Pandemic Cooking: Lentils, Rice & Onions, Apple Pudding

A website where I’m a member has a thread about meals for $1 a plate. Possible because these folks have gardens, raise meat, etc.

The cheapest dish I’ve made lately was lentils, rice and onions. This one. I liked it but we both considered it boring, despite all the onions. I had everything in the pantry and the onions are starting to sprout, so needed to be used  up ASAP, why I picked this recipe. It’s improved, in our opinion, with garlic salt or sausage (if you have it). It’s perfectly edible as written, but as I said, we wanted it with more intense flavor.

I have no idea how much it cost? The onions are the last of the bulk onions I bought from the farm last fall. The lentils came from a bulk bin buy, somewhere, sometime ago. The rice? I have no idea.

We had it on its own, with sauteed spinach as a side on Monday, and then last night with the last of the already cooked spinach added to it and the end of a package of sausage. We’ll have the end of it for lunch sometime this week.

It struck me that it might be a good start for a veggie burger recipe? I sure don’t expect to be able to get meat anytime soon!

I also made, or tried to make, a Danish bread crumb “pudding” from WWII. I found a link to 10 bread crumb and left over bread recipes, here. But I only had 2 apples and I needed one more to halve the recipe, I got one from a neighbor. I didn’t peel the apples but sliced them very thinly. When they started to get soft, I used a potato masher to push them down to cook more.

I thought that was all the adjustments I needed to make. However, in my last kitchen purge, one of the things I got rid of was the pie pans, so I used a loaf pan, and WAY too many breadcrumbs. Yes, I’ll make this again, when I have more apples, but I’ll use a square baker and make the full recipe, which will no doubt fill the pan with thin layers of apple and crumbs, as intended.

The recipe I made is here.

 

 

Left Overs? What To Do With Them

I almost called this post, “Stealing from our Grandmothers, Again,” but decided that I needed a title which told people more about what I’m doing than that.

I have several old cookbooks and cooking pamphlets. Here’s suggestions from a few for dealing with leftovers. I’ve modified the recipes to be more generic (changed “mutton” to “meat” for example)

Rice & Meat Casserole

Line a casserole with cooked rice. Fill the center with 2C cooked meat, chopped fine, seasoned well with salt, pepper, onion, and lemon juice, mixed with 1/4C cracker or dry bread crumbs, 1 beaten egg and moistened with stock or hot water. Place a second layer of cooked rice over top. Cover, cook in hot oven 45 minutes.

Wilson’s Meat Cookery – Eleanor Lee Wright, p 46, 1921.

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Add raw to salad or a salad ring: Asparagus, Beans/String, Carrots,

Add cooked to soup: Asparagus, Beans/Baked, Beans/String, Cabbage, Carrots, Tomatoes/Stewed

Other: Asparagus – deviled egg/asparagus sandwiches, vegetables salad ring, creamed on toast. Beans/Baked – chili, sandwiches. Beans/String – vegetable salad ring, scalloped vegetables. Cabbage – hot slaw, with creamed vegetables. Carrots – meat pie, creamed wth peas. Potatoes/Irish – cottage fried, mashed in or on meat pies, hashed browns, potato balls. Potatoes/Sweet – sweet potato fluff, cottage fried, baked with apples, hash browned with Irish Potatoes, sweet potato balls. Spinach – scalloped vegetables, puree, ham & spinach souffle, nests with creamed mushrooms. Rice – rice & raisin delight, rice & nut pudding, Spanish goulash, rice pudding, rice cakes, meat balls. Tomatoes/Sliced – garnishing meat loaf, meat pie, chili, Spanish goulash, vegetable casserole. Tomatoes/Stewed – rice and tomato soup, with toasted cubes, meat loaf, chili, meat pie.

Wartime Suggestions – Frigidaire Division, General Motors Corp., p 14, 1943.

