Homemade Mango Frozen Yoghurt for under $2 – Hunger Challenge Day 3

End of Day 3 and successfully completed one more day of the Hunger Challenge with our total coming to just $6.79 ( $24.82 for the three days!!). Even though it was not a sunny day today it was a good day for me, especially with the migraine gone I am proud of myself and AJ to have gone by three days of this hunger challenge overcoming all our cravings. But doing this challenge has gotten me thinking a lot and I have learnt to appreciate good food at a totally different level altogether. I was thinking, since I am doing this for only one week, I am able to come up with simple, basic and healthy recipes and stick to it as well. Will I be able to do it if i had to do it for, God knows, how long ?? I may still stick to the budget because I have no other choice, but will I be able to make good, healthy, well-balanced food with a variety , for my family for ever??!! Again, I maybe, but I owe it a lot to many things in my day-to-day life which i necessarily don’t consider a luxury – my laptop, the internet connection, car and more important time. I can always look up for the specials in the grocery store online and look up for recipes with those ingredients, online too or worst, I can always go to the library and spend some time browsing through the magazines or better borrow a book and head back home. But someone who is trying to do more than one job a day to keep the family afloat – will they have the time and money to all this? or will they even have an inclination towards putting in this much effort. An easier option will definitely be to buy something that can be microwaved or worse, junk food – not being judgmental here.

I don’t even know whether this is a feasible plan at all – for I don’t know how food banks work ( maybe i should volunteer one of these days to understand better) – someone, anyone working with the food bank or someone at the UWKC ( I dont know which will be the appropriate body to do this) can maybe make a small booklet, nothing fancy, just a simple printout of some healthy well-balanced and more importantly easy to make recipes, maybe with the ingredients regularly available at food banks and distribute them to people who visit there. Not all of them who take this will actually use this, but im sure there is some percentage of people out there, if given the resources will use them for good for their family. Its just some random thought that came to my mind. Yeah, I know , its a lot easier to say and write about things than actually implementing them. But hey, i think its a good idea!!

Anyway, now that Day 3 is over, not only did we manage to stick to our budget, we even managed to make a little treat for ourselves. I had a mango that was almost getting bad and i thought i should definitely not throw it away. Throwing away something is not what I will be doing if i were living on a budget. I had some yoghurt in the refrigerator as well. So i just used less than one cup of yoghurt along with the one mango and 3 tbsp sugar to make a frozen mango yoghurt.

Frozen Mango Yoghurt

Chop the mango into small pieces and keep aside. Beat the yoghurt well with a hand mixer and mix in half the mangoes and sugar and beat well again. Keep in the freezer for about half an hour or so and take it out, beat well and freeze again. Just before you serve, take it out again. If it is too frozen beat it a little, or else, just mix in the remaining mango pieces and serve!!! There you go, your mango frozen yoghurt for two people is ready for just $1.69.

Other than that here is what we had for the day:

Breakfast : Toast and egg for me, cereal and milk for AJ, coffee for me and Orange juice for him : $1.26

Lunch : Leftover from yesterday’s dinner : $2.10

Evening Coffee : $0.20

Dinner : Rice, Lentil curry, Potato and Peas stir fry : $1.58 (wow, that’s a pretty cheap dinner for the two of us!!)

Dessert : Mango Frozen Yoghurt : $1.65

And, here is the breakup of prices :

Again, dont forget the other bloggers : 1 Family Friendly Food, All you can eat, Big City Hippie, Cook and Eat, Eat All about It, Eric Rivera’s Cooking Blog, Favorite Freezer Foods, Fishes + Loaves, Food Dynamics, Foodista, Julie Jams, Live To Eat, Musings on the Path to Frugality, NOMalicious, Savory Sweet Life, Seattle MetBlogs, Self Rising Flour, The Curious Domestic, The Gastro Gnome, What’s for Dinner

Also visit http://uwkc.wordpress.com/ for daily highlights and more!!!

Update: Check out my recipe featured in the UWKC blog for the Hunger Challenge Recipe of the Day!!