Recipes – Page 3 – Frugal Living

Deal of the Day Plus a Food Health Rant

September 17, 2015 by Andrew Leave a Comment

Tonight we took a family walk to Kroger for some ingredients for tomorrows dinner and to get exercise. It is a 1.6 mile round trip, just long enough to stretch the legs.

Our garden is almost done producing after a rather miserly second crop of greens, so I was delighted to find a pound of organic spring mix on clearance for ¢99. Shae peeled back the clearance sticker to find a second clearance sticker priced at $2.49. I would guess the original price was $2.99. Yay deals!

We also picked up an avocado, but I much prefer Aldi and their superior pricing.

Then it was on to pick up some tortilla shells. We cruised on over to the Mexican section and started reading labels. I have been making an effort to eat healthier. Our general guidelines are:

Minimize sugar intake (no soda, candy, fruit juice, or other high sugar empty calorie type foods)
High fiber
Veggies and Fruits can be consumed in raw form as much as desired
Limit red meat consumption (poultry or fish are preferred)
No trans fat and a watchful eye on the amount of saturated fat. Poly and mono fats are fine.

Sugar hasn’t been a problem for us. After you cut back on sugar you lose the taste for it and “added sugar” products taste disgusting. High fiber foods are usually just a matter of looking for products marked “high in fiber”. You do have to be careful though, as some breads and cereals can REALLY pack a punch. The fruits and veggies ‘rule’ is to promote healthier snacking. Instead of downing a package of chips, it is much more beneficial and filling to eat a piece of fruit. The idea is stolen from Weight Watchers where fruits and veggies are zero cost items in a diet (meaning you can stuff your face). Red meat is another area we haven’t had much trouble in for the simple reason that it is expensive. A good steak will cost upwards of $6-7 pound at the supermarket. Red meat is also loaded with saturated fat and cholesterol, two things that aren’t good for your heart. Poultry is a cheaper healthier alternative and we have been making an effort to consume more seafood (although finding quality seafood in the Midwest is difficult).

Finally, I have been monitoring food labels for fats much more carefully over the past few weeks. There are different types of fats and they are not created equally. The worst type and the one you should remember if nothing else from this post is trans fat. Trans fat is created during processing when hydrogen is pumped through oil to thicken it. This process is called hydrogenation. Trans fat is bad for your cardiovascular system because it raises your LDL cholesterol. LDL is the bad kind that causes heart attacks by clogging your arteries. The Food and Drug Administration, FDA, put a deadline for the removal of all trans fat from store shelves by 2018. So, even if you forget everything in this soap box rant, at least Uncle Sam will take care of the really bad for you processed foods.

I make such a big deal about trans fat because in 2015, it is still found everywhere. Looking at a nutrition label isn’t good enough because manufacturers are only required to list it if it exceeds 0.5 grams per serving. It is far better to look at the ingredients list. If “partially hydrogenated oil” is on the list, the food contains trans fat. This kind of pisses me off because we went to a company picnic last night and the little thimble sized container of butter spread had a big red banner across the top proudly stating “No Trans Fats”, but flipping it around revealed the ingredients where PHO was the second ingredient. 0.4999 grams is not the same as none.

The easiest way to avoid trans fat when shopping at the store is also the oldest health trick in the book. Shop the perimeter. After looking through a dozen different shelf stable tortillas and only finding the most expensive one to not contain trans fat, we found a refrigerated package in the perimeter for half the cost.

One final note about trans fat. You can kiss canned frostings goodbye. I made up my first from scratch frosting this past weekend for my Dad’s birthday cake and it was delicious (and much healthier than canned).

8 oz cream cheese softened
1/4 cup butter softened
2 cups powdered sugar
1.5 teaspoons vanilla extract

So there you have it. My salad clearance deal and a rant about nutrition.

Frugal boy agrees so I think I am off to a good start on health by nutrition.

Also here he is downing a roma tomato.

Summer is Winding Down

August 18, 2015 by Andrew Leave a Comment

Where has the time gone? We have been very busy this summer with only one or two full weekends at home. Otherwise we have been traveling and wrangling an ever more energetic Frugal Boy.

On Thursday of last week one of the two Aldi stores in town had a grand reopening.

The renovated store has a larger footprint and a wider selection of goods. It will take some time to figure out where things are in the rearranged layout.

We’ve had some very hot and muggy August days. Our garden did well for the first half of summer, but insects have decimated all of our second plantings of lettuce, spinach, and carrots.

