End of the month meals

Yikes!  Four days to go before some money comes in.  I had about forty dollars to spend at the grocery store.  The menus were two days of Chinese rice noodles with  ground pork, seasonings and baby bok choy.  Just needed the bok choy. Checked the pantry and decided on ramen for Monday and Patty Melts on Tuesday.  Off to Trader Joe's.

The Chinese meal (really delicious) will serve two for 2 meals.  What else?   Ah, the ever popular ramen, but I  never just open a package.  First of all, for a meal we need two packages, which were in house.  There are grape tomatoes, ginger and carrots and a few leaves of spinach can be plucked out of the salad mix.  And!!!  I have  a few ounces of cubed roast pork in the freezer.  All the Asian spices we keep around like soy sauce, sesame oil, rice wine vinegar and Sichuan pepper corns.  It will be a feast and hey, we're big into a latish celebration of the Chinese New Year, right?  With leftover for lunch.

What next?  A small package of lean ground beef in the freezer.  Just enough for two burgers.  I bought cheddar cheese, and patty melts it is.  Found a can of baked beans.  Bought more grape tomatoes and some nitrite-free bacon (so good) and spent all told, with bread, cold cuts, more cheese, onion, bananas, etc. $34.00.  A little over $8 a day for two people.  Not bad.

The night before, I had been busy writing all day and had no plan for dinner.  A quick peek into the freezer.  Ah!  A bit, but not much frozen turkey white meat.  A turkey neck and a turkey backbone.  I made stock out of the latter, using carrot, celery, onion, bay leaf and salt and pepper.  I also had some frozen turkey gravy and a frozen pie crust.  Leftovers from Thanksgiving. Hmmm.  Can we do a turkey pot pie? 

Took the meat off the neck and back, and strained the stock.  In a pan, I browned more onion and carrots and the celery, then added the stock and cooked the veggies a bit.  When they were almost tender, in went the gravy.  Made a nice thick sauce, and I dumped the turkey into the pot, too.  After I cut it up, it seemed like more, a kind of miracle of the loaves and the turkey.  Added a handful of frozen peas.  So handy for impromptu cooking.

Lots of pepper and a bit of salt.  The gravy had been homemade and well seasoned.  I put the turkey/gravy/veggies mixture into a glass pie pan and laid the crust on top.  Crimped it and slashed a few holes.  Put the whole business into a 400 degree oven until the crust was golden brown and the gravy was bulbbling up thru the vents. 

We ate this with some fresh broccoli from the vegetable drawer and it was really delicious.  The moral of this story is that it pays to save leftovers, label and date them, and freeze.  Just like the pork that will go into the ramen.  A well-stocked pantry is a cook's best friend, and those bits and pieces of leftovers can become a meal.  

You can make a good fruit salad out of apples, oranges bananas and dried cranberries.  Add a squeeze of lemon juice and a sprinkle of sugar.   Of course berries or fresh pineapple will make it even better, but you can "make do."

"Making do" is something my parents who both survived the depression learned to do.  Not a bad idea for our times either.  

We gobbled the pot pie down before I could take a photo.  By the way, if you don't have a pie crust, mashed potatoes will do, either homemade or from a box.  Here's a photo with cut up pieces of pie crust if you have a dish too big for one crust.  Be creative. 

The Cheeseparer

Do You Shop the Weekly Specials?

With newspaper flyer or online flyer, do you shop your favorite supermarket's specials and plan meals around them?  Do you shop several local (gas is still pricey) stores?  If not, you may want to reconsider. 

We're in the enviable position of having new Trader Joe's and Walmart within easy driving distance. The Walmart has an expanded food section, and I'm quite pleased with it.  The salad offerings are fresh;  the Polish ham is cheap; bananas are cheap, too.  Bread at $1.68 a loaf!  When was the last time you saw that price?  Dairy is also good, and I'm crazy about the Triscuit, the Shredded Wheat and Bran and the granola bar prices.  

Walmart doesn't have everything.  Cheese selection is poor.  Not a lot of organics (salad excepted).  You probably won't find radicchio and fennel.  We like Trader Joe's for cheese and dairy, wine, and the odd delicacy or frozen item.  When I asked whether the peppercorns could be removed from the peppermill they came in, the clerk demonstrated  by opening it up that they could.  

