My husband's perfect meal is steak. Yeah, yeah, maybe something underneath the steak, but the steak is the main meal. But, we live frugally and with four people in the house, those steaks are not going to happen. Because neither of us ever ever wants to be a vegetarian, we eat meat almost every day, but HOW we eat meat has changed. It isn't the 'star of the show' necessarily, but it shows up all the same. And when we do eat a vegetarian main course, I've come up with a couple of great ways to help ease the transition, even for a steak loving husband like mine.
1) Use a little meat and a lot of X
The easiest way to do this is with ground meats, where you can add all sorts of 'other stuff' to the mix. When you make up your taco meat, you can add black beans or rice to stretch it farther. With chili, you can add TVP (textured vegetable protein - a dried soy product that's completely tasteless) that's been rehydrated in beef broth to the pot to stretch out your ground beef. In meatloaf, I add extra vegetables, or oatmeal, another egg, even some spinach.
You can also get your butcher to grind you your meat 'custom'. So, maybe 50% ground beef and 50% ground liver, which is substantially cheaper and higher in iron to boot.
2) Marinate or season in meat flavours.
I always cook my rice and other grains in broth these days, because it adds a meaty sort of flavour. My turkey casserole (which has maybe a cup of turkey in it, total, but can serve 6 people) has a tsp of poultry seasoning mixed in to encourage the tastebuds to think of turkey. Montreal steak spice is another good one to use in meatless dishes. And I always keep a small jar of bacon drippings in my freezer to saute my onions in when making stuffing or fried vegetables.
3) Add a stronger-tasting ingredient.
A strong-tasting ingredient helps mask the fact that meat is absent or only present in very small amounts. I have a great vegetarian lasagna recipe, for example, that uses pureed black beans in place of meat, but honestly you can't tell that the ground beef is missing because of the taste of the beans. Strong tasting vegetables are another good bet here - turnip baked with apples, squash with caramelized cranberry sauce, pasta tossed in melted blue cheese, potato latkes with sour cream and applesauce, french toast soaked in maple syrup and cinnamon sugar, roasted garlic baked potatoes. You get the idea - strong flavours.
4) Use cheese.
If the casserole is meatless, shred cheese on top. Melt cheese into spinach and fold up in phyllo pastry, make a cheese sauce and bake your cauliflower and broccoli in it, sprinkle on breadcrumbs and crisp up the top under the element for a minute. Get that cheese going, because everyone loves cheese.
5) Replicate texture.
I'm thinking portobello mushroom caps in place of burgers, chickpea falafel balls in your sandwiches, that sort of thing. I make a mean meatless stroganoff using button mushrooms and onions.
Showing posts with label Frugality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Frugality. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
This week
Looking back over the week, here's what I've done to keep up the frugal vibe - easy things, things YOU are probably doing, or have done in the past, or even could start doing. Today, if you wanted to. It would save you money.
- I've adjusted my fridge temperature to a slightly warmer setting. We don't really open our fridge all that much, and so I'm not particularly concerned about food temperature safety, and my milk is still very cold when I go to use it, so the warmer temperature saves pennies and does the job at the same time.
- Washed my dishes IN the sink of dishwater rather than under running water.
- Washed out my Ziploc bags and reused them. I hang mine on the clothesline to dry, which one of my friends teases me about. I may look a bit dorky, but I have clean bags!!
- Made my own baby food. This week it was applesauce, pumpkin and squash purees. Next week I think I may start mixing more flavours.
- Haven't turned on the heat yet! Well, there were two nights I turned the heat on low in the bedrooms and shut the doors, but when the temperatures came up above zero again, the heat went off. I'm sticking to my 'no heat until December 1st' goal.
- Made whole wheat bread and slow cooker broth.
- Used freezer food in several meals. Zucchini, bread, pumpkin and cauliflower purees, bones for stock...
- Ordered a freezer meat pack (saves us about $50) and a large vegetable pack (probably saves at least $30).
- Tried new foods on sale, including organic couscous, organic brown rice and organic sour cream. I always always always check the organic aisle for sales first; on sale it's often cheaper than the regular counterpart.
- Used low cost make at home cleaner for deep-cleaning the upstairs bathroom today. (1/2 cup white vinegar heated in the microwave. Stir in 1/2 cup dish detergent. Spray on surfaces, wait 15-30 minutes, wipe off)
- Organized my fabric stash. All of the 'odds and ends' that were too small for any practical purpose got put together in a bag. As I have time, I've been sewing them together in a patchwork effect. I'm not entirely sure what I'll do with the resulting crazy quilt style piece of fabric, but waste not, want not!
- Saved the juice from the vegetables I've used this week to make alphabet soup in a few days. I finally found alphabet pasta and I can't wait to make vegetable soup on a cold day.
- Double checked my grocery bill and discovered a discrepancy of almost $3.
- Vacuumed out the inside of my dryer, especially around the engine, to increase efficiency.
And things I haven't done very well at...
- An unexpected vet visit that set us back quite a bit.
- Several rainy and cold days that made hanging out laundry next to impossible.
- A week that involved having to wash all the bedding in the house, including the pillows.
- Several 'oops' purchases at the store, just unnecessary things I didn't remember we had at home, like jam.
- Forgetting the green beans I bought on sale and having to toss them out.
Plans for the coming week, frugal wise...
I have a busy week coming and I'm determined to do well on the frugal front.
- I want to ask our landlady how to turn down the temperature on the water heater. Our water is scalding hot out of the tap, and I'm sure the heater can be turned down.
- I want to string a clothesline in the basement. Combined with the drying rack this should be able to handle a load of laundry.
- I want to steam and puree the final two pumpkins and get them in the freezer.
- I have some homemade Advent exchange gifts to get done, and I'll need to borrow some tools and a glue gun from our neighbour.
- Waiting for the flyers for this week and sincerely hoping someone has a good deal on eggs!
What about you? Are you doing anything frugal right now?
- I've adjusted my fridge temperature to a slightly warmer setting. We don't really open our fridge all that much, and so I'm not particularly concerned about food temperature safety, and my milk is still very cold when I go to use it, so the warmer temperature saves pennies and does the job at the same time.
- Washed my dishes IN the sink of dishwater rather than under running water.
- Washed out my Ziploc bags and reused them. I hang mine on the clothesline to dry, which one of my friends teases me about. I may look a bit dorky, but I have clean bags!!
- Made my own baby food. This week it was applesauce, pumpkin and squash purees. Next week I think I may start mixing more flavours.
- Haven't turned on the heat yet! Well, there were two nights I turned the heat on low in the bedrooms and shut the doors, but when the temperatures came up above zero again, the heat went off. I'm sticking to my 'no heat until December 1st' goal.
- Made whole wheat bread and slow cooker broth.
- Used freezer food in several meals. Zucchini, bread, pumpkin and cauliflower purees, bones for stock...
- Ordered a freezer meat pack (saves us about $50) and a large vegetable pack (probably saves at least $30).
- Tried new foods on sale, including organic couscous, organic brown rice and organic sour cream. I always always always check the organic aisle for sales first; on sale it's often cheaper than the regular counterpart.
- Used low cost make at home cleaner for deep-cleaning the upstairs bathroom today. (1/2 cup white vinegar heated in the microwave. Stir in 1/2 cup dish detergent. Spray on surfaces, wait 15-30 minutes, wipe off)
- Organized my fabric stash. All of the 'odds and ends' that were too small for any practical purpose got put together in a bag. As I have time, I've been sewing them together in a patchwork effect. I'm not entirely sure what I'll do with the resulting crazy quilt style piece of fabric, but waste not, want not!
- Saved the juice from the vegetables I've used this week to make alphabet soup in a few days. I finally found alphabet pasta and I can't wait to make vegetable soup on a cold day.
- Double checked my grocery bill and discovered a discrepancy of almost $3.
- Vacuumed out the inside of my dryer, especially around the engine, to increase efficiency.
And things I haven't done very well at...
- An unexpected vet visit that set us back quite a bit.
- Several rainy and cold days that made hanging out laundry next to impossible.
- A week that involved having to wash all the bedding in the house, including the pillows.
- Several 'oops' purchases at the store, just unnecessary things I didn't remember we had at home, like jam.
- Forgetting the green beans I bought on sale and having to toss them out.
Plans for the coming week, frugal wise...
I have a busy week coming and I'm determined to do well on the frugal front.
- I want to ask our landlady how to turn down the temperature on the water heater. Our water is scalding hot out of the tap, and I'm sure the heater can be turned down.
- I want to string a clothesline in the basement. Combined with the drying rack this should be able to handle a load of laundry.
- I want to steam and puree the final two pumpkins and get them in the freezer.
- I have some homemade Advent exchange gifts to get done, and I'll need to borrow some tools and a glue gun from our neighbour.
- Waiting for the flyers for this week and sincerely hoping someone has a good deal on eggs!
What about you? Are you doing anything frugal right now?
Frugal slow cooker pulled pork
I can't believe I haven't discovered this before, considering the amount of time I use my slow cooker.
2 pork hocks (these are the ankles of the pig, they are often thrown away. I bought a pack of 2 large ones for about $3 but you could quite easily get a better deal. I'll be asking at my butcher.)
1 tsp apple cider vinegar (the acid breaks down meat fibres to leave you with tender pork)
About 3 cups of apple peels
2 cups water.
Mix ingredients together and cook on high for about 5 hours or until pork is falling apart. Remove bones and skin. Pull apart pork and cooked apple peels under large pieces are broken down. Then add sauce of your choice.
We used Amazing Dad's Organic Barbecue Sauce, which is Canadian made to boot! We find it on sale all the time so it's actually pretty affordable at around $3 a tetra pack.
The apple peels were a last-minute decision on my part. I had turned a 10lb bag of (free!) apples into applesauce a week ago, and I thought ahead to wash the apples before peeling them so that I could keep the peels. I wasn't completely sure what to do with them, frankly. I ended up adding some to squash puree, and the rest to this pulled pork. The flavour was amazing!
This recipe gave all three of us sizeable portions and leftovers for the fridge.
