Preparing for the Ration Challenge (5)

So on Saturday I met my Ration Challenge team-mate Sonali.  It was so awesome that she made the effort to come all the way to out West from her place over on the Shore.  And it was so lovely to meet someone else doing the challenge too.  The thing that is so cool about doing this is the connections you can form with others.  I imagine this would be a hugely important aspect of life in a refugee camp.  Friends are important, especially when times are tough.

      Me and Sonali at our place.

It's only two sleeps to go until I start The Ration Challenge and reality is setting in.  I have started my food prep and am feeling pretty good about things.  Thanks to our amazing and generous sponsors, we have collectively earned more rewards than I anticipated we would.  While you start out with just seven different foods for the challenge, between forming a team, donations and the extra challenge set to get salt or pepper*, I know have eleven foods and three seasonings to work with.  Which makes this much more achievable.

So far I've raised over $1000!  This makes me eligible for 2 teabags (or 2 tsp of coffee), which I am giving to my team-mate as she drinks tea every day, so she will miss it more than me.  We have almost raised $2000 together anyway (only $91 to go) so I may get them yet.  If I do, I will likely use one tea bag as fuel in my smoking gun to smoke some salt, cumin and tofu to add some flavor.  And will keep the other in an emergency box for an especially hard day.

And I am organised!  I have decided on what I am choosing as my bonuses** and feel confident I can survive this week.  I have a plan for breakfast/lunch/dinner and snacks that feels like enough food.  Here is my meal plan:

• rice porridge with a little milk, peanut butter and sugar for breakfasts
• a little of dinner left overs, flatbread or rice cakes and hummus for lunch
• kidney bean and tofu 'stew' with rice for dinners
• lentil and carrot soup for dinners
• carrot and tofu rice cakes (if needed as extra for more dinner)
•  thinly sliced carrot, rice crackers, peanuts, cookies and hummus as snacks

My snackbox for work/home: one days allotment of hummus, carrot sticks, rice 'chips', peanuts

 

I know snacks aren't a biggie for everyone, but they are for me.  My blood pressure is low, and if I don't eat or drink regularly and my blood sugar drops I can get pretty dizzy.  Eating a little regularly helps prevent this.  It also helps prevent me from getting too hangry.

This will probably sound a bit crazy but I am already getting a little anxious and hoardy about food supplies.  As I am using ingredients from my 'Ration Challenge Box' I am aware of how the stuff in there is going down.  Even though I know it is being turned into food for the challenge, I still feel nervous about it.  What if I mess up my whole allotment of chickpeas when soaking them?  What if my carrots go bad before the end of the challenge?  What if my husband accidentally eats my hummus?

I grew up poor.  Not super poor, not always hungry - but poor enough that food scarcity was a genuine concern.  I have written about this before in posts on poverty, but I cannot stress enough how this has a lifelong impact.  Even though I live in relative wealth now I still struggle to find balance with food.  I'm either overindulging, or starving myself.  I always feel guilt about food - what I eat, what I waste, what other people don't have.  There are still many foods I struggle to eat because of considering them 'rich people' foods as a child (ice-cream, oranges et al).

Cooking meals in Zataari camp    

I am so glad I can do this small thing to help others living with severe food scarcity.  And I am simultaneously saddened that this lack of basic need affects so many.  I am sad that while I am nervous about living on these rations, for others - they are a lifeline.  I just wish they had more.  For refugees living on rations, things like food contamination is a real concern with serious consequences.  If I am still affected by my comparatively minor childhood poverty***, how are the kids growing up in these camps going to be as adults?  It makes me feel very sad.

There is still time to sponsor me (or someone else) if you want to help out.  Just click on this link - or if the website annoys you text or email me (or comment on this blog) and I'll organise another way you can sponsor me.

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So the recipe I am posting today is for hummus.  My recipe includes some of the 'extras' I've got through sponsorship, but it doesn't need to.  I'm also including here how I prepped the chickpeas from dried.

Hannah's Ration Challenge Hummus

      Yummy yummy chickpeas

Ingredients

85 grams dried chickpeas (full allotment)
2 - 4 Tbsp oil (to preferred consistency)
1 Tbsp peanut butter
salt to taste (maybe 1/4 tsp)
cumin to taste (about 1/2 tsp)
lemon pepper to taste (about 1/4 tsp)

1. Pre-soak the chickpeas.  I did this by washing them then popping them into a small saucepan of salted water (enough to cover plus about 2cm extra water), bringing them to a simmer for a few minutes, then allowing them to cool for four(ish) hours.
2. Soak the chickpeas - I did this by putting them into clean water and leaving them to soak overnight.
3. Cook the chickpeas - I did this in my slow cooker on high for just under 4 hours.  Same deal with amount of water.  They need to have plenty to help them expand, but not too much.
4. Once cool, put in small blender with oil and peanut butter (if you have it) and blitz until smooth.  Add more oil if needed.  Add seasonings to taste.
5. This makes just under a cup of hummus which means you can have about 2 Tbsp of hummus a day.

Of course you can make this without the extras!  The peanut butter replaces the tahini in a traditional hummus and the lemon pepper helps add a little citrus flavour but neither are necessary.  If you have garlic as extra I recommending adding some for flavour but this is delicious without (I can't have garlic as am on a low FODMAPS diet).



* If we privately messaged 10 people we got unlimited salt or pepper which (of course) I did, because salt!  So grateful for salt.

** For self sponsorship me and Sonali both got a spice so both have unlimited lemon pepper and cumin for the challenge.  For the 170g of vegetable after much debate I decided on carrot as I do think the fresh veg and sweet snack aspect of them is important given my snacking needs.  And went with peanuts as my extra 120g of protein as so versatile!  And also easily divided into small serving portions (and make great cookies).  The only thing I am undecided on is whether to go with the extra 25g of sugar, or extra 100mls of milk Sonali and I get for each raising over $350.  I think I will just see how low I am and make a call during the challenge.

*** Reminder: NZ is full of greenery and my parents made the most of it.  We had a garden, Dad went fishing and hunting, I understand foraging.  We always had something to eat.  The Zataari Camp is homed in the dessert.  They do not have the luxury we have here of side of the road watercress, puha, dandelions, nasturtiums and kale.  If you have the knowledge - living in NZ there is food to be found.  This is not the case for the Syrian refugees in Jordan.  They are massively deprived of fresh vegetables.  I imagine the long term health affects of living on these rations are not small.