Now, listen, I know "weird" meats are a thing for people, but these are delicious. I never advise lying to people about what you are feeding them, but encourage folks to have an open mind because tongue, heart, and cheek meat are just muscle. They are inexpensive and delicious. Right now, inexpensive meat is a great thing. Also, beef tongue makes the best corned beef and pastrami, if you are into making your own charcuterie. This is how much I make for our family, which even smaller than it was, is still larger than most families, so you may want to cut this in half. Or not, and put the leftovers in the freezer for a night when you want tacos and don't have time. You can leave out the hot peppers if you don't like them, but they are tasty and don't add a lot of heat. Conversely, you could use a pepper like a poblano or two Anaheims, rather than jalapeños or serranos. I like to serve these with ranchero beans or black beans or refried beans, and salsa rice or Mexican rice. We like to serve fruit with most meals, so some sliced oranges or pineapple chunks (fresh or canned or thawed from frozen) or mandarin oranges or mango cubes. If you want to be really fancy, you can make Strawberry Mango Salad (which is really like dessert).

2 beef tongues
1 onion, peeled and cut into four pieces
6 cloves of garlic
2 hot peppers, stems removed
generous amount of salt and pepper
finely chopped onion, to serve
finely chopped cilantro, to serve
diced avocado, to serve
salsa or pico de gallo, to serve
crema, to serve
limes, quartered, to serve

Place the onion, garlic, and peppers in the bottom of the crockpot and place the beef tongues over the top. Season generously with salt and pepper, and cook it on high for 4 to 5 hours.

Remove the beef tongues to a cutting board. Peel off the skin and discard (or feed your poultry), chop it all up put the meat back in the pot with the garlic and onions and peppers. Stir everything around a bit to get the juices and the onions mixed up, and tear up the peppers if you have them in there.

Serve with any of the toppings you like. Shredded cabbage is more authentic than salad greens or lettuce, but use what you have. Enjoy!

Labels: Frugality, Homemaking, Recipes, Tales from the Kitchen

The family at BrickCon!

So, this is a tip that I have been using for a little over two years now. When we go on trips, either vacations, short weekend getaways, or work trips, I save a ton of money and try really good food by using an app that allows me to buy food from delis, restaurants, and some grocery stores, for a fraction of the original price. We've used it in the US, Canada, and the UK.

Too Good to Go is an app which partners with these places so that their overstock does not go to waste. Some companies use it as a way to generate income to make sure they don't have overstock, too. There is a rating system, and as all of these are grab bags, with no way of ordering something specific, I am a little careful. I make sure that I check the reviews (if it is a place I haven't tried before), and only order from places with high enough ratings. For me, that is no lower than 4 out of 5 stars. So far, there has only been one that was just okay, and none which have been bad.

One of the ways that we check out these places is also to check reviews outside of the app. So far, it has worked well for us. In London, for instance, there was an Ethiopian restaurant we tried that was fantastic! It cost us all of about $6.50 each for our full dinners (mine was too much for me to eat, and Rich ended up eating his and about a quarter of mine, too). We picked up three orders of smoked fish from a place in Bellevue to add to the fruit and crackers and cookies we brought with us to make lunch for the family after BrickCon, which consisted of smoked salmon, smoked black cod, smoked halibut, and smoked sturgeon, and was all of about $34 for all eight of us, and left enough for two more meals. I've gotten quite generous bags of muffins and breakfast pastries for about $4.00 in Portland, OR, and a dinner and dessert that I grabbed from a Lebanese place for about $11.75 in London.

The way it works is that you put your location in the app, search for what is available in that area, make a reservation for the grab bag, which also will give you a window of time in which you can pick up the food. When you get to the place, you show them the app, slide a little bar to show that you have picked up, and they bring you the food.

This is not as useful in small areas, and there is only a gas station "deli" participating here in my little town. However, whenever we travel or are heading to a different area than where we live for an evening, I always fire up this app and see what is available. We have found all sorts of interesting restaurants and places to eat, and kept the costs down to what they would have been nearly 20 - 30 years ago.

This isn't a huge, amazing thing, but it is one of the ways that you can save some money, stretch your budget, and perhaps allow for some special meals out, or permit your family to go on trips without worrying as much about the cost of the meals. I hope it helps you.

We used this app, plus some of the hints in my Bargain Getaways post (like finding a Homewood Suites - though it looks like the dinners there now are only standard once a week instead of the Monday through Thursday that they used to be - some locations still host more days). Also, we found that Element by Westin hotels have evening socials/meals three times a week, as do Staybridge Hotels (and also offer free laundry machine services). Drury Hotels have daily dinners available. These are all places to look into while traveling to cut your meal costs down, as well.

Previous Posts:
Make it at Home
Grocery Shopping
Waste Not, Want Not
Soup
The Celery Stalks at Midnight
Use What You Have
Combining Trips
Storing Bulk Purchases
Turn It Off
Grow Your Own
Buying in Bulk
Gleaning
Entertainment on the Down Low
Finding Fun Locally
Holiday Shopping
Reconsidering Convenience
More Bang for Your Grocery Buck
Preserving the Harvest
Revisiting Kitchen Strategies
Extreme Frugality
Bargain Getaways
Cultivating or Curating Abundance
Making Your Own Snacks and Treats
How Weird Is Too Weird? Things We Don't Think of Eating
Fuel Costs
Quick Hint on Eggs
What's in Your Refrigerator (Revisited)
Taking Stock
Garbage Management
End of the Paycheck Meals?

Labels: Family, Frugality, Homemaking, Tales from the Kitchen

Lemons from our friend's tree that he sent us from San Diego

Hello again! It has been a while, I know. This is a post I have been hesitant to share, because I don't want to step on the toes of folks who are truly struggling. I hope I can explain my view without causing offense.

That said, this set of thoughts was brought on by various frugality groups online, and the posts I see there regarding what to cook when you run out of paycheck. My answer is honestly that it shouldn't be that different than what you cook at the beginning of that paycheck. You should have a budget. And your groceries should be part of it. You should not be buying groceries because you have cash, but rather the cash you have should be allocated for the groceries you need. We all have moments of going over that budget, or not being able to afford something, that isn't what I mean, but that you should be stocking your refrigerator, freezer, and pantry for more than the mere immediate need or impulse desire. Unless you find yourself suddenly homeless, or in dire straits because of a catastrophe, even a lost job should not mean that your family is scrounging for food to eat. (And if you are in a terrible situation like these, there are church pantries, food banks, summer meal programs for children, all sorts of resources that you should feel zero shame in utilizing to feed your family - as much as it might embarrass you, too, family and friends, neighbors, are probably more than willing to help you, even a little, even if it is just a weekly dinner at their home, or a one time delivery of groceries).

If you have been reading my blog, or even just these frugality posts, you should already know about how to manage your budget with regards to your kitchen and family needs. So, unless you have been out of work for six months or a year or more, you should have a home stocked with foods your family will eat happily. It's true that you might be low on produce by that point, but you should still have frozen vegetables and storage vegetables like potatoes, onions, carrots, squash, cabbages, and so on, to help add variety to your meals.

So, rather than try to figure out how to make a packet of ramen and a leftover Halloween bag of gummi bears into dinner for your family, check your inventory. See what meats you have, what produce you have, what rice/potato/pasta/bread products you have, and plan your meals around those, using whatever seasonings and fats you have.

