Frugal eating: Elk hunting

very redneck picture, I know, but I wanted proof I was there :)

I went hunting for the first time over Christmas. It used to be that hunting was the cheap way to feed your family. These days, though, there's fees attached to it: your state hunting license and the tag for the animal (and the conservation fee, and whatever else your state decides to charge). And you can't just go to the woods or fields behind your house (unless you happen to own lots of acreage). Now you have to travel and stay overnight and deal with all the associated costs.

This year our hunting area was 8 hours away, so there was the gas to drive there and back. Because it was so far away we camped near our hunting area. My in-laws have a camping trailer, which makes winter camping really nice, especially when it rains all night and then starts snowing and everything is a huge, muddy mess.

There's also the food, guns, ammo for target practice and the actual hunt, winter gear for trekking through the mountains without getting hypothermia, and meat processing.

Ok, so we could process the meat ourselves, but I have to say I'd rather pay someone else to do it. It's time-consuming, tedious, and messy if you don't have the proper equipment, and there's so many other things I'd rather do with my time.

Once you add everything up, I'm not completely sure we save money by hunting for our meat rather than buying it in the grocery store, but this is another case where health benefits (especially given all the health problems we have) trump financial cost. And elk, along with deer and antelope, are the original organic, grass-fed red meat. ie, it's healthy :)

And I have to say that having the ability and the knowledge of how to feed your family is pretty priceless.

Plan to Eat

Awhile ago I heard about a site called Plan to Eat. You upload your recipes to the site and then add the recipes to a calendar. You then make a shopping list and it automatically pulls the ingredients from your planned meals into your shopping list. You then have the option to review the ingredients and move the items you already have to another list.

I wasn't sure how useful this would be, but since they have a 30 day free trial, I thought it was worth a try. I uploaded some recipes, made a shopping list, and went shopping. It was great, especially since I'm using a lot of new recipes that I don't know by heart. It's also nice having my shopping list already made up- no combing through all the recipes to figure out what I need.

From a planning perspective, I find it very useful because it forces me to plan out what we'll eat, which means I'm less likely to fall back on spaghetti (gluten free, of course) at least once a week when I can't think of anything to make. While LMS wouldn't mind this, it would get real old real fast.

After the 30 day free trial, it's $4.95 a month or $39 a year (which gives you 4 months free). I can definitely save that much money just because I'm planning everything so much better- buying things I actually need and will use and avoiding a lot of impulse buys. Plus all the planning is good for my OCD  :)

If you want to check them out, go here to check out their site. Plan to eat, plan to save!

U-Pick Peaches

We picked two buckets of peaches:

The awkward self-photo (I'm trying to get myself in more photos):

The price on the peaches was fairly comparable to what I've seen in the store (unlike the cherries and strawberries we picked), and I even scored some half-price seconds (bruised fruit).

I blended up the seconds for fruit leather, we ate some of the ones we picked, and the rest I cut up and froze for smoothies.

Gluten free graham crackers

Last week I made gluten free graham crackers using the recipe found in Easy Gluten-Free Baking by Elizabeth Barbone. 

They didn't taste exactly like graham crackers, which is too be expected, but the edges definitely had a nice cracker-y crunch. I hadn't realized how much I missed that. I didn't roll them out as evenly as I should have, so I need to work on that next time for more even cooking.

I sprinkled some cinnamon sugar on top right after I pulled them out of the oven, which added a nice touch. LMS loved them. I think she ended up eating most of them while I was busy doing something else. She keeps asking for more graham crackers. Guess I'm going to have to make them on a regular basis. They're pretty easy, so that won't be a problem.

Store-bought gluten free crackers are expensive and rarely taste good enough to justify the money spent on them. While gluten free flours aren't cheap, I'm much more willing to to bake a cracker that I know will taste good than waste money buying a cracker that tastes like grainy cardboard.

I've only made a few of the recipes in this cookbook, but I've had good results with all of them and look forward to trying more of the recipes. It's nice to be able to eat 'normal' food again :)  As I searched for a link for the cookbook, I found that Elizabeth has a blog- I'm so excited! I can't wait to go through her past posts and try the recipes she's posted.