On Saturday I made lamb ravioli for Shae’s birthday dinner. My mother-in-law helped to speed things up. A two pound lamb loin made about 35 large ravioli. It only took about three ravioli to make a filling meal. We fed six adults and had plenty of leftovers. The total cost of ingredients was about $50, making it very economical, even for the specialty meat.

Frugal Boy got his first taste of corn on the cob courtesy of his grandparents. I think he liked it, as we had to hide the box of un-shucked corn to keep him out of it.

And here is a picture of the birthday girl.

On Sunday, Grandma put up the remainder of the corn they brought down while Grandpa played with Frugal Boy. Here Grandma is imparting some wisdom to the youth.

I worked some more on our front porch. I have been keeping track of receipts and will do a post with the total cost of that major renovation when I am done (sometime this year).

Frugal Boy and Grandpa enjoyed watching from the window. Those two are thick as thieves.

A big thank you to all of Shae’s family for coming and helping out. We had a fun weekend despite the heat.

Spring Mishmash

April 12, 2015 by Andrew Leave a Comment

In the interest of not falling too far behind on blog posts here is a new one. Unfortunately, I don’t have enough quality material for an on focus post, so let the ramblings begin! Please do try to keep up, we’ll be switching topics rapidly.

A New Hat

The last bit of winter weather was the straw that broke Shae’s back. She brought out the sewing machine and made a custom fleece hat for herself with ear flaps (a must have feature according to her) and a special cutout for hair.

We Visited Family

Easter weekend we visited with family. Frugal Boy got some one on one time with Grandma.

Vegetable Korma

Shae planned out April’s dinner menu. A surprise favorite so far for me was vegetable korma. This vegetarian dish is big on flavor and texture (depending on how long you cook the veggies). Next time I think I want to add some chicken or a white fish for that little extra bit of extra flavor.

Walking Becomes The New Thing

Frugal Boy can now be seen wandering aimlessly through the house on two limbs instead of four.

Blueberry Bushes Get a New Home

We ordered two dwarf blueberry plants for our backyard. The two varieties are suitable for container gardening and in a few years we will hopefully be collecting 5-10 pounds of fresh berries each summer! In preparation for the new arrivals we got their large pots ready with nice acidic soil.

Is the Carnival in Town?

The weather has been fantastic and we have been booting Frugal Boy outside as much as possible. Our neighbors seem to have the same idea, so when a bounce house got set up and they invited Frugal Boy over to jump in it I couldn’t say no!

Slides are FUN!

We’ve found that playgrounds offer a better place for Frugal Boy to express his climbing desires than our living room furniture. He seems to be taking after his oldest cousin and is completely fearless about going down any slide by himself.

Hanging Out and Eating Crackers with Mom

We are working on getting Frugal Boy used to the idea of spending all day outside when it is warm out. I have fond memories of childhood and playing outside until it got dark out. Hopefully with the proper nurturing and boundaries Frugal Boy will be able to experience some of the carefreeness of our youth.

Making Yogurt

March 11, 2015 by Shae Leave a Comment

We’re always looking for ways to save money, especially on things we use/buy regularly. You may remember our foray into making our own breakfast sandwiches. While not very big on cost savings when you factor in the time to make them, it does offer the opportunity to expand into variations other than the 3 flavors offered at Aldi.

Another food product we eat like it’s going out of style is yogurt. When we were starting out our lives post-college we went only for the cheapest yogurt we could get. At 33 cents for a 6 oz cup the Aldi & Kroger generic brands ruled the refrigerator. Then we started looking at the nutrition labels. The generic cups of yogurts, regardless of flavor, all had about 36 grams of sugar. We did the math:

4 grams of sugar = 1 teaspoon of sugar

36 grams of sugar = 9 teaspoons of sugar

9 teaspoons of sugar = 3 tablespoons of sugar

3 tablespoons of sugar in just one small container of yogurt. Yikes! Now granted some (not much) of the sugar comes from the milk, but companies tend to make up for lack of fat (flavor) in products by adding sugar. It’s very difficult to find full fat or low sugar yogurts without spending over a dollar per 6oz cup. Not very frugal when you’re on a limited budget.

After that realization we coughed up a little extra money for the name-brand regular yogurt at about 50-70 cents a cup. The sugar content was reduced but not by much (24-26 grams or 2 tablespoons).