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I can’t find a recipe for rice & raisin delight. There are recipes for rice & nut puddings around though.  There is a Spanish Goulash recipe here.

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Fruits: I don’t have a suggestion from a war-time cookbook for this. I’ve been using Joy of Cooking, still my default, look up a recipe cookbook. I made a whole wheat banana bread last week to use up the going to be bad soon bananas. DH is researching blueberry quick bread, as we got blueberries when we went to the market last week and we’ve only used 1 of 3 packages…

I got rid of my muffin tins, I will add it to the “I don’t have list.” Why did I get rid of the muffin tin? Because I don’t keep muffin liners, cupcake papers, etc.

At the most, I made muffins 2x a year. Fruit breads work better for us. They freeze easier than muffins; we don’t eat them as fast as cookies, and it’s a good use for the end of whatever fruit! We probably have too many loaf pans. We bake our own bread except in summer and I make meatloaf fairly regularly. So we use loaf pans all the time. I have 6? in the baking cabinet. I probably should cull the collection down, but . . . We have 3 steel, 2 ceramic, and 2 Pyrex?

Retirement Frugality: Bread

My three strategies to save money are —

1. Pay Less for the Same Product
2. Find a Cheaper Substitute
3. Do Without (and the cheat: Use Less)

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Bread (bakery outlet, home made, supermarket)

Strategy #1:  I could find another bakery outlet. (The one I knew either moved or went out of business.) Here’s a link to a list of bakery outlets.

Strategy #2: I could buy bread only on sale. We wouldn’t have what we prefer most of the time, so I don’t.

We could make/buy cheaper types of bread: flat breads, corn bread, biscuits, etc.

For years we’ve baked our own Fall – Spring and bought it in Summer. A 10 lb bag of flour is about $10. If you use 1 lb per loaf and figure $1 for the salt, yeast, etc. then a home-baked loaf costs $2, not counting energy. A store-bought loaf close to the size, etc. of our home-made loaf is $4 or more.

Other ways I can think to make our home-made bread still cheaper are:

• I could use coupons or sale shop for ingredients more often;
• Make a sour dough starter/grow our own yeast, or
• Grind our own flour, or
• Bake more loaves at once.

I’m not sure how practical any of these are!

Strategy #3: I don’t really think this is possible — bread is called the “staff of life” for a reason!

Strategy #3/Cheat:  I could bake ahead and freeze bread to use in summer. I don’t have an easy way to do this.

Retirement Frugality: Budgeting Meat & Vegetables

MEAT

In general, chicken is the cheapest meat available, then pork, then beef, with veal being the most expensive. (When I figured this out from perusing years’ worth of USDA data, I stopped buying veal.)

I found a write-up about turning a 3 lb. pork loin into at least 4 meals for 2 people: a roast, sweet & sour, chow mein, and a pork chop meal.

That’s 8 meals. I researched a price per pound for natural pork loin, so I could figure how many meals I’d have to make to get to my magic .25/portion or more realistic .50 ?

I found a price, $3.99/lb. For a 3 lb loin, If I make 8 meals as in the write up, it’s $1.50 a portion. If I can do 12, it’s $1 a portion. And given what I found with the chicken as well as this research, I think an actual, realistic target price per portion is $1 for meat.

The only ways I can see around this are:

1. 1. • Abandon the idea of eating organic/natural meats, or
      • Do that (above) AND buy bargain meats only, or
      • Become vegetarian.

We eat “breakfast” one day a week, and lunches are left overs or catch as catch can. That makes 15 meals a week I need to budget for, and there are two of us, so 30 portions. We eat meat for 2 meals a week, so the cost of the protein for those days should be around $4. (We might, or might not, have sausage or bacon with our “breakfast” meal.)

How do  I use this to figure meats I can afford OR decide which meats I can’t?

The most realistic quantity I can come up with uses 1/4 lb of meat for 2 portions. At $1 per portion, that means:

 Any meat I buy has to cost $8/lb OR less!

