A year ago, the Minister of Employment, Labor and Migration of the Saratov Region, Natalya Sokolova, publicly announced that a person can live on 3,500 thousand rubles a month.
Quote: On "macaroshkas", "our fresh vegetables and fruits" and kefir.
We decided to check if this is really so. Is it possible to live on 110-130 rubles a day? And we prepared a menu option for the day.
We climbed a little beyond the norm in 3500, but the recipes seemed to be edible.
We tried to make the recipes close to a normal balanced diet.
The menu consists of 3 meals:
- Breakfast - Oatmeal with raisins and cinnamon (Portion ~ 20 rubles)
- Lunch - Chicken soup with vegetables and beans (Portion ~ 50 rubles)
- Dinner - Vegetable puree with grilled sausage and green peas (Portion ~ 60 rubles)
Breakfast: oatmeal with raisins and cinnamon
The cost of one serving of oatmeal is about 20 rubles, so you can afford a handful of raisins for sweetness and a pinch of cinnamon for flavor. In addition to being economical, breakfast with oatmeal has another plus: it is very healthy and satisfying, because it is not for nothing that the British have respected oatmeal so much since ancient times.
Ingredients:
- Water - 120 ml (+ a little for raisins)
- Milk - 120 ml
- Oatmeal flakes - 40 g
- Sugar - 1 tablespoon
- Salt - 1 pinch
- Cinnamon - 1 pinch
- Raisins - 1 tbsp.
Step by step recipe:
- Pour water and milk into a saucepan, put it on medium heat, bring to a boil and add sugar and salt.
- Pour in the oatmeal, stir and bring the future porridge to a boil again. Reduce heat to low, cover saucepan and cook oatmeal, stirring occasionally, until thickened. Depending on the type of oatmeal, cooking may take 5-15 minutes (the cooking time is indicated on the package).
- Then remove the saucepan from the heat and let the porridge stand under a tightly closed lid for another 5 minutes.
- While the porridge is boiling and infusing, pour the raisins with hot water and leave to soften for 5-10 minutes. Add raisins / cinnamon / dried apricots to taste. The porridge is ready!
Lunch: Chicken soup with vegetables and beans
To make homemade and inexpensive soup, you don't need to buy bagged soup or bouillon cubes with lots of flavor enhancers. Buy chicken breasts, remove fillets from them for dinner, and cook broth from the bones, which will become the basis of the soup. Thoroughly removing the fillet from the bones is unlikely to work, so the soup will be with meat.
The cost of one serving is about 50 rubles. Of course, there is no point in boiling one serving of soup. This amount of ingredients will make a large pot of soup for a family of 4.
Ingredients:
- Chicken bones - 300 g.
- Water - 2, 6 liters.
- Carrots - 2 pcs.
- Bulb onions - 2 pcs.
- Vegetable oil - 2 tbsp.
- Potatoes - 300 g.
- Beans in tomato (canned) - 1 can
- Salt to taste
- Black pepper (ground) - to taste
- Parsley - 3 sprigs
Step by step recipe:
- Place the bones from the chicken breasts in a large saucepan, cover with cold water and bring to a boil.
- Peel and coarsely chop the onion and carrot (1 each). Cut off the stems from the parsley sprigs, setting aside the herbs to serve the finished soup.
- As soon as the broth boils, remove the foam and add prepared onions, carrots and parsley stalks to it, add 1 tsp. salt. Bring everything to a boil again, reduce heat, cover the pan (loosely) and cook the broth at a low boil for 1-1.5 hours.
- Strain the finished broth and keep warm.
- Heat vegetable oil in a saucepan of suitable size. Peel the onion and carrots and chop finely. Carrots can be grated on a coarse grater. Place vegetables in a saucepan and sauté for 3-5 minutes until the onion is transparent over medium heat, stirring occasionally.
- Peel the potatoes, cut into small cubes and add to a saucepan, stir and fry for 1-2 minutes with the rest of the vegetables. This will make the soup taste more intense.
- Pour the hot broth over the vegetables, bring the soup to a boil, reduce the heat, and simmer, covered, for about 30 minutes, or until the vegetables are fully cooked.
- In the meantime, remove the meat from the bones and chop it a little with a knife or tear it with your hands.
- 5 minutes before the soup is ready, add the canned beans (along with the tomato sauce) and the prepared meat. Season the soup to taste with salt and black pepper.
- Chop the parsley finely. Turn off the gas and add half of the herbs to the soup, cover the pan with a lid and let the dish steep for a while (15-20 minutes).
- Serve the soup hot by serving into portioned bowls and garnish with the remaining parsley.
Dinner: Vegetable puree with grilled sausage and green peas
Mashed potatoes are a delicate and satisfying side dish, and also very inexpensive.
Private chef Neil Anthony considers mashed potatoes to be a delicacy that should be served in minimal quantities with a meat dish. Of course, you can take mashed potatoes to the next level by adding heavy cream and truffle oil to it, but today we are not talking about that.
Prepare the vegetable puree by adding inexpensive but healthy carrots to the potatoes during cooking, and a pinch of chopped green onions into the finished dish. The puree will not only taste more interesting, but also look very presentable. And at the cost of one such dinner, a portion will turn out to be about 60 rubles.
Ingredients:
- Potatoes - 3 pcs.
- Carrots - 1 pc.
- Milk - 35 ml
- Butter - 1 tsp
- Green onion (feather) - 1 pc.
- Boiled sausage - 2 slices
- Vegetable oil - ½ tsp.
- Green peas (canned) - 2 tbsp.
- Salt to taste
- Black pepper (ground) - to taste
Step by step recipe:
- Peel potatoes and carrots, chop randomly, place in a saucepan and pour in a little water to cover the vegetables. Put the saucepan on fire, bring the contents to a boil, add salt to the water. Then reduce heat, cover the pot and simmer the vegetables on a low simmer until tender (about 20 minutes).
- Drain the water, and wipe the vegetables through a sieve or mash with a potato grinder, add butter and stir to melt the butter from the heat of the vegetables.
- Add milk and finely chopped green onions, stir. Cover the pot with a lid and keep the puree warm until serving.
- Fry 2 slices of cooked sausage in a preheated skillet with a little vegetable oil.
- Serve warm with grilled sausage and green peas.
As you can see, everything is real. If you buy the right products and approach cooking wisely, then 3500 a month can be lived by one person. It is very difficult, but possible.
What do you think? At 3500 you can live and eat normally? or is it just our fantasies?