The end is in sight! Two more days to go…and I’m feeling increasingly weak, lethargic and headachey…how on earth do the world’s refugees live on these weekly rations for 10 years or more?! If I’ve learned one thing from taking part in this year’s Ration Challenge, it’s that I’m incredibly grateful for the amount of choice we’re lucky to have.
Day 6 began with a cup of black tea at 8.30am, while giving the small person his breakfast. And I was impatient for him to finish…after breaking the £400 sponsorship barrier the previous evening, I knew that I was entitled to the “reward” of adding 120g of the protein of my choice to my rations for the last two days, and I was desperate for some additional flavour.
So as soon as I’d cleaned him up, we headed straight to the supermarket to buy a block of halloumi. I could have had anything – others taking part in this year’s challenge had chosen ingredients like chorizo or Parma ham when they hit that sponsorship milestone – but with halloumi a staple food in Syria, I wanted to keep it relatively authentic.
To keep things as interesting as possible, I decided to use 60g of it per day for the last two days, and in my evening meals only, to give me something to look forward to at the end of the day. So at 11.35am, I used half my remaining flour to make an onion crepe (flour, salt, water and thinly sliced onion), which I enjoyed with a spoonful of mashed tinned sardines. And you know what? I really did enjoy it. Saving the strongly flavoured ingredients until the end of the challenge was definitely the right thing to do…
I realised I still had a load of cooked chickpeas in the fridge, too. The original intention was to make falafel – but instead I mashed them roughly with salt, paprika and oil, and roasted them until crispy.
And they made up part of my evening meal – if I pretended hard enough, they almost tasted like croutons. At 6.35pm, the rice made a reappearance (I’m really going off the stuff pretty quickly…), along with chopped fried halloumi, half my leftover hummus and those crispy chickpea “croutons” – it was an incredibly salty meal, but my body had been telling me that I needed salt all day.
Only 4 pints of water on day 6 of my Ration Challenge – I probably should have had more. And I was in bed by 10pm again, absolutely shattered – but this time, in the knowledge that I only had one more day of my Ration Challenge to go. What would the final day have in store…?
Find out more about the Ration Challenge and sponsor me here!