Over the past year or so I've been watching various cooking vlogs. I became intrigued when John did the Daniel Fast a few years ago with Vegan eating. I'm not vegan but with the incorporation of a meatless meal once or twice a week in our budget I felt that a Vegan or Vegetarian would likely know what they liked to eat and have a few favorite recipes same as I do for meat based dishes. One of my favorites is Nikki Vegan. I've actually tried several of her recipes and they are consistently delicious and easy to prepare. She is a vlogger but she also has a blog where she shares her recipes. This week she also shared a video that explained how she saves money on grocery shopping. Some of the facts and figures are truly interesting and I thought you might like to listen to the video yourself. You can access her blog at nikkivegan.com. Her bagel recipe is one I return to over and over again. It never fails.
An added benefit of watching her is that I've learned how to add certain things to my routine diet to increase protein, like hemp hearts and flax seed meal. These are both great high fiber ingredients that I can add to pancakes or granola or cereal and get a protein boost that is good for me! Neither are cheap but you don't need much and if you freeze these items (or you can just refrigerate), you can insure a longer life of both items. I've also learned to add yogurt to the top of my pancakes or to drizzle over melted peanut butter...These are ingredients we always have on hand, which cost little and that added protein to what might be a high carb breakfast makes it yummy and filling.
This year we were blessed to get two deer to put in our freezer. Our venison figures out to about $1.99 a pound on average for various cuts. I've not bought turkey sausage in months now and as Lana pointed out the other day in comments, I can use the ground meat I already have on hand to make more sausage. I confess I hadn't even thought of that as an option! I made our own turkey sausage for about two years until we found a brand we really liked and felt was well priced. Certainly I can make my own sausage! And I will begin researching recipes this week, since we're now out of deer sausage.
I don't mind eating venison at all, but I confess, I prefer Beef Roasts over venison roasts. I don't mind the cubed steaks or backstrap or tenderloin cuts at all. I'm perfectly happy with the ground meat but given a choice of texture and taste....I want the beef. I'm watching for sales. A single chuck roast is more than sufficient for the two of us for two meals with leftovers from each.
This year I realized that for all that I love cooking and trying new recipes a lot of the recipes I made in the 'old days' were still our favorites. I had 'adjusted' them to use less meat and often filled in with higher carb items that were great for adding calories. Now I'm going back to those old recipes and making them as written. Many were already frugal options. A few recipes that I'd used with lowered meat we actually like better with out the additional meat called for in the original recipe. One of those meals is a Beefy Ravioli bake and another is a dish called Corn Moussaka. Both call for 1 1/2 pounds of ground beef. I've made it for years now using only 1/2 to 3/4 pounds at best and we truly enjoy them as I make them.
Last year for Christmas John got me a Keurig coffeemaker. I was dead set against it. I felt they weren't a frugal option and I cited the costs of k-cups as evidence. Katie sided with her dad and pointed me in the direction of reusable k-cups.
It's true that pre-made k-cups can run about 80c a cup...But there are, as it turns out, frugal options out there. My price point is 29c a cup. We drink about six cups of coffee per day. I drink two of those and John the rest. I do that only because John likes the k-cups. Here's facts: I have reusable cups that I can fill with my own ground coffee and spend less than 25c a cup. I just don't feel 24c a day is worth arguing over. Our main savings with a Keurig? We no longer make more coffee than we can drink and so there's no waste because it's begun to taste burnt as it sits too long on the warmer.
One of the things I've learned in reading Tamar Adler's An Everlasting Meal is that I've been wasting foods I didn't need to waste. She believes in using every bit of any item she purchases. Tonight I took the steamed stems of the broccoli I cooked earlier in the week, chopped them and made Broccoli Rice Casserole to go with our supper. John's sister in law makes this recipe that calls for Cheez Whiz and cream of soup and frozen broccoli which it seems to me is mostly stems anyway. I make a thin white sauce, add cheese to it, and sub that in for the cheese spread and cream of soup. My family loves this recipe (Katie took home a small container of it tonight) and no one thinks it's different than Pilar's in any way. Tonight's usage insured that something I'd paid for and might normally compost went into our bellies to nourish our body. As I ramble through cookbooks this week, I'm looking for more recipes that I know I can use to use up all the foods we bring home and compost less bits and pieces.
