More Chicken Soup for the Pocketbook

Chocolate Pecan Pie *

We have a low-cal cheap quiche that it going into it's second night.  I've also made some of my chicken soup with found everything and a big pot of homemade broth with chicken leftover from a Dr. Atkins low-carb menu.  We'll finish the quiche for breakfast and the chicken soup for lunch. 


Leverage your cooking.  One of the ways to do that is to read the grocery ads and cook for the week by buying the specials.  For example, this week our supermarket had steak, chicken breasts and kielbasa on sale.  Roast beef in the deli.  Baby carrots and slice mushrooms.  Hey, those would be good with steak.  Some spaghetti sauce over the chicken and you have the makings of chicken parm.  The Kielbasa lends itself to grilling or cooking in a big heap of saurkraut and veggies.  Cheap veggies, like carrots, potatoes and onion.  Yukon Golds were on special.  Good with steak and with kielbasa.  Fruit salad with strawberries, bananas, apple and oranges.  All on sale.  Make a dinner salad with oranges, too.  Maybe a rice pudding using on sale milk.  Go for it!  


Every week I save between $10 and $25 by using coupons and buying specials.  And we eat well, thank you, with very few processed foods.   You can, too.  It takes a bit of menu planning, and this you can do during commercials or whenever.  Doesn't take a lot of time.  $25 a week is $1300 a year.     That's a new computer, a nice little vacation or money socked away in the savings account.  Or just eking along to get by.  Healthy eating, too.  You can do this.   Give it a whirl. 

* Pecans were a gift, chocolate left over from holiday baking, homemade crust.  Every now and then we all deserve a treat.  Remember that nuts, while not low-cal, are nutritious.  


The Cheeseparer

Leveraging Leftovers

Last night we ate at a new Chinese place in the neighborhood, and ordered too much, which is to say we brought most of one vegetarian fried rice and a chicken/shrimp/pork fried rice home. 
But it wasn't enough for the (this week) four of us.  I dug out my recipe file and found the recently made yakisoba with pork and cabbage.  I needed to buy the good Chinese noodles, a pork chop and cabbage.  Not too pricey for four.  We reheated the (copious) fried rice and I  divided the yakisoba into vegetarian (no pork) and meat.  We had a delicious dinner for just a few dollars.

Yakisoba with Pork and Cabbage

Tomorrow I'm cooking the world's best macaroni and cheese, so I bought mild cheddar and condensed milk.  There's going to be a kickass dessert.  Chocolate Pecan Pie.  How do you like them apples?  I have a gigantic bag of pecans in the freezer, and so tomorrow's dinner will be good, good, good.  By the way, we're having broccoli and salad, too, so it won't just be a cheese/chocolate frenzy, although there is nothing the matter with that.

Here is Emeril's recipe.  Not the one I am using (an old New York Times Sunday Magazine one), but Emeril's recipe's rock. Chocolate Pecan Pie from Emeril

Yours in frugality, 

The Cheeseparer  

Use What's On Hand

Do you have ingredients on hand leftover from your Christmas baking? You do bake for the winter holidays, don't you? I will be really upset if you buy store bought cookies loaded with everything but flavor. Get thee behind me, transfats.

I was in a mood for dessert last week, and we didn't have any cookies. Thought I might bake some, but I told myself I couldn't go to the store. Thumbing through the cook books, and guess what I found? Chocolate pecan pie?!

Zowsa! I had everything or I could do an easy no-brainer substitution. It was soooo good. And we were good, too. We sliced it into ten slices and had 5 days worth of desserts. At no cost. The chocolate and pecans were still on hand from Christmas. It was rich; it was delicious and the price was right. If you have butter, sugar and flour on hand, you can always make shortbread. A few nuts or raisins or dried cranberries and your options expand.

So: stay away from store-bought and bake cookies or pies. Life will be good.