How can you do this, though, if you don't have the money for it right now? It will take a shift in mindset and a change in how you plan; it will take knowing what foods you have in your home already. Besides that, my approach is to plan our budget based on the previous check, rather than the current one. So, for instance, we are coming up on our mid-month check and the bills I have earmarked for that check are the ones that are actually due between the first and the middle of next month. This automatically gives us about a two week leeway, should some glitch happen with direct deposit, or should the paycheck have a mistake in it. We can work on getting that corrected or have the check actually deposited, without any bills being directly dependent on it at that point. I also plan a certain amount of money, based on what we have and how we eat, and I set it apart on each check for groceries. That's basic, right? I shop based on that budget, and as I've shared before, I shop first, keeping the budget, and then plan our meals afterward, so I can best use what is on sale and in season and plentiful at excellent quality. Most of my weekly (bi-weekly, really) budget is for foods and products that we can stock up on, rather than on immediate meal needs. I spend probably about 50% on produce and meat that is a good price and can be used over those two weeks and stored in our pantries or freezers longer than that, about 20% on dairy and other food products, about 20% to replace things that we use all the time (like flours, oils, seasonings, etc), as we get down to two or three packages (in our house that means two 50 pound bags of bread flour, two gallons of safflower oil, etc, this will depend on how much your family uses and how), and about 10% on paper/cleaning/sanitary/vitamin products, etc. that we need.

What this means is that, like our budget paying the next check's bills on this one, we rarely actually run out of anything we need. We also keep emergency feminine products, pads and tampons, toilet paper, and we used to keep extra packages of diapers and wipes, in the cars, so if we are out and about we aren't without them, but also if it really comes down to it, we can grab one from there, and use it if we are in dire need. This came in handy during the great toilet paper shortage of 2020. In fact, Rich told me to cover up the TP in our mini-van and maxi-van trunks so that nobody would see them and break into our cars just to get it. I digress, however. Since I have a good inventory of our pantry foods and what is in our freezers, I can plan meals from that, even if we have no fresh produce at all. I do prefer to eat with fresh produce and dairy, and so on, but if we are seriously in an emergency situation, or are just stuck because people have been sick, or extraordinarily busy, and haven't shopped at the grocery store, we still have enough food in our house to feed everyone. In fact, because of how we store food in our pantries and freezers, we really could feed the whole family for possibly a year. At the end of the year, our meals might be a bit boring, but we would be fed and well nourished. And until we hit the six month point, we would still be eating quite well and varied.

One thing I didn't mention was planning for emergencies. We do also keep bottled water, which is not quite enough honestly, so we can drink and cook if some terrible natural disaster or the supply chain breaks down entirely, or our well dries out completely. We do have one local emergency source of water on our property, and for the spring and summer, and into October, we have access to the irrigation ditch, for water for our animals and/or boiling to use to clean and cook. The main point of this isn't that kind of emergency, though. It isn't even really the financial emergency I want to address, but the basic, how to manage our money and our food, so we aren't stuck with bizarre combinations of food just because there are a couple days until our next paycheck arrives.

Previous Posts:
Make it at Home
Grocery Shopping
Waste Not, Want Not
Soup
The Celery Stalks at Midnight
Use What You Have
Combining Trips
Storing Bulk Purchases
Turn It Off
Grow Your Own
Buying in Bulk
Gleaning
Entertainment on the Down Low
Finding Fun Locally
Holiday Shopping
Reconsidering Convenience
More Bang for Your Grocery Buck
Preserving the Harvest
Revisiting Kitchen Strategies
Extreme Frugality
Bargain Getaways
Cultivating or Curating Abundance
Making Your Own Snacks and Treats
How Weird Is Too Weird? Things We Don't Think of Eating
Fuel Costs
Quick Hint on Eggs
What's in Your Refrigerator (Revisited)
Taking Stock
Garbage Management

Labels: Family, Frugality, Homemaking, Tales from the Kitchen

Could you get any further apart than these two recipes? I'm not sure. They are both delicious and hearty, though.

Pasta Trapanese

This is a simple pasta dish that can be made fast friendly by leaving out the cheese quite easily. You can use a fast friendly oil if it is not an olive oil day. The sauce is a Sicilian variation on pesto and is so good! This feeds eight to 12 people with a salad, bread, and fruit.

6 cups cherry tomatoes, or canned diced tomatoes
30 large basil leaves, or about 2 tablespoons of dry or 2 frozen basil and oil cubes (we've used all three with success)
8 cloves garlic, peeled and roughly chopped
1 cup whole almonds, lightly toasted
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes (we use Aleppo pepper)
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 cup olive oil
1 1/2 cups freshly grated hard, Italian cheese like parmegiano, pecorino, or something like that (if you leave it out, increase the tomato and almond)

Pulse the almonds, garlic, basil, red pepper flakes, and salt together in a food processor. Add the tomatoes and olive oil and process until fairly smooth - not too grainy, not too chunky, not too wet.

Scrape the pesto into a large serving bowl and stir, then season to taste with salt and pepper. Stir in the cheese at this point, if you are using it. Let sit while you prepare the pasta. This sitting time really makes a difference. The first time I made it, I tasted it right away, and it was pretty crude tasting, but rounds out after it has a chance to settle.

Cook your pasta to al dente, drain, but let some water cling to the pasta, and toss with the sauce in the serving bowl.

Farls

This is my new favorite way to use up leftover mashed potatoes. You can make them from fresh potatoes, also, but I like to make these for breakfast the next day when I have leftovers. I don't know if the fresh herbs are authentic, but we liked them added to the mix.

6 cups mashed potatoes
1 1/2 cup flour (I use bread flour)
1/2 cup finely chopped fresh herbs (we use chives, dill, parsley or a mix of all three)
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
4 tablespoons butter, melted and slightly cooled (plus more for cooking)

In a large bowl, add the mashed potatoes, flour, salt, pepper, and melted butter. Mix well and stir the dough together until it forms a ball.

Divide the dough in half and turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and flatten it into two 9 inch round discs. Using a large knife cut the disc into 8 pieces each.

Melt a big knob of butter in a large frying pan or skillet over medium-low to medium heat until bubbling. Carefully add the potato farls and cook over medium-low to medium heat for about 5 minutes or until golden brown. Flip them over and cook for another 4-5 minutes on the other side. They should be crisp on the outside and fluffy on the inside.

Serve immediately while hot (though we thought they were quite good warm, or even room temperature).

Labels: Fasting as a Family, Frugality, Homemaking, Recipes, Tales from the Kitchen

This sounds like an epithet, but it isn't. In the hospitality industry, especially in restaurants, this is a term for managing how much garbage is produced, not managing the things that are garbage. The idea is to minimize how much waste is created. Isn't that what we've been talking about all these years?

There is a funny story to illustrate this. Hormel meats made canned hams using pork shoulder, because it was such a low cost cut of meat. Because of its cost, they basically cut the boneless "ham" out of it and did whatever you have to do to make it into a canned, seasoned ham. Then, the price went up on pork shoulder. It was no longer cost effective to cut out what they needed and dispose of what remained. So, they went to a (French!) chef and said, "We need you to come up with something we can make and sell that uses the rest of the pork shoulder, or we will have to stop making canned hams." He minced and spiced and pressed and created a special ham, AKA SPAM. We have a French man to thank for SPAM, everyone. The point, though, is that they had to manage their product so it did not create too much waste.