The pork price I found fits ($3.99), so do the bulk chicken thighs ($2.49) I’ve been using. Ground beef at the local small green grocer, at $8.99/lb does NOT.

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VEGETABLES

This year, I worked hard to find a way to reduce our vegetable cost, and managed to save about $100 by not buying a December share and full farm share, as we have in the past.

Instead, I bought a 1/2 share and a second share (at a different farm)  which starts earlier than the farm we’ve always used. This gives us fresh produce longer, but requires more work on my part retrieving it, meal planning, etc.

We spent approx. $600 this year for the farm veggies. That covers 8 months. Assuming there are 4 weeks per month, it’s $75/month, 18.75 per week, or .63 per portion (for 15 meals, 2 portions each).

This leaves us $125/month of our stated budget ($200 a month) for everything else: supplies, condiments, etc. And, as long as DH is working, that’s realistic. When he retires? I think I need to find ways to do better.

Meat & veggies aren’t going to be the answer! I don’t see how I can cut much more. As it is, we’re paying bulk prices for months’ worth of food up front, and retrieving it ourselves to avoid delivery fees.

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I forgot Stew vegetables for winter! I run out of some, if not all of these every winter: carrot, celery, onion, parsnip & potato. What I have left right now are carrots & onions.

There was a huge quantity of carrots in last December’s share and I bought a 20 lb bag of onions from the farm sometime late fall.

I guess I need to do the same with all the stew veggies this year. Fifty lb bags of “chef” potatoes show up in the fall in some markets, I’ve never bought them as I want organic.  I need to ask the co-op about this or the farm(s)…

In general, we can’t use up wholesale quantities of perishables. I don’t have room to store them and we can’t eat them fast enough. But I hate going out midwinter for a 3 lb bag of onions!

Instead of making up 1/2 made casseroles, etc. like I did in 2019, maybe I need to make up/freeze stew veggies, like the stewed tomatoes and salsa verde I already make?

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Assuming we will need to spend 1/2 of what we currently use? That will have to come from supplies and other foods, if possible. That’s another blog!

 

 

One Pound of Chicken Thighs…

I usually buy organic chicken thighs, bulk pack, in 5 lb packages. I split this into packages of 3 each, about 1 lb.

I just used the last 1 lb package. I thought I’d use this to figure out how well I did with  the meat cost per meal. I did pretty well, but not what I need to!

Day 1: Lemon chicken 3 thighs, all cooked (part of the oven meal). We ate 2. I put aside the drippings and 3rd thigh.

Day 2: I made a burrito bowl (this one). Except I never use instant rice, I just cook rice separately. I also can’t eat roma tomatoes, so I pay for heirloom non-red tomatoes and use about 1/2-1 tomato’s worth. Yes, it’s expensive, but it’s better than having an upset stomach for hours!

Day 3: Picked the meat off the last thigh. Made gravy from the drippings. We had left over rice (the burrito bowl)  with a little of the chicken/gravy on it and sauteed greens on the side.

Day 4: Chicken and rice soup. Took the remaining gravy with chicken, added water, the last of the tomato, and chicken bullion to taste. Added the remaining rice. Made up a condiment plate with cooked greens and minced jalapeno.

Into the freezer: 1 serving of the soup. I added the last 2-3 tablespoons of cooked greens and the minced jalapeno.

The chicken costs $2.49/lb. How much did I spend per meal for the meat?*

I put it in 6 meals. If we eat the last serving in the freezer? The price is .36/meal.  If we don’t eat it, but toss it? The price per meal goes up to about .42!

How could I have done better? I could have saved the bones, skins and scraps to add flavor to another soup or stew or just make broth. If you add just one more meal that way, the cost per meal for the meat goes down to .31!

