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day 8: potato pancakes & raisin syrup

Today I went into my bank barefoot and it was the first real instance where I got some strange looks. I was able to share with the bank manager my story and explain why I'm doing it. First "awareness from bare feet" success story.

Thanks to an amazing comment from Tabitha on day 6, today I tried a potato raisin pancake with raisin syrup. I'd like to share this recipe because it was so "breakthrough" for me, all things considered. It was out of this world--so delicious!

I used about an 1/8 cup of raisins, chopped them into small pieces, brought them to simmer with about a half-cup water, let that reduce to about 1/4 cup syrup, strained and saved the raisins for the pancake batter. Then I took half of a very small potato, peeled it, chopped it--this yielded about a half-cup to 3/4-cup of little cubes. Boiled those for about 7 minutes then mashed them with a fork. I beat the egg with the mashed potatoes and remainder of the raisins from the syrup reduction. It produced a very nice batter consistency, to my surprise.

Then I heated about 1/8 cup of cooking oil in the skillet, then added the batter. From there, I just cooked it like a pancake, except I noticed it cooked a little faster--due to the oil maybe. It produced a french toast consistency! With the raisin syrup poured on top, it was like a little delicacy when compared to some of my other common dishes.

Coupled with a 1/4 cup oatmeal, it was a perfect light breakfast, at a cost of about 15 cents. Lunch was a repeat, with egg fried rice and homemade corn chips. But it was very delicious and satisfying. And because my day was insanely busy, I just threw together another quick dish of pasta primavera with ramen noodles to supplement. You can't go wrong with this. Since I'm down to one tablespoon of pasta sauce per day to last me through the end of the challenge, I ate it right out of the saucepan to reduce the loss of sauce! The things you'll do when you're hungry! I'm dedicating this post to this little boy in Uganda, who, while I was trying to get a photo of an old boat on the shores of Lake Victoria, ran right in front of me and tumbled to the ground laughing, just to get my attention. I paused to consider why I was there--to make the children smile, or to get a photo of one of my favorite subjects (old boats)? And I quickly remembered that making him smile was much more important. I was so glad he landed here in front of me. He certainly could teach us all a thing or two about living the simple life with contentment. Take Action:

1) Please consider giving toward my goal of 10 scholarships for children of the Indian slums. So far we've raised $650 of my $5,000 goal (10 scholarships). Every little bit helps! Labels: 30 day challenge, activism, awareness, dollar a day, extreme poverty, poverty, recipes, simple life, simplification

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