So, how do we apply this to our own homes and kitchens? We've talked about making stock, having a use for all our ingredients, eating soup once or more a week, planning meals around what we already have, but when we plan those meals, do take into account the leftovers you have.

Let's say you made something using ground beef and have some left, you might have a sauce from another meal, maybe some sort of relish. You can heat and combine them and serve over pasta or rice. Now, it is a different meal, tastes good, and uses what you have so it doesn't go to waste. We've done this with leftovers. We often have lots of leftovers from our Paschal meal, and I have taken to using them in this way. When I plan the week after Bright Week, I take some ground beef, brown it and add the sauce from the lamb, the leftover green hot sauce, and a little bit of water. I cook the rice in the tiny bit of tomato and meat sauce from our stuffed grape leaves, and then I mixed in the red pepper dip with everything after it is cooked. The kids love it, it doesn't look like the exact same meal, we use what we have, and it saves our budget a little. The recipe I shared for chicken and eggplant in a green curry was largely born because of a single eggplant hanging around the back of our fridge and some jalapeños that were drying out, we also had some cucumbers that needed to be used that were marinated to become a salad to go with the meal. When I do my weekly menu planning, I also scan the fridge for meal portions and leftover vegetables that need to be used in something. Stir fries are perfect for this, if you want something easy to do.

Often, I find myself with one or two chipotle chiles in adobo in the fridge, a little cilantro that needs to be used, and some salad greens that are ready right now. These can become a quiche and a salad quite easily, and that does not feel like eating scrapings at all. Again, soup is perfect for this, too. We've had some potatoes that weren't really enough for our family, a few carrots, an onion, a couple sprigs of herbs, and garlic that we cook and add seasoning to, simmer in broth or water, and purée to a lovely, thick soup. Serve with bread, a salad, some fruit, and it is a hearty and tasty meal.

Breakfast is a great place to do this. We add everything to scrambles - leftover rice? In it goes. Beans, veggies, meat, whatever it is, can go in scrambled eggs. Or a breakfast burrito, or an omelet. Even our pancake breakfasts are part of garbage management. We only have a little bit left of the berries or one apple or whatever, and in the batter it goes. A few months ago, we had leftover orange rum syrup from a cake, we had butter sauce from another cake, and a partial bag of frozen blueberries in the freezer that was left open. We added all of that to pancake batter, we could eliminate the butter and the sugar from the batter entirely, and we didn't need to use much syrup at all. It was delicious, cleared out space in our fridge, kept things from going to waste, and saved us money. What more can you ask?

Once you start thinking about what is left in your pantry or fridge as a possibility rather than a liability, it is freeing. Some of the best meals we have had came from this kind of thinking. So, take a quick look in your refrigerator when you are planning the weekly menu, or if you are planning a big roast of something and you know you will have leftovers, think of ways you can remake them into something new for yourself and your family. If you still have a lot left, throw it into eggs or pancakes!

Previous Posts:
Make it at Home
Grocery Shopping
Waste Not, Want Not
Soup
The Celery Stalks at Midnight
Use What You Have
Combining Trips
Storing Bulk Purchases
Turn It Off
Grow Your Own
Buying in Bulk
Gleaning
Entertainment on the Down Low
Finding Fun Locally
Holiday Shopping
Reconsidering Convenience
More Bang for Your Grocery Buck
Preserving the Harvest
Revisiting Kitchen Strategies
Extreme Frugality
Bargain Getaways
Cultivating or Curating Abundance
Making Your Own Snacks and Treats
How Weird Is Too Weird? Things We Don't Think of Eating
Fuel Costs
Quick Hint on Eggs
What's in Your Refrigerator (Revisited)
Taking Stock

Labels: Family, Frugality, Homemaking, Tales from the Kitchen

This is a recipe I found online some years ago, but it was a low fat recipe, and its technique wasn't optimal. Then, it went away - online, anyway. So, here is my interpretation of it. It is super quick to make, and if you have a food processor or good blender and manage your time well, you can start it and have a full meal ready within about half an hour. (Though, I will say that we cut up the chicken in advance, so it was in the fridge in pieces, ready for me to use). It's highly customizeable, but is really wonderful as it is. We double this recipe, but this will serve six to eight people as it is written, which makes it quite economical, as well.

1 bunch fresh cilantro, stems removed (save those stems to make stock!)
3 jalapeños (if you are concerned about heat, you can seed them and remove the membranes - you can see from my photo that we don't)
2 tablespoons Garlic Ginger Paste
4 tablespoons sunflower oil
1 medium yellow onion, thinly sliced
1 small eggplant, quartered lengthwise and sliced 1/2 inch thick crosswise
20 ounces unsweetened coconut milk (plus or minus, depending on your tastes)
3 tablespoons soy or tamari sauce
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 - 1 1/2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken (I prefer thighs, but you can use breasts), cut in 1/2 inch thick chunks or strips
cooked jasmine rice to serve (cook while you prepare these ingredients)

Here is where your kitchen management comes into play. Rinse and drain your rice, until the water runs mostly clear. Refill the pot with cold water, salt and a little oil, and start it cooking while you prepare the ingredients for the chicken.

Heat a skillet over high heat. Pour in 3 tablespoons of the sunflower oil and the chicken pieces in the pan. Put the jalapeños, cilantro, ginger, garlic, 1 teaspoons of salt, and remaining tablespoon of sunflower oil in a food processor and whir it around occasionally until it is a wet paste, while the chicken is browning. Turn the chicken pieces over to brown on the other side and toss in the onion and eggplant to start them browning and softening, also. Give them a stir every now and then so they don't stick, and brown on all sides.

Pour in the puréed sauce to cook it a little bit, add the coconut milk (I rinse out the food processor with some coconut milk to get the last bits from that into the pan) and soy sauce, and the remaining teaspoon of salt. Reduce heat to low and let it simmer while the rice finishes cooking. Taste for salt and adjust if you think it is necessary, but we think this is plenty enough salt.

While both the chicken and rice are finishing up, start marinating some slices of cucumber with minced garlic, salt, roasted chile powder, black sesame oil, and a little bit of rice wine vinegar, and now you have an entire meal with the chicken and eggplant, the rice, and the cucumbers. We served oranges as a dessert.

Labels: Frugality, Homemaking, Recipes, Tales from the Kitchen

I promised a stock turorial some time back, and here it is, finally!

Stock is basically free nutrition. It uses the bones and skin and bits left over from meat, poultry, fish, even the shells from shrimp or crab, and the scraps from vegetables and herbs that would otherwise be tossed or put in the compost. I read in a nutrition book more than 20 years ago, so I have no reference for you, that the protein from stocks are more available to our bodies than even the protein directly in meat. This does not mean that there is more protein in stock than in a hunk of beef, but that the form it takes is more able to be used and processed by our bodies than that piece of meat. This illustrates to me one of the numerous ways that God takes care of the poor. A scrap of meat on the bone is not enough to make a meal or make one person feel full, but it can be turned into a pot of beans or soup or stock, and now it will feed many and will give them more accessible protein and nutrients than just the bit of meat could.

A lot of people want to make stock, but don't know how. This should not be intimidating or difficult, so I hope this helps you feel confident to make your own. It really is the simplest thing. You take those bones or shells or scraps and put in the vegetable scraps and a few peppercorns, some salt, maybe a bay leaf, bring it to a boil and simmer it for a few hours or just an hour (for seafood or vegetable stocks). Strain, put into containers for your freezer (being careful not to overfill, because they will expand in there a bit), and that's it. Now, I don't always have the time to make a pot of stock when I have the supplies for it. So, I freeze those scraps and pull them out when I have the time or when the freezer is getting too full.