How to make delicious pulled pork for under $5
2 pork hocks (these are the ankles of the pig, they are often thrown away. I bought a pack of 2 large ones for about $3 but you could quite easily get a better deal. I'll be asking at my butcher.)
1 tsp apple cider vinegar (the acid breaks down meat fibres to leave you with tender pork)
About 3 cups of apple peels
2 cups water.
Mix ingredients together and cook on high for about 5 hours or until pork is falling apart. Remove bones and skin. Pull apart pork and cooked apple peels under large pieces are broken down. Then add sauce of your choice.
We used Amazing Dad's Organic Barbecue Sauce, which is Canadian made to boot! We find it on sale all the time so it's actually pretty affordable at around $3 a tetra pack.
The apple peels were a last-minute decision on my part. I had turned a 10lb bag of (free!) apples into applesauce a week ago, and I thought ahead to wash the apples before peeling them so that I could keep the peels. I wasn't completely sure what to do with them, frankly. I ended up adding some to squash puree, and the rest to this pulled pork. The flavour was amazing!
This recipe gave all three of us sizeable portions and leftovers for the fridge.
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
What's for supper?
Today is 'fridge cleaning out day' around here. I know you know what I'm talking about. We get our meat order in on Thursday, and today is Wednesday. The farmer's market is on Friday, and today is Wednesday. The new specials at the grocery store start on Thursday, and today is Wednesday. Wednesday is the day we eat 'stuff'.
But Wednesdays don't have to be blah and boring. Even when you have nothing in the house...you still have something in the house, right? So here are my top five...
1. Ethnic Food
The trick with making ethnic food out of zero ingredients is to pick a country where the food is supposed to be slightly haphazard. I have two main 'nationalities' that I use when making an ethnic-style dish - Chinese and Indian. Now, none of these "recipes" are even recipes, or for that matter, Chinese or Indian food - but when I add the flavourings of those types of foods, then my dish becomes similar enough. For example, tonight we're having "Asian" food. It's not Asian food in the slightest. What it is is odds and ends from my fridge left over from previous meal prep: half an acorn squash, a small onion, half a green pepper, about a quarter of a cauliflower, the last lonely pork chop and whatever brown rice was in the end of the bag. That is not an Asian meal, but it tastes like one because I had some Thai seasonings and pineapple sauce to throw in with it. If I hadn't had those flavours available, the meal would have become an "Indian" meal, because I would have cooked it with a bit of milk and curry powder. Or if I hadn't had that, it might have been a stew with some of the thyme on my windowsill and a few bay leaves, salt and pepper. It's exactly the same ingredients, only the seasonings change.
2. 'Something With a Flatbread'
Flour, water, salt, baking powder and a bit of oil - that's all you need to make tortillas. And tortillas will literally make a meal out of almost anything. You can turn them into pizzas, you can make a quesadilla, you can make a wrap, or a tortilla chip or...well, whatever. Have you got beans? Or lentils? Or something like that? Cook them, puree them, spread the puree on your tortilla, season, add whatever else you've got, and heat. There's your quesadilla. A tomato is nice, or a can of mushrooms sauteed, or the last sad green pepper. Haven't got that? Have you got cheese? That'll do. Or tortillas cut into triangles and dipped into whatever you have on hand. That sad pepper, two wrinkly cloves of garlic and half a tomato? Thats's gold, my friends! Toss them in a bit of oil, bake on a baking sheet and puree them. That's dip for your tortilla chips. Or spread something down as a base and make pizzas! No tomato sauce? No problem - this is where Bechamel sauce really makes a stand. Creamy enough that you don't need cheese, and a very good vehicle for any dried herbs you may have.
3. A baked dish
Oh, pasta. I know you well. Boring though it may be, it's a great 'nothing in the house' staple. As is rice, or any grain (barley makes appearances in our house), or mashed potatoes, too. The concept is the same everywhere - you cook your starch, you layer it with whatever, you add a sauce, you bake.
4. Tomato-Based Dishes
When you have tomatoes, and a lot of them, but not a lot of anything else, you have a meal practically prepared. This is because cooked tomatoes form the base for so many dishes including sauces, chilis, soups and stews. The easiest of these is probably the basic vegetable sauce. Saute what must be sauteed, and then slow cook vegetables in tomato sauce for the longest time you have. A few hours at least. You can serve it over rice, or noodles, or on it's own. You can add chili spice, or steak spice and barbecue sauce and make sloppy joes. You could add meat, which is great if you have it. You could pureed it and make it into soup; you could even cook other stuff in it, like boneless, skinless chicken, or layers of zucchini, or pour it into cooked rice stuffed into peppers...
5. Stuff with eggs
If I didn't buy at least a dozen, and more likely two dozen, eggs every single week I honestly think I'd go nuts. Because an egg can be anything, anything at all. Mainly I use them in meals to form a strata - a layered omlette that includes bread. It's a question of layering bread cubes with, well, whatever, and then pouring a mixture of egg and milk overtop and baking it. Personally, I like it with cheese, but I'd eat a tire if there was enough cheese on it. As for the other stuff, well, a slice of bacon, a last piece of chicken, leftover rice, three cherry tomatoes, a piece of broccoli, half a can of beans, an opened bag of croutons, some chopped herbs and green onions, frozen corn...
Enjoy!
But Wednesdays don't have to be blah and boring. Even when you have nothing in the house...you still have something in the house, right? So here are my top five...
Meals To Make Without Any Ingredients
1. Ethnic Food
The trick with making ethnic food out of zero ingredients is to pick a country where the food is supposed to be slightly haphazard. I have two main 'nationalities' that I use when making an ethnic-style dish - Chinese and Indian. Now, none of these "recipes" are even recipes, or for that matter, Chinese or Indian food - but when I add the flavourings of those types of foods, then my dish becomes similar enough. For example, tonight we're having "Asian" food. It's not Asian food in the slightest. What it is is odds and ends from my fridge left over from previous meal prep: half an acorn squash, a small onion, half a green pepper, about a quarter of a cauliflower, the last lonely pork chop and whatever brown rice was in the end of the bag. That is not an Asian meal, but it tastes like one because I had some Thai seasonings and pineapple sauce to throw in with it. If I hadn't had those flavours available, the meal would have become an "Indian" meal, because I would have cooked it with a bit of milk and curry powder. Or if I hadn't had that, it might have been a stew with some of the thyme on my windowsill and a few bay leaves, salt and pepper. It's exactly the same ingredients, only the seasonings change.
2. 'Something With a Flatbread'
Flour, water, salt, baking powder and a bit of oil - that's all you need to make tortillas. And tortillas will literally make a meal out of almost anything. You can turn them into pizzas, you can make a quesadilla, you can make a wrap, or a tortilla chip or...well, whatever. Have you got beans? Or lentils? Or something like that? Cook them, puree them, spread the puree on your tortilla, season, add whatever else you've got, and heat. There's your quesadilla. A tomato is nice, or a can of mushrooms sauteed, or the last sad green pepper. Haven't got that? Have you got cheese? That'll do. Or tortillas cut into triangles and dipped into whatever you have on hand. That sad pepper, two wrinkly cloves of garlic and half a tomato? Thats's gold, my friends! Toss them in a bit of oil, bake on a baking sheet and puree them. That's dip for your tortilla chips. Or spread something down as a base and make pizzas! No tomato sauce? No problem - this is where Bechamel sauce really makes a stand. Creamy enough that you don't need cheese, and a very good vehicle for any dried herbs you may have.
3. A baked dish
Oh, pasta. I know you well. Boring though it may be, it's a great 'nothing in the house' staple. As is rice, or any grain (barley makes appearances in our house), or mashed potatoes, too. The concept is the same everywhere - you cook your starch, you layer it with whatever, you add a sauce, you bake.
4. Tomato-Based Dishes
When you have tomatoes, and a lot of them, but not a lot of anything else, you have a meal practically prepared. This is because cooked tomatoes form the base for so many dishes including sauces, chilis, soups and stews. The easiest of these is probably the basic vegetable sauce. Saute what must be sauteed, and then slow cook vegetables in tomato sauce for the longest time you have. A few hours at least. You can serve it over rice, or noodles, or on it's own. You can add chili spice, or steak spice and barbecue sauce and make sloppy joes. You could add meat, which is great if you have it. You could pureed it and make it into soup; you could even cook other stuff in it, like boneless, skinless chicken, or layers of zucchini, or pour it into cooked rice stuffed into peppers...
5. Stuff with eggs
If I didn't buy at least a dozen, and more likely two dozen, eggs every single week I honestly think I'd go nuts. Because an egg can be anything, anything at all. Mainly I use them in meals to form a strata - a layered omlette that includes bread. It's a question of layering bread cubes with, well, whatever, and then pouring a mixture of egg and milk overtop and baking it. Personally, I like it with cheese, but I'd eat a tire if there was enough cheese on it. As for the other stuff, well, a slice of bacon, a last piece of chicken, leftover rice, three cherry tomatoes, a piece of broccoli, half a can of beans, an opened bag of croutons, some chopped herbs and green onions, frozen corn...
Enjoy!
Sunday, September 30, 2012
This past week...
I think it may be fall around here! Or at least the beginnings of it. I have some very exciting news to share in the next little while, but in the meantime, while I process it...
Imagine for a moment that you are a single mother, or a single father for that matter. Imagine that you're quite quite poor. No, not 'I'm out of mayo and payday isn't for three days' poor; I'm talking more than that. Every day is a struggle. And even the most basic of things that I take for granted (may I assume, that YOU might take for granted as well, gentle readers?) are hard, hard, hard. Like diapers.
I came across this organization on Facebook today and I really felt called to share it. Cloth For A Cause is a Canadian non-profit that started in 2011 with the mandate to help low-income families cover their babies' bums without the sometimes overwhelming start-up costs associated with cloth diapering. I've been a big supporter of cloth diaper services for a long time now, as anyone who reads here regularly will know. But I haven't come across an organization here in Canada that does for it's clients what the equivalent agencies do in the States, until I heard of Cloth For A Cause.
