Welcome Back To My Space!
Hello, and welcome! It is always good to see you here reading and engaging with
my posts, and I want you to know that I
appreciate every moment you spend
here. Thank you.
In this post, I bring you another report
from my Frugal Meal Preparation
experiment. I must say that this report is
long overdue, as the project was carried
out a few days after the one I wrote
about in this post.
I had received received 12.5 HBD from 
Fried Rice On A Budget
For This second experiment, I chose to prepare a dish of fried rice. The ingredients used and their prices are shown below.
Ingredients/Price List
- Rice 10 cups @ 3300 NGN
- Vegetable oil 750mls @ 1500 NGN
- Carrots @ 1000 NGN
- Green Peas @ 500 NGN
- Green Beans @ 500 NGN
- Green bell pepper @ 500 NGN
- Spring Onions @ 200 NGN
- Red Onions @ 200 NGN
- Garlic @ 100 NGN
- Scotch bonnet (Habanero) @ 200 NGN
- Dried prawns @ 500 NGN
- Stock cubes @ 150 NGN
- Curry powder and dried thyme @ 200 NGN
- Eggs 1/2 crate @ 2500 NGN
Total amount spent on Ingredients = 11,350 NGN
For the cooking, I used a camp gas cylinder which had some gas remaining from the first project, and I will safely assume (based on experience) that the cost of the gas used is about 350 NGN.
This will bring the grand total to 11,700 NGN.
Procedure
- The Rice was soaked in boiling water for about 15 minutes before washing and draining. This was necessary because I used the short grain Rice (Indian Short Grain variety)which is usually very starchy, and this step helps to make the grains not to clump or stick together.
- While the Rice was soaking, the carrots were scraped, washed and diced using the onion cutter to hasten the process.
- The red onions and Scotch bonnet were also diced separately with the onion cutter and set aside.
- The green beans, spring onions and green bell peppers were all separately washed and cut to desired sizes.
- I decided to boil five eggs before going into the final cooking process so that once the food is ready, it will be served without delay.
- Next thing I did was to season and cook the rice until it was just about soft enough for eating.
- I added 1.5 cups of vegetable oil to a clean saucepan and heated it before adding the minced garlic, stirred for a while before adding the red onions, and the stock cubes.
- This was followed by the green peas, and after a few minutes the green beans were added.
- I added the carrots, stirred for a while before adding the dried prawns. I wanted the prawns to absorb the flavour from the sauce. Then the green pepper went in.
- I removed the prawns from the sauce before stirring the vegetable sauce into the rice to combine properly.
- The fried rice was served, and the prawns and boiled eggs were used to garnish the food.
Observations
The food was served for five people, and was enough for each person to have two full plates. Of course, everything was not eaten at once. The second serving was eaten the next day.
The prawns were only enough for the first time, none was left for the next meal. Also, five more eggs were boiled the next day for the second serving of the fried rice.
The food tasted great, and the prawns gave it an entirely different twist from the usual beef or chicken that we are so used to. Choosing to use eggs and prawns as protein for this dish also helped to reduce the cost.
Also, this project was carried out in August, a time when the high scarcity of tomatoes led to high demand for the veggies used for this dish. This means though it was cheaper that perhaps using tomatoes for jollof rice, it may be cheaper still if done around November/December when they are fully in season and tomatoes are cheaper too. (Availability or non-availability of tomatoes does have an impact on the prices of these veggies where I live in Nigeria).
Conclusion
This food was indeed cheap to prepare, considering that it was enough for 5 people to eat at two different meal times and be fully satisfied. It also shows that it can be made and stored in the freezer to be reheated at a later time for anyone who love cooking lage batches of food because of busy schedules. Also the protein choices are healthy and suitable for vegetarians and non-vegetatians alike.
11,700 NGN is approximately about 7.15 USD.
So, five people were fed at two different meal times with a total of 7.15 USD. That means 3.575 USD for each meal time. Total time take was about 2 hours (ie, preparation plus cooking time(.
Thank you for reading. All images used in this post are mine. The video is my property as well.
In closing, I want to express my sincere appreciation to 
Thank you once again.