Live Below The Line day 1 -"Welcome to the third world"

I have now survived the first day of Live Below The Line 2015!

I woke up to a storm that had wiped out our power. We had no running water and no way of heating food.  "Welcome to the third world" I thought. Most people living in extreme poverty don't have electricity. (They'd have to pay the bill from $2.25 per day). Just as I was contemplating the value of cooked food, the power came back on.

Today, I had two meals, and the total food cost for the day was $2.10. I did publish a meal plan last week, but I've had to change that around when I realised that I won't have time to cook tomorrow afternoon since I'm (If weather is better) going to my little sister's birthday party.

For breakfast, I  made my bowl of spicy idian style porridge -vegetable "daliya", except with less vegetables than I'd like. It was okay, which is good because I'm going to have this for breakfast every day. ...I might change which spices I add each day to make it more interesting.

Meal 1 -Daliya -Indian style spicy porridge Aprox meal cost; $0.60

This is sometimes eaten as a healthy breakfast in India. It could also be a dinner. I don't know what my Indian sponsored children eat for breakfast, or if they even have breakfast, but I chose it for it's fibre content, it's cheapness, and the feel of being like a 'real meal' rather than being a simple breakfast.

50g (1/3 cup) kibbled wheat, or rye.
1 tomato from tin
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
teaspoon oil
Sliver of onion, chopped
1 Clove Garlic
1/5 carrot
1/5 of a chilli

Boil the kibbled wheat until it's cooked, you can do this the night before if you like, it takes about 10 minutes. In a seperate pan, toast the cumin seeds, add onion and garlic. Pour in the kibbled wheat, then add chopped carrot and chilli.

Inspired by the more authentic recipe at http://www.vegrecipesofindia.com/vegetable-dalia/

Meal 2- Babenda -dish from Burkina Faso.Total cost; 1.50

According to what I read in a diet book, the taste of strong things like mushroom, and strong cheeses is very satisfying because it is similar to the taste of meat. ...Or something like that. If that's true, the people in Burkina Faso have it going on with Babenda. It's apparently one of the staples, so I bet Nouridine eats it.
I substituted their traditional fermented beans with miso paste, and dried fish with tinned fish.
This made a really filling dinner, and I have about 1/2 a cup of Babenda left over!

1/4 cup peanuts -$0.22
A large handful of silverbeat -$0.03 (Cost to grow)
1/2 Tin of Sardines - $0.64 (Saved the other two sardines for a snack later)
1 1/2 Tablespoons of miso paste -$0.42
1/2 cup rice -$0.20

Grind the peanuts and mix well with the sardines and miso paste. Add the raw rice, and grind it a little to break up the grains. Put it in a pot with the silverbeat and 1.5 cups water. Cover with a lid and simmer for 10-15 minutes. Stir in the silverbeat. Lid off, simmer until the rice is cooked, (About 15 minutes) then cover and let it sit and soak up all the water.

Inspired by the more authentic recipe at http://globaltableadventure.com/recipe/babenda/