My Hobo (not) Monday creation

I was all set to cook something for Thursday Night Smackdown's Hobo Monday on Monday when our good friend showed up at our front door with two pizzas. So Hobo Monday became Free Pizza Monday. Tuesday night I warmed up soup and bread after the boys and I got back from sledding. 

I asked Michelle via the comments on her blog if Hobo Monday could be Hobo another night, but she hasn't responded. So I asked myself, "What would Michelle do?" And it occurred to me that Michelle would probably say 

"Rules are for sissies." Only she'd probably throw a good few drunken sailor curse words in there for good measure. 

So here's my Hobo Monday creation, made on a regular Wednesday night. I actually combined the requirements for Hobo Monday (dinner under $10 for the four of us) with digging in the pantry/fridge and came up with my first ever stir fry. 

• Stir fry beef I got on manager's special weeks ago for $1.71 (love manager's specials on meats)
• 1 1/2 cups of organic brown basmati rice I had in the pantry - $1.50
• Various veggies I had in the crisper that needed to be used - baby carrots, sugar snap peas, zucchini and an onion - I'm going to guess about $3.00 worth of veggies.
  
• A stir fry sauce made of water, soy sauce, corn starch and sugar - guessing $.50

For under $7.00, I made dinner for the four of us with leftovers for lunch tomorrow. The boys actually ate it, too. Happily. I also created it from stuff that I had. I didn't go out and get new groceries. Nice.

First Thursdays becomes Hobo Mondays

Michelle from the awesome Thursday Night Smackdown blog has done away with her First Thursday challenge for the time being since we're all pretty much broke at the moment. Instead she is instituting Hobo Mondays, or as she likes to call it Cheap Ass Mondays. She's been doing Cheap Ass Mondays for a while now, making a really inexpensive, but usually creative, meal every Monday night.

Tomorrow night will be the first advent of this event. What are the rules?

1. In the interest of those whose blogs are not R-rated, the event will be called “The Recession Special: Hobo Mondays.”
   
2. The meal must either serve 2 for $5 or less (total, not per person) or 4 for $10. If your family is larger than that, add $1.50 per additional family member. However, You cannot take advantage of economies of scale by making enormous meals that serve 200 and come in at $0.10 a person. Sometimes we only have $5 in our pockets and we still need dinner. Currency conversion is allowed.

Click here to see the remaining rules - they aren't that complicated.

Unlike First Thursdays, you don't need to use a cookbook to participate in Hobo Mondays. 

Since it looks like many of us are going to be snowed in tomorrow (ya, I'll believe it when I see it), tomorrow night might be the perfect night for a creative Hobo dinner. We just might need to scrounge through our cupboards and see what we can throw together.