8/2/10: Bok Choy, Steamed "Eggs", Winter Melon Claypot

Much like the VegNews headquarters, I'm lucky to work at a place where it's tradition to have a freshly prepared vegan lunch since the management at the company are vegan. One of our colleagues does the cooking on most days (he's the only one that can cook, really), though lately I've been trying to contribute a dish or two when I have time to prepare it at home the night before. And of course whoever doesn't cook take turns with the dish-washing duties. :-)

What was on the menu today?

Bok Choy quickly blanched to retained crunchiness mixed with a light sauce.

Winter Melon Claypot with bean thread and shiitake mushroom.

Vegan Chinese Steamed "Egg" using silken tofu from ChowVegan's recipe. I doubled the recipe to feed 4, and left out the tempeh/mushroom part. J topped it with soy sauce, sesame oil, green onion, cilantro, and black pepper. This recipe is a keeper!

All of the above is served with white rice (colleagues have difficulty consuming brown rice on a daily basis!).

Since there were only three of us eating today, we had some leftovers for tomorrow's lunch!

VeganHope had an excellent post today about food and poverty entitled "21 dollar week challenge" which is the amount you have to spend on a food stamp budget. While I won't be going up for the challenge, it did make me wonder just how much we spend on food, so I'll also include a breakdown of the cost of the main ingredients in our meals, much like EverydayVegan does.

So for today's lunch for 3 people:
bok choy, $0.68
winter melon, $1.79
organic silken tofu (2 boxes), $3.38
cilantro, $0.49
green onion, $0.39
white rice (3 cups), $0.56
Total: $7.29 or $2.43/person

For the white rice, my calculation was:
1 50-lb bag of rice = $30
1 cup of uncooked rice = 5 oz
50 lb = 800 oz = 160 cups of rice = $0.1875/cup of rice

Wow, even I didn't realize how much we save by eating in! Of course it would not be possible if we didn't have J to cook all the time. :-) Thanks, J!