Favorite Recipe Links

I have a lot of favorite recipes that I didn't write that are staples in my kitchen. I thought I'd start a link page here so you can find them too.

Hot Dog or Burger Buns I have not purchased store made hot dog buns since I found this recipe. It is so fast and easy, and tasty, not to mention inexpensive that I can't go back. To make it even less expensive put 1/3 powdered milk in the dry ingredients and change the water amount to 1 1/2 cups in place of the milk. Also, one tbsp of yeast is the same as one package, and the kind of yeast doesn't matter, my regular yeast works just fine.

Spent Grain Bread Since my husband has taken up home brewing as a hobby I've been wondering what to do with the spent grains. Could they be used? Then I came upon Leila's post and tried it. The bread is nice and moist, a little bit dense, and the spent grains give it a pleasant sour flavor, not unlike beer. I love it best in tuna sandwiches or with soup.

No Knead Bread This may be the best bread ever. Though it could be a little more sour in my opinion to make it perfect. The only thing it requires is time. It is simplicity itself. Always use cornmeal to coat it. It gives the bread a delightful crisp crust. The inside is moist and bubbly, and wonderful. Don't expect the bread to rise too much, it doesn't need to. Also, don't worry if it seems too sticky. It's not.

I will continue to add to this list as I find or remember more recipes. Be sure to check the link in the sidebar from time to time to see if it's updated.

The Farmer's Garden

Do you garden and grow more food than you can eat? Do you wish you could eat garden fresh produce without needing to garden?


Here's a cool solution for every one.

The Farmers Garden, where you can buy sell and trade locally grown backyard produce. It's free to register and post adds on the site and easy to browse adds to find others in your area with produce to sell. I'm hoping someone with a garden in my area will register soon. Maureen Farmer, the creator of this site, is a master gardener who built this site as practice while learning php. Thanks for the great idea and service Maureen.

What, You're hungry again???!

You know that feeling? The one you get when you are just thinking that maybe you'll have a minute to yourself after a long day of work, tending children, or both and you suddenly realize that people are hungry, yourself included, but didn't you just make lunch? Didn't we already deal with food today? Why do you have to be hungry again?

I sometimes feel this way about this blog. I love to write about food. I like to cook. But often I realize that it's way past time to post again and I'm still feeling like I just did that already, even if it's been several weeks. Sigh.

Well I don't know what's for dinner kids, sorry. I've been a bit swamped lately.

How about I send you over to someone else for a few meals? I just found The Cleaner Plate Club, and wow I like what I'm reading so far. So go over and take a gander. I'll be back soon.

*Thanks to mir for the link

Pantry Basics-Day Four and Gleaning Freegan Style

I'll tell you what we ate today and how much it cost in a minute. First I'm going to tell you all about how I came to have all of these gigantic loaves of artisan bread on my table. It will make more sense perhaps if you go and read this post by No Impact Man called Teach a Man to Dumpster Dive, and Feed Him for Life. Be sure and watch the video too.

The idea of salvaged foods is hardly new to me. I shop at salvage grocery stores, I glean wild growing things, and I used to know people who collected salvage food, which is a euphemism for perfectly good food that would otherwise be tossed in a dumpster, and distribute it through food banks and shelters.

Last night I was walking the baby, and trying to get her to sleep with her cranky cold and happened to be walking past the front of Paniera (which is this great bakery restaurant chain) a little while after they closed. I saw a kid cart 4 gigantic bags to the dumpster and toss them in. Only they didn't look like garbage, they looked like bread. So I went a little bit closer and saw that there were two more bags sitting next to the door. So I asked him. "Is that bread?"

"Yeah."

I eyed the loaves through the double layer of clear plastic bags encasing them.

"Is there anything wrong with it? Is it edible?"

"Oh yeah it's fine, we throw out bread at least three nights a week because it's a day old."

"Do you have to throw it out? Like, will you get into trouble if you don't?"

"No. We used to have someone come and pick it up. But lots of times he doesn't come."

"Well, I'll take it." I said.

And then I tried to pick up a bag of bread to carry home on the stroller and almost broke my back. It was really heavy. There was no way I could get it home.

So I grabbed a smaller bag of pastries and told him I'd be back.

I walked the 6 blocks back to our house and told the GH to grab the car and head over to get some bread. By the time he got there the place was locked up and there were no bags so he checked the dumpster and found a large bag of bread, sealed of course, sitting right on top. So he grabbed it and brought it home.

Those brown loaves in the middle are $8 loaves of bread. They are larger than a newborn, heavier too. Those baguettes are all whole wheat. This bread is made without preservatives and all of the unhealthy additives in most grocery store loaves, which is why they throw it out every few days. Think about how long bread sits on the shelves at the grocery store. Paniera is an artisan bakery that makes top quality stuff. I now have over $100 worth of gourmet bread that was baked fresh yesterday morning in my house. I put as much as would fit in the freezer. We're eating some before it goes bad, and the rest will go to family, friends, and whomever else wants it. The thing is, there were 5 other bags of food that were tossed last night, by that one store. The mind boggles to think of how much food is wasted every day across this nation.

