Fantastic Frugal Blogs

I’m not much of a magazine reader, but I love reading Parents magazine.  I just ordered a subscription after a long, long year without it.  With great excitement, I reviewed the cover and saw the whole January issue was basically devoted to money saving tips.  I was in heaven.  I could not wait to put my daughter to bed and dive in.

 Here are some blogs the issue featured that I highly recommend for anyone counting their pennies. 

The Aldi Queen – she includes menu plans for all seasons with the groceries you can buy at Aldi’s grocery stores.

Northern Cheapskate – includes freebies, giveaways, recipes and all kinds of frugal living advice.

Living Well on Less – Menu planning, traveling on a budget, other good advise about getting out of debt.

 

 

Roasted potatoes and greens

As part of my New Year’s resolution to cut the clutter in our house, I’ve been sorting through old recipe clippings and books and came across an old favorite. I found this recipe on allrecipes.com. It is delicious. I would never have thought to put spinach with potatoes but somehow it tastes great. You’ll need potatoes, garlic, rosemary, butter and spinach for this economical and delicious side dish.

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/roasted-potatoes-with-greens/detail.aspx

Lentil Tacos

     Lentils are fast becoming my own personal super food.  Not only do they taste amazing, but they are inexpensive.    I bought a 16 ounce bag for $1.59 and can make 3-4 batches of the lentil taco recipe below.   These pea sized morsels of protein are low in fat and cholesterol, high in fiber, and have become a staple  in my kitchen.   Lentils are also a good source of iron and folate.  

    My husband and I have been blessed with an adventurous eater who will always try something new.  That doesn’t mean she’ll like it, but she loves this recipe in a quesadilla.  I prefer this mix on a taco salad, while hubby prefers hard shell tacos,or burritos.  The texture is very hearty and mimics ground beef.  I have not made beef tacos since trying the recipe and make it about once a week.    You have to try this recipe. 

 

 

 

 Lentil Tacos

(adapted from allrecipes.com)

• 1 cup finely chopped onion
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1 cup dried lentils, rinsed. (It may not look like a lot but they really plump up)
• 1 tablespoon chili powder
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 2 1/2 cups water (original recipe calls for chicken broth, I use water to lower the sodium content.  1 cup of chicken broth has over 800 mg of sodium)
• 1 cup salsa

**Toppings of your choice:  shredded lettuce, fresh tomato, cheese, sour cream, black olives, taco shells, flour tortillas

Directions

1. In a large non-skillet, saute the onion and garlic until tender. Add the lentils, chili powder, cumin and oregano; cook and stir for 1 minute. Add water; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 25-30 minutes or until the lentils are tender. Uncover; cook for 6-8 minutes or until mixture is thickened. Mash lentils slightly.
2. Stir in salsa. Spoon about 1/4 cup lentil mixture into each taco shell. Top with lettuce, tomato, cheese and sour cream.

Nutrition information for 1/4 cup lentils: ~ 120 calories, 10 grams protein, 11 grams fiber, < 1 gram fat.

Chicken barley stew

It is so windy, cold and rainy today – a perfect day for soup.  With the threat of snow in the forecast I knew it was time for some warm comfort food.

Tonight Abby and I tried this chicken-barley stew recipe from the book Family Feasts for $75 a Week.  It was a real cheap meal for me for many reasons: 1) I had most of the ingredients in my house and the ingredients I did have to buy (carrots and cabbage) were very cheap,   2) I doubled the original recipe to make sure the vegetables didn’t go bad before I could use them preventing waste, and 3) by doubling the recipe I made sure that we have lunches for the next two days until my weekly planned shopping trip.

Barley in soup continues to absorb liquid, if this happens you can always add more chicken broth when you reheat to thin it out again.  The recipe below is for a double batch of soup with some seasoning modifications I did because the flavor was bland to me when I followed the recipe exactly.  I don’t measure seasonings so I listed the suggested amounts from her recipe.  I used probably 1.5-2x as much seasoning and I added pepper and some salt.  I don’t usually add salt to food but this soup needed it to me.   I also didn’t have any fresh parsley, I bet that would have added some nice flavor.  I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.  The chicken was Abby’s favorite part because it came out so moist. 