Easy Summer Pasta Salad

My first year of college I bought a boxed pasta salad mix. After I mixed it all up, I realized I could easily replicate it, and it would taste better and have bigger chunks of vegetables and meat.

The ingredients:

ranch dressing (I mixed mine from the powder base)
pasta shells (I used gluten free pasta shells)
carrots, cut into small pieces
frozen peas
ham or bacon, cut or crumbled into small pieces
cheese, cut into small pieces (I used colby jack)

After cooking the noodles, rinse them well, making sure they don't stick to each other. Drain and cool. Once cool, throw in the carrots, peas, ham or bacon, and cheese. Mix together, then drizzle dressing over it all. Stir together, adding more dressing if needed. You can always add more, but you don't want so much that it's a sloppy mess. The pasta will absorb some of it, but not a lot. When it looks good, cover and refrigerate for a few hours so the flavors can meld.

The great thing about this recipe is that you don't actually have to measure anything- just add what you have till it looks right. So much better than rehydrated bits of carrots and peas.

Great for hot summer days when you don't want to eat something hot. I like having it on hand for lunches.

Kale Chips

We're trying to eat healthier and buy less junk and more produce. This is a process since we're not used to eating lots of produce and we do like our junk food.

I've read about kale chips on various blogs, but I thought they sounded rather gross. However, I tried some at the farmers' market last week, and they're actually quite good! We went back to the stand that had kale and bought some to flat leaf kale to experiment with.  I also bought some curly leaf kale at the grocery store.

The flat leaf that I bought at the farmer's market:

The curly leaf that I bought at the grocery store:

I washed and dried the kale using my salad spinner, then tore them into small pieces.

I then drizzled olive oil, salt and seasonings over the kale and massaged the oil and seasonings in.

I spread the kale on cookie sheets.

And baked at 350 for 12 minutes.

After 12 minutes the flat leaf kale looked like this, so I think less time would have been better.

The curly leaf kale wasn't all crispy, so I left it in for a few more minutes. I'm not sure how much the different cookie sheets affected the outcomes, but I'm sure the stoneware slowed the cooking time on the curly leaf kale.

It's hard to tell, but these leaves are nice and crispy!

The verdict:
The flat leaf kale ended up super crispy and brown. I'm not sure if this was strictly because of the pan I used, or because of the variety of kale.

The curly leaf kale turned out better, but the larger pieces didn't crisp up as well- they took longer to cook. Next time I'll make sure all the pieces are smaller.

Less is more with the oil. I initially thought I didn't have enough oil, but went with what I'd seen others do and didn't add more. After cooking, the kale chips were a bit oily, so I definitely could have used less oil and still have had good results.

I'm going to make them again, but I'll do just one pan at a time, and I'll use less oil and more seasonings. One of the recipes I found said to mist the olive oil on- that's an idea to try, if I ever get an olive oil mister.

Have you tried kale chips? What did you think?

Thinking and living frugally

Lately I've been searching for more frugal blogs to read and inspire me. Some of them are local ones that have the local grocery deals, others aren't local but have other useful information.

As I read these blogs, I've been thinking more about couponing. I've been printing out some coupons, but the vast majority are for things I can't eat or for overly processed foods, or for toiletries or cleaners that I can't use because of the chemicals. The sales ads seem to be for a lot of the same things.

I find this a bit discouraging because I'd like to be able to coupon and buy on sale and get great deals. On the other hand, I'm not buying cheaply-made, full-of-preservatives food. We're spending our money on food with fewer ingredients, that's fresher, and tastes better. I haven't yet got our food budget where I want it to be, but I'm getting there. I still have to figure out who has the best prices on what (especially dairy and meats) and once I've done that I can work towards staying in our food budget.

I've been stressing a bit about budgeting and doing the grocery shopping and all, but I've decided I'll just do the best I can until I get eveything unpacked and feel less stressed (clutter, i.e. lots of boxes, makes me stressed). Once I've finished unpacking and sorting and feel that I can at least find everything again, then I'll focus on shopping lists, sales, coupons, and all that.