Now, they're on Facebook, and you should 'Like' them. And you should go on the website and tell them on their very first blog post ever how neat you think what they're doing is. And while you're there, you should enter their free contest for diapers. And then...you should sit down and pray about it a little bit, and then get up and go grab a few of your diapers, or some sewing supplies, or maybe a $10 bill, and you should help.
I'll get off my soapbox now and go look through my own stash to see what will make it's merry way to the nearest depo.
 |
| Baked potatoes with green onions, roasted pork chops and acorn squash with butter, brown sugar cinnamon and nutmeg. |
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| New Country Living magazine and a cup of tea = chalk day. |
 |
| Sweet baby |
Imagine for a moment that you are a single mother, or a single father for that matter. Imagine that you're quite quite poor. No, not 'I'm out of mayo and payday isn't for three days' poor; I'm talking more than that. Every day is a struggle. And even the most basic of things that I take for granted (may I assume, that YOU might take for granted as well, gentle readers?) are hard, hard, hard. Like diapers.
I came across this organization on Facebook today and I really felt called to share it. Cloth For A Cause is a Canadian non-profit that started in 2011 with the mandate to help low-income families cover their babies' bums without the sometimes overwhelming start-up costs associated with cloth diapering. I've been a big supporter of cloth diaper services for a long time now, as anyone who reads here regularly will know. But I haven't come across an organization here in Canada that does for it's clients what the equivalent agencies do in the States, until I heard of Cloth For A Cause.
Now, they're on Facebook, and you should 'Like' them. And you should go on the website and tell them on their very first blog post ever how neat you think what they're doing is. And while you're there, you should enter their free contest for diapers. And then...you should sit down and pray about it a little bit, and then get up and go grab a few of your diapers, or some sewing supplies, or maybe a $10 bill, and you should help.
I'll get off my soapbox now and go look through my own stash to see what will make it's merry way to the nearest depo.
Monday, July 16, 2012
The Hillbilly Housewife Challenge - Day Five
This summer cold I've acquired is a real whammy. I'm barely eating anything, and certainly not the heavy, cold-weather food that this challenge is insisting on. But I'm trying, friends, I'm trying.
Today's menu was:
Breakfast: Oatmeal pancakes, syrup, juice, tea, milk
Lunch: Leftover black beans soup with vegetables, biscuits, milk
Supper: Hot dog stir fry, rice, ice tea
Snack: Peanut butter tortillas, milk, tea
Alright. I was very ill this morning so I didn't make breakfast. I'm sure the boys ate something, probably fruit. When I got up I ate the last of the tortillas.
Since I didn't make the black bean soup yesterday, I made soup today. We had it for lunch. Well, I did, Samuel and David had a sandwich because they didn't think I was cooking.
I made the hot dog stir fry for supper, and also those hoe cakes from earlier in the week that we had skipped. The hot dog stir fry was...um, not great. The hoe cakes were cornbread, fried in a lot of oil. With butter on them.
Anyway. Let's all hope that tomorrow I feel better. I think scallopped tomatos are coming up. Don't want to miss me some scallopped tomatos.
Today's menu was:
Breakfast: Oatmeal pancakes, syrup, juice, tea, milk
Lunch: Leftover black beans soup with vegetables, biscuits, milk
Supper: Hot dog stir fry, rice, ice tea
Snack: Peanut butter tortillas, milk, tea
Alright. I was very ill this morning so I didn't make breakfast. I'm sure the boys ate something, probably fruit. When I got up I ate the last of the tortillas.
Since I didn't make the black bean soup yesterday, I made soup today. We had it for lunch. Well, I did, Samuel and David had a sandwich because they didn't think I was cooking.
I made the hot dog stir fry for supper, and also those hoe cakes from earlier in the week that we had skipped. The hot dog stir fry was...um, not great. The hoe cakes were cornbread, fried in a lot of oil. With butter on them.
Anyway. Let's all hope that tomorrow I feel better. I think scallopped tomatos are coming up. Don't want to miss me some scallopped tomatos.
Sunday, July 15, 2012
The Hillbilly Housewife Challenge - Day Four
Oh, I'm sick. Coughing, hacking, grossness sick. And I get to eat re-heated rice with milk on it for breakfast.
Breakfast - Hot rice with milk, toast, margarine and jelly, orange juice, tea
Lunch - Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, carrot sticks, macaroni and cheese, milk
Supper - Black bean soup with carrots, celery and onions, cornmeal muffins, iced tea
Snack - Cinnamon toast, milk, tea
Alright. What the hey is hot rice with milk doing on there? I don't know one solitary person who has ever told me that 'way back when they were kids' their mama gave them leftover rice, reheated in the microwave, with milk poured over it for breakfast.
"Maybe it's a name for something else" I thought. You know, so far collared greens don't have anything to do with collars, and hoe cakes have nothing to do with hoes...maybe 'hot rice with milk' refers to rice pudding?
Well, actually, it does seem to be rice pudding. And so I soldiered on with it. Surprise, surprise, Samuel loved it; he ate his bowl, half of my bowl and then half of David's bowl as well. I also made a dozen muffins (apparently I was supposed to make these the other day and fill them with jelly?) and all but three of them got eaten after breakfast...clearly everyone is super hungry around here.
Not me, really. I'm gross and sick, but everyone else is hungry.
I wasn't able to make lunch, frankly, nursing and coughing were the sum total of most of my day's activities. But I did tell David that they had to eat Kraft Dinner for the meal, and so he made it for him and Samuel. Supper was black bean soup, which I couldn't stomach the thought of making, and so Samuel (who was too hot to eat anyway) had a bowl of cherries and a muffin, and I drank orange juice, ate popsicles and debated saltines.
Not a great food day.
Breakfast - Hot rice with milk, toast, margarine and jelly, orange juice, tea
Lunch - Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, carrot sticks, macaroni and cheese, milk
Supper - Black bean soup with carrots, celery and onions, cornmeal muffins, iced tea
Snack - Cinnamon toast, milk, tea
Alright. What the hey is hot rice with milk doing on there? I don't know one solitary person who has ever told me that 'way back when they were kids' their mama gave them leftover rice, reheated in the microwave, with milk poured over it for breakfast.
"Maybe it's a name for something else" I thought. You know, so far collared greens don't have anything to do with collars, and hoe cakes have nothing to do with hoes...maybe 'hot rice with milk' refers to rice pudding?
Well, actually, it does seem to be rice pudding. And so I soldiered on with it. Surprise, surprise, Samuel loved it; he ate his bowl, half of my bowl and then half of David's bowl as well. I also made a dozen muffins (apparently I was supposed to make these the other day and fill them with jelly?) and all but three of them got eaten after breakfast...clearly everyone is super hungry around here.
Not me, really. I'm gross and sick, but everyone else is hungry.
I wasn't able to make lunch, frankly, nursing and coughing were the sum total of most of my day's activities. But I did tell David that they had to eat Kraft Dinner for the meal, and so he made it for him and Samuel. Supper was black bean soup, which I couldn't stomach the thought of making, and so Samuel (who was too hot to eat anyway) had a bowl of cherries and a muffin, and I drank orange juice, ate popsicles and debated saltines.
Not a great food day.
Saturday, July 14, 2012
The Hillbilly Housewife Challenge - Day Three
I'm just so pumped that I don't have to eat a bean ALL DAY!
Breakfast - French toast, syrup, orange juice, milk, tea.
Lunch - Batter bread, margarine, spinach, milk.
Supper - Creamed tuna and peas over rice, garlic toast, ice tea.
Snack - Peanut butter tortillas, milk, tea.
We're running up against two big problems by Day Three. The first is that, with a few exceptions, the food I'm making is not food we would usually eat, and there's a good reason for that: we don't like it. I'm not a huge fan of french toast (eggy bread?) or pancakes, Samuel isn't a big bread eater at all, neither David nor I like beans or lentils especially, and David is missing meat terribly.
On the up side of all that, I think it means we're doing the plan well! This is, after all, an emergency menu. And with the exception of the pancakes on day one (and the orange juice allotment - I have no idea how two cans of juice is supposed to do four people for seven days!) every meal has given us so much food that not only could we easily feed four, but we're swimming in leftovers.
The second problem isn't one of preference, it's one of timing. These recipes take a lot of time. To make the refried beans from scratch would have taken me hours, which is why I used our leftovers from a previous night. I'm making bread every two days, where usually I can make it every four or five. Breakfast is taking 45 minutes to prepare from beginning to end, lunch over an hour and supper is being started the night before. I'm not used to cooking this way, nor do I particularly wish to become used to cooking this way.
Anyway, the french toast wasn't eaten by Samuel because 1) it was bread, and 2) it took so long to make it all that he ate before he ate, which ruined his appetite.
So, here we are at lunch again...spinach and something made out of cornmeal. Well, that's what Samuel and I will be having - David is on day three of eating the lentil and vegetable soup I made. It's almost done now! When he left this morning it was with a slightly forced smile, and he commented last night on how creamed fish didn't sound that bad for supper today, so I'd say he's holding up with his usual day three resilience to my crazy food schemes.
The batter bread recipe was difficult to understand for someone who has barely worked with cornmeal before. It said the meal would absorb the water, which to me means a paste is going to be the end result. But the cornmeal just sort of vaguely thickened the liquid - so I popped it back in the microwave for 30 seconds to thicken it up, and that seemed to work. The final product (which I cooked in a cast iron frying pan) was really very odd. The bread seemed to separate, leaving heavy cornmeal at the bottom, and a sort of salty custard on top. It was sort of like eating glue topped with mucus. Don't laugh, I have a whole pan of this stuff to eat. And let me tell you, it would have to be one heck of an emergency for me to make that again.
I didn't even try to give it to Sam, he had his share of the french toast, reheated. And I ate the last of the lentil soup.