 

Chicken Barley Stew

16 cups of chicken broth (4 quarts)

3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (about 1#)

2 cup pearl barley

4-5 ribs of celery chopped

6 carrots chopped

2 cups finely slivered green cabbage (I used about 1/3 of a head)

1 large onion

4 cloves garlic, minced

2 teaspoon dried basil

2 teaspoon dried sage

1 teaspoon dried thyme

salt and pepper to taste

2 teaspoons minced fresh parsley

1)Bring broth to a boil in a large soup pot.

2) When broth is boiling, add all ingredients to the pot.  Return to a boil, then partially cover pot and reduce heat to medium-love.  Let stew simmer 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

3) Ladle into bowls.  Garnish with parsley before serving.

Cranberry Pumpkin Muffins

It’s fall in Wisconsin, the nation’s largest producer of cranberries, and I have been longing for anything with cranberries or pumpkin in it.  Sundays when I’m not working I like to make a special hot breakfast for my family.  This weekend I made a vegetable strata and found a recipe for cranberry pumpkin muffins that I tweaked to decrease the fat, cholesterol and sugar.  This recipe cost me less than $2 to make because I only had to buy cranberries and pumpkin.  You only need about half the can of pumpkin so I was able to make a double batch for no extra cost.

Cranberry Pumpkin Muffins

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice ( if you don’t have this combine nutmeg, cinnamon and ginger)

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 cup sugar

1 cup canned pumpkin (about half a can)

1/2 cup applesauce (I use unsweetened)

1 cup fresh or frozen cranberries, chopped

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

In a bowl combine the first four ingredients. 

 In a mixing bowl, combine the oil and sugar; add the pumpkin and applesuace and mix well.

Stir the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until moisted.  It makes a thicker looking batter.

Fold in the cranberries.

Fill paper-lined muffin cups 3/4s full.

Bake at 400 degrees for 18-22 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Price Book

I’ve read or skimmed several low budget cooking books and the two books I liked the best discussed developing a price book.  A price book is a small notebook you keep in your purse to help you find the best deals on the items you purchase the most.  This has been really helpful to me in determining where I am going to do my grocery shopping.

How to get started:

1) Get a small spiral notebook.  Something I wish I had done differently is found something with tabs so that the items would be in alphabetical order or by food category.  I am thinking about rewriting everything in a new more organized notebook.

2) collect grocery recipets you have around the house and/or sales fliers. 

3)Make the headers. On the top of the page write the food item (example: Strawberries).  Then the headers for your columns: date of purchase, store, brand,  total price, unit (the size), and finally unit price.

4) Determine price per unit.  Take the total price you paid and divide by the size of the product.  Most food items I buy are in ounces, but diapers I do by # of diapers in the box.  Many products are sold in different sizes depending on the brand.  Determining the price per unit allows you to see what the price really is.

 Here is an excerpt from my page for strawberries:

Strawberrries

9/18 PNS   $2.50   16 oz   .16/0z

9/6  Aldis   $2.29   16 oz   .14/0z

9/30 Target  $1.97   16oz  .12/0z

9/24  Woodman’s  $2.99  16 oz   .19/oz

 I was suprised to see Target had the lowest price.  I had never bought groceries there before.  Using sale fliers can help you track prices at stores you don’t usually shop at.

5) Dedicate time to update your book.  One book I read suggested keeping one day a week as your “quiet day” to plan meals, cut coupons, and look through fliers.  She’s a stay at home with a detailed weekly schedule to maintain her home.  On this day she doesn’t do any cleaning beyond daily dishes, etc.  Family Feasts on$75 suggests a goal of 15 minutes a day to updating the price book.  That’s what I have been trying to do but 1 hour a week can provide you the information you need.

It may sound daunting or tedious, but this tip has helped me see in writing changes I have made and how they are adding up.  Give it a try, it will only cost you the price of one small notebook.

How I’m cutting foods costs

Helping write out the weekly menu

Many of these tips are things I had been doing already but many new ones are from thrifty mom friends and some new reads (see previous post for one of these books).

1) Plan a weekly menu and stick to the grocery list, include weekend breakfast and lunch options.
2) Keep a running list of items as you run out and don’t run to the store for one ingredient.
3) Buy in season, it’s cheaper and tastes better. So what if you eat nectarines for 2 weeks straight.
4) Shop the farmer’s market before the grocery store. Our farmer’s market is across the street from the big chain store. I purchased 2 grocery size bages of produce for $5.
5) Check different areas of the store. Black beans are often cheaper in the Mexican food isle than in the canned vegetable aisle.
6) Check the stores website for unadvertised coupons and sales.
7) Use meat as a condiment or not at all. I’ve been using half the meat in my recipes for weeks and my husband hasn’t noticed. Shhhh.