This pile of tough onion ends and dill stems would have become chicken fodder and compost before. However, now I toss it into one of my stock bags in the freezer and use it at a time that is more convenient to me. I used to put the woody stems of rosemary, sage and thyme into the chicken bucket or compost bin, but now they go into the stock bag, too. Cilantro and parsley stems, tough bits of lemongrass and leeks, the ends of garlic I trim off because they are hard, the tips of carrots that I trim when cooking, the ends of celery, trimmings from lemons and limes, all of these things go in my stock bag (and more). Unless I have a very good reason for it, I don't differentiate between chicken, duck, goose, or turkey bones and trimmings for stock. They all go into one poultry stock bag. Likewise, beef and lamb bones and scraps. I even save the cartilage and skin that isn't crisp enough for us to want to eat it. Same goes for fish. The bones and skin and trimmings go in a bag in the freezer for making a quick fish stock later. The shells from shrimp and crab (we don't often have lobster, but have found that the smell is rather strong, and we don't save those - the shells get dried and ground up for calcium for our poultry). Pork bones don't generally get saved, though I do use the shanks and such to make beans and stews. I do save ham bones and the scraps on them to make beans and greens.

There are all sorts of recipes and guides on the right way to make stock. I just toss everything in a big pot, bones, herbs, vegetables, a bit of salt, a few whole peppercorns, and a bay leaf or two, bring it to a boil, turn down the heat to a simmer and let it go. That's it. I don't even skim most of the time. When it has cooked enough (a few hours or more for poultry and meat stocks, and 30 minutes to an hour for vegetable, fish, and shellfish stocks), I strain it, we give the bits in the strainer to our poultry (and pigs, if we have any), though Rich often fishes out the carrot bits to eat, and put the big bowl in the refrigerator to cool. The fat cap on top keeps it from turning for nearly a week. We usually get it into containers for the freezer before that, though. We use quart freezer bags, because they thaw more quickly and are more useful to us in that quantity. Sometimes, I will scrape the fat off and use it for cooking, other times it goes in with the stock to the freezer. Rarely do I absolutely need a clear stock. This does mean that my stock does not always have a uniform flavor, but that is fine for us. Since everything but the few peppercorns, salt, bay leaves, and water are scraps and leftovers, I can make a gallon and a half for basically a nickel or a dime. Even the best price of boxed stock at the store is about a dollar for a quart. We write the type of stock and the date it was made (not packaged) on the bags before we fill them, we put the bags in bowls, cups, or yogurt containers to keep them upright while we fill, and turn the tops down, so the edges don't get too messy. Seal them up and lay them flat in the freezer and we are set for a long time. Just this past week, I turned four gallon bags and one quart bag of vegetable bits into about two gallons of vegetable stock. Even putting the stock back in the freezer, it freed up quite a bit of freezer space for us, and we use it all the time.

If you don't have freezer space or wish to have it shelf stable, you will need to pressure can the meat and seafood stocks. I am not sure about vegetable stock, that may be able to be processed in a boiling water bath, but I am not positive about that. We have always simply frozen it. However, having some that is shelf stable, should the power go out is not a bad idea. I hope reading how I make stocks and work the job around what I have and when it is convenient to me helped you.

Previous Posts:
Make it at Home
Grocery Shopping
Waste Not, Want Not
Soup
The Celery Stalks at Midnight
Use What You Have
Combining Trips
Storing Bulk Purchases
Turn It Off
Grow Your Own
Buying in Bulk
Gleaning
Entertainment on the Down Low
Finding Fun Locally
Holiday Shopping
Reconsidering Convenience
More Bang for Your Grocery Buck
Preserving the Harvest
Revisiting Kitchen Strategies
Extreme Frugality
Bargain Getaways
Cultivating or Curating Abundance
Making Your Own Snacks and Treats
How Weird Is Too Weird? Things We Don't Think of Eating
Fuel Costs
Quick Hint on Eggs
What's in Your Refrigerator (Revisited)

Labels: Family, Frugality, Homemaking, Tales from the Kitchen

Many years ago, I shared a post about what I normally had on hand in my refrigerator. I have meant to update that for a while now, and also to add a list for my freezer and pantry. These are items I keep on hand to make quick meals, hors-d'oeuvres for unexpected guests, and to help adorn plain meals. It is part of how I curate abundance. Some of those things have changed and some have been added, so I thought I would give you an updated list, plus the long promised pantry and freezer lists. We go through mustard so quickly now that I don't keep those in the fridge. They don't go stale quickly enough and we use them more quickly than ever. Some of my kids will eat spoonfuls of it. During Lent, the dairy gets pushed aside, so I will give a Lenten alternate (not necessarily a direct parallel, just something that we have more often during Lent - honestly, we also keep some of these around outside of Lent) in parenthesis.

• 1. Milk (from pasture raised cows) (Almond Milk)
• 2. Homemade Yogurt (Poblano Cashew Cream)
• 3. Butter (Avocados)
• 4. Mayonnaise (Toum)
• 5. Garlic Ginger Paste
• 6. Chopped Ginger
• 7. Buttermilk (Harissa)
• 8. Heavy Cream (Coconut Cream)
• 9. Carrots
• 10. Romaine Lettuce
• 11. Celery
• 12. SAF Yeast
• 13. Lemons
• 14. Capers
• 15. Grade B Maple Syrup
• 16. Bacon Grease (Cooked Chickpeas in Aquafaba)
• 17. Homemade Chocolate Syrup
• 18. Sri Racha (Shatta)
• 19. Cheddar Cheese (Trader Joe's Vegan Cream "Cheese")
• 20. Parmesan Cheese (Alfalfa Sprouts)

Freezer:

• 1. Salad Shrimp
• 2. Mixed Cooked Shellfish
• 3. Raw Shrimp
• 4. Fish Fillets - Salmon, Cod, Tuna, Sablefish, Walleye, Rockfish
• 5. Beef Chuck Roast or Steak
• 6. Beef Shortribs or Oxtails
• 7. Ground Beef
• 8. Boneless Chicken (Thighs or Breast)
• 9. Bone in Chicken Pieces
• 10. Whole Chickens
• 11. Whole Turkeys
• 12. Whole Ducks
• 13. Pork Shoulder or Shoulder Cubes
• 14. Ground Pork/Country Sausage/Chorizo/Hot Italian Sausage
• 15. Bacon
• 16. Ham
• 17. Legs of Lamb
• 18. Ground Lamb
• 19. Lamb Shanks and/or Neckbones
• 20. Stock - Mammal (beef/lamb), Poultry (chicken/turkey/duck), Fish, Shellfish
• 21. Frozen Vegetables - Peas, Roasted Corn, Green Beans, Sliced Peppers (sweet and hot), Okra
• 22. Frozen Fruit - Sliced Peaches, Sliced Apples, Blackberries, Raspberries, Sliced Strawberries in Sugar, Rhubarb, etc.
• 23. Butter
• 24. Puff Pastry and Phyllo Dough
• 25. Bread

Pantry:

• 1. Mustards
• 2. Oils - Olive, Safflower, Sunflower, Sesame
• 3. Thai Red Curry Paste
• 4. Worcestershire Sauce
• 5. Tamari Sauce
• 6. Hot Sauce - Peri Peri, Yuzu, Chipotle, Among Others
• 7. Tahina
• 8. Sweeteners - Date Syrup, Honey, Molasses, Brown Sugar, Evaporated Cane Juice
• 9. Canned Vegetables - Artichoke Hearts, Hearts of Palm, Water Chestnuts, Roasted Peppers
• 10. Peanut Butter
• 11. Dried Fruit - Cherries, Pears, Figs, Sultanas, Apricots, Dates, Apples, Peaches, Cranberries
• 12. Seeds and Nuts - Sesame, Poppy, Almonds in various forms, Cashews, Walnuts, Pecans
• 13. Ketchup
• 14. Trader Joe's French Fried Jalapeño Slices
• 15. Panko
• 16. Rice - Basmati, Egyptian, Jasmine
• 17. Dried Beans - Chickpeas, Fava Beans, Black Beans, Pinto/Bolitas, Pinquitos, Hutterite Soup Beans, French Green Lentils, Split Peas
• 18. Canned Tomato Products - Paste, Diced, Crushed, Sauce, Whole, Purée
• 19. Loads of Vinegars - White Wine, Red Wine, Prosecco, Balsamic, Pomegranate, Apple Cider, Rice Wine, White
• 20. Olives of Many Sorts - Black, Kalamata, Spanish, Giant Green, Arabic Country Style, Oil Cured, Brined, Salted and Dried, etc.
• 21. Flours of Many Sorts
• 22. Pastas of Many Sorts
• 23. Homemade Jams and Jellies
• 24. Homemade Pickles of Various Sorts
• 25. Oats - Steel Cut, Rolled

Obviously, we keep many, many other things around, but these are things we basically always have. These lists don't count things like potatoes, onions, and garlic that we buy in huge quantities, either. There are some things I tuck away like extra bits of pie crust, or cheese rinds, or leftover chili, so we can put together a quick and tasty meal, but they are leftovers from other items. What do you keep around to cultivate abundance?

Previous Posts:
Make it at Home
Grocery Shopping
Waste Not, Want Not
Soup
The Celery Stalks at Midnight
Use What You Have
Combining Trips
Storing Bulk Purchases
Turn It Off
Grow Your Own
Buying in Bulk
Gleaning
Entertainment on the Down Low
Finding Fun Locally
Holiday Shopping
Reconsidering Convenience
More Bang for Your Grocery Buck
Preserving the Harvest
Revisiting Kitchen Strategies
Extreme Frugality
Bargain Getaways
Cultivating or Curating Abundance
Making Your Own Snacks and Treats
How Weird Is Too Weird? Things We Don't Think of Eating
Fuel Costs
Quick Hint on Eggs

Labels: Family, Fasting as a Family, Frugality, Homemaking, Keeping the Feast, Tales from the Kitchen

Here are two excellent recipes for using up green tomatoes leftover from the last of the summer harvest and a recipe for an excellent tomato salsa for when you still have ripe tomatoes. I've included a bonus recipe for a garlic ginger paste that is useful enough to keep in the fridge at all times. Most Asian recipes, Indian recipes, even Arabic recipes use ginger and garlic together, and this saves you a step.

Simple Tomato Salsa for Canning

Most canned salsa recipes have basically no heat to them. I don't even know why they include any jalapeños at all. So, this one still preserves the ratios of the ingredients, but makes it so you can still taste some of the heat. It is still fairly mild to medium, this is not a super hot salsa, but it is remarkably fresh tasting salsa with a little heat to it.

7 quarts tomatoes, peeled, cored and chopped
5 cups peeled and chopped onion
3 cups finely chopped jalapeño peppers
1 cup seeded, chopped anaheim or other mild green chile
10 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
2 1/2 cups lime juice
4 1/2 tablespoons fine salt (canning/pickling salt, non-iodized)
1 cup finely chopped cilantro

In a large pot, combine all ingredients except the cilantro and heat over medium-high heat, stirring until the mixture comes to a boil.

Reduce heat and simmer 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir in cilantro at the end.

Fill hot, sterilized pint or quart jars, leaving a half inch of headspace, wipe rims and seal with lid and ring. Process in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes. This will yield around 10 pints plus a 1/2 pint or so, or 5 quarts plus a pint and 1/2 pint or so.

Green Tomato Dill Relish

I like this relish at least as much as dill pickle relish, maybe more, and it is wonderful to use those green tomatoes at the end of the season, rather than let them go to waste.

8 pounds green tomatoes, washed and dried, stems and hard cores removed, finely diced
4 cups apple cider vinegar
2 cups of white wine vinegar
2 cups water
3/4 cup pickling salt
12 sprigs fresh dill + one for each jar
4 shallots, or one medium onion, peeled and finely diced
4 fresh chili peppers, cut in half lengthwise
2 tablespoons dried dill

In a large, heavy pot, combine vinegars, water, salt and fresh dill. Bring to a boil and cook for about half an hour at a high simmer. Remove dill sprigs.

Reduce heat, add tomatoes, shallots, peppers, dried dill, and simmer for 20 to 30 minutes. Turn off heat.

Fill hot, sterilized pint jars with a quarter inch headspace, add remaining fresh dill to each jar. Seal and place in fridge or process for 10 minutes in a boiling water bath.

Makes about 6 pints. Will keep for three months in the refrigerator or for years in the processed jars.

Green Tomato Chutney

I got this recipe from Aunty Leila and then modified the method to make it easier for me to do in my busy home and kitchen. Using this method also means that the tomatoes and apples keep some of their firmness instead of turning into a mush. This is delicious, and again, uses those green tomatoes at the end of the season and turns them into something lovely to have in your pantry or refrigerator (hmmm, it's time to update that list, and tackle the ones on my freezer and pantry) to dress up some cold ham, grilled chicken, roasted or grilled fish, pork chops, you name it. This is one way you can cultivate or curate abundance. You can drizzle a little of this over a brie, then wrap it in puff pastry for a lovely hors-d'ouevre on the fly. Honestly, this could be eaten from a spoon.

4 cups cider vinegar
2 cups of sultanas (golden raisins)
2 medium onions, peeled and chopped
2 seeded, chopped lemons
1 1/2 cup dark honey (you could use all brown sugar)
2 cups brown sugar
2 heaping tablespoons of garlic ginger paste
2 tablespoons ground cumin
2 tablespoon ground coriander
2 tablespoon whole mustard seed
1 tablespoon red pepper flakes
1 tablespoon salt
12 cups green tomatoes, chopped
2 cooking apples, cored and chopped

In a large pot, combine all ingredients except for the chopped green tomatoes and apples, mixing well. Bring to a simmer and cook for about 45 minutes, stirring occasionally, to reduce the liquid and combine the flavors.

Add the chopped tomatoes and apples and simmer another 15 - 20 minutes, keeping an eye on it so nothing burns.

Ladle into sterile, hot, pint and/or half-pint canning jars, seal, process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes for half-pints, 15 minutes for pints. This will yield about 6 pints and 6 half-pints, plus some smaller jars, or about 10 pints. Any jars that aren't completely full can go into the refrigerator, and will last as long as you need them, if you don't eat them up first.

Garlic Ginger Paste

This is easiest to do in a food processor, but if you do not have one, you can grate the garlic and ginger into a jar and stir in the salt and oil.