What is it with peppercorns?  I have two pepper grinders that I LOVE, and do not, repeat, do not want to buy pepper in a grinder, but that seems to be the latest thing.  I had to return a jar that didn't indicate except in small print that it was only a grinder.  One could not open it.  Phooey!  

Yesterday, we shopped the specials, spent $79.00 and saved $ 29.00.  These savings add up fast.  We don't buy a lot of heavily processed food, so I'm pleased to find avocados, strawberries, pears, pork chops, pasta, orange juice and cheese marked down.  Pizza dough!  Never see that on sale.  Good prices is the dairy aisle always welcome.  Savings on laundry detergent and seltzer.  BTW, I don't like seltzer but other family members do. 

We had a dynamite vegetarian stuffed shells this week.  The shells were stuffed with fennel, radicchio, red onion and ricotta bound with egg.  Somehow, this turned into a meaty concoction that was extremely satisfying and I am not always "satisfied" by vegetarian food.  I bought the pasta, and eggs and the cheese at Walmart, the veggies at Whole Foods, sort of the Yin and the Yang of grocery shopping.  The veggies had to cook forever,  but was the dish ever good and it made enough for 4 meals, which makes it economical even with the trip to Whole Foods.  The recipe came from Food and Wine.  

What are you making for the SuperBowl?  Meatloaf is out traditional  offering with bean dip and chips to nibble during the game.  Maybe Brussels sprouts and baked potatoes as sides.  It has to be something easy to eat in front of the TV, although we can usually time dinner for half time.  Everyone in Boston is bummed that the Pats lost to the Ravens, but whatchagonna do? 

It got so cold this week that I had to haul my ancient sheepskin coat out of the cedar closet.   It must weigh 10 pounds and is as warm as toast.   Patriots fans can be  glad the playoff was last weekend in mild weather rather than this weekend in the freezer compartment.  

Latkes with sour cream and apple sauce make a delicious cheap vegetarian meal

What do you eat on Superbowl Sunday?  Significant Other doesn't like chicken wings, or I would make them.   We have to journey to Stop and Shop because it's impossible to find Bean Dip anywhere else.  Some things just don't make any sense.  

Shop well and you'll save a bundle.  Now that's sensible!  


The Cheeseparer  

Mexican Soup Week

Last week we had several main dish salads.  This week we're doing soup.  I find salads or soups as a main course are wonderful for weight control.  We always have a salad with the soup and soups can be both nourishing and filling.  I've noticed that soups that call for 4- 5 cups of chicken broth can be less than frugal if you have to buy the expensive broth.  Make your own from scraps if you really want to save.  


Here are two yummy recipes for Mexican soups.  We enjoyed them both. Yucatan Style Chicken, Lime and Orzo Soup  
This soup is not sour in spite of the lime juice.  Leave in pith and seeds of the pepper according to how hot you like it.   We garnished with sour cream and used tortilla chips instead of bread.     It's very colorful with the tomato, cilantro and pappers.  


Here's another:  Black Bean Soup with Chorizo and Chicken     The chorizo flavors the whole soup, with mild hints of thyme and bay leaf.  We used our neighbor's thyme ("Pick some any time!" )    I garnished this soup with cilantro, too, for color and flavor.  No use having a whole bunch go to waste.  We put avocado in the salad.  It wasn't quite ripe when we brought it home, but a short stint in a plastic bag with an apple was all it took.  You do know this trick, don't you.  Apples emit a ripening agent that will help other fruits to ripen.

Work in the garden and a walk in the coolish June day.  Rewarded myself with watching soccer, golf and baseball.  And the soup!  

Yours in frugality, 


The Cheeseparer 

Soup From A Nail Revisited

We did the chicken soup from nothing again this week.  Found one lone chicken breast and a neck and a backbone in the freezer.  Made stock from the bony parts (I add carrot, onion, bay leaf and some cilantro along with salt and pepper.) While the stock simmered, I sauteed the breast in a skillet in olive oil with only salt and pepper.  


During the time everything was cooling, I peeled and chopped the two carrots and diced up the rest of the onion.  Found a few peas in the freezer.  Things were coming together.  Chopped up a dried tomato, and some more cilantro.  Think color. Sauteed the veggies for a few minutes.