And then...things just sort of fell apart for supper. I'd forgotten about the garlic toast, and had used the last of the bread for french toast this morning (though, with french toast for breakfast, cornbread for lunch, tortillas for snacks and rice for supper, did we really need another carb?) leaving me with no way of making garlic toast for supper. Since both of us had eaten leftovers for lunch, I forgot about the spinach (that we were supposed to eat earlier today) slowly puddling its merry way across my counters, and decided to make that with the creamed tuna. Which by the way was actually salmon, since that was on sale. Which made me forget about the peas! We sat down to rice, with creamed salmon (no peas!) and spinach.
It was pretty good, actually. I could see it working well on toast. Or biscuits. Or maybe mashed potatos.
Breakfast - French toast, syrup, orange juice, milk, tea.
Lunch - Batter bread, margarine, spinach, milk.
Supper - Creamed tuna and peas over rice, garlic toast, ice tea.
Snack - Peanut butter tortillas, milk, tea.
We're running up against two big problems by Day Three. The first is that, with a few exceptions, the food I'm making is not food we would usually eat, and there's a good reason for that: we don't like it. I'm not a huge fan of french toast (eggy bread?) or pancakes, Samuel isn't a big bread eater at all, neither David nor I like beans or lentils especially, and David is missing meat terribly.
On the up side of all that, I think it means we're doing the plan well! This is, after all, an emergency menu. And with the exception of the pancakes on day one (and the orange juice allotment - I have no idea how two cans of juice is supposed to do four people for seven days!) every meal has given us so much food that not only could we easily feed four, but we're swimming in leftovers.
The second problem isn't one of preference, it's one of timing. These recipes take a lot of time. To make the refried beans from scratch would have taken me hours, which is why I used our leftovers from a previous night. I'm making bread every two days, where usually I can make it every four or five. Breakfast is taking 45 minutes to prepare from beginning to end, lunch over an hour and supper is being started the night before. I'm not used to cooking this way, nor do I particularly wish to become used to cooking this way.
Anyway, the french toast wasn't eaten by Samuel because 1) it was bread, and 2) it took so long to make it all that he ate before he ate, which ruined his appetite.
So, here we are at lunch again...spinach and something made out of cornmeal. Well, that's what Samuel and I will be having - David is on day three of eating the lentil and vegetable soup I made. It's almost done now! When he left this morning it was with a slightly forced smile, and he commented last night on how creamed fish didn't sound that bad for supper today, so I'd say he's holding up with his usual day three resilience to my crazy food schemes.
The batter bread recipe was difficult to understand for someone who has barely worked with cornmeal before. It said the meal would absorb the water, which to me means a paste is going to be the end result. But the cornmeal just sort of vaguely thickened the liquid - so I popped it back in the microwave for 30 seconds to thicken it up, and that seemed to work. The final product (which I cooked in a cast iron frying pan) was really very odd. The bread seemed to separate, leaving heavy cornmeal at the bottom, and a sort of salty custard on top. It was sort of like eating glue topped with mucus. Don't laugh, I have a whole pan of this stuff to eat. And let me tell you, it would have to be one heck of an emergency for me to make that again.
I didn't even try to give it to Sam, he had his share of the french toast, reheated. And I ate the last of the lentil soup.
And then...things just sort of fell apart for supper. I'd forgotten about the garlic toast, and had used the last of the bread for french toast this morning (though, with french toast for breakfast, cornbread for lunch, tortillas for snacks and rice for supper, did we really need another carb?) leaving me with no way of making garlic toast for supper. Since both of us had eaten leftovers for lunch, I forgot about the spinach (that we were supposed to eat earlier today) slowly puddling its merry way across my counters, and decided to make that with the creamed tuna. Which by the way was actually salmon, since that was on sale. Which made me forget about the peas! We sat down to rice, with creamed salmon (no peas!) and spinach.
It was pretty good, actually. I could see it working well on toast. Or biscuits. Or maybe mashed potatos.
Friday, July 13, 2012
The Hillbilly Housewife Challenge - Day Two
Here's what our menu looked like today according to the meal plan:
Breakfast - Oatmeal, toast, margarine and jelly, orange juice, milk, tea.
Lunch - Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, carrot sticks, macaroni and cheese, milk.
Supper - Burritos with homemade refried beans and homemade tortillas, iced tea, fried onions.
Snacks - Jelly filled muffins, milk, tea.
Alright, so the good news first. Before I went to bed last night I put a cup of steel cut oats in to soak with a handful of dried cranberries. This morning I boiled them, drained them, and served Samuel and I the cereal with milk and a little bit of syrup. We both ate it, and the leftovers got frozen to be tossed into muffins at a later date. I don't know if steel cuts oats were exactly what the HH meant, but they're what I try and serve for oatmeal...
On the other hand, with a giant bowl of oatmeal no one needed the toast, so I didn't bother.
We had a date for lunch, and so the lunch portion of the menu got skipped today. No big deal, I think, we've all eaten pb&j and KD before.
And that brings us to supper. I made refried beans using the leftovers from last night's bean, garlic, butter and kale meal using this recipe. I also made the tortillas, which were really surprisingly easy, using this recipe. I may never buy tortillas again! It is so incredibly hot that we just drank water and frankly, after making burritos from scratch I didn't even have the energy to fry a few onions.
David liked the beans, which was amazing! I liked them, too, but seriously I have eaten some form of legume for every meal in the past two days - enough already. Still, the recipe was amazingly simple and I imagine it will be a repeat for us. Samuel wouldn't touch the beans or the tortillas, so he ate an orange.
Tomorrow I'm apparently making french toast for breakfast! The boys should like that. And then batter bread for lunch? Batter bread? Um....
Breakfast - Oatmeal, toast, margarine and jelly, orange juice, milk, tea.
Lunch - Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, carrot sticks, macaroni and cheese, milk.
Supper - Burritos with homemade refried beans and homemade tortillas, iced tea, fried onions.
Snacks - Jelly filled muffins, milk, tea.
Alright, so the good news first. Before I went to bed last night I put a cup of steel cut oats in to soak with a handful of dried cranberries. This morning I boiled them, drained them, and served Samuel and I the cereal with milk and a little bit of syrup. We both ate it, and the leftovers got frozen to be tossed into muffins at a later date. I don't know if steel cuts oats were exactly what the HH meant, but they're what I try and serve for oatmeal...
On the other hand, with a giant bowl of oatmeal no one needed the toast, so I didn't bother.
We had a date for lunch, and so the lunch portion of the menu got skipped today. No big deal, I think, we've all eaten pb&j and KD before.
And that brings us to supper. I made refried beans using the leftovers from last night's bean, garlic, butter and kale meal using this recipe. I also made the tortillas, which were really surprisingly easy, using this recipe. I may never buy tortillas again! It is so incredibly hot that we just drank water and frankly, after making burritos from scratch I didn't even have the energy to fry a few onions.
David liked the beans, which was amazing! I liked them, too, but seriously I have eaten some form of legume for every meal in the past two days - enough already. Still, the recipe was amazingly simple and I imagine it will be a repeat for us. Samuel wouldn't touch the beans or the tortillas, so he ate an orange.
Tomorrow I'm apparently making french toast for breakfast! The boys should like that. And then batter bread for lunch? Batter bread? Um....
Thursday, July 12, 2012
The Hillbilly Housewife Challenge - Day One
Well, breakfast was pancakes today. I went onto the HH website to see how she expected me to make my pancakes (my normal recipe uses apple sauce instead of oil and apple cider instead of milk, and I make it in a large pan in the oven, not on the stovetop). Problem #1: The recipes for this week aren't conveniently located with the meal plan, you have to go searching for them in her recipe index. I found what I assume was the pancake recipe, made it, and was a little shocked that this was supposed to feed four people since I only managed to get 8 small pancakes out of it. I mean, it fed us, but we weren't all that hungry, and Samuel ate three of them.
Maybe I used the wrong recipe? Maybe I was supposed to understand that she meant to double it?
Anyway, we went out to play and when we got back it was Samuel's naptime. I'd hoped to feed him lunch before putting him down to bed, but he was having none of it, and instead took a piece of bread and butter and a glass of milk to his room. I assumed these were acceptable, since the meal plan told me to give him 'cinnamon toast' for a snack and milk at lunch.
Problem #2 came up pretty quickly when I went to start the soup - this meal HAD no recipe. I couldn't find one. I looked through the lentil recipes and the soup recipes and it was nowhere, so I assume I am just supposed to know how to make lentil and vegetable soup from scratch on my own? Well, I skimmed the stock, heated it, peeled and chopped the vegetables (and this was another thing - how much of these vegetables am I supposed to use? What if I use too many carrots and run out of them for a later carrot recipe?) drained and added the lentils and went to make the dumplings.
There also was no dumpling recipe. So I had to Google 'dumpling recipe', and find one I could make with only the ingredients she gave me.
Problem #3 - No word of a lie this lunch took me over an hour to make. We all sat down to our soup at 2pm, none of us terribly hungry because we'd filled up on bread and butter while waiting for the soup to cook.
The soup I had made used 3 carrots, 2 onions, 2 stalks of celery, 1 cup rehydrated soaked green lentils, 6 cups turkey stock and 1/3 sweet potato. I know the potato wasn't on the grocery list, but it was in my fridge and I didn't want it to go bad. The dumplings used butter, flour, b. powder, milk, salt and seasonings. It was decent soup, nothing to write home about but certainly edible. I've made better dumplings. There was certainly a tonne of it left over, a least half the pot, so guess what David will be taking for lunch to work tomorrow. Or maybe I'll freeze it.
With all of that soup in our stomachs from lunch, none of us was really eager for supper, especially when I told David what it was. More beans. My friend Martha gave me a good idea, though, rather than cook the onions, beans and collard greens separately, why not saute them together, with a bit of that garlic butter I made earlier? That didn't sound half bad! (By the way, what on earth is a collard green? I bought kale - is that similar?)
I skipped making the hoe cakes for one reason only - we are swimming in food from day 1 over here. I rehydrated double the amount of beans and lentils, made 6 cups more broth than I needed, and have copious leftovers from the two meals I made. No need to make more food. But in the interests of the challenge, I will make them sometime this week.
Maybe I used the wrong recipe? Maybe I was supposed to understand that she meant to double it?