About a year ago we started on the Greek yogurts and bought tubs instead of individual cups when it made sense (coupons make the pre-portioned cups a better deal). The plain Greek yogurt quart tubs cost $3.89 and only have 10-16 grams of sugar. You’re probably thinking why not just get the generic “lite” or “carb master” variety and save yourself the money and have the lower sugar content. That comes to the matter of taste. I can’t stand the aftertaste of artificial sweeteners. Picky, I know.

Now on to the main point of this post. I was browsing the web the other day and a recipe to make your own yogurt caught my eye. The process was very hands-off and for a little less than the cost of a quart tub you could have almost a gallon of yogurt (4 quarts if you can’t remember your US customary conversions). It only needed 4 things:

Slow cooker
Thermometer
Gallon of milk (the recipes say skim or 2% will work but whole milk is best)
6oz cup of no-sugar/sweetner added, plain yogurt – look for the live and active cultures seal on the label

You begin by pouring your gallon of milk into your slow cooker, put the lid on and turn it to the low heat setting.

We have a 4 quart slow cooker so we couldn’t quite fit in a whole gallon.

You want the milk to heat to 180 degrees to kill off any bad bacteria present so the good bacteria from the starter yogurt can grow freely. This is important so use your thermometer to make sure the milk gets hot enough. Depending on the heat output of your slow cooker it can take several hours (ours took about 3 hours).

Once the milk hits 180, turn off your slow cooker and let it sit with the lid on to cool to 95-115 degrees (another 2-3 hours). This is the ideal temperature for the good bacteria to grow. Take about a cup or so of the still warm milk out of the slow cooker and mix it with your starter yogurt. Pour that milk/yogurt mixture back into the rest of the milk and mix well.

At this point some recipes had you stick the yogurt in a cool oven with the light turned on. Other recipes had you use a thermos or cooler. The goal is to keep the milk at a stable, warm temperature while it ferments. We opted for wrapping the slow cooker in a blanket to insulate.

Your job is done at this point and the live bacteria from the starter yogurt go to work. The yogurt should sit for 8-12 hours in its cocoon. If you like more sour tasting yogurt let it sit for the 12 hours, for a less tangy yogurt 8 hours should suffice. We let ours sit overnight for about 12 hours. Once the fermenting period is up you can transfer the yogurt to containers and place it in the refrigerator.

We had about 3 1/2 quarts total of yogurt. About a quart was eaten by the time I remembered to take this picture.

Your homemade yogurt will keep for about 2 weeks (if you don’t eat it all before then). Our total cost was $3.69. $2.69 for the milk and another dollar for the starter yogurt. The next batch will cost even less as we’ll use a cup of yogurt from this batch as the starter. The taste is great, even after 12 hours it wasn’t very sour at all and the whole milk made it very creamy. Even Frugal Boy has been enjoying the yogurt.

Still hasn’t gotten the hang of a spoon.

Cheap Entertainment

January 11, 2015 by Andrew Leave a Comment

The weather has been quite frigid the past few days, and that has forced us to stay indoors. Here are some of the activities we have been doing to keep ourselves entertained.

Free RedBox DVD Rentals

From now until January 18th, you can get free rentals by using code 45TH8787. Get one movie on day 1, return it the next day and use a different credit card to reuse the code on day 2. Rinse and repeat until you are out of card numbers.

Story Time at the Library

Our public library offers children’s story time every second Saturday of the month and select week nights. Bundle up junior and expose him/her to some culture. Frugal Boy was more interested in the audience than the guitar playing librarian.

Build a Fort

Use boxes, blankets, and furniture to make a fort in your living room. Have fun crawling through it, resting in it, and ultimately, destroying it.

Assemble Christmas Gifts

If you haven’t already, go ahead and assemble some of the Christmas gifts and take them for a spin.

Cook a Fancy Dinner

We made four batches of homemade gorgonzola butternut squash ravioli. Our local high end Italian restaurant serves it for $14/plate. We made it for about $2/plate.

Blend together your filling.

8 oz gorgonzola to 3 lbs roasted butternut squash

Then prepare your dough.

1 egg to 1 cup all purpose flour

Blend and add enough water so it will stick together when you squeeze it.

Knead the dough into sheets.

Keep kneading until the desired thickness is achieved.

Switch to your ravioli maker.

Add the filling.

Crank out beautiful ravioli!

Every 1 cup flour/1 egg will make one sheet of ravioli.

Freeze some for later.

Cook and eat the rest!

What are you doing to stave off cabin fever on these cold winter days?