and the like. When you stop drinking soda and buying meals in plastic boxes, this cuts your trash volume way, way down.

I've also lost a bit of weight. Not much, just a couple kilos, but it's a direct result of portion control—I cooked a huge volume of food and divided it all up—and a general lack of sodas (well... with a couple naughty exceptions). A better diet, combined with more routine walking, has proven to be a good, healthy combination of behaviors.

Lastly, I am indeed saving money. I'm still aiming to pay off all my major debt by December, and if I stick to the current austerity for the rest of the year (with minor peccadilloes taken into consideration), I think this is possible.

So the next step is to realize that, once a month (or more precisely, once every pay period), I need to do a major cook and stuff my freezer for the coming thirty-ish days of austerity. That means meal planning. I have to do some noodling as to what I'll be eating during the pay period running from May 16 to June 15 (my buddy Mike's birthday—the Big Five-Oh this year!), and I've already got some ideas.

First is the notion of keeping what I like. My shabu-beef-and-chimichurri meal didn't come off that well; I think the beef fat aged too far in the fridge, which made the beef smell weirdly unpleasant when I microwaved it for lunch. So: no shabu beef next fiscal month. The tuna-and-egg-salad also wasn't all that glorious, so I'll avoid doing that next month as well. My egg-sausage-oatmeal Amurrican breffus combo has been a bit hit-or-miss, but I'm going to try it again next month, replacing oatmeal with good ol' pancakes. Pancakes freeze well and are easy to tuck into tight corners in the freezer. I'm thoroughly enjoying my chicken-and-shrimp-curry meal, but I wonder whether I'll do it again right away. I'm really enjoying my spaghetti bolognese, though, so that's definitely being carried over to next month. The beef burritos have been so-so, although I like the burrito/quesadilla concept. Part of the problem has been the quality of the ground beef, which contains a lot of gristle. I hate chewing on gristle; it immediately engages my gag reflex. So beef burritos might morph into chipotle chicken quesadillas or something; we'll see. I could also use super-large tortillas to make faux calzones or stromboli with pepperoni, mozzarella, shrooms, and green bell peppers.

Second is the notion of adding some new stuff to the list. I might switch out the budae-jjigae for something a bit more classic and pedestrian, like a tomato soup that can go with sandwiches. The sandwiches themselves might be an issue, though, because bread needs to be frozen, and it takes up a ton of room in the freezer. The freezer is everything: I can't store anything in my fridge for a month without risking rot, which is why I'm not talking about buying a month's supply of fresh vegetables: they'd all be dead in two weeks unless I were to pickle them (which I might). This means I have to depend on my freezer, which is significantly smaller than my fridge (and I don't have the floor space to buy a top-loading meat freezer), to store pretty much everything I'm eating for a month.

However, another solution to the bread problem is just to make my own bread. I can buy the necessary ingredients at the beginning of the month, then use them as needed to make fresh bread during my austerity. YouTuber Maangchi has an easy recipe for what she calls roll-bbang (롤빵, i.e., roll bread) that can be used for various purposes. Her bread might go very well with tomato soup.

A tentative meal plan for next month might look like this:

1. spaghetti bolognese
2. eggs-sausage-pancake (bacon?) Amurrican breffus
3. chipotle chicken quesadillas
4. calzone/stromboli (possibly with tortillas, possibly with homemade dough)
5. tomato soup + sandwiches (possibly with homemade bread)
6. ddeok mandu-guk
7. ddeokbokgi with quail eggs, kimchi, and odaeng
Extra: quick-pickled cucumbers.

I'll let you know if I get new ideas and switch things around. I'm also contemplating chili dogs and other comfort food along those lines. Come to think of it, I'll be rethinking other things as well, such as drinks and necessary supplies. I ran out of tissue in my office; luckily, I had an extra box at home, so I took that to the office. But for next month, I'll need to take careful stock of what I need to survive a month without having to make emergency purchases. Tissue, toilet paper, shampoo, mouthwash—these are things that can easily run out. I also don't like being soda-free all month (which is why I broke down a couple times and bought myself a Pepsi or two); I think the most economical solution to that problem is to buy No Brand soda cans, which the No Brand store sells in bulk. Each can of No Brand soda has half the sugar of Coke. That's still a lot of sugar, but I don't mind the taste, and the cola doesn't weigh as heavily on my conscience. I also want to factor in snacks, such as the gelatine fruit cups that I'm semi-addicted to—especially those mandarin-orange cups. Anyway, much to think about.