Anyway, we went out to play and when we got back it was Samuel's naptime. I'd hoped to feed him lunch before putting him down to bed, but he was having none of it, and instead took a piece of bread and butter and a glass of milk to his room. I assumed these were acceptable, since the meal plan told me to give him 'cinnamon toast' for a snack and milk at lunch.
Problem #2 came up pretty quickly when I went to start the soup - this meal HAD no recipe. I couldn't find one. I looked through the lentil recipes and the soup recipes and it was nowhere, so I assume I am just supposed to know how to make lentil and vegetable soup from scratch on my own? Well, I skimmed the stock, heated it, peeled and chopped the vegetables (and this was another thing - how much of these vegetables am I supposed to use? What if I use too many carrots and run out of them for a later carrot recipe?) drained and added the lentils and went to make the dumplings.
There also was no dumpling recipe. So I had to Google 'dumpling recipe', and find one I could make with only the ingredients she gave me.
Problem #3 - No word of a lie this lunch took me over an hour to make. We all sat down to our soup at 2pm, none of us terribly hungry because we'd filled up on bread and butter while waiting for the soup to cook.
The soup I had made used 3 carrots, 2 onions, 2 stalks of celery, 1 cup rehydrated soaked green lentils, 6 cups turkey stock and 1/3 sweet potato. I know the potato wasn't on the grocery list, but it was in my fridge and I didn't want it to go bad. The dumplings used butter, flour, b. powder, milk, salt and seasonings. It was decent soup, nothing to write home about but certainly edible. I've made better dumplings. There was certainly a tonne of it left over, a least half the pot, so guess what David will be taking for lunch to work tomorrow. Or maybe I'll freeze it.
With all of that soup in our stomachs from lunch, none of us was really eager for supper, especially when I told David what it was. More beans. My friend Martha gave me a good idea, though, rather than cook the onions, beans and collard greens separately, why not saute them together, with a bit of that garlic butter I made earlier? That didn't sound half bad! (By the way, what on earth is a collard green? I bought kale - is that similar?)
I skipped making the hoe cakes for one reason only - we are swimming in food from day 1 over here. I rehydrated double the amount of beans and lentils, made 6 cups more broth than I needed, and have copious leftovers from the two meals I made. No need to make more food. But in the interests of the challenge, I will make them sometime this week.
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
The Hillbilly Housewife Challenge - Prep Day
I love my food challenge weeks, I really do. I love trying to decide what I'm going to push myself to do. Is it going to be as simple as recording what we eat and snapping a photo for a week, or am I going to have to re-vamp our way of eating entirely, perhaps going vegan, or raw food, or dairy free?
Well, this week's challenge is a fun one, in my opinion. It's based on the blog The Hillbilly Housewife; she has an emergency menu that she claims can healthily feed 4 people for a week for $45. It's nothing fancy, but she claims it's filling and tasty, and that piques my interest. I did the Big Shop today to prepare for the meals ahead.
First off - my grocery bill was $76, not $45. Now, that being said there were a few things I bought that she hadn't asked for, and a few things she asked for that I didn't buy. Her menu plan assumes a bare pantry, and I am well stocked with spices, salt, flour, etc. so those weren't purchased. Instead, I bought some fruit, which is completely lacking in her meal plan.
There were also a few 'switches' made. In some cases it was a simple switch, for example she asked for canned tomatoes, but I bought fresh because I prefer them and they were on sale. In other cases, I 'upgraded' my ingredients; she simply asked for hot dogs, by which I assume she meant the cheapest there were, and I bought the natural hot dogs that are chemical free and cost three times as much as the cheapest no name brand.
Is this cheating? Maybe, but I abhor wasting food and I refuse to cook something (taking the time, hydro and money out of my allotment) just for the fun of it and with no serious intention of eating the finished product! In the long run, though, and after reading a lot of comments about the meal plan, I can also see that there isn't much of a chance of me reaching the $45 mark and having enough food. I know from past experience that I can, with a lot of squeezing, feed two adults on $50 per week. But I am nursing two children, David is working 40 hour weeks on his feet, and we walk everywhere, not to mention a toddler shares our table; these days I'm doing well if I can keep our bill at $75 per week.
We eat a LOT of food. Just sayin'.
This is all to say that I think the switches and so forth even themselves out. Yes, I bought fruit, but I didn't buy flour. Yes, I bought expensive hotdogs, but I bought cheaper beans, etc. And it came to $76. So there you have it.
I intended to start today with the challenge, but after a close look at the menu I realized that I was going to need a 'Prep Day'. Here's what we'll be eating tomorrow, then:
Breakfast: Pancakes, syrup, orange juice, hot tea, milk.
Lunch: Lentil and vegetable soup with dumplings, milk.
Supper: Pinto beans, onions, hoe cakes, collard greens, iced tea.
Snack: cinnamon toast and milk for children, tea for adults.
Can I tell you what immediately hits me like a tonne of bricks from that menu? The beans for supper. Just...beans. Beans soaked, drained and then boiled. Oh my goodness how do people eat just beans? Nothing on them? Like, nothing?
I also had to look up what a hoe cake was, and it so wasn't what I thought it was. It turns out hoe cakes are fried cornbread. I'm trying to picture in my mind what Samuel's face is going to look like when I present him with fried cornbread tomorrow. I'm guessing we'll be using that syrup again come suppertime.
My prep today, then, involved making a loaf of bread so that we can eat our cinnamon toast. I also decided not to use the bouillon that the Hillbilly Housewife suggested for her soup broth, and instead I'm making broth as well, from turkey. I've also been wracking my brain on what to do about those beans, because that is going to be really tough for me. I settled on a roasted garlic butter, and I've roasted three heads of garlic in the oven and put them in the fridge ready to go.
She suggests soaking your beans for a few hours, but with dried beans I prefer to soak overnight using this method from Keeper of the Home (and here's a great link as to WHY I prefer that).
Other than that, I think we're ready for tomorrow. Let the beans shine on.
Well, this week's challenge is a fun one, in my opinion. It's based on the blog The Hillbilly Housewife; she has an emergency menu that she claims can healthily feed 4 people for a week for $45. It's nothing fancy, but she claims it's filling and tasty, and that piques my interest. I did the Big Shop today to prepare for the meals ahead.
First off - my grocery bill was $76, not $45. Now, that being said there were a few things I bought that she hadn't asked for, and a few things she asked for that I didn't buy. Her menu plan assumes a bare pantry, and I am well stocked with spices, salt, flour, etc. so those weren't purchased. Instead, I bought some fruit, which is completely lacking in her meal plan.
There were also a few 'switches' made. In some cases it was a simple switch, for example she asked for canned tomatoes, but I bought fresh because I prefer them and they were on sale. In other cases, I 'upgraded' my ingredients; she simply asked for hot dogs, by which I assume she meant the cheapest there were, and I bought the natural hot dogs that are chemical free and cost three times as much as the cheapest no name brand.
Is this cheating? Maybe, but I abhor wasting food and I refuse to cook something (taking the time, hydro and money out of my allotment) just for the fun of it and with no serious intention of eating the finished product! In the long run, though, and after reading a lot of comments about the meal plan, I can also see that there isn't much of a chance of me reaching the $45 mark and having enough food. I know from past experience that I can, with a lot of squeezing, feed two adults on $50 per week. But I am nursing two children, David is working 40 hour weeks on his feet, and we walk everywhere, not to mention a toddler shares our table; these days I'm doing well if I can keep our bill at $75 per week.
We eat a LOT of food. Just sayin'.
This is all to say that I think the switches and so forth even themselves out. Yes, I bought fruit, but I didn't buy flour. Yes, I bought expensive hotdogs, but I bought cheaper beans, etc. And it came to $76. So there you have it.
I intended to start today with the challenge, but after a close look at the menu I realized that I was going to need a 'Prep Day'. Here's what we'll be eating tomorrow, then:
Breakfast: Pancakes, syrup, orange juice, hot tea, milk.
Lunch: Lentil and vegetable soup with dumplings, milk.
Supper: Pinto beans, onions, hoe cakes, collard greens, iced tea.
Snack: cinnamon toast and milk for children, tea for adults.
Can I tell you what immediately hits me like a tonne of bricks from that menu? The beans for supper. Just...beans. Beans soaked, drained and then boiled. Oh my goodness how do people eat just beans? Nothing on them? Like, nothing?
I also had to look up what a hoe cake was, and it so wasn't what I thought it was. It turns out hoe cakes are fried cornbread. I'm trying to picture in my mind what Samuel's face is going to look like when I present him with fried cornbread tomorrow. I'm guessing we'll be using that syrup again come suppertime.
My prep today, then, involved making a loaf of bread so that we can eat our cinnamon toast. I also decided not to use the bouillon that the Hillbilly Housewife suggested for her soup broth, and instead I'm making broth as well, from turkey. I've also been wracking my brain on what to do about those beans, because that is going to be really tough for me. I settled on a roasted garlic butter, and I've roasted three heads of garlic in the oven and put them in the fridge ready to go.
She suggests soaking your beans for a few hours, but with dried beans I prefer to soak overnight using this method from Keeper of the Home (and here's a great link as to WHY I prefer that).
Other than that, I think we're ready for tomorrow. Let the beans shine on.
Sunday, April 1, 2012
A Pinterest Inspired Project
I've mentioned my oh-so-minor Pinterest obsession, right? Well, I thought I might tackle one of the simpler projects currently in my queue. Fabric, tightly held or glued in embroidery hoops and displayed on the wall as art. I needed something simple and pretty for the girl's 'nook' while she sleeps in our room, and this seemed like the perfect solution.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Pumpkin Muffins
I posted on Facebook this morning that we had these delicious muffins for breakfast:
Country Pumpkin Muffins - recipe (highly modified by me) found at allrecipes.com
We skipped the cup of refined white sugar and replaced it with 1/4 cup of white sugar and 1/2 cup of maple syrup. We also took out the pureed pumpkin and replaced it with my homemade pumpkin pie filling (recipe for THAT later) and the oil we just removed altogether since it didn't seem to serve any real purpose. We increased the pumpkin by 1/4 cup, removed the nuts (since we were taking the muffins for our lunch to a nut-free playgroup) and increased the raisins. Just 'cause.