Strained the broth and added chicken and vegetables.  Cooked until carrots were tender.  Added more salt and pepper.  And a can of chicken broth.  
Cooked some very fine (as in narrow) noodles in water to which a bouillon packet had been added.  When they were done, put the noodles in the soup.  It also tasted very fine, not hearty, but substantial enough for dinner.  Being on a diet, we ate it with salad and breadsticks.   I favor the skinny ones, grissini, because you can eat quite a few without blowing the carb or the calorie count. 


The old folk tail, soup from a stone, or soup from a nail, or soup from whatever charmed me as a kid.  Here is the Wikipedia link. 


Soup From a Nail

Egg and Sausage Strata - Cheap, Nutricious, Filling

The Internet has a gazillion recipes for these sausage and egg stratas, but I couldn't find this one, which was delicious.  These assemble ahead and bake later dishes are a godsend for a busy hostess, which was me, this weekend. This serves 8.


Egg and Sausage Strata

 1 lb. bulk sausage, pork or turkey.  I used Jimmy Dean.  Beware!  Some sausage now comes in 12 oz. rolls.  
6 slices bread with crusts removed.   A white bread with some "body" works best. 
2 cups milk.  Used whole milk but believe 2% would be fine, too.
6 large eggs
2 Tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 T. Dijon (or other) mustard
1 t. salt 
1/2 lb grated cheddar cheese (I bought pre-grated on sale)
8 oz. mushrooms sliced and sauteed 
1 medium white onion chopped


Spray or great a 9" x 12" rectangular baking dish.  Cut trimmed bread into cubes and line the dish. 

Cook sausage in a skillet, breaking it up.  Drain, if necessary and spread around on top of the bread cubes.
Saute onion and set aside.  In the same skillet, saute the mushrooms.  Add to the onions and mix.  Spread the onion/mushroom mixture over the sausage. 
Sprinkle the grated cheese on top of the mushroom/onion mixture.
Beat eggs, milk, Worcestershire sauce, mustard and salt together.  Pour over the casserole.  
Cover and refrigerate overnight.
Bake uncovered at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.


I served this for Mother's Day brunch with sauteed cherry tomatoes and small, individual  pan fried ham steaks.  
You can freeze this after assembling and thaw before cooking.  You may also freeze after cooking and thaw and add a little milk before heating.  
I kept the assembled casserole covered tightly in the fridge for two days and it was fine. 
Omit the sausage or substitute a meatless product and you have a fine vegetarian entree.
 

Soup From a Nail

I always loved the children's story about soup made from a nail.  We aren't quite THAT frugal, but we do buy the Select Harvest soups, either at Ocean State Job Lot or at Walmart.  They taste good, have minimal processing and are lower in sodium than many canned soups.  We have 
discovered that one can makes lunch for two. 


This week we had the Mexican chicken soup.  I added fresh spinach and cherry tomatoes and we ate it garnished with avocado and Mexican cheese, all ingredients from the pantry.  It was so good.  One day I made a chiffonade from a leftover corn tortilla and added that.  I had so many extra ingredients that I added a little chicken broth.  So tasty.  

Fresh Atlantic Salmon was on sale at one of the local markets, and I splurged and bought a pound.  We'll cook it on the grill, Thai style with green beans and corn, both fresh and on sale.  There's a peach pie (from scratch, even the crust) in the oven.  It looked to die for. 


No matter how cheeseparing you are, do take advantage of summer's produce.  Our green beans and cherry tomatoes are providing tasty bites from the garden, along with all the fresh herbs.  I made some quick Fajitas using a small frozen petite sirloin, a few frozen shrimp, a past prime green pepper and some onion.  I made a nice marinade with fresh garlic (from the garden) and heated up some corn tortillas from my economy package of fifty.  We used "found" ingredients, i.e. no trip to the store required.  I like to do this.  The larder is bare, but not quite, and what can you cook that's nourishing and tasty?  

You'd be surprised.  Go ye forth and scrounge from the pantry.  Remember:  potatoes fried with bacon, onion, tomatoes and eggs make a delicious dinner.  Scatter some fresh chives or a bit of grated cheese over the top.  Scallions?  Yup. 


I am so excited about my garlic harvest, that I'm planning to make Chicken with Forty Cloves of Garlic.  Yum!  What are you harvesting this summer? 


The Cheeseparer

Pizza! Pizza!

