The Ever-Changing Food Budget and Going Back to Basic Meals

While I was on Christmas break, I happened to go through and scan some posts from January's past here on the blog.  That's when I came across the series written in 2017, Mother Hubbard's Cupboard.  My intent at the time was to show how people might eat on a very strict monetary budget.   My idea had been that if you did not have a pantry and no money to start one, you would still want to eat.  And if it happened that you were in financial straits, you might well have little money to eat upon.  So, I attempted to show how I could feed two people three meals a day for a small amount of money for one week.  We actually bought and ate those very foods for that one week.

Then I took the leftovers and a steadily increasing but small budget and showed how in a matter of four weeks I'd built a supply of basic goods.  Not a deep storage pantry but enough that we could feed ourselves a little better diet even on a very modest sum.

Now, in December 2023, as I was reading through the food list from that post, I was shocked as could be at the prices I quoted. These were the real prices I had paid at that time from the groceries where we typically shopped.  49c for a 4 ounce can of mushrooms, when my last pricing of them in November was well over $2.50 for the same size can. 59c a dozen for eggs...Last I bought at the current 'low' prices were $1.65/dozen. Oatmeal wasn't in my budget at that time, although it was still relatively cheap.  This week, the cost of a small box of name brand oatmeal was $3.99.

2020 happened with all the shortages and such. 

In 2020, I never expected that some of the huge price increases back then would now be my 'set point' price in some instances and some of them would be much wished for prices to see once more!  Especially when it comes to meat.  At one point in my life, I never bought meat that cost more than $1 a pound. And I stretched that one pound of meat to feed 7 people every single night.  Now I feel blessed beyond measure to find meat for $5 a pound.  On the rare occasion when I find meat for less than that, I say prayers of thanksgiving and I'm not being in the least facetious.  

2020 made me aware of two things.  First, that not everyone had the ability to shop just wherever they chose in order to chase down the lowest prices.  Second that where I'd always been careful in my kitchen, I still wasted a good bit of food.  That led me to try two experiments: to shop only at the local stores on occasion and see how well I might do on a limited budget in those stores, and to eliminate as much food waste as I could in my home.   Both of those experiments were eye-opening.  

Here in the last year alone, I've watched prices continue to go up and up.  I hear stories from others stating much the same.  Everyone I know is scratching their head and pulling the strings of their thinking caps tighter and tighter in an effort to navigate the current environment of increased food costs.  Some have the ability to buy equipment to preserve more.  Some have the ability to garden more.  Some are becoming what my grandparents used to call a 'working farm' living on a few acres, keeping a cow and chickens and growing and foraging for foods and preserving it all.  Some of us are just trying to figure out how we're going to manage on what we have with very limited abilities and resources.

I follow The Prudent Homemaker, as do most of you.  She has said that her price book is useless to her these days.  I believe that.  Once upon a time I knew prices fairly well.  I honestly have no idea what a good price is anymore from week to week.  Each week I read through four different ads and it's only by going through them that I know what a 'good price' is based on what is on sale in a given week or two weeks ago.  It's making food shopping more and more of a challenge.  More and more often the bulk of my shopping list is what I call a 'wish list'.  It's a listing of all the things I consider a good buy.  Then when my lists are made, I start striking off items, one by one until I determine what it is I truly need to buy and what I simply can't.

I'm pretty sure that we are all in the same boat.  I think it's going to make 2024 an interesting year where our grocery budgets are concerned.  I've got a few ideas about how to help us all.  I'd like to explore some vintage recipes which are frugal and my thoughts about them as I employ them for our home use.  I'd like to share some tips as I cook, shop, substitute, and more. Truth, I've forgotten some of what I used to know, and I want to retrain myself to be mindful of those saving ways I had once upon a time.  In some instances, I want to get back to basics and use the good old simple recipes as a jumping off point for other meals.   I hope that you will enjoy this series which I'll sprinkle throughout the year ahead.   And I hope that if you are so inspired that you too will share old tips and new, recipes that you once used and more.

As an example, I'll share what prompted this thought process: SOS, or Hamburger Gravy.  

John and I wanted something for supper the other day, but we didn't want a big meal. I had about half a pound of ground beef and simply did not want to make burgers, though that would make John plenty happy.  I decided to make Hamburger Gravy which I served as Mama and Daddy used to do, over toasted bread.  I've always found it a sort of comforting meal.

My recipe is basic and simple: ground beef (I have used venison as well), onion, salt and pepper, Worcestershire sauce, a bit of garlic or garlic powder, flour, and milk.  

I mused over that meal as I prepared it.  Mama and Daddy made this dish when I was growing up.  Back then, they'd use a pound of ground beef to feed five.  When I was on a very tight budget and was broke as could be, I used a half pound of meat to feed 7.    

Typically, this meal was always served over toast with green beans and mashed potatoes and some sort of salad on the side.  That's just the way Mama and Daddy did it.  I more or less just followed the pattern of childhood and did it the same way myself.

As I stirred the meat that night, I thought of the ways I might stretch or change this meal for the least cost: More gravy, less meat is the most obvious way, as I did when John and I married, and we had a very tight budget.  If the budget were really tight, I'd use water and dry powdered milk to make the gravy and not whole milk.  Sometimes, when it milk was running low, both powdered and whole milk, then I'd use just plain water.

I could take that same gravy and meat mixture and make other meals from it.   One of my favorite frozen entrees I have ever purchased from Sam's was a meat pie that was nothing in the world but Hamburger Gravy in a pie shell with Mashed Potatoes over the top, a sort of fancy cottage pie.  For this dish you would want the meat and gravy mixture thick enough to hold up the mashed potato topping.  Even with a pastry crust and potato topping, it's still a very economical meal. 

One morning this last winter, when I was having trouble finding sausage at a reasonable price, it occurred to me to serve Hamburger Gravy over biscuits for breakfast.  At the time I had plenty of venison on hand and it made for a hearty breakfast on some of those bitterly cold mornings.  It was a very inexpensive substitute for the pricier sausage.

I could add a can of mushroom soup (or make your own cream of soup) with a bit of sour cream and serve as Hamburger stroganoff with egg noodles.  I'd suggest canned mushrooms but honestly you can buy fresh ones far less expensively than cans.  I might rehydrate some of the dried mushroom pieces I bought to toss in.   Or I might make Potato stroganoff by adding in thinly sliced potatoes (or dehydrated slices if you have those).  Thinning the gravy still more to ensure the potatoes cooked until tender.   

I could skip the sour cream, add in chopped celery, and soy sauce and serve over rice for a rendition of that vintage Mock Chop Suey recipe I tried this last year.

I could thin the gravy still more, perhaps adding in some bouillon for flavor, add in a few diced potatoes, a shredded carrot, and some shredded cheddar to make a Cheeseburger soup of this.  The cheese would be the big increase in cost for the dish, but it would be a nice change up and would stretch to feed several more people.

As I said, I hope to have a few more posts of this sort as the year goes on, all based upon using what we have and keeping us aware of how versatile basic food items can be.

Now I'm curious, what would you do with the same basic ingredients of browned ground meat, onion, flour, milk/water and seasonings?  Do you have a family favorite?  Have you made any of the dishes I mentioned above?

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