Result: This recipe is making it into our recipe binder! I love how moist they were, and not too sweet. I also have a sweet bread and muffin requirement that no one else seems to have. I like to add my eggs at the very end so that I can keep tasting the batter right through mixing up the recipe. Some breads and muffins let you do this, and some don't; this one does.
Homemade Pumpkin Pie Filling - There is no recipe!
This is really the easiest of techniques because A) you can do it in steps, stopping pretty much whenever you please and B) It requires almost no real effort from the cook.
What you do is this. You take your pumpkin or squash, (here I used the pumpkins we harvested back in October. When they aren't exposed to heat or frost they keep for months.) cut the top off, scoop out the seeds, poke a couple of holes in the flesh and pop the top back on. Then I placed it on a baking sheet and stuck it in the oven for a couple of hours or until it was very soft and scoopable. At this point you can scoop out the flesh into a freezer bag and halt the recipe for weeks, if you need to, until you have time to keep going. Once you have time, empty the pumpkin flesh into your slow cooker (mine can handle about the amount from 1 large pumpkin) and add the flavourings of your choice. I put in a few Tbsp of pumpkin pie spice, some vanilla essence and brown sugar. Then you simply cook your pumpkin down for a few hours on low, until it has a nice brown colour and smells delicious. Pureeing the flesh after the slow cooker isn't really necessary after all the cooking, and you can freeze the pumpkin in individual bags again for later use in breads, muffins, pastries and pies.
And, just because I think it's similar and delicious...
Homemade Fruit Puree - No recipe
This isn't a recipe so much as something I discovered a while ago that everyone else discovered years ago! Still, it's been making the rounds in our house, so I'd like to share.
This is how I make our fruit purees. First off, I buy the fruit I'm using at a discount, since I'll be cooking it down the same day. I usually get a bag of apples as a good base, but then also whatever else is cheap and sitting on the discount rack. In this case, it was pomegranates. I peel and core the fruit that is the base, be it apples, pears, etc. Put them in a pot with water, maybe a cup. If you're going to mix the base fruit with a juice from your second fruit (ie. you bought pomegranates, or oranges, for example) then skip the water. Put a lid on the pot and cook on low, stirring every 10 minutes or so, until the fruit is broken up. I've tried some really interesting fruit combinations before, and I use the purees to make popsicles, pancakes, breads, ice cubes for fruity drinks, or just to eat with a spoon.
 |
| http://allrecipes.com/recipe/country-pumpkin-muffins/detail.aspx |
We skipped the cup of refined white sugar and replaced it with 1/4 cup of white sugar and 1/2 cup of maple syrup. We also took out the pureed pumpkin and replaced it with my homemade pumpkin pie filling (recipe for THAT later) and the oil we just removed altogether since it didn't seem to serve any real purpose. We increased the pumpkin by 1/4 cup, removed the nuts (since we were taking the muffins for our lunch to a nut-free playgroup) and increased the raisins. Just 'cause.
Result: This recipe is making it into our recipe binder! I love how moist they were, and not too sweet. I also have a sweet bread and muffin requirement that no one else seems to have. I like to add my eggs at the very end so that I can keep tasting the batter right through mixing up the recipe. Some breads and muffins let you do this, and some don't; this one does.
This is really the easiest of techniques because A) you can do it in steps, stopping pretty much whenever you please and B) It requires almost no real effort from the cook.
What you do is this. You take your pumpkin or squash, (here I used the pumpkins we harvested back in October. When they aren't exposed to heat or frost they keep for months.) cut the top off, scoop out the seeds, poke a couple of holes in the flesh and pop the top back on. Then I placed it on a baking sheet and stuck it in the oven for a couple of hours or until it was very soft and scoopable. At this point you can scoop out the flesh into a freezer bag and halt the recipe for weeks, if you need to, until you have time to keep going. Once you have time, empty the pumpkin flesh into your slow cooker (mine can handle about the amount from 1 large pumpkin) and add the flavourings of your choice. I put in a few Tbsp of pumpkin pie spice, some vanilla essence and brown sugar. Then you simply cook your pumpkin down for a few hours on low, until it has a nice brown colour and smells delicious. Pureeing the flesh after the slow cooker isn't really necessary after all the cooking, and you can freeze the pumpkin in individual bags again for later use in breads, muffins, pastries and pies.
And, just because I think it's similar and delicious...
Homemade Fruit Puree - No recipe
This isn't a recipe so much as something I discovered a while ago that everyone else discovered years ago! Still, it's been making the rounds in our house, so I'd like to share.
This is how I make our fruit purees. First off, I buy the fruit I'm using at a discount, since I'll be cooking it down the same day. I usually get a bag of apples as a good base, but then also whatever else is cheap and sitting on the discount rack. In this case, it was pomegranates. I peel and core the fruit that is the base, be it apples, pears, etc. Put them in a pot with water, maybe a cup. If you're going to mix the base fruit with a juice from your second fruit (ie. you bought pomegranates, or oranges, for example) then skip the water. Put a lid on the pot and cook on low, stirring every 10 minutes or so, until the fruit is broken up. I've tried some really interesting fruit combinations before, and I use the purees to make popsicles, pancakes, breads, ice cubes for fruity drinks, or just to eat with a spoon.
Saturday, January 7, 2012
A very frugal master bedroom makeover.
Oh. Oh, my I cannot believe I'm actually posting this video.
This is our master bedroom:
It is very shabby and outdated and so on, and there are reasons that it looks like this. They are this little person:
And this even tinier person:
both of whom get the majority of our time and attention. Our bedroom, (in fact, anything that is specifically ours) plays second fiddle. Or maybe fifty-second fiddle.
Not to mention the fact that money is something you use to buy food, and pay bills, and save a little of so that if the cat vomits blood or someone breaks a bone or the dryer mysteriously 'stops working' you have money to fix the problem. Money is not something that I feel comfortable spending on myself, or my husband, and especially not in such a frivolous way as 'prettying up the bedroom'! But, I realize that something needs to be done.
If you'd like to suggest what that something might be, keeping in mind my very miserly mindset and lack of decorating savvy, I've stolen the idea of starting a Pinterest board for people to pin ideas to from my friend Cari. (Comment on here or on Facebook to get added to the list. You'll need a Pinterest account for me to add you. If you don't have one, I can send you an invite to get one, and then add you.) Her bedroom looks quite nice. Her bedroom looked fine to me to begin with, but it also looks nice now, so that's what I want, too. I want the nice bit.
P.S. I should mention that I bought bedding today. Now, it looks like this:
I'm not saying it's 'done', but I certainly think it's better. I'm pretty unsure about throw pillows, but maybe this is where they'd come in handy?
P.P.S. Also, we rent. So I cannot paint the robin's egg blue walls, change the carpets, paint the woodwork, etc. etc. On the other hand, I don't really care about all of that, anyway, since what I'm looking for is a bedroom that would work in a hypothetical off-white room that will happen sometime in our future.
This is our master bedroom:
It is very shabby and outdated and so on, and there are reasons that it looks like this. They are this little person:
And this even tinier person:
both of whom get the majority of our time and attention. Our bedroom, (in fact, anything that is specifically ours) plays second fiddle. Or maybe fifty-second fiddle.
Not to mention the fact that money is something you use to buy food, and pay bills, and save a little of so that if the cat vomits blood or someone breaks a bone or the dryer mysteriously 'stops working' you have money to fix the problem. Money is not something that I feel comfortable spending on myself, or my husband, and especially not in such a frivolous way as 'prettying up the bedroom'! But, I realize that something needs to be done.
If you'd like to suggest what that something might be, keeping in mind my very miserly mindset and lack of decorating savvy, I've stolen the idea of starting a Pinterest board for people to pin ideas to from my friend Cari. (Comment on here or on Facebook to get added to the list. You'll need a Pinterest account for me to add you. If you don't have one, I can send you an invite to get one, and then add you.) Her bedroom looks quite nice. Her bedroom looked fine to me to begin with, but it also looks nice now, so that's what I want, too. I want the nice bit.
P.S. I should mention that I bought bedding today. Now, it looks like this:
 |
| This picture is taken in terrible, nightime lighting. The purple and yellow is actually quite pale and vintage looking. We bought white muslin sheets to go with the quilt, and have yellow brushed wool blankets and white pillowcases with yellow embroidery on it. So, the bedding is set. |
P.P.S. Also, we rent. So I cannot paint the robin's egg blue walls, change the carpets, paint the woodwork, etc. etc. On the other hand, I don't really care about all of that, anyway, since what I'm looking for is a bedroom that would work in a hypothetical off-white room that will happen sometime in our future.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
The great SAHM discussion continues
Wow, so, is anyone still reading these? I mean, talk about mental diarrhea, which is a very unpleasant visual...
Yesterday at work I had an unexpected (but very nice) visit from the treasurer, who wanted to know what my plans were regarding whether I was/was not returning to my job after the baby was born. There was a lot of humming and hawing on my side, and a lot of gentle, insistent questioning on hers, which essentially boiled down to: 'you're going to have to give us something to go with here, Amy, since we need to know if we're hiring someone, if we're training a volunteer (or, more likely, several volunteers to handle what I manage in a week) if we're going to pile this on the rector or what.'
And, while this was perfectly reasonable to ask, and in fact was expected and anticipated, I still felt anxious and slightly backed into a corner for an answer. I tried, as nicely as possible, to explain that A) I was an idiot and keeping that in mind B) I don't know.
So, um...eventually we decided on a 'trial' of sorts. I would take the Summer of 2012 off, which would give me four months after the birth. During this time I would see how things went, and so would the church, and if in September we both agreed that I could handle the workload again and they still felt they needed me, I would return, albeit probably by working at home.
It was the chicken's way out, for me at least. I KNOW I want to be at home, but at least this way I have an 'out' on the off chance that I can't make it work. If I truly cannot manage without my salary, well, I can figure it out later, right?