I'm going to do some research and see if there is a place near by that would be willing to distribute it if we were to pick it up, like a Food Bank. Now I wonder what's in the trash behind the grocery store.


Okay today's menu.

Scrambled eggs-We get a dozen large for $1.19 at Trader Joe's. I used 5. $0.50
Whole grain toast-free
butter-$0.30
persimmons-free
apples-$0.70
bananas-$0.39

Breakfast $1.89

Snack-Yogurt with nectarine jam mixed in, about 1 tsp per bowl. $0.60

Lunch



Peanut Butter on thick slabs of bread with spinach and oranges on the side. (That combination is on purpose. The vitamin C in the oranges helps the body absorb the iron and nutrients in the spinach.) After I shot this picture I decided to add sliced bananas on top of the peanut butter.

Bread-free
Peanut butter-$0.40
Spinach leaves-$0.30
1 orange-$0.10
1 banana-$0.15

Total cost of lunch $0.80

For dinner I made corn tortillas, without a tortilla maker. I don't recommend it. It's time consuming and the tortillas don't hold together very well. This is my third attempt and they still aren't turning out well. I'm keeping my eyes open for a thrift store tortilla press, but no luck so far. When I consider that I can get 100 tortillas for less than 5 dollars around here and the bag of flour was about $3, this is one item that I'm not sure is worth it to make at home. Though it did taste wonderful.



I soaked black beans over night and then cooked them all day in the crockpot with onion, garlic, cumin, salt, pepper, habanero sauce, and oregano.

I removed about half of the beans from the pot with a slotted spoon, sliced some mini peppers I found hanging out at the back of the fridge, and added the leftover corn from last night, sprouts, yogurt, instead of sour cream, and salsa. We had vegetarian tacos, and used up leftovers at the same time.

16 corn tortillas-$0.50
black beans cooked from dried-$0.50
yogurt-$.20
sprouts-$0.30
corn-already added up last night
peppers$0.80?
Salsa-$0.30

Total cost of dinner $2.60

Total cost for the day $5.89

A Cure for Ignorance?

Now that we're finished with turkey a la Carrien, I want to go back to the discussion generated by this post from last week, No Money, No Problem.

There were some great comments and ideas so check them out.

This comment from Michelle Smiles has been rattling around in my brain since then.

I will say that I think some of the issue, especially for those in the lower income brackets, is often lack of knowledge. They don't know HOW to eat well. They don't know how to bake their own bread, cook dried beans, use fresh produce in dishes their children will actually eat. Their parents often fed them mac & cheese and twinkies so that is all they know. I used to work in a women's shelter and would have loved to have had someone come in and teach the ladies those things - nutrition on a budget. (And the staff - working at a shelter pays poorly and often the staff doesn't know how to do those things either.)

One of the things I am trying to do with this blog is be the kind of resource that will help with this problem. I'm learning as I go to make that easier for people. I'm trying to keep posts shorter now, and clearly labeled for content and categories so that it will be easier for people to find what they are looking for, and the information they need. Any helpful suggestions would be most appreciated.

I've tried volunteering for WIC to teach moms some frugal and healthy tricks but the combination of my lack of Spanish and scheduling has kept something like that from happening so far.

What I was thinking today was to take it a step further this holiday season. Many of us donate to food banks and the like to help out those less fortunate. Lots of the stuff that is donated isn't all that great nutritionally because it's mostly dry goods, and processed snacks because they don't go bad. A lot of times, people wouldn't know what to do with wheat berries or dry beans that I would most want to give, so here's what I'm thinking. I want all of you to tell me your favorite, most accessible frugal and healthy cookbook. And you favorite recipe in it. Let's get a list going. And then how about if each of us bought one, or two, or three, (sometimes these books are only a few dollars on Amazon), and included them in our food donation. We could even bookmark a favorite recipe and include all of the needed ingredients and package it all together so that whoever got it could make it right away. Or, if you can't afford a book, what about compiling the ingredients for one healthy recipe and slipping the recipe in with the package written out by hand with a note?

That's what I plan to do this year anyway.

So, here are two of my favorite frugal books. Two of you already mentioned More With Less, which is a very comprehensive resource. Amazon's best price right now is $9.



For moms of younger children, my absolute favorite is this very thick tome called super baby food. It has everything. How to make healthy food fun for kids, how to make baby food, how to decorate birthday cakes, how to make bread, how to make yogurt, how to make sprouts, how to make play dough. If you can only give one book to mothers of small children, I highly recommend this one. It's worth every penny. And right now you can get a copy for just over $5.




So, now it's your turn.

More with Less Cookbook is Still in Print

So I did a little search and here it is. The More With Less Cookbook is still available on Amazon. There is a lot of good stuff in there for you to look at, hundreds of recipes and lots of information as well. You may never come back here again. No, come back, I didn't mean that.....but this book is a great resource, just saying.