Tag Archives: frugal tips

Taking advantage of vegetable bargains

food preservation, frugal strategies, , ,

I think I’ve hit my personal record for buying a huge amount of food for a tiny amount of money and if you’ve been reading here a while, you know that’s saying something.  I spent $45.63 at one store on Wednesday, which included but wasn’t limited to: 4 cases of tomatoes (28 lb each), 7 cases of yams (40 lb each), 19 heads of celery, 150 lb potatoes, and a case of bananas (40 lb).   To be honest, I did have a store credit of $24 from the two cases of yams I bought last month that spoiled in a very short time, so the total would have been a little more had I not had the credit. But I was quite pleased with it.

Note: if you buy something and there’s a problem with it, don’t assume it’s your fault.  I knew that something was wrong when the yams went off so fast (I’ve been buying in bulk and storing in bulk for a couple of years now and this was unprecedented in cold weather), but at first I assumed I’d have to swallow the loss – the store I bought the yams last month from was far away from my home, I no longer had the receipt, and I wasn’t able to return until five weeks after the original purchase.  But I’ve learned it doesn’t hurt to ask, and when I called and explained to them the date I bought them, how I stored them, and what happened, they readily agreed to refund the entire price whenever I’d be back in their area, without having to show any proof of purchase.  It took about five minutes to make the call and get the person in charge on the phone; $24 for five minutes ‘work’ is pretty decent, don’t you think?

Along with my wonderful windfalls came a lot of work!   People often think I’m just lucky that I find so many things so inexpensively, but the truth is that most people walk right past these kind of deals and don’t recognize the opportunity in front of them.  Or even if they realize the price is really low, they don’t know what to do with such huge quantities without it spoiling before they use it.  I never let a concern about quantities stop me from buying (as you see from the fact I bought almost 300 lb of yams :)), I figure somehow I’ll find something to do with it! 😆

The tomatoes were super cheap because they were very, very ripe.  So I had to process them right away.  That meant that I (along with my kids) spent a solid chunk of time yesterday washing, chopping, cooking, and canning.   Was it worth it?  I think so.  We made 15 quarts of tomato sauce, 12 quarts of salsa, and 5 quarts of tomato juice.  Pretty good, since the ingredients for all of it didn’t cost more than $15!  (My kids wanted to know why I didn’t buy all of the cases available at this price.)  It’s a nice feeling of satisfaction at the end of a day to see the counter filled with beautiful jars of home canned foods.  And I like knowing that my kids are developing an attitude of self sufficiency as well as learning real life skills like preserving foods.

I was considering canning the celery but to do that I’d have had to pressure can it.  Though if you look at the actual processing time, pressure canning looks faster than water bath canning, it doesn’t take into account the time needed to bring the canner up to pressure, process the food, then wait for the canner to depressurize before moving on to the next batch. That can add up to an hour to each load.  Since I wanted to get about 80+pounds of tomatoes dealt with in one day (saved some to use fresh), I decided to only can what I could water bath and the celery ended up being dehydrated instead.  Dehydrating celery is so easy – just slice it thinly and put it on the trays.  But it’s honestly almost disheartening to watch sixteen heads of celery becoming so compact that they fit into a quart sized jar – and there’s still room left in the jar!

I’m planning to can a bunch of the yams, since they’re in beautiful condition now but they won’t stay that way forever.  But I won’t get to that until next week, since there’s no rush.  Then I’ll have them in a ready to use form to add to soups, stews, or casseroles.

The bananas were very ripe (had lots brown flecks on them but weren’t turning black), but my kids attacked them so I doubt there will be enough left by Sunday to even consider turning into fruit leather.  Bananas make great snacks since they’re so filling, especially when spread with lots of peanut butter.

An additional frugal perk of canning in the winter is that you really appreciate the added warmth from the hours of cooking and steamy smells wafting throughout the house.

(This post is part of Frugal Fridays.)

Avivah

Transform your soup chicken!

frugal strategies, nutrition, recipes,

All broth makers share the same experience: they make a fantastic broth, packed with nutrients, and then are left with the meat that has fallen off the bones – tasteless, unappetizing, and uninspiring.  Is there something to do besides choke it down or feed it to your cat? (We don’t feed our cat commercial pet food, so it’s not a waste, but still…)  🙂

Being the frugalest of the frugal, I’m not about to waste any food that comes into the house if I can help it!  But I’m also not about to torture my family and leave them with bad memories of unpleasant food I forced them to eat so it didn’t go to waste.   Bland soup chicken is easily transformed and made into a really tasty dish.  Here’s what I do:

Revamped Soup Chicken

First I shred the chicken.  Then, using chicken or lamb fat that I’ve rendered, I heat the fat and saute the chicken in the fat – this gives it a rich and delicious flavor.  (If you don’t have rendered animal fat, you can use expeller pressed coconut oil, but it’s not going to be nearly as good.)  Then I generously season it with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and anything else that appeals to me that day.  After it’s been sauteed and seasoned, I add it to stir fries, pot pies, tacos/burritos, chimichangas – lots of possibilities!