1/2 cup peeled garlic cloves
1/2 cup peeled and roughly chopped ginger
1 teaspoon kosher salt
2 tablespoons safflower oil

Place garlic, ginger, and salt in a food processor. Grind until the mixture is finely chopped. Drizzle in the oil and process until smooth. Scrape into a jar and keep in the fridge indefinitely.

Labels: Frugality, Homemaking, Preserving the Harvest, Recipes, Tales from the Kitchen

Here's another quickie. Even with our chickens, ducks, and turkeys, the darkness and extreme cold of our winters reduces their production. The ducks and turkeys really only lay for a couple/few months a year, anyway. We used to put a lamp in with the birds to increase their production, but it shortens their egg laying years, and we just didn't want to deal with either the extra electricity or mess with them too much. So, we have more birds, and save eggs a bit more in the winter (that is another benefit of a fast right before the Nativity, we can save up the eggs laid each day so we can make our baked goods and breakfast treats during Christmas).

I give you all this background just so you know where we are with eggs. We are definitely grateful for our birds, and we are still getting eggs, but not as much as we will in a few weeks, when there is more light and heat. Eggs are selling for between $6.00 and $9.00 a dozen here, unless you find a special, and are often limited. Also, when we do buy eggs, we try to get pastured eggs which allow the chickens to eat grass and bugs outdoors, which are always a little more expensive, anyway. As an aside, we have found the the prices of items like this, pastured eggs, raw or grass fed dairy, naturally cured meats, are holding better. They were already priced where they needed to be, rather than a lower price because of subsidies or bulk purchase deals, so they have really only risen in price minimally, if at all.

Anyway, when I was at the grocery store a couple weeks ago and saw four quart cartons of pasteurized liquid egg marked down to $1.50 each, I took a second look. I will be honest, they are pretty vile if you try to eat them as scrambled eggs on their own (better if you are adding vegetables to them). The liquid egg is made of egg white, spices and seasoning. So, I bought them, but rather than use them alone, I have been using them as about 60% off my egg mixtures for breakfast casseroles, and in savory baked goods. (The seasonings are definitely on the savory side, so I wouldn't recommend this for cookies or cake). Doing it this way has made the difference in taste nearly undetectable, and has kept our costs down. It also saves our good eggs for cookies and cakes and pancakes and things like that. Each of those cartons of egg white was the equivalent of 15 eggs, and even before this egg shortage, we didn't see over a dozen eggs for $1.50.

As a disclaimer, I have to admit that we also have friends who raise chickens and either give us for free or sell us for cheap eggs when we need extras, too. So far, none of them has raised prices. I am looking forward to the end of February and beginning of March when we will start to see eight to 12 eggs a day again.

Previous Posts:
Make it at Home
Grocery Shopping
Waste Not, Want Not
Soup
The Celery Stalks at Midnight
Use What You Have
Combining Trips
Storing Bulk Purchases
Turn It Off
Grow Your Own
Buying in Bulk
Gleaning
Entertainment on the Down Low
Finding Fun Locally
Holiday Shopping
Reconsidering Convenience
More Bang for Your Grocery Buck
Preserving the Harvest
Revisiting Kitchen Strategies
Extreme Frugality
Bargain Getaways
Cultivating or Curating Abundance
Making Your Own Snacks and Treats
How Weird Is Too Weird? Things We Don't Think of Eating
Fuel Costs

Labels: Family, Frugality, Homemaking, Tales from the Kitchen

This is basically the method I use for canning peaches and other fruit, but with a couple extra steps. Peeling pears is more laborious and takes longer, so I also put them in a bowl of cold water with the juice of a lemon in it to keep the pears from discoloring too much as we prepare them. Most of us like these pears spiced, but Rich doesn't like it as well as plain, so we do one canner load without the spices and one with them. To make it without the spices, just don't add them to the syrup. Or if some of the spices aren't to your liking, leave those out or use others. You are really just infusing the syrup with the spice. I have sometimes made vanilla pears by putting leftover bits of vanilla pod in the syrup. I don't really know how many jars this makes, because I tend to make more syrup if we run out or store syrup in the fridge if we have too much. I think this makes about 7 - 8 quart jars.

Spiced Syrup:
2 cups sugar
8 cups water
4 cardamom pods
4 1/4-inch slices of fresh ginger or 4 small pieces of candied ginger
2 whole cloves
1 large stick cinnamon
1 small piece of nutmeg (this is a good use for the little nub you have leftover after grating for other recipes)
1 teaspoon dried orange peel

15 - 20 pounds of pears, peeled, halved, and cored, and set in a large bowl of cold water with the juice of a lemon

Make syrup in a large stock pot by bringing the sugar, water and spices to a boil and boiling for 2 minutes, then removing from the heat.

Pack hot, sterilized quart jars tightly with the pear halves. Then add a few more than you thought would fit. They always seem to float a little, no matter how tightly we pack them. Ladle in the hot syrup, leaving 1/2" headspace in the jars. Using a thin knife, or skewer, poke down through the jars to release air bubbles. Wipe rims and cover with new lids. Screw on rings to finger tightness, not too tightly, just enough to keep the lids on before they are sealed.

Process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes. Cool upright, remove rings and check seals, and store without the rings.

Labels: Frugality, Homemaking, Preserving the Harvest, Recipes, Tales from the Kitchen

This is a quick post for you. It might seem super obvious, but I'll just share what we do. When I first started this series 14 years ago, I gave the same kind of advice as I would now about managing gasoline usage and cutting down on waste there: Combine trips as much as you can, try to reduce how many times you go out shopping or do your regular errands all in one trip, map out the route to be most efficient with your driving. To that, I will only add a couple things. Maybe you already know them.

Check Gas Buddy (we don't have their card, we just check prices on their website)! I don't know if it is useful outside of the United States (I checked, it covers the US, its territories, and Canada), but we check it every time we are going to get gas. We can see which station has the least expensive gas in our area, and map out our gas run to fall in line with the other errands or trips we need to make.

The other thing we do is use points to reduce the cost of our gas per gallon. Both Safeway and Fred Meyer do this in our area, and even when their prices are the same or slightly higher than another place, the points often take off enough money to make it much cheaper. So, check your points and use them.

One last thing is that we use our cruise control as much as we can, and don't brake hard to come to stops if we can help, we coast as much as we can when driving, and use cash if it gets us a discount on gasoline. We do have a gas card at a local gas station chain, and it gives us a four cent discount, but sometimes that is still a higher price than elsewhere, so we still check Gas Buddy. I budgeted $400 a month for gas, and when we had two, and then three, young adult drivers, we had a month or two that were closer to $600 (nobody tells you that your kids will get terrible gas mileage at first), but we were able to get that back down, and even with the higher prices, have been able to keep the $400 budget. We utilize the tools I mention here, and it works for us.

Previous Posts:
Make it at Home
Grocery Shopping
Waste Not, Want Not
Soup
The Celery Stalks at Midnight
Use What You Have
Combining Trips
Storing Bulk Purchases
Turn It Off
Grow Your Own
Buying in Bulk
Gleaning
Entertainment on the Down Low
Finding Fun Locally
Holiday Shopping
Reconsidering Convenience
More Bang for Your Grocery Buck
Preserving the Harvest
Revisiting Kitchen Strategies
Extreme Frugality
Bargain Getaways
Cultivating or Curating Abundance
Making Your Own Snacks and Treats
How Weird Is Too Weird? Things We Don't Think of Eating

Labels: Family, Frugality, Homemaking

Are there things you don't think of as food that could feed your family and be tasty? I'm not talking about offal (which we do eat, and I encourage you to take a chance on it), or bugs (which it sounds like our government and food industry is). I mean things that you already bring into your home, but discard.

