Creative cooking

The other day I made pizza dough. I took what was left, cooked up some ground turkey I had and planned to make calzones. I have to admit, it didn't turn out too well. So I had a lot of cooked ground turkey left. I had already mixed in the little bit of pizza sauce that was left. So today, I cooked up some angel hair pasta, added some jarred pasta sauce and the turkey and had that for lunch at work today. Very tasty. Never used angel hair in spaghetti before, but it worked very well.

Still working on the pantry oversupply and it's slowly being eaten away.

Barbara

Pantry cooking

I recently realized that I have a LOT of food in my pantry (shelves, refrigerator and freezer). So yesterday I wrote up a week's worth of menus using only what is already in the house. It was easy to come up with 3 meals a day and I have a lot of ideas for at least another week. I shop way too much. Maybe a way of feeling secure, I think. Anyway, we need to continue to economize and this is a good way, getting rid of what we already have.

Little bit chili

I got the idea for this chili from Frugal Guy. I love his blog. He talks about making chili by just tossing in some of this and some of that. In other words, a 'little bit' of this and that chile! So I gave it a try.

Fried up some ground beef with spices (celery seed, onion and garlic powder, some dill weed, salt, pepper and a few shakes of some others). Put in some chopped green pepper and minced garlic. Then a can of turkey chili with beans from Trader Joes. Then a can of black beans. A little bit of V8, pace picante, lots of chili powder, some cumin and cayenne, some water and the reminder of my spanish rice. Smells and tastes good.

Barbara

Frugality vs Value/Health

I love a bargain. Even more so now that I am living a much much more frugal lifestyle. But I think a lot of people think being frugal means you buy the cheapest of everything, especially when it comes to food. In my case at least, that's not necessarily the case.

We spend a lot less on food than we used to, but we also eat much healthier food than we used to. One example is bread. We eat whole wheat bread. Sometimes I buy 100% whole wheat bread from the store (no hfcs of course) when the price is good. But I also make whole wheat bread at home. Now, I certainly could buy really really cheap flour to make bread and biscuits and so on with. But I don't. I feel it worth the extra money to buy Bob's Red Mill flour, which is a high quality flour. Now, I do try to save money on the Bob's Red Mill products. Luckily the company hq/store is about 3 miles away, and they have the best prices in the area. So I go there. If you buy a case, you get 10% more off a good price. The point is, I am willing to pay a little more to get high quality ingredients for something I make.

The same principle applies to margarine. I could buy all kinds of cheap margarine. Instead, I pay more for the green Earth Balance Margarine spread and the Earth Balance buttery sticks. They use healhier oils for their margarines, we love the taste and it spreads great. This is another case where a healthy option for food trumps saving a little money buying the less healthy product.

So, just because you are trying to be frugal, does not mean you can only buy and use the cheap stuff. I figure it's worth it. I might spend ten bucks a month more on margarine and flour, but that healthier option might one day save me 50K in medical bills. Well worth it.

Barbara