As a list:

• 3 meals if we’d eaten all of it as one-piece of meat per serving: .83/meal. (We didn’t do this.)
• 6 meals, cost per meal =.42, (We’ve did this.)
• If we eat the last meal in the freezer, the cost per meal is reduced to .36 (We’ve done this.)
• If we eat the freezer meal and I’d used the scraps? price per meal = .31

Obviously, I need to start a container for soup scraps! Otherwise, I’m never going to get even close to my desired .25 cost/meat per meal.

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*These numbers are rounded. $2.49 just doesn’t divide evenly!

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To get to my target price, I’d have to make approx. 11 portions from my 1 lb of meat. I don’t think that’s very likely, do you? And, since I know the $2.49/lb price is a real bargain, I think this means I need a reality check! As it is, we ate, on average about 2.29 oz of meat in each of the 7 meals.

So, unless we start raising our own chickens or something similar, I think that the best I can realistically expect is the price for the 6 meals above, or .42 per portion.

My idea was that the meat would probably be the single most expensive piece of a meal, budget that hard and the rest of it’s not so bad.

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Eggs are one of the cheapest sources of protein around. If we eat them, we sometimes have 3 or sometimes 4 omlette, for a single meal, which feeds both of us. I buy eggs from a neighbor for $3/dozen these days. A four-egg omlette costs .50/person. A three-egg omlette .38/person.

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Organic ground beef from the local market costs $8.99/lb. I’d have to make > 20 meals to get that down to .40 or less per person. Again, not realistic. Even if I allow myself $1/lb, it’s 9 meals from a single pound of ground beef — really? One meatball, right?

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My menu plan only has meat in it two days a week. The plan is:

• • • Monday Double Veg meal
    • Tuesday Leftovers
    • Wednesday Double Veg meal
    • Thursday Eggs
    • Friday Double Meat meal
    • Saturday Sandwiches
    • Sunday Double Meat meal

When I came up with this, I was trying for a few things: less meat, less cost, less cholesterol, more veggies, less work on the days I’m really busy (Weds, Sat, Sun).

My week hasn’t followed the pattern this week because we were eating the 2nd meat/leftovers, until Tuesday. Ate veggies Weds. and will tonight, Thursday, too.

The double veggies I made are some of the end of last year’s farm crops (root veggies), some I bought at the market when we ran out (cilantro, potatoes & parsnips), and rice (when I made the burrito bowl last week, I made a double batch of plain rice and froze the extra).

I have no idea how to figure, with any kind of accuracy, the six month’s worth of veggies we got from the farm and how many meals it went into! Some of it is in 1/2 made dishes in the freezer, some of it is in the pantry, but most of it was eaten fresh.

 

 

The 400 Degree Oven Meal Experiment

I wrote about this idea here.

What I made: oven-fried lemon chicken and jacketed potatoes (400)  for dinner with a vanilla/apple dump cake (375) for dessert. I didn’t  make the Mexican peppers. I decided to only do the 3 recipes: oven-fried lemon chicken, jacketed potatoes, and apple dump cake.

What worked: Chicken and potatoes were done cooking at the same time and were as good as expected. Both recipes I’ve made before. The apple cake recipe was rather made up as I went. I had no presugared fruit like last time.  But it too was good.

What didn’t work or didn’t work as expected: This required a prep marathon, something I usually avoid.  I was very busy for a while!