Last weekend I was in the Atlanta area visiting relatives.   We went to a party on a country property way the heck  east of Athens.  Our host feted us with his own beef, tomatoes, corn, okra, peppers and figs!  Yes figs!    In our local supermarkets, if you can find them, they cost $3.00 for 8, not a frugal price.  I was persuaded to bring home a small container.  
Recently someone in our tribe had a fancy pizza with figs and prosciutto, so guess what I made?  Yup.  I had riccotta and mozzarella, and fresh baby spinach.  I had figs!  We bought the dough and a few oz. of prosciutto, and we made a pizza. 
Because there were only two of us, we ate it for 2 dinner and one lunch in an outburst of frugality.  It was good.   Doesn't it look yummy?  Those figs had quite a ride. 


The Cheeseparer

Bean Soup and other Comestibles

We're been paring cheese like crazy.  Earlier in the week it was Chicken Tortellini Soup with spinach and mushrooms, and today I made bean soup from scratch.  So good, so cheap. 


I had planned to cook the beans with some turkey kielbasa which  I always get as a two-fer, but when the "kielbasa" thawed, it was a Chorico.  Thanks heavens it wasn't a banana.  I do freeze overripe bananas, and when I get three, I make banana bread.  Amazing the difference that extra banana makes.  It takes the bread to a whole new level.



The chorico made the soup even more delicious than usual.  Recipe was 3/4 lb. of navy beans, one large onion, chopped, 3 cloves garlic, 4 slices chopped thick-cut bacon, the chorico (about 12 oz) and 1 can low-fat low-salt  (14 oz) chicken broth and 1 14 oz. can garden vegetable broth.  I usually add carrot, chopped, but I forgot.  I added 1 t. dried thyme for more flavor. 


  I serve this with homemade southern-style cornbread.  This is a recipe, at least 200 years old, that calls for only corn meal (stone ground is best), buttermilk, egg, salt, shortening (your choice), baking soda and baking powder.  NO SUGAR.  It tastes so good and so wholesome and a little whipped butter on it just hits the spot.  Sugar in cornbread is a yucky New England tradition like flour tortillas that must be cast out.



We had a salad with the rest of the spinach bought for the soup, grape tomatoes and a good Caesar store-bought on sale dressing.  I've been saving between 20-30 percent every week at the grocery store and am psyched! 


It really helps to plan menus around the specials, especially the meat and the produce.  


Slowly, but surely, I'm getting caught up after the holiday.  How about you?  We ate the last of the frozen cheese twists on Monday.  So nice to have hors d'oeuvres in the freezer, and cookies, too.  I froze some of each recipe of the cookies I baked, and we had them well into January.  


The oven thermostat crapped out early in January, and we cooked on the stovetop for a few weeks.  The stove was 22+ years, so it did need to be replaced.  I got a fancy Kenmore with a nice warming oven (where bread can be proofed) and a convection oven and a fancy burner in the middle that takes a griddle.  We'll be cooking up a storm to figure out how everything works.  


I did pork tenderloin two ways right off the bat.  We get them as two-fers, and I made cutlets out of one and served them with a red currant/wine sauce (mega-yum) and stuffed the other with a bread stuffing mix left over from Thanksgiving.   Made a rosehip jelly sauce for that.  These cheap Ocean State Job Lot jams make good sauces, too.    A bit of broth, a little wine, some seasonings, and maybe a tablespoon of jelly make a great sauce.    Don't be afraid to experiment. 


Yours in frugality, 


The Cheeseparer

Frugality Fatigue and some recipes

Today, a Boston Globe writer discussed something called "Frugality Fatigue" and how it seems to be creeping up on a lot of us. Tired of cheese paring? Me, too. However, we have been coping quite well with our little strategems, and I would hate for them to fall by the wayside and for DEBT to read it's ugly head.

Have you noticed that people who sell goods and services are nice these days? Isn't that nice?

I have devised a way to get a free meal. We are now buying chicken breasts with the skin and bone on them. I poach them with aromatic vegetables (onion, celery, carrots) and fresh herbs (parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme!!!) When the breast is cooked, I remove it, let it cool and return the skin, fat and bones to the cookpot. I cook the broth down somewhat to let a flavor develop. When I remove the bones again, there's always a bit of meat here and there. I save these bits. Sometimes it's almost a cup. Strain the broth. By now, it's lovely. Now you have the makings of chicken soup. Saute an onion, some chopped carrots, more celery and herbs and add your chicken broth. Voila! This week I had some mushrooms and spinach to toss in. It's kind of a clean-the-veggies-out-of-the-fridge before they become past prime. A sun dried (not in oil) tomato enriches the broth. At the end, I cook some small pasta, ditalini or orzo will do. We usually get dinner and a lunch. Costs practically nothing. Nourishing, tasty.

