Life should be good.
When you have to live on a limited income you end up making hard choices. Even with help from the government you must sometimes choose to sacrifice buying food so that you can buy medicine, or vice versa.
Living day-to-day it is hard to remember all of the hints and tricks that our parents used to get by in hard times. I don’t remember all of them myself, but I remember some and maybe if we all work together we can make our lives brighter and easier.
My father was fond of quoting an old saying, “Waste not … want not, for you shall live to say, I wish I had that crust of bread that once I threw away.” It was he who inspired the name of this blog by singing a song that I later heard done by Josh White called “One Meatball” about shaming those who are struggling to get by.
Our Mission
This blog provides ideas for people who use food banks or otherwise have limited resource to try to keep their meals interesting and diverse. Some of these recipes and suggestions may seem silly or simple. You may have known and used many of them for years, others may not seem important to you, but I hope that you will find some useful information in this projects. Please remember when you think to yourself “but EVERYONE knows this” that not everyone does.
I have a certain way that I write recipes that will take you step-by-step through the process. I hate it when some vital step is hidden in the middle of a paragraph and you have to reread the entire thing to find out why things went wrong. If I suggest a side or companion dish, I’ll do it before the recipe so that you’ll be able to plan accordingly.
I’d like to acknowledge the help and patience of the staff and volunteers at ACORD Food Pantry, my local food bank, who cheerfully listen to my recipe ideas and build up my ego by asking me to identify unconventional foods and odd vegetables. Most of the recipes here are at least partially based on the foods available on their shelves.
Contact Us
If you have suggestions, questions, complaints, praise, or whatever, please put it in a comment on the blog and I will respond there.
One Meatball 