Food Diary: How a 28-Year-Old Adjunct Professor Eats on $30K/Year in Austin, Texas

Excellent crepe flavor! It’s a very simple and fantastic breakfast. He needs between 30 and 45 minutes to put everything together. For us, this dinner is very typical. On the weekends, my partner loves to cook us breakfast, and I beg him to make crepes frequently enough.

1 p.m. We go on a leftovers raid after watching TV for a while, finding leftover crepes, pasta, and a bag of Kettle brand pepperoncini chips ($4.39). I purchased last week but for some reason skipped lunch. I basically eat snacks while watching TV for three hours or so. We all know how much I enjoy eating chips. This is a superb lunch, in my opinion.

7:20 p.m. We start to want for a real meal. Going out to supper is a simple option, but deciding where to go is even simpler: A Sichuan restaurant called China Family provides vegan versions of some of its menu items. The BF gets fried rice, and we order the vegetarian mapo tofu and dry-fried green beans. Due to the fact that it is Friday, we also order two Kirin Ichiban beers. You can tell as the food is served that these dishes are popular for good reason. We are enjoying ourselves just as much as everyone else in the restaurant. This location offers me the desired Sichuan peppercorn mouthfeel. I’ve eaten a lot of Sichuan food over the years, but this is the best I’ve found in Austin for the money ($73).

Friday total: $122.46

Saturday

Being the local Texan, he asked me to show him how to deep-fry food. He is correct, even though I dislike the assumption. Since I was a young child, I have been deep-frying food.

9:00 a.m. We have leftover crepes at my boyfriend’s house, and they are still tasty. We zap them in the microwave and settle down in front of the TV, just as the good Lord had planned for a Saturday morning.

1:10 p.m.

We consume leftover pasta and Chinese Family. Again, it’s still excellent. The rest of the day doesn’t seem to hold many surprises for us because we are still lounging in our pajamas in front of the TV. I’ll be eating leftovers for a while because I have so much extra food this week.

6 p.m.

I immediately worry that I haven’t moved far enough or seen enough sunshine as the sun starts to set. We must take other action. We decide to visit my place, where my roommates and our best friends are. We decide to make some additional items after learning that our roommate and his girlfriend are going to make miso soup so that we can all enjoy a large meal together.

7:30 p.m.

I visit the H-E-B closest to us with my boyfriend. We go shopping for ingredients for a variety of tempura vegetables, a dipping sauce, and a Japanese curry. He asked me, the local Texan, to show him how to deep-fry things because he is from Utah. He is correct, even though I dislike the assumption. Since I was a young child, I have been deep-frying food. I don’t keep track of the cost because my boyfriend buys the groceries, but I estimate that the total will be approximately $30.

Once we return home, we begin. We use vegetables such as cauliflower, sweet potatoes, carrots, broccoli, onions, red potatoes, eggplant, and butternut squash to make tempura by dipping them in an egg-replacer batter (which actually tastes amazing!). I add potatoes, onions, carrots, peas, and eggplant to the Japanese curry. Before this week, I purchased all of these vegetables, so it’s time to quickly prepare something with them.

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