We discovered that cornsilk (trimmed of the dry ends) is quite tasty, and can be used like sprouts on sandwiches and in salads. We turn the corn cobs from eating corn into a broth that will be welcome in the fall and winter, when a hearty corn chowder will both warm and fill us. We just put them in the stock pot with some other vegetables and herbs (from my handy stock bag in the freezer), cover with cool water, a little salt and a few peppercorns, and bring it to a low boil, then simmer for about an hour. Strain and store in the freezer. I understand that you can make a corn cob jelly if you don't add the other vegetables and herbs, and instead simply boil and simmer the cobs in the water, strain and use as the juice for jelly, which looks and tastes remarkably like honey. However, we really prefer the real thing on honey, and prefer to save our sugar usage for other jams, jellies and preserves.

But, did you know that you can eat the greens from your carrots? They can be used like parsley, turned into a soup, added to other rice or bean dishes. We used to toss them to our chickens. If you leave them on the carrots, they will continue to sap the nutrients from the root, and will shrivel it sooner. On the same sort of principle, we always remove the greens from beets. They are exactly the same species as the Swiss chard you get at the store or farmers' market. They just weren't bred to be quite as large and sturdy as the varieties raised for chard. In my opinion, chard is superior to spinach in basically every application. So, we save those greens and use them as chard, or in place of spinach. I think I have mentioned before how we also use the stems, either by chopping them and cooking them a little earlier and longer than the greens, or saving them to use like we use celery in salads, stews, bean dishes, sautées, and so on.

Little things like this will stretch your budget and help you use up everything you bring into your home. If you already have been trying to make the best use of your food, you probably already have a stock bag, so whatever cannot be used as part of a meal can still be put there, but if you garden, you can put those scraps that won't be useful for stock into your compost, rather than down your garbage disposal (where basically nothing is supposed to go, anyway, as far as I can tell) or into your trash. This will help you grow more food yourself (or just beautify your yard with flowers and shrubs, even), and for less money, with a lower impact, in fact making an improvement, to your soil. We are a family of nine at home and we use the smallest trash bin our trash company offers. For a while there, we were only using every other week delivery. That is how little trash we made (we've been doing a ton of remodeling and decluttering, so we had to go back to the weekly pick up, but we are aiming at going every other week again by the New Year). So, using up everything we can, putting the remainder in our stock bag (giving us free nutrition), feeding our chickens, ducks, turkeys, pigs, with it (they turn that into eggs and meat!), or putting it into the compost (improving our soil fertility and increasing the yield of our garden) not only makes the most of what we spend and bring in, but it also reduces our trash and associated costs. We are saving money there, as a result of saving money in our food budget.

Here is a bonus tip: Since we buy in bulk as much as we can, we also don't usually have a lot of packaging to dispose of, but as we live in the country, the cardboard cartons go down on the grass and weeds in the garden plot to kill them, and break down into the soil for later years, and paper sacks and smaller cardboard bits get used as firestarters in our fireplace and for our firepit. It's about time for me to put out the fire bins for the kids, where we put empty toilet paper rolls, and junk mail, or mail with account information on it, and tissues and all the rest, that we just toss into the fireplace instead of our garbage. They cut our garbage bill and our power bill, since we can heat most of our main floor with our fireplace.

Previous Posts:
Make it at Home
Grocery Shopping
Waste Not, Want Not
Soup
The Celery Stalks at Midnight
Use What You Have
Combining Trips
Storing Bulk Purchases
Turn It Off
Grow Your Own
Buying in Bulk
Gleaning
Entertainment on the Down Low
Finding Fun Locally
Holiday Shopping
Reconsidering Convenience
More Bang for Your Grocery Buck
Preserving the Harvest
Revisiting Kitchen Strategies
Extreme Frugality
Bargain Getaways
Cultivating or Curating Abundance
Making Your Own Snacks and Treats

Labels: Family, Frugality, Homemaking, Recipes, Tales from the Kitchen

We make our own cookies and cakes and snacks, for the most part. We also keep foods like dried fruit, nuts and seeds around for snacking, which is evidently an Arab/Persian thing. These are simple snacks and treats we can have so if someone has the munchies, that person is not deprived, but we are not spending exorbitant amounts of money on prepackaged chips and popcorn and so on, while ingesting all the weird ingredients so many of those include. We also make some of our own candy (and almost never buy candy except for chocolate, and for occasions like Saint Nicholas and our Pascha basket).

This post will cover the truly simple treats. There are fancier cookies, candies, cakes, and snacks that I can make, but I am talking about the ones you can whip out in a few minutes, or keep on hand, so when the kids are antsy, or you have unexpected guests, or you have a sweet or salt tooth going on, you have something at the ready. Before I get to recipes, I will also share with you a list of things we keep at home on a regular basis to have for snacking.

We always have seasonal fruit available and on the table in one of two large bowls/platters that we keep on the dining room table at all times. The kids know that they can come and eat any of it at any time. This fills them up if they are hungry, gives them something sweet if they are looking for that, but is still healthy. We keep loads of dried fruit at the ready at all times: Dates (which are full of iron and fiber, which is especially good for our girls and me), apricots, cherries, cranberries, pears, apples, sultanas (golden raisins) and peaches. Occasionally, we will have dried mango or other fruit, but the others are what we keep on hand all the time. Since we have no real nut allergies here, we also have peanuts, pistachios, walnuts, almonds, sunflower seeds, roasted watermelon seeds (fis-fis), and roasted pumpkin seeds (pepitas) that are all pretty much free for anyone to eat at any time. Again, sometimes we have mixed nuts, macadamias, hazelnuts, and so on, but those are more occasional. The kids know that they can grab a handful of these to snack on at any time, and they are full of protein and good fats to fill them up and satisfy them.

I tend to prefer salty snacks, and will go for corn chips and salsa, Chex mix, salted nuts, or popcorn, if I have a choice. I do enjoy the sweet treats, as well, but mostly have a salt tooth. My kids, with one exception in Jerome, almost always will go for the sweets. As for the corn chips, we shallow fry our own frequently, in a neutral oil, after cutting corn tortillas into large strips or wedges. When we lived on the airport before, our friends at the restaurant would let us use their fryer to make them, and Rich would run up to the restaurant with a bag of tortilla pieces, and come bag with hot, fresh, salted chips for whatever meal or snack we wanted.

Here are some snacks and treats I have already shared how to make on the blog:

• Chex Mix
• Brown Sugar Shortbread
• Stovetop Popcorn
• Rice Krispie Treats
• Mock Turtles
• Cashew Brutal

Quick and Easy Fudge

This recipe is so simple that even a child can do it. Really. I have made my own sweetened condensed milk for this, but have found that the Mexican brands of sweetened condensed milk contain only milk and sugar. While they may not choose the same quality of milk or sugar we would, that is a compromise I am willing to make. This is so versatile, too, because you can use peanut butter chips for part of the chocolate chips to make it peanut butter fudge, or mint chips, or whatever flavors you like. Sometimes I put crushed toffee on the top, or peppermint bark, to make it pretty and tasty.

14 oz can sweetened condensed milk
16 oz chocolate chips (3 cups)
4 oz unsalted butter (1/2 cup, one stick)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup walnut pieces (optional)

Greast a 9 X 13 inch pan and set aside.

