The fattening
Today was grocery shopping day, which thanks to my travels, fell a day closer to the end of the $40 cycle than it normally does---Tuesday instead of Monday. A nice break.
I spent all $40 at Aldi. My total was $40.15 because I also bought a reusable bag, which... isn't food. Everything was so heavy. It wasn't fun to carry on the subway but it sure was comforting to think of how much food it represented.
This is my first time since starting the budget that I've splurged on two gallons of milk. It feels incredibly luxurious. Cheese is also a first, as are EGGS! I haven't bought eggs in weeks, but it's time to reverse my unintentional 20lbs decline, and I'm going to have to sacrifice some... sage. I would have bought some sage because a friend told me sage and browned butter is really really good, and I love browned butter, so I wanted to try, but, I need calories (and fat! and protein!), not just seasonings. And I was right at the margin.
I had a loaf of bread in the cart that I subbed out for a bag of flour afterwards. This is a bit of a wild card. I've always been intrigued at what non-bread ways there are of eating flour. Porridges? Stovetop flatbread? Drop biscuits? I have never made any of those things, but I'll have to try, now! There are always pancakes, too. The 5lbs bag is the same price as the loaf of bread I was going to get, and much heavier, so the difference is mostly air, and I figure, I can always use the air I have at home. Thinking about cooking flour on the stovetop made me get some baking soda, because, like, I made pancakes before and they had baking X___ in them. I couldn't remember the different between baking soda and powder. Now that I am looking it up, I see that baking powder is a self-contained leavener, while baking soda needs an acid present in order to work. That's a really nifty thing to know. So if I want any rise out of my flour (like pancakes), I'll have maybe put some vinegar in there as well, alongside the baking soda. Or something like that?
Unusually, I was desperately groggy several times today. Usually it happens once in the afternoon, I pull through it, and then am good to go. Today has just been down and up multiple times. So I wasn't in the mood to really go to town with dinner. I made 1/4 of rice (the last of my sushi rice) and my last spicy Italian sausage, with some nice cooked onions. The rice cooked really funny in such a low quantity, but otherwise it was all passably satisfying, and very fast.
I was so tired that I considered just skipping dinner and going to bed, but it was still 4:30pm, and I knew that not eating would make the cycle of starvation-induced grogginess even worse. So I forced myself to make SOMEthing. And of course I'm glad I did.