In the meantime, I'm going to the store as infrequently as possible, and trying to keep things as inexpensive as possible. I've discovered that for our family of 3, one crockpot dish can be used for 3 or 4 meals, which drastically reduces the cost of dinners. I did some barbecue chicken a couple weeks ago, the first night we served it with mashed potatoes, the second night we served it with cheese on a baked potato, the third night we used it in quesadillas, and the fourth night we used it in burritos. This week I cooked a roast in the crockpot and are doing similar things for dinner. This is a win-win for me: I stretch the meat out over 4 meals, which spreads out the cost as well, and I have minimal meal prep each day.

One of my recent  blog finds is Keeping Life Creative. The author has committed to using beans or rice every day for a year in order to remind herself about living frugally. Some of the meals she's prepared are normal, beans and rice, burritos, etc, but she's also snuck beans into mac & cheese and lentils into cake. I find this intriguing, and once I'm feeling more settled I plan on giving some of her recipes a try. I'll have to alter them to make them gluten free, but it shouldn't be too hard to do.

I've also been thinking about stopping my Melaleuca shipments- I like their products (they have really nice soy candles that don't bother me), but some of the cleaning products have started to bother me. I'm not convinced that it's worth the financial commitment to keep ordering from them (you're supposed to order a min. # of product points each month; with shipping this usually ends up being around $75 for me). It's a chunk of money I could be using for other things. I've found several coupons for Seventh Generation products, so I think I'll give them a try (they even go on sale, so I could get some pretty good deals), and if those give me problems I'll have to venture into making my own cleaners. I don't want to, since it seems like it would be a hassle, but if I can make cleaners that won't bother me, it would be worth it. And I'd be saving even more money.

Frugal Eating: Noodles & Company

Noodles & Company
I used to love their mac & cheese, which is definitely not mac & cheese from a box- it's sooo much better. However, since going gluten free, I haven't eaten there since I didn't think they had any options for me.

I recently found out that they do have a couple gluten free options! Their Pad thai, Sauteed beef, Braised beef, Sauteed shrimp, Cucumber tomato salad and Tossed green salad are all ok for me to eat.

They don't have any Noodles & Co restaurants near where we moved, so I decided to try out the pad thai before we moved. While we were out running errands, LMS and I stopped in for lunch. I checked with the guy at the counter before ordering and he confirmed that the rice noodles are cooked separately from the other noodles, so I ordered the pad thai with sauteed beef, and it was sooo yummy! I always ask for an extra plate and split the order with LMS (two for one!). I've done this with their smaller size and their regular size and it works well both ways. It had been so long since we were last there that I forgot about the portion sizes. I ordered the regular size and had a hard time finishing, even after giving LMS a decent amount.

A regular portion with protein is about $7 or so, about the same as a hamburger meal at a fast food place. Personally, I think a dish of noodles with sprouts is healthier than a hamburger and fries. The service is quick, too. Splitting a meal with LMS saves the money I could have spent buying a separate meal for her, that she would only eat a little of. She is just not a fan of fast food, other than french fries, but she does enjoy Noodles & Co. The pad thai is a little spicy, but LMS didn't complain (she's quick to say when she thinks something's too spicy), and she ate all her noodles.

If you go to their website, you can sign up to get coupons emailed to you periodically. Sometimes the coupons are for specific items, so they're not always useful for me, but you never know when you'll get a good one.

I took a picture of our lunch with my cell phone, but I guess if the lighting is too bad it causes problems when sending the picture to my email. I've tried multiple times to send it to my email, but none of them were successful. Sorry!

I've also been inspired to learn how to make pad thai at home, and hope to do so in the next week or so, once I've excavated my pots and pans from the piles of boxes that will soon be everywhere. Anyone have a good pad thai recipe they'd like to share?

Frugal Eating: The $5 Dinner Mom Cookbook

The $5 Dinner Mom Cookbook by Erin Chase  (check our her blog by following the link in the book title)

This book finally came available at the library a week before we were to leave, so I read it quickly so I could turn it in before we left.

I thought it was a good book. Her premise is that you can plan and prepare dinner, including sides, for a family of four for less than $5. In some ways it was similar to the Family Feasts for $75 a Week and Make it Fast, Cook it Slow cookbooks that I read earlier. This isn't a bad thing, by the way.