I have 4 new books from the library so I’m hoping for more tips to come.

Family Feasts for $75 a week

I love to read.  A mom friend of mine always says she doesn’t have time to read.  I might not have time to do the dishes but I always have time to read.  When a book really makes an impression on me I have to tell everyone I know.  I recently picked up Family Feasts for $75 a week by Mary Ostyn from the library and was so inspired I bought it off amazon.com for $10 that night (side note Amazon is almost always cheaper than going to the book store, check prices before heading to the big name book stores).  Some reviews I read criticized the book because the author has a large vegetable garden, an orchard and a lot of freezer space.  The beauty of her book is that it is not asking you to do everything that she does, I have read books like that and returned them to the library before ever finishing.

My grocery spending one month this summer was $800.  outrageous for a family of 2.5 but we love food and convenence.  As two full-time working adults sometimes it’s easier to pay $7 for a rotisserie chicken than $4.00 for a roasting chicken you cook yourself.  When I saw that number I knew we had to change.  Here’s what helped me from Mary’s book:

1) List your goals.  Why do you want to cut costs?  Do you want to save some money for a vacation, stay home with your kids, pay off your car?  These are our 3 big goals.  Thinking about why we need to watch our food budget has helped keep us in line.  We slashed hundreds of dollars from our food budget last month just by paying better attention to what we were paying.

2) If you haven’t been tracking your spending I urge you to start.  We have been doing this since we got engaged years ago but didn’t do anything about it.  Just watched the numbers tick by.  I could kick myself for all the money we have squandered away.  Make yourself responsible for what you are doing.

3) The suggestion that helped me the most last month was to go to the store less.  I often went to the grocery store 3-4 days a week to pick up one item, and like anyone who walks into a Target, I never bought just one item.  Mary suggests keeping a running list on your fridge of items you are out of for the next big trip and do not go to the store until your planned trip.  Because I am creative in the kitchen this has worked well for us.  If you are working on becoming an organized cook make sure you stock your pantry well before committing to this technique (she also has a list of pantry items to get you started).

4) Develop a price book.  Gather any receipts or sale fliers you have and buy a small notebook that would fit in a purse.  On each page you will write at the top a food item such as milk, under that make a grid with the categories: date, store, brand name, total price, size, and unit cost/size.  As you get going you will start to see trends in what stores have the lowest prices for items you regularly buy and the rotation of items that are on sale.  Pick N Sav in our area will have the light yogurt on sale one week and then low-fat the next week.  

This book lists dozens of other tips on coupon clipping, meal planning, freezing and storing foods, and best of all recipes.  I’ve only tried one recipe so far but it was low-fat and delicious.  I strongly encourage you to check this book out from your local library and start some savvy saving of your own.

Sodium free taco seasoning mix

I’ve never found a taco seasoning packet that I really liked. They are all so salty to me and if you purchase them a lot it gets expensive. I found this taco seasoning mix on allrecipes.com. If you have a moderately stocked spice cabinet you should have all the seasonings in your home. It’s sodium and gluten free.

Taco Seasoning Mix:
1 Tablespoon chili powder
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon dried minced onion (onion powder can be used instead)
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper (I omit this if I want a milder spice blend)
1/4 teaspoon oregano
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1 1/2 teaspoons of cumin

Enjoy.

Cheap Thoughts

I made a decision a few years after college in my first “career” that I needed a change.  I dropped out of law school and left my job at a non-profit agency to waitress at Baker’s Square while getting an associate’s degree in dietitics.  Does that sound like the act of a lunatic??  Luckily for me no one in my family ever questioned me or made me feel bad about these decisions. 

I always knew I wanted to be a mom and I knew I would stay at home and bake brownies until they went to first grade.  But now here I sit working full time for $6 less an hour than my husband that works a factory job.  I would not change these decisions because without them I would not have my husband or our sweet little girl but I want more. 

I’m in the process of cutting my working hours to spent more time home.  I have taken out dozens of books from the library on budgeting and cooking on a tight budget.  H0wever, I couldn’t find any blogs on this subject so here I am to offer you the tidbits I’ve read and attempted along the way. This week I was able to get my grocery bill to an all time low with my few weeks of researching.  I look forward to sharing my thoughts, recipes with you and getting your ideas in return.  Now let’s pinch some pennies.