1. Because they cook the longest and take the least prep, I got the potatoes cleaned, cut and in the oven first. Set the timer for 1 hour.
2. The chicken needs fats added to its cooking pan.
3. Seasoned flour needs to be mixed up.
4. The chicken is dredged and put in the fridge.
5. I made up the lemon sauce for the chicken.
6. When the potatoes had been in the oven 45 minutes or so, I rotated them.
7. Then I added the pan with the fat for the chicken (the chicken crisps in the hot fat) on a second rack. This requires complete concentration so the fat gets hot but doesn’t catch fire. (It only takes a minute or so.)
8. Put the chicken in pan with hot fat, re-set timer for 30 minutes.
9. Wash apples. Butter cake pan. Chunk apples.
10. Start water and sugar cooking for sauce. Make “pudding”. * Let cool slightly. Add butter and vanilla. Pour over apples to coat evenly.
11. Put sauced apples in buttered cake pan.
12. When timer goes, pull out chicken, turn it over, pour on lemon sauce. Reset timer for 15 minutes.
13. Sprinkle cake mix on top of sauced apples. Push down to dampen most of the cake mix. Dot with butter.
14. When timer goes off again, pull out rack– check potatoes and make sure chicken is 165 degrees or more. Turn off oven. Plate dinner. Turn oven back on to 375.
15. Oven was hot just before I was ready to sit, of course. Put apple cake in oven. Set timer again for 30 minutes. (Cake actually took about 40 minutes to bake. )

Everything was yummy!

*The original dessert sauce recipe had it cooked in a double boiler. For a few years, I made cornstarch pudding 1 or 2 times a week. I don’t need to cook such things in a double boiler any more! That said? If you’ve never made cornstarch pudding or do so rarely, mix the cornstarch with some of the water in a small bowl beforehand to a smooth slurry, (If it becomes “concrete” keep stirring!) then add the slurry slowly to the rest of the hot water in a double boiler!

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Takeaway:

I was surprised how long it took to get the oven back to 375. Next time I won’t turn it off, just reset the temperature!

I will do the static prep way in advance —

• Wash the apples and potatoes, but not cut them.
• Make up the seasoned flour and the lemon sauce.
• Butter the cake pan.
• Measure the fats into the chicken pan.
• Pre-measure ingredients for the dessert.

I will do this again, even though it takes more planning than my usual, “toss everything together”.

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Finding the Cheat

See the previous post if you’re not sure what I’m talking about!

Here’s how I found all those “cheats” to use fewer supplies, whether they be lightbulbs, potting soil, toothpaste or frozen food.

What do you do automatically? If you become more aware of those choices, then you can try and change them. My frugal strategies apply:

• Find a cheaper substitute.
• Spend less for the same product.
• Do without.

Figure out what you do automatically: How much oil or fat do you put in a pan — can you use less? Can you use a cheaper oil and have it work as well? Substituting margarine for butter in baked goods doesn’t work in my opinion. For me, it seems to be how much the fat determines the taste of the dish. YMMV!  How do you decide how much TP to use at once? Try delaminating 2-ply and see if it won’t cause you to use less? Worked for me! Pizza toppings: If you love a certain frozen pizza, but hate one topping (or your kid does) and automatically toss it? Can you find a way to use the tossed food? I’m not talking about allergies, of course you shouldn’t keep foods you or yours are allergic to, but preferences. You could use frozen bits of onion or peppers in soups or meatloaf, for example. Sausage pieces could be used in scrambled eggs.

Pay attention to your automatic behavior and the waste it causes. Then try to use what you’ve wasted before.

Use the internet or other resources to help: Try different routes on googlemaps is there a shorter route? Use gasbuddy to find the cheapest gas locally. Find new ways to use up leftovers. Try to make your own foods: bake bread, grow herbs, make gravy.

“If I was broke, what would I do differently?” Many times this shows me what I’m wasting or suggests ideas. I made sauted greens last night for dinner. I took the stems off because DH hates “stringy” greens. Instead of tossing them, I put them in the freezer for smoothies or to be added to soup.

Ask a pro! People who do things for work quickly find the easiest and fastest way to do things. They frequently know the cheapest way too. I found out about the shampoo concentrates at beauty supply shops by asking a hair stylist where the salon bought their shampoo? Another example: my dad, when looking for a new home refrigerator went to the biology department at the college where he worked and asked which refrigerator they’d recommend?

If this works with one thing in 5, it still counts! The idea that it has to save dollars right away or it doesn’t count is EXPENSIVE!

Every little cost-savings idea you use counts.

Each dollar is

100 pennies after all!