I don't go movies often, and nowadays less and less. A cheap movie ticket (monday nights) is now over 10€, and standard is 15€. Fifteen euros. When we get gift cards for movies, I usually give them to my offspring, I can watch any film later from the telly.
But, this time sys was SO hyped about this film, he wanted the book as a christmas gift and wanted to see the film as soon as possible. He's usually not so enthusiastic on anything, so I went along - after all, it is a scifi movie. I don't remember when was the last time I've enjoyed a movie so much. If you haven't seen Project Hail Mary, go and give it a chance. There wasn't a single moment I would've grimaced and thought no, no that is not how it is... Yes, I read the book right afterwards in four days (four nights) and I loved the book too. They are different, yes, because one is a book and another is a movie, things that work in a book don't work as well in a movie.
And yes, I lost a tooth, it's healing nicely. Ys hurt his pinky toe yesterday and we ended up in hospital emergency room. Yes, because of hurt pinky toe! He got is glued back one piece.
So life hasn't gone as planned.
It's the first of May, and these two days (yesterday and today) are big celebrations here - yesterday was also 80th birthday of the king of Sweden, Carl XVI Gustaf, the longest-reigning monarch In Sweden. So there has been all kinds of things going on.
It seems I'm running out of money even faster space than usually, I had to fill up gas in my car (2,19€/l) and yesterday the handle of our sauna stove broke! I looked for a replacement, 135€!!! Ok, that stove is 46 years old so no wonder something gets broken. We will fix it basically for free, but that fix will NOT last for another 46 years!
But this takes us to the thing mentioned in the title of this post. Struggle meal, poor man's meals, what ever you call them. I saw some videos on youtube, and oh bugger! the meals I usually cook are mostly considered as struggle meals or something like that, meals that are cheap and made only when you are desperate, when you really have to stretch your pennies. Am I so out of touch to reality of most people? Things normal to me are considered as cheap/poor/struggle...
I cook most foods from scratch. I buy chicken nuggets and fish fingers and sausages/hot dogs, I don't make those by myself, and I don't make pasta myself, I buy spaghetti and macaroni and even lasagne sheets. I buy cheap meats, we don't eat steaks (or beef) because they are not worth the money. I use a lot of root vegetables, cabbage, potatoes. I forage as much I can (now it is too early to forage stinging nettle, we don't have wild garlic here - and it is not garlic, it is related to onions and I can't eat or touch it anyway, but we do have ground elder which I can use in things like soup or pancake batter). I try to grow as much as I can, I forage mushrooms and berries so much they actually save us significant amount of money every year.
Today we will be eating pork, I haven't decided yet how I will cook it. Yesterday I made donuts. I used flour, butter, eggs, yeast, milk (could've used water) and salt, and for frying ancient coconut fat I had bought for pennies. All things I had already at home, I calculated that the price of a single donut was about 6 eurocents, the price of the whole set of 48 was 2.70€ (price of the coconut oil included). I took some to my sister, and no-one complained they were "cheap", they were very happy!