Yum!

Cheap Trick

On Saturday, I saved $48.57 on a $93.36 grocery bill. 21 of the items were on sale. The savings broke down at $1.60 for coupons, Sales items $26.55, and BOGO savings $20.42.

Saturday's shopping involved several challenges. I only had $97.00 left in the grocery budget for the month. The store had some specials I needed to stock up on for houseguests arriving th second week in July. We needed meat for two meals.

I didn't buy any specials that I didn't need immediately or else for the guests. The guests have difficult to meat eating requirements. We don't even want to go there.

What we are eating. I had a package of chicken breasts, and we ate chicken piccata two nights, one night with grilled zucchini and lettuce from the garden, and the second night with corn on the cob and organic romaine hearts on sale at a good price. With the romaine, I could plan that I would use all the lettuce before leaving for the 4th of July weekend.

Last night we had petite sirloin on the grill, and I saved one of the steaks and a portion of a 2nd for steak salad (remember the romaine?) tonight. Cluster tomatoes were also on sale. Tomorrow I'm making a minestrone with Italian sausage, on sale two weeks ago. I bought zucchini and coleslaw mix for the soup, and one can of tomatoes.

Eating cheap does not mean forgoing food pleasures. Remember the steak! Cherries and blueberries were also on sale, and we had blueberry waffles yesterday morning and blueberry pancakes this morning. Sale bacon, of course. Some of the cherries went into a ricotta dessert last night. Tonight I may use the rest of the blueberries for a freeform tart. I'll be making the crust myself and baking some food processor bread tomorrow to go with the soup. I do hate to pay $4.00 a loaf for decent bakery bread. I can make the bread while dealing with the soup.

Thursday, en route to the holiday weekend locale, we're packing a lunch of chicken sandwiches on home made bread, cookies (on sale two weeks ago), chips, plums and coke on special last weekend. We'll eat better and faster.

Remember, eating cheap(er) doesn't mean yucko margarine and boiled cabbage. We had a delicious salad last weekend of cucumber, dill from the garden, and a dressing of plain yogurt and sour cream.

Menu planning and keeping a well-stocked pantry are your greatest helpers on the road to supermarket savings.

For instance, after the chicken piccata, we need capers. I'll haunt the job lot for a nice big jar at a fab price instead of paying through the nose at the grocery store. Capers (if you like them) add zest and flavor to a lot of dishes.

Everything is a balancing act between time, money, health and taste. It's a lot to consider, and you do have to plan ahead.

Yours in frugality,

The Cheeseparer

The Ham Bone, Symbol of Eternity

Is it weird to blog a ham bone? Not the dance, but the real thing? The photo shows the ham bone just beginning to cook in the pot of bean soup. This is a frugal meal. Note large sprinkling of black pepper. Zowza!

We had a ham for Christmas instead of the prime rib roast beef that we usually cook. Actually, it was half a ham. Cost $14.00 instead of the $40+ dollars the beef would have set us back.
2 main meals for 3 people, then a few sandwiches, then ham for breakfast. After a few days, there was a big meaty bone and I removed enough for a ham and broccoli casserole--made with a cheese sauce and quite yummy.

Cooked the ham bone with some pea beans, lots of onion, garlic, some carrot and celery and a little fat (my bad!) and broth I'd saved from the baking of the ham. Add more chicken broth and a few springs of fresh rosemary and some dried thyme from the garden. Lots of black pepper. Yum! Cut the meat off the bone (ate some in the process) and had so much I put some aside for ham and eggs (2 meals as things evolved) and back went the chopped ham into the soup.

Died and gone to heaven. 8 servings, plus two breakfasts, and the casserole still to come. 4 servings there. Have we lost count? That $14 just keeps on giving. Double zowsa!

I think I've counted 32 servings here, folks. I've also got a good ham, potato and broccoli casserole recipe, but since we are in quasi-diet mode, I'll skip the potatoes.

So living it up with the ham has been a cheeseparing activity.

A wag once described eternity as "two people and a ham." My mom never saw the humor in that. She thought two people and a ham was great.

As ever,

The Cheeseparer