Not everything I do in the kitchen is a frugal win. I had a failure just today with an attempt at a leftover soup. It wasn't a total loss...The dogs and cat enjoyed it but nothing I could do to it made it taste good. Life is too short and the bank account not low enough to warrant eating food that simply doesn't taste good. Fortunately the dibs and dabs of leftovers put into the jar for leftover soup were not pricey items. I think it's important that we prepare ourselves for waste now and then, although the most obvious frugal goal is to avoid it. But definitely don't eat things that simply aren't good for the sake of saving food unless you truly are in dire straits.
For that reason alone, though, it's best to hone your skills in the kitchen, so there are fewer failures. With practice you can learn to rescue most things. I just had one of those incidences today where there was no repair that was going to make it edible. If I'd continued to try I would have ended up wasting more food. Call your losses and let them go. I think that is one frugal lesson I've taken a long time to learn.
9 comments:
The other day when you said you had saved soup items and mashed potatoes I remembered my failed leftover soup with mashed potatoes. It was disgusting! I hope you can make a sausage that you like. We get name brand pork sausage for around a dollar a pound just about anytime at the discount stores. Last week they had name brand sausage in 6 pound rolls for $2.50! Hubby said no because the freezer really is full. It is good that you know that you need extra protein. Our oldest daughter is the same but I have to be careful not to eat too much protein because I just feel ill if I do. Fortunately my husband is the same so I guess we save on meat and other proteins because of that.
Terri, thank you for reminding me to use my hemp hearts! I forget about them. Also, I am guilty of not using the broccoli stalks. You are so right that there is no reason to waste them.
If you find a good sausage recipe, do share. I would like to make my own as we just don’t love any of the store bought ones.
I make soup with leftovers all the time, just not mashed potato. I keep a container in the freezer for those dibs and dabs. when it is full, I make soup. A trick I learned in a Facebook group I belong to is this. If your soup is lacking in flavor, put in some V-8 juice. It really does something for the flavor. I now keep a 6-pack of the low-sodium variety on hand for snacks and soup making.
Lana, we don't eat a lot of protein, tending to stay well within the lower limits of what is required but I find an eggless breakfast is generally too low on protein for my needs. Hence learning to use yogurt and hemp and flax to replace it. John would love having eggs everyday but I can't tolerate them in abundance. I think it's a lutein intolerance if I remember correctly. I can only eat them in moderation.
Karen, I'm going to look in my old cookbook and see what sorts of seasonings they suggest for sausage meat. I'll share when I've found one we really like.
Frances and Lana, I've used mashed potatoes in potato soups and also in roast beef hash with no problems but this one was just a bad combination of things that didn't mesh well flavor wise. Not even v-8 could have helped it!lol
I just can’t quite latch on to the taste of deer meat. Had a venison roast a couple of times, and notwithstanding the taste, I think it’s too lean of a cut. When I do eat beef, I like it to be well marbled. I almost had a disaster with a pot of French onion soup coming out wrong. I read a new recipe that called for tomato paste mixed in with the broth. Blech! So I doctored it up with some white wine, garlic powder, Gravey master, and some white sugar. I just kept adding stuff lol, and it turned out fine after all, but I was almost at the point of dumping it! Served it the next day, and once the flavors came together, it tasted ok. In any event , my husband ate a bowl with no complaints!
Terri, your .29 price point is truly a bargain compared to all the $4-5 cups of Starbucks drinks that are sold. There is a Starbucks in our town with a drive through line that is usually so busy and some of the customers in line are stopped on the main road waiting to get into the parking lot.
I’m a fan of beef roasts more and more. They are cheaper by the pound than the lean ground beef I prefer and they are so tasty and versatile.
Liz, I notice its got a little richer taste than beef. But I find the roasts a bit off putting more than any other cut. The processor we used is very good and removes ALL the silvering and membranes which holds a lot of the 'wild' taste in the meat, so that is a help.
Hubby prefers the flowerets of the broccoli and I prefer the stems, so we don't usually have leftover of that, lol! He got a deer this year (no elk, unfortunately!), so we'll be experimenting with venison. He has a good recipe for sausage, and he just made "hamburger" with a mixture of venison and some ground beef that was very good. Don't know if I'll care for the steaks or roasts, but we'll see.
Terri, I actually like the broccoli stems peeled and cooked better than the broccoli heads. The stems are sweeter. I add a little mayo on the side to eat with them. I also add fresh chopped onions and some grated cheese over the cooked hot broccoli for something a little different.
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