I really loved the theme for this weeks Hive account@cookwithus challenge: Budget Meal!!!! I agree that people spend too much on convenience food and eating out. As someone who has worked in a restaurant I know first hand it's not worth it, when you can cook your own food, much fresher, cheaper and better than a lot of restaurants. Sure they make it look really fancy but with not much effort you can also have a fancy meal at home!

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I haven't had an official income since June this year, instead i've been living off my earning on Steemit. Even though I can make nice food and get some good snaps, i'm still living very frugally, so it is entirely possible to feed yourself with steemit dollar earnings!

Being smart about where you shop is crucial and that doesnt mean the budget isle in your local supermarket. Search around your local area, get outside the urbanization and see if there are any farms. I get my vegtables and some fruit from a local farm intiative, everything is unofficially organic and delicous.
You can see pictures of it in my previous post, it's so quaint!
The price is really good.... for example this massive bunch of kale you see in my food shop picture below was only 1 euro! Actually the picture of the fridge is food shopping for 2 people lasting one week. We also buy some extra bits from various local shops, fruits, dried pulses, nuts & seeds, oats, gluten free flours and occasional luxury items, oils, nut butters, stuff for baking.

Everything in the fridge cost under 20 euros: 19.66 to be precise, you can check the receipt deducting the walnuts 3.51 which were not included in the picture (because I forgot to add them!) We also got the mushroom and the salad for free, because the shop keeper/farmer called Victor is so nice! By the way I don't normally keep tomatoes in the fridge, they are just there for the photo! Actually I tend to switch the fridge off as it starts to get colder because I mainly eat fresh food and it saves on energy.

For the challenge we had to make a separate shop for our budget but because i'd already done my food shop before I saw the challenge, I did all the workings out below, so that I would stick to the budget and guess what? I was under budget!:

I also grow some of my own greens on my balcony in containers. I only planted the seeds in mid September, I sow thickly then thin out as im tight for space. I find sowing thickly does encourage them to grow but then after a certain point if I don't think thin them out quick enough they'll be starved for nutrients. I often make compost teas and keep it all totally organic of course! It was a bit over due for the mustard greens and kale to be thinned out, so timing worked perfectly for this challenge:

The lemon was picked from a tree outside the apartment building and the parsley from my herb container! All these will be used for my recipe to make this delicious lunch time meal: VEGAN KOFTAS!

Here is the full recipe above and i'm just about to put it up on my website too! The recipe is fructan free (FODMAP diet) which means no fresh onion or garlic, if you like to have these in your food, go ahead and add them in. As you can see I also used some pantry items: brown lentils, chickpeas, salt and spices.

here's some photo's of the kofta making process below.....

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The final picture is me sitting outside on my balcony, enjoying a little bit of sunshine and digging to this delicious lunch, with my partner and scrapping over the last bit of red pepper humus!

By the way the humus and the slaw were included in the budget too! I used the other half of the red pepper, the left over chickpeas, a little olive oil, apple cider vinegar & salt blitzed together and there you go, fresh and tasty!

Thanks to Hive account@curie and Hive account@sneaky-ninja for supporting the contest! Thank you to the Cook with Us team - Hive account@chefsteve, Hive account@pandamama and Hive account@offoodandart for running the comp!