The Arts Council Is Taking My Writing Seriously

Finally! I'm really glad to say that someone at Tightrope Books recommended my writing for an Ontario Arts Council Writers' Reserve Grant. Cool! It's wonderful that someone in the "business" likes my writing and is taking it seriously. This really feels great.

A Request to my Readers

I'm wondering if I can ask my readers for a bit of a favour in the form of some inexpensive, but filling recipe contributions. I've noticed that I have readers in India, the UK, Ukraine, Russia, and primarily Canada. It would be great to get some authentic international cuisine happening here. Here's the criteria for the recipes. They have to be inexpensive, feed at least two people, have some protein, vegetables, carbs - you know, the things that are good for you. Why this criteria? The reason I started posting here in the first place, was that there are other people out there in my situation: financially strapped (poor), have limited cooking resources/utensils (my kitchen is tiny and I have 2 pots, one chef's knife, and assorted cutlery to cook with). So the easier the recipe is to make, and the fewer pots/utensils it uses in preparation the better. Gimme a hand here and let's see what we can do.

Man-oh-man

The process to getting provincial funding so I can continue my work is nuts: 27 applications, filled out in triplicate. Robbing a bank would probably be easier, not to mention faster. I sent one app off yesterday, and have the rest to do over the next few days. That's why there are no recipes posted, My apologies. Anyway the stuff I've been feeding myself is really uninspiring. It consists of prepackaged macaroni and cheese mix with some hot dogs thrown in. That's what I've had for the past four days. Yes it's inexpensive, but man is it ever boring.

Feed Four for Five Bucks

The cupboard wasn't exactly bare, but there were a couple of boxes of generic macaroni and cheese things hiding at the back. So I thought "Why not? Let's see what I can do with these." This particular recipe will feed four easily for about $5.00 I'll be posting it shortly.

A Meal for Four - Total Cost $7.79... Not Bad

I made something for dinner last night that I thought I'd only make under threat of torture. Hamburger Helper! But the thing is that it turned out not too bad, and Bug liked it. I have one suggestion though. They don't give you enough pasta in that crappy cardboard box to feed more than one person. I recommend that you put their pasta in some storage jar or other and keep it for adding to a salad or something. I ended up taking 2.5 cups of Rigatoni, cooking them as per package directions, and adding them to the Hamburger Helper sauce mixture once it had thickened. The other thing I did was add about 1.5 cups of chopped up broccoli florets and stems, along with the same amount of grape tomatoes (they were on sale). I added the vegetables right after I combined all the ingredients for the sauce mix and added it to the browned meat. So the vegetables cooked as the sauce was doing its thing. It didn't come across as a prepackaged dinner at all. Best of all? It cost me $7.79 to feed four. You do the math. That's pretty darn inexpensive.