Because I tend to think of this as a humble thrifty supper, when we recently had a couple for dinner mid week, I wanted to serve something nicer.  I had a different main dish planned, but something happened and I ended up having to serve this.  I was a little embarrassed when the husband asked me how I cooked it (I thought he was thinking it looked wimpy or not up to their standards – they live on a much higher income than we do), so I gave him a brief answer.  Turned out he really wanted to know because he was trying to figure out why it tasted so good and wanted his wife to make it the same way; he’s a good friend of my husband and kept raving about how good it the next couple of times they spoke!

Simple, frugal, and good for you, too – can’t beat that combination!

Do you have tips on how to use your leftover soup chicken?  Share them below in the comments section!

(This post is part of Pennywise Platter Thursdays.)

Avivah

Saving scraps for vegetable broth

frugal strategies,

>>hi avivah! do you save vegetable scraps- peels, etc- for making soup stock? why or why not? thanks!<<

Since I’m a long term frugalista, I suppose I should tell you that not only do I make stock with vegetable scraps, but so should you!  Actually, this has never been something that I’ve chosen to do.  I have several reasons.

Firstly,  I prefer to use bone broths as my stock of choice for flavor and nutritional value.  I’ve cultivated a free source of bones for broth making, so bone broths literally cost me nothing to make, plus I get the meat from the bones to use in other dishes and the fat that I skim from the top to cook with as a nice side benefit.

There’s also a limit to how much broth I can make and use in the course of a week – I generally make between 1 – 2 pots of broth each week in a sixteen quart pot (generally two in the winter, one in the summer).  So let’s say each pot amounts to about ten or twelve quarts.  That’s between 40-96 cups of broth a week, which is a lot, even for a family of eleven!  I like that bone broths have a protein sparing effect and can be used in inexpensive vegetarian dishes to significantly increase the nutrient value of a dish.  I think they taste amazing, too! (We recently sent several meals to neighbors/friends, and they kept commenting on how delicious the soups were – the only secret was that I use broth instead of water. 🙂 )  So if I have to choose between vegetable broths or bone broths, bone broths are hands down more worthwhile in every way for me.

Next, what kind of vegetables are you getting the scraps from and why?  If the veggies are in good condition, then I don’t peel them so there aren’t many scraps; I include them with the peels in the dish I’m making.  I don’t like to sound finicky or spoiled, because I’m really not, but if the peels are from produce that is starting to spoil, then I have no desire to eat them in any form.  You might wonder about  the tops or bottoms of different vegetables that are cut off, but since  I would only use vegetable scraps if they had been washed and cleaned as well as any of the other vegetables I eat, I’m not willing to do the extra work necessary.  Call me lazy, but washing onion onion skins, beet peels, potato peels, rutabaga peels, etc isn’t where I want to spend my time.  And I’d rather save my onion bottoms to plant in the spring than put them into my stock pot.

Also, I don’t generally buy organic produce, except when I can buy it at a competitive price.  So if the vegetable is fresh and the peel is clean, but I’m still choosing to peel them, it’s often because it’s my little effort in reducing some of the pesticide consumption for our family, since the pesticides generally are most highly concentrated in the outer layers.  I acknowledge that it would be better if all my produce were organic but it’s not in the budget right now, and concentrating those pesticides further by making stock with the scraps doesn’t bring me closer to my goal of better health for my family.

However, that doesn’t mean that my vegetable scraps go to waste!  I compost a huge percentage of our vegetable scraps so they end up benefiting us by boosting our soil quality.  I don’t use pesticides when I garden, and strong soil health is very important in preventing insect infestations and having high quality vegetables.  We don’t buy organic fertilizers or compost; our compost all comes from our kitchen food scraps!  So they don’t go to waste and end up saving us money in a different way.

For those who enjoy transforming their vegetable scraps into broth, terrific!  So much of frugality is personal preference; there are things that I do that would be out of someone else’s comfort zone, and things they do that are outside of mine.  The main thing is to find ways that we can each work within our budgets in a way that is satisfying and productive.

Avivah