In a microwave safe bowl, melt condensed milk, chocolate chips and butter. Stir to mix well and combine.

Stir in vanilla extract, and 1 cup of walnut pieces (if you like them). Pour it all into a greased pan and chill to firm it up, then cut into 1 inch cubes and serve.

No Bake Cereal Treats

Here is another simple, sweet treat that a child can make. It does use the stove, but even a young child can make these with supervision. The recipe calls for rolled oats, but I have substituted cheerio type cereals and think that puffed rice cereal would also work. I've even heard of people using chow mein noodles in something like this. This one also works well with vegan butter and either coconut or almond milk, so it can be a good treat during the fasts. You could use almond butter or sun butter or some other nut or seed butter, too.

1/2 cup butter
1 3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup cocoa powder
3/4 cup peanut butter
1 tablespoon vanilla paste or extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 - 3 1/2 cups rolled oats (or other cereal)

Line a sheet pan with waxed or parchment paper. Set aside.

Mix butter, sugar, milk, and cocoa powder in a saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring often. Boil for 1 minute, stirring.

Reduce heat to low and stir in peanut butter, until smooth and thoroughly blended. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla and salt. Stir in oats last, starting with the smaller amount and checking the consistency.

Drop by spoonful onto waxed paper or parchment paper. Let cool completely.

Previous Posts:
Make it at Home
Grocery Shopping
Waste Not, Want Not
Soup
The Celery Stalks at Midnight
Use What You Have
Combining Trips
Storing Bulk Purchases
Turn It Off
Grow Your Own
Buying in Bulk
Gleaning
Entertainment on the Down Low
Finding Fun Locally
Holiday Shopping
Reconsidering Convenience
More Bang for Your Grocery Buck
Preserving the Harvest
Revisiting Kitchen Strategies
Extreme Frugality
Bargain Getaways
Cultivating or Curating Abundance

Labels: Family, Frugality, Homemaking, Recipes, Tales from the Kitchen

Leila Marie Lawler talks about curating abundance, and I love that concept. She frequently shares how she does this, by saving bits and bobs from her other cooking and meals so she has a freezer stocked with things that will help her put food on the table or a snack out for guests and how she preserves her harvest so she can quickly have a gift or a treat in a different season. In many ways, this is how I run my kitchen, also. So much of frugality is a mindset.

We do not eat "cheap" meals, in the sense that you feel poorer eating them. There is no sense of dearth or lack at our table. Nobody eating here ever discerns a lower food budget. This is because, while we do need to keep to a tight budget, and we are always trying to keep costs down, we value good food, and preparing it with care. Part of that is making sure we steward it well, and don't let it go to waste, using every part that possibly can be used. I talk about making stock frequently (and I know I promised a tutorial, I am working on doing that after braces and on a morning when it isn't too hot), and the way we do it now, it is basically free food. We have a well, so except for the electricity to run the pump, the water is free, everything but a few peppercorns, a couple bay leaves, and some salt are all, literally, scraps from other meals, so for a gallon of stock, we pay pennies. If that. I also save the scraps of pie crust from making pies for quick quiches or hand pies, from our Saint Nicholas cookies as a crumble topping or base for other desserts, hambones for beans and soups, bits of cheese to turn into things like fromage fort, in baked goods, or to top a baked pasta dish, the few scraps of ham the kids don't eat for adding to scalloped potatoes to make a full meal with a salad, and (very occasionally) stow away a few pieces of bacon from a breakfast to keep to sprinkle on soup or as part of the topping of a gratin or baked macaroni and cheese. Having these things in our freezer makes putting a meal on for us on a hot, busy day quite simple, it means we can entertain guests at a relative drop of a hat, it means that we can stretch the meal on our table to allow folks in need to share with us, without putting our own children at risk of deprivation.

I could think of those things as a chore or a hassle, but the reality is that I take pleasure in them. Doing a couple or a few extra steps every now and then means that in the times that we are truly worn down and at the end of our ropes, meals are not a chore. Which means that we don't feel the pressure to buy frozen meals or instant foods, go through the drive through or order takeout from a pizza place. This, in turn, saves us both in our finances, and in our health. Again, so much of this begins in our own minds, rather than a list of tasks. My own attitude about it has transferred to our kids, who now do these things without thinking twice. This is just normal for them, which will set them up for success in their own homes without too much difficulty. So, when I make a pot of beans from dry beans (as I always recommend because of both the price and the quality), I make at least double what I need. The excess gets frozen in quart bags with some of the cooking liquid, so I can easily make a bean dish or soup at a later date. This takes the slightest amount of extra effort, and that, only after the cooking.

Another thing we do to cultivate abundance is to make many of our own condiments, spice mixes, and snacks. I will share a whole snack post later in this series, with more recipes, but again will remind you that popcorn is inexpensive, quick to make (takes the same amount of time as the microwave, costs much less than microwave popcorn, but can be made in much larger quantities, with many fewer duds), and delicious when made on the stove. It takes no extra equipment, and is tasty enough that you can skip the butter, if you are either saving money or reducing how much butter you use. We use a pot with a lid, a shallow layer of oil like safflower or sunflower, popcorn and salt. Put all of that in your pot, with enough kernels to cover the bottom of the pot or pan, heat it on high until the first kernel pops, then cover with the lid and keep the pot moving for three minutes or so, until the popping slows to only a few every several seconds. Remove from the heat (if you smell toasting or burning, remove from the heat immediately), and let rest while the last few corn kernels finish popping, carefully pour into a bowl and check to see if the salt is sufficient for you, season with anything else you like, and you are satisfied. These are things that take seconds or minutes, but add value and pleasure to your table. Once you get in the habit of doing them, they become second nature, and there is no going back. Just like with any practice or discipline, unless in the direst circumstances, you probably shouldn't try to do it all at once. However, if you can add one or two a week, and work up to this being the normal way you address your kitchen and table, you will find a great deal of joy and rest in it. We have also found that it helps us not to feel overwhelmed when there is an over-abundance of something (peppers, garlic, etc), because we have ways to turn them into something either shelf stable or for our fridge or freezer that we will use and enjoy.

Condiments, relishes, dips, dresssings, spice mixtures, and snacks we commonly make and use:

• Mayonnaise
• Harissa
• Sah'awiq
• Duqqus
• Shatta
• Toum
• Taratoor
• Salsa Verde
• Avocado Relish
• Salatat Zeitoun
• Cranberry Horseradish Relish
• Red Pepper Sludge
• Dill Pickle Dip
• Chipotle Mayonnaise and Celery Seed Dressing
• Mustard Vinaigrette
• Ranch Dressing
• Bleu Cheese Dressing
• Creamy Feta Dressing
• Breakfast Sausage Seasoning
• Seasoned Salt
• Creole Seasoning
• Advieh
• Chex Mix

Previous Posts:
Make it at Home
Grocery Shopping
Waste Not, Want Not
Soup
The Celery Stalks at Midnight
Use What You Have
Combining Trips
Storing Bulk Purchases
Turn It Off
Grow Your Own
Buying in Bulk
Gleaning
Entertainment on the Down Low
Finding Fun Locally
Holiday Shopping
Reconsidering Convenience
More Bang for Your Grocery Buck
Preserving the Harvest
Revisiting Kitchen Strategies
Extreme Frugality
Bargain Getaways

Labels: Family, Frugality, Homemaking, Tales from the Kitchen