Yesterday at work I had an unexpected (but very nice) visit from the treasurer, who wanted to know what my plans were regarding whether I was/was not returning to my job after the baby was born. There was a lot of humming and hawing on my side, and a lot of gentle, insistent questioning on hers, which essentially boiled down to: 'you're going to have to give us something to go with here, Amy, since we need to know if we're hiring someone, if we're training a volunteer (or, more likely, several volunteers to handle what I manage in a week) if we're going to pile this on the rector or what.'
And, while this was perfectly reasonable to ask, and in fact was expected and anticipated, I still felt anxious and slightly backed into a corner for an answer. I tried, as nicely as possible, to explain that A) I was an idiot and keeping that in mind B) I don't know.
So, um...eventually we decided on a 'trial' of sorts. I would take the Summer of 2012 off, which would give me four months after the birth. During this time I would see how things went, and so would the church, and if in September we both agreed that I could handle the workload again and they still felt they needed me, I would return, albeit probably by working at home.
It was the chicken's way out, for me at least. I KNOW I want to be at home, but at least this way I have an 'out' on the off chance that I can't make it work. If I truly cannot manage without my salary, well, I can figure it out later, right?
Monday, January 2, 2012
A problem with frugal food watching...
Ok, so here I am, in my kitchen, writing down what we're eating today, and all I can think of it: "There is NO WAY we're eating $115.00 worth of food this week." No way. We went shopping on the 30th and have eaten 9 meals so far, to the tune of about $35, and that's rounding up. Although it isn't counting the breakdown of cost in using, say, 1/8 of a block of cream cheese that I already had in the fridge, or salt and pepper. But still. And we haven't used vast quantities of the food I've purchased. The pineapple, for example, we've been cutting hunks off of for three days now and still aren't finished it. I've made the apple pancakes, apple raisin bread and given Samuel at least two large glasses of watered down apple juice, and still this morning I had enough left from the 1 litre container to pour myself a glass. We've barely made a dent in the canned foods, I've used 1 pkg of ground beef, half a pound of bacon and 1 steak for all the meat needs in the past three days...
What am I missing here? Why are my food bills as high as they are? Surely I'm not throwing this stuff out and not realizing it?
What am I missing here? Why are my food bills as high as they are? Surely I'm not throwing this stuff out and not realizing it?
Sunday, January 1, 2012
Another post without pictures but with a menu.
I promise I won't do this much longer. I just need a week or so of keeping track of what we're making/eating/spending/blah blah blah so that I can try and figure out some math, here.
Today is Sunday, and that means church and rest, which means that our usually fairly balanced diet kinda goes out the window a bit.
I have no clue what David ate for breakfast, but Samuel and I shared a bagel with cream cheese on it. I can't imagine that our breakfast was more than 75 cents. Samuel then demolished about a third of a big bag of raisins during the sermon at church this morning, which is about $1 worth of dried grapes.
We came home and David was still at work (he works every few Sundays in the morning) and so the two of us split a bowl of pineapple slices before the boy went off for a nap. Once the three of us were together again we had stew that had been simmering in the slow cooker all morning. I used a small cabbage, a gigantic carrot, three potatoes left at the bottom of the last bag of potatoes I bought, some ground beef, the stock from the Christmas duck, and any number of little things I found in the fridge. It probably ran me about $5 to make.
In the afternoon Samuel and I baked a loaf of apple raisin bread and we all ate that and more stew throughout the evening before going to bed.
It was one of those days.
Today is Sunday, and that means church and rest, which means that our usually fairly balanced diet kinda goes out the window a bit.
I have no clue what David ate for breakfast, but Samuel and I shared a bagel with cream cheese on it. I can't imagine that our breakfast was more than 75 cents. Samuel then demolished about a third of a big bag of raisins during the sermon at church this morning, which is about $1 worth of dried grapes.
We came home and David was still at work (he works every few Sundays in the morning) and so the two of us split a bowl of pineapple slices before the boy went off for a nap. Once the three of us were together again we had stew that had been simmering in the slow cooker all morning. I used a small cabbage, a gigantic carrot, three potatoes left at the bottom of the last bag of potatoes I bought, some ground beef, the stock from the Christmas duck, and any number of little things I found in the fridge. It probably ran me about $5 to make.
In the afternoon Samuel and I baked a loaf of apple raisin bread and we all ate that and more stew throughout the evening before going to bed.
It was one of those days.
The Home Made Year
Happy New Year!
Did you make any resolutions? I did! Well, I followed my usual train of thought when it comes to these sorts of events, and it goes something like:
"Oh! Hey! It's, like, December and stuff. I should make a New Year's Resolution NOW so that I'm all prepared when someone asks me later on. Yeah, good idea. What do I want to resolve? {insert long rambling internal monologue} ...and that's why Communism ultimately failed and my father should give me his barbecue sauce recipe. Okay, now, resolutions. Um, lose weight. Done."
Then on Decmeber 30th: "Argh! I will always be pregnant and fat! I need a new resolution."
Enter my talented friend Amanda. She is more creative than me, she is more ambitious than me, and as of starting her new diet she's thinner than me, too. Which sucks for me, but does offer one really kick-butt perk: Amanda always has a whole series of New Year's resolutions. And the third week of December, right when the panic started to set in, she called me to ask if I would like to make Christmas gifts with her this year. (Can you tell where this is going?) Would I? Why yes, yes I would, and why stop at Christmas gifts when we could break the bank and go all the way - let's resolve to do a whole year of home made gifts!
Now, Amanda may be more creative, ambitious and, *sigh* thinner than I am, but in our 26 year friendship she's never gotten wise to the fact that you do not present a drowning Amy with a liferaft and not expect her to beat you to it. Amanda got just as enthused as I did over the crazy scheme. It still seemed a good idea the next morning when we woke up, and again a few days later, and so our joint resolution was born: The Home Made Year. Theoretically designed to make our lives easier and lessen the commerical impact of the holidays on our homes and families - in reality it will probably stress us out and drive us crazy. However, we're in for a penny, in for a pound at this point, and we have started a blog on it, if you'd like to check it out.
Well, if we want to be completely honest we've started a blog, opened a Facebook page, begun a pinboard on Pinterest and inserted an updated Google Calendar on the sidebar so that we can see gifting events as they approach. We, um, have gone insane.
Did you make any resolutions? I did! Well, I followed my usual train of thought when it comes to these sorts of events, and it goes something like:
"Oh! Hey! It's, like, December and stuff. I should make a New Year's Resolution NOW so that I'm all prepared when someone asks me later on. Yeah, good idea. What do I want to resolve? {insert long rambling internal monologue} ...and that's why Communism ultimately failed and my father should give me his barbecue sauce recipe. Okay, now, resolutions. Um, lose weight. Done."
Then on Decmeber 30th: "Argh! I will always be pregnant and fat! I need a new resolution."
Enter my talented friend Amanda. She is more creative than me, she is more ambitious than me, and as of starting her new diet she's thinner than me, too. Which sucks for me, but does offer one really kick-butt perk: Amanda always has a whole series of New Year's resolutions. And the third week of December, right when the panic started to set in, she called me to ask if I would like to make Christmas gifts with her this year. (Can you tell where this is going?) Would I? Why yes, yes I would, and why stop at Christmas gifts when we could break the bank and go all the way - let's resolve to do a whole year of home made gifts!
Now, Amanda may be more creative, ambitious and, *sigh* thinner than I am, but in our 26 year friendship she's never gotten wise to the fact that you do not present a drowning Amy with a liferaft and not expect her to beat you to it. Amanda got just as enthused as I did over the crazy scheme. It still seemed a good idea the next morning when we woke up, and again a few days later, and so our joint resolution was born: The Home Made Year. Theoretically designed to make our lives easier and lessen the commerical impact of the holidays on our homes and families - in reality it will probably stress us out and drive us crazy. However, we're in for a penny, in for a pound at this point, and we have started a blog on it, if you'd like to check it out.
Well, if we want to be completely honest we've started a blog, opened a Facebook page, begun a pinboard on Pinterest and inserted an updated Google Calendar on the sidebar so that we can see gifting events as they approach. We, um, have gone insane.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
December 31st, 2011.
Happy New Year's Eve, everyone!
Today's meals were...
These wonderful apple cider pancakes for breakfast. Mmmm. We made a few adjustments, using soy milk instead of cow's milk, pumpkin pie spice instead of apple pie spice, and apple juice instead of apple cider, but we mostly stuck to the recipe. They certainly kept to the promise of the website and gave us a big meal for under $5, probably closer to $3 if I factored in all of the little ingredients, like a tsp of spices.
{These pancakes are very cakey, and to get the batter to the right consistency you need to add up to a cup more liquid.}
Samuel had a playdate with his friend Edwin for lunch, and the boys had peanut butter and honey dip (microwave equal parts peanut butter and honey until runny) with apple slices, grapes, cheese cubes and sliced pizza buns. When David got home from work he had leftover apple cider pancakes for his lunch. I'm estimating here, but I'd say lunch was probably under $5.
After the playdate I made stock. I'm trying to think how much money I spent on this, but it's hard to guess. I used the carcass from our Christmas duck for the broth, so I can't count that.
For supper we had a layered southwestern salad with diced tomatoes, corn, lettuce, black beans, grated cheese, grilled skirt steak and a creamy dressing. {Lettuce = 1.00, Steak = 3.09, Tomatos = 1.42, Can corn = 1.39, black beans = 0.89, 1/3 block cheese = 2.00. Plus dressing. Total = $9.79} It easily fed us tonight and will give the family a big lunch tomorrow.
At close to $20 worth of food today, it isn't a good day to count as 'frugal'. On the other hand, every single recipe covered more than one meal, and lunch is covered for tomorrow. Does that make it better? How much does your family spend every day on food? Are we eating pretty much what other families eat? More? Less?
Friday, December 30, 2011
Groceries for the week of Dec. 30th to Jan. 7th.
