Supermarket Sticker Shock

This morning's Boston Globe heralded the bad news that anyone who has shopped for produce already knew.  Prices are up!  Lettuce and tomatoes are outtasight!  


Rising Food Prices  


You may want to consider making slaw or carrot salad for a while.  Vitamin C is in cabbage and potatoes and orange juice is still a good buy.  I always loved the carrot salad with raisins and canned pineapple.  Root vegetables are still reasonable, i.e. carrots, rutabagas, turnips (yech!)  potatoes and parsnips (yum!).  Carrot soup is delicious, so think outside the box.  Lettuce is a quick crop and should be back in the stores at a reasonable price in a few weeks. 


Oh!  Did I say "cool weather crop"?  Now is the time to think GARDEN!  You can do lettuce, peas, and spinach while the temperatures are still cool.  Of course February is waaayy to early in New England.  We had more snow last night.  But consider. 


Soup and stews are an excellent way to cook cheaper.  Chicken and dumplings anyone?  Our supermarket had whole chickens for 99 cents a pound.  Consider eggs and the main dishes of frittata, omelet and strata.  Some wonderful soups use cabbage as an ingredient.  Look up the Yakisoba recipe on prior posts.  Onions, Carrots and Cabbage, all cheap.  And use one pork chop instead of two.  


There are always ways to economize, and with oil and food prices rising and the instability (understatement) in the Middle East, it may be time to hunker down.  Again.  


Read your supermarket flyer and plan a week's menus around the sales.  But you already do this, don't you?  Make  your own muffins.  So easy.  Spend the weekend cooking and baking and week nights won't be such a madhouse.  Get the kids involved.  Make Mexican or Indian.  Try some vegetarian dishes, like curried chick peas.  So good, so cheap.  Instead of a salad serve slice carrots and cucumbers.  Be creative.  Be cheap.  

Make your own pizza and save!

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  

Comfort Food and Cheap Eats

It's been good lately, with the snow piled thigh high or in some cases over one's head.  We feasted on homemade Chinese (yakisoba) and some Korean shrimp and scallion pancakes.  Think MEAT AS FLAVORING.  The Yakisoba called for one pork chop and I used 1/4 pound of med. shrimp for the pancakes. 


Then we moved into Swedish Meatballs. Meat as Meat.  One night I served them with mashed potatoes and last night with noodles.  Tonight we're having a Minestrone with Italian Sausage, something always on sale in the Boston area.  Soup is good food. 
  Minestrone soup with sausage

We did a chili earlier, using reduced for quick sale steak.  Zowie!   And a diet rice pudding that was so flavorful, thanks to currants, cinnamon and nutmeg.


Cherries on sale brought forth a Caflouti.  Nonetheless, it seems like grocery prices are higher and one has to shop ever cannier.  Are you a canny shopper? It pains me to pay over a dollar for an apple or an orange.  Still, it is better to spring for produce and to cut back on processed food and meat.


Here are some photos of the good meals we've been indulging in.  We haven't eaten out for weeks.  Maybe that's why the grocery bill is higher.  Unless you buy filet mignon and caviar,  eating out costs a lot more than from scratch cooking.  But you knew that.


Today the New York Times had recipes for some pancakes that would work great for dinner, with whole grains and I would serve a few ounces of sauteed ham with each meal. Amd a fruit salad. Remember: meat as flavoring. 

Cherry Caflouti

Yakisoba with Pork and Cabbage - yum! 

Korean Pancake just beginning to cook

Finished Korean Pancakes with scallions and shrimp - good as a snack, too!