A frugal spending on cooking one of Nigeria's most consumed food

Hello, #earnspendgive community, it's good to be back after a long break. I got inspired to write this post after reading one of the @monica-ene posts in this community then I decided to replicate what she did and see how much it would cost me. Food is so expensive in Nigeria presently and eating a balanced diet is like a thug of war, people eat what they see not what they wanted or desired to eat but then amidst the turbulence, one must also eat well to keep the body system working perfectly.

Nigeria is known for several delicious soups; our country is blessed with beautiful cultures and tribes whose foods are mouth-watering. If you want to eat delicious foods that will interest you and awaken your taste buds, come to Nigeria. We have it in different kinds. For this post, one of my favorite soups that can fit into any occasion or go with any dish at all, be it swallow such as fufu (cassava starch), amala (yam flour), Eba also known as (cassava starch), and semovita or semolina, any one of your choices and rice is vegetable soup. Yoruba tribe, which is my tribe, is known for efo riro, that's vegetable soup.

We have several kinds of vegetables that we can use in preparing vegetable soup, but I have a favorite, which,h, when cooked, I enjoy eating to my satisfaction. Some make use of ugwu(fluted pumpkin), soko (lagos spinach), amunututu (spinach), gure (waterleaf), gbagba (African eggplant leaves), efirin (sweet basil leaves also known as scent leaves), and tete (African spinach), which is my favorite. I love the taste this particular vegetable gives when it's been cooked, and it has some distinct nutritional benefits it adds to the body.

Tete (African spinach) is rich in vitamins A, C, E, and K; it helps in weight loss. The leaves are easy to digest due to the high level of dietary fiber; they support a healthy digestive system. It also helps lower calcium deficiency and easing of skin problems. Thanks to @hiveabbyftp for the token of 12.500Hbd to prepare a meal as part of the task for the month of june.

That made a sum of #18,750 with the with me, and I needed to make a soup that would be enough for three to four people and a pot of stew. To make a pot of beef stew, I will need roughly #10,000 or more, that's due to the high price of foodstuffs. But then i came across @monica-ene's post, and that inspired me. I decided to go for two different type of soup which are efo riro (vegetable soup) and okro soup.

To make a stew, I bought 1kg of beef which cost me #5000, and I need pepper and other ingredients, which amount to #5000. To make a healthy and delicious vegetable soup frugally, I bought a vegetable (African spinach) worth #500, white cow skin known as (ponmo) in my country worth #500, European hake fish known as (panla or eja-kika) worth #1000, onion of #500, locust beans popularly called (iru) in western part of Nigeria where I belong worth of #200, scotch bonnet (ata rodo) of #300, and seasoning worth of #500. This was how I got my ingredients of # 13,500 for my vegetable soup and stew.

After cooking the soup, I was contemplating what to enjoy the soup with; I had two choices. I can decide to eat it with rice or semovita. I do enjoy taking these two varieties of food with vegetable soup; it gives me the satisfaction I crave. Then I went for semovita which is my favorite solid food. 1kg of semovita is sold at the rate of #1800, I bought two which is #3600.

For my okro soup, I bought okro worth #500 ,and locust bean of #100 leaving me with #800 change which I used for my logistics. The food was prepared with two soups which I enjoyed with my four other siblings which each one of them chose his or her favorite soup to eat with the semovita.

All images are mine

Thanks for your time, and your comments will be appreciated.