Before Samuel started really eating solid foods I could feed David and I on about $75 a week. The food at that price was good, and healthy, but not terribly imaginative or varied. We ate a lot of salads, stir-frys and curries, but we certainly ate well. Once Samuel started to eat more and more, my grocery bill went up and up. So, my very first question, and one I hadn't asked myself in a long time, was:
1. How much do I actually spend on groceries?
I'm still living in a dream world that says: "You spend $75 a week on groceries, Amy, you clever girl!" Clearly, this can't be true anymore, but it's what I've told myself for the past nine months, even to the point of telling other people the same lie! If you asked me before this morning "So, how much does your family spend on groceries every week?" I would have told you, straight-faced, "Oh, I don't know, around $75."
Well, time for the truth. Today we had to go shopping, and I thought this morning that there was no better time to look at our REAL food bill. I jotted down a few things I knew we needed, and then I did what I usually do, I wrote down the meals I wanted to cook this week and what I needed for each of them. And then we headed out. Here's what we bought:
Produce
broccoli - $1.49
cauliflower - $1.49
eggplant - $1.33
1 bag of onions - $2.99
cilantro - $1.99
dill - $.99
mushrooms - $1.67
pineapple - $1.99
1 bag of apples - $2.49
1 bag of tomatoes - $2.84
Meat
2 sirloin tip steaks - $6.18
1 pkg. Italian sausages - $4.51
4 pkgs. ground beef - $10.35
1 pkg. bacon - $3.49
Bakery
1 bag of assorted bagels and rolls - $3.29
1 bag of 5 frozen tubes of bread dough - $5.99
Grocery Items
4 cans of diced tomatoes with spices - $5.00
2 blocks of cheese - $5.99 each
1 carton apple juice - $1.29
2 cans black beans - $0.89 each
2 cans mushrooms - $1.09 each
1 tub margarine - $1.99
2 cartons of eggs - $3.29 each
1 carton of saltine crackers - $3.19
2 pkgs spaghetti noodles - $1.29 each
2 cans of tuna - $0.87 each
1 can corn - $1.39
1 pkg raisins - $4.79
1 club pack wheat germ - $1.69
2 bags chips - $0.88 each
1 bag dill chips - $1.67
2 litres soy milk - $3.49
1 box shreddies cereal - $2.50
Non-Food
1 tube hand cream - $2.99
The total was $114.43. Almost $40 more than I thought.
Now, I have to be fair to myself here! To start with, several of those items were treats. David and I love to try new chip flavours and two bags at 88 cents each was, in our opinion, a fairly harmless way to indulge a bit. The third bag was actually on the list since I use dill chips in my tuna cakes. The bag of assorted buns was an emergency item; we had completely run out of bread at home and I wouldn't have time to bake one of the frozen loaves before lunch. And then several of the purchases will last much longer than one week. The wheat germ for muffins is a month-long club pack bag, at least. I bought four tins of Italian spiced tomatoes but only have plans for two of them, the other two are for the pantry...and so forth.
But on the other hand, several things went wrong right off the bat. When I got home I discovered that I already had several of the things I'd purchased. In fact, in one case I had done it twice over! I had bought a bag of apples, put them in the crisper drawer, then forgotten about them and purchased a second bag of apples, put them on the top shelf, and then today saw apples on sale, thought "I haven't seen apples in a while" and purchased a third bag of apples.
I also found myself staring at items on the shelves trying to remember if I had them at home. Did I have dried dill? Did I still have carrots? And I was unintentionally vague on my list. For example, for a vegetable curry I had planned for lunch this week I wrote "buy veg. for curry", then spent a whole heck of a time wandering the produce aisles trying to decide what vegetables I felt like having in a hypothetical curry that might happen at the end of next week! By the time I got home and was unloading produce I wasn't sure what was supposed to be in what dish anymore, which I know from experience will result in my using foods intended for one dinner in another dinner and force me back out to the store again.
And so, it wasn't a huge success in terms of a frugal shopping trip, but it was a start. It highlighted problem areas, at least. I need to plan not just what we're having, but what specifically goes into each dish. I need to write that down and buy those items, by-passing other things that I think we may possibly need in favour of those I know we need. I need to keep a list of food basics somewhere visible in the kitchen so that if we run out of cooking oil, we write down and subsequently buy cooking oil, rather than have me try and figure out if we need it by staring at it on a grocery shelf and trying to imagine my pantry in my mind's eye. And finally, we need to stop completely running out of things, necessitating an emergency purchase. I could have saved us money if I had something planned for lunch that didn't need bread.
Oh, and in case you have any curious questions, here's what we ate today:
Breakfast - porridge with dried figs, brown sugar, vanilla and milk. Samuel also had a banana.
Lunch - David and I had tuna melts, Samuel had grapes, half a bagel and some cheese. (We're testing his cheese intake).
Supper - omelets with onion, green pepper, mushrooms, bacon, eggs and a bit of cheese on top. A piece of Christmas cake for dessert for all three of us!
Lunch cost me about $2.27 for two buns, a can of tuna and about 1/6 of a block of cheese. Maybe 20 cents for Samuel's bagel and cheese as well. Let's say $3 total.
Supper cost me {half a carton of eggs+1 onion+1/3 carton mushrooms+1/6 block cheese+1/2 pkg bacon}
about $5.00, since I already had the green pepper.
1. How much do I actually spend on groceries?
I'm still living in a dream world that says: "You spend $75 a week on groceries, Amy, you clever girl!" Clearly, this can't be true anymore, but it's what I've told myself for the past nine months, even to the point of telling other people the same lie! If you asked me before this morning "So, how much does your family spend on groceries every week?" I would have told you, straight-faced, "Oh, I don't know, around $75."
Well, time for the truth. Today we had to go shopping, and I thought this morning that there was no better time to look at our REAL food bill. I jotted down a few things I knew we needed, and then I did what I usually do, I wrote down the meals I wanted to cook this week and what I needed for each of them. And then we headed out. Here's what we bought:
Produce
broccoli - $1.49
cauliflower - $1.49
eggplant - $1.33
1 bag of onions - $2.99
cilantro - $1.99
dill - $.99
mushrooms - $1.67
pineapple - $1.99
1 bag of apples - $2.49
1 bag of tomatoes - $2.84
Meat
2 sirloin tip steaks - $6.18
1 pkg. Italian sausages - $4.51
4 pkgs. ground beef - $10.35
1 pkg. bacon - $3.49
Bakery
1 bag of assorted bagels and rolls - $3.29
1 bag of 5 frozen tubes of bread dough - $5.99
Grocery Items
4 cans of diced tomatoes with spices - $5.00
2 blocks of cheese - $5.99 each
1 carton apple juice - $1.29
2 cans black beans - $0.89 each
2 cans mushrooms - $1.09 each
1 tub margarine - $1.99
2 cartons of eggs - $3.29 each
1 carton of saltine crackers - $3.19
2 pkgs spaghetti noodles - $1.29 each
2 cans of tuna - $0.87 each
1 can corn - $1.39
1 pkg raisins - $4.79
1 club pack wheat germ - $1.69
2 bags chips - $0.88 each
1 bag dill chips - $1.67
2 litres soy milk - $3.49
1 box shreddies cereal - $2.50
Non-Food
1 tube hand cream - $2.99
The total was $114.43. Almost $40 more than I thought.
Now, I have to be fair to myself here! To start with, several of those items were treats. David and I love to try new chip flavours and two bags at 88 cents each was, in our opinion, a fairly harmless way to indulge a bit. The third bag was actually on the list since I use dill chips in my tuna cakes. The bag of assorted buns was an emergency item; we had completely run out of bread at home and I wouldn't have time to bake one of the frozen loaves before lunch. And then several of the purchases will last much longer than one week. The wheat germ for muffins is a month-long club pack bag, at least. I bought four tins of Italian spiced tomatoes but only have plans for two of them, the other two are for the pantry...and so forth.
But on the other hand, several things went wrong right off the bat. When I got home I discovered that I already had several of the things I'd purchased. In fact, in one case I had done it twice over! I had bought a bag of apples, put them in the crisper drawer, then forgotten about them and purchased a second bag of apples, put them on the top shelf, and then today saw apples on sale, thought "I haven't seen apples in a while" and purchased a third bag of apples.
I also found myself staring at items on the shelves trying to remember if I had them at home. Did I have dried dill? Did I still have carrots? And I was unintentionally vague on my list. For example, for a vegetable curry I had planned for lunch this week I wrote "buy veg. for curry", then spent a whole heck of a time wandering the produce aisles trying to decide what vegetables I felt like having in a hypothetical curry that might happen at the end of next week! By the time I got home and was unloading produce I wasn't sure what was supposed to be in what dish anymore, which I know from experience will result in my using foods intended for one dinner in another dinner and force me back out to the store again.
And so, it wasn't a huge success in terms of a frugal shopping trip, but it was a start. It highlighted problem areas, at least. I need to plan not just what we're having, but what specifically goes into each dish. I need to write that down and buy those items, by-passing other things that I think we may possibly need in favour of those I know we need. I need to keep a list of food basics somewhere visible in the kitchen so that if we run out of cooking oil, we write down and subsequently buy cooking oil, rather than have me try and figure out if we need it by staring at it on a grocery shelf and trying to imagine my pantry in my mind's eye. And finally, we need to stop completely running out of things, necessitating an emergency purchase. I could have saved us money if I had something planned for lunch that didn't need bread.
Oh, and in case you have any curious questions, here's what we ate today:
Breakfast - porridge with dried figs, brown sugar, vanilla and milk. Samuel also had a banana.
Lunch - David and I had tuna melts, Samuel had grapes, half a bagel and some cheese. (We're testing his cheese intake).
Supper - omelets with onion, green pepper, mushrooms, bacon, eggs and a bit of cheese on top. A piece of Christmas cake for dessert for all three of us!
Lunch cost me about $2.27 for two buns, a can of tuna and about 1/6 of a block of cheese. Maybe 20 cents for Samuel's bagel and cheese as well. Let's say $3 total.
Supper cost me {half a carton of eggs+1 onion+1/3 carton mushrooms+1/6 block cheese+1/2 pkg bacon}
about $5.00, since I already had the green pepper.
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