Erin has a good section on coupons- I think I'll give it another try once we're moved and settled. She uses a price book too (like the $75 a week lady). She buys very little canned goods and processed items, so she's making couponing work without buying the items most coupons are for.

She advocates buying mostly from the outer edges of the store: produce, dairy, and meats- and staying away from aisles full of refined {expensive} foods. Since that's what we should be eating, that works for me.

She also talks about portion control- be aware of how much you're eating and what- protein, starch/grain, veggies, etc, and not just loading up your plate and mindlessly eating.

She also said to be careful about snacking- a quote she used is 'You crave what you eat'. So true. If I eat one piece of chocolate, I crave more. If I don't eat it at all, I don't crave it (unless it's that time of month...). Good for saving money too. Have fruits and veggies on hand for snacking instead of candy, chips, etc.

She talks about meal planning, which I have to say has got to be one of the biggest ways to control your food budget- plan what meals you're going to have, then plan the shopping list, then stick to it.

The recipes Erin includes are cooked from scratch. Like the authors of the two cookbooks I mentioned above, she makes her own 'canned' soups for cooking and uses very few canned items.

Her recipes include lots of produce, beans, lentils, etc. They're not intentionally gluten free, but a number are naturally. Most of those that aren't can be easily tweaked by substituting gluten free pastas, flours, or bread products. This does increase the price per meal, but the price per meal is still doable. Gluten free pastas, flours, and bread products are significantly more expensive than 'normal' varieties, are hard to find in bulk, and rarely go on sale (I've never seen them on sale in the 9 months I've been gluten free, but I'll be paying closer attention from here on out).

I'm looking forward to trying out some of the recipes she included in her book, and giving couponing another try. Has anyone else read this book and tried any of the recipes?

Frugal Eating: Family Feasts for $75 a Week: Book Review

A month or so ago I requested several books regarding cooking on a budget. One which just recently became available was Family Feasts for $75 a Week, by Mary Ostyn.

Mary has 10 kids in her family, so she's experienced in cooking for a lot of people, and doing it on a budget. We only have 1 child, not 10, but we still need to cook frugally and spend as little as possible.

She has lots of good tips about ways to save money around the house, when cooking, and so on. I have 8 brothers and sisters, so growing up, we were always finding ways to save money. We did a lot of the things she mentions, so there wasn't a lot that was new, but there were some things that stood out.

One major point she makes is that planning is necessary- meal planning, grocery planning, etc. It brought to mind the adage 'Fail to plan, plan to fail'. If you don't plan out your budget, your meal plan, your shopping list, etc, you won't be able to stick to your budget- you'll end up spending way more than you intended.

I found quite a few good recipes that I need to add in to the meal plan I made awhile ago. There are several things I liked about the recipes she included: they're not centered around meat (meat is included, but it's not like eating a steak and baked potato), there is a lot of bean and lentil recipes, and they're from around the world. Two of her kids were adopted from Korea and four were adopted from Ethiopia, and she's made an effort to include meals from their native countries, as well as others.

She also uses very few canned items, no boxed  mixes, and no canned soups in her recipes. She doesn't use them because they're pricey, which is true, but most of them are also sources of gluten, so I can't use them. Her recipes aren't specifically gluten free, but enough are naturally gluten free that I was able to find a good number of recipes that I can use.

She also includes instructions on canning, which I thought was helpful- it's becoming a lost art.

I like finding new recipes that are inexpensive to prepare, yet are still nutritious and taste good. I'm looking forward to trying a lot of the recipes she included.

Another thing she talked about that I really like, and will start once we move, is a 'price book'. Basically, you keep track of the items you buy the most, and you figure out how much they cost per unit at the stores that you shop at. That way you know which store has the best price and at which stores to use coupons and sales to get the absolute best deals. In a small notebook, using one page for each item, track the prices, locations, dates, etc for that particular item. It can be a bit overwhelming, but she recommends to start with 20 items and add on from there, as you can handle it. Sounds like a great way to figure out where to buy the items on your list. (She gives good instructions and examples, starting on page 38- much better than I can summarize here.)