I came late into this discussion, but I have a suggestion. Bread is expensive, but flour isn't. It is extremely easy to make home made bread, it has endless varieties, and it tastes delicious. The oldest recipe in the world for bread is just water, salt and flour. If you add yeast you get loaf bread, rolls, naan, fry bread, all sorts of things. Yeast is costly, so just buy one pack and start a sour dough starter, or if you are more adventurous, start a sourdough starter with free wild yeast in the air. It isn't hard. If you are interested, pm me and I'll give you a basic recipe and instructions.
How Do You Stretch Your Food Dollars?
by compound complex 49 Replies latest jw friends
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compound complex
Today is the day of all days - I am going to learn to bake bread!
Thank you, Hortensia!
CoCo Le Pain [not what it appears]
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restrangled
coco, just sent you 4 side dishes, ....it will take me several days to type out all. .......These are easy to prepare and 3 of them are almost meals in themselves. If they don't come through let me know.
All recipes I will be sending have been prepared many times over the years, taste tested and are family/party favorites.... the recipes have been requested many times over, but not always given out!
Good eating to you,
r.
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mrsjones5
Oh I have another idea; I used to participate in a progran called Share (Share Food Program). For $15 and 2 hours of volunteer time you can get $25 to $30 worth of food. I know it doesn't sound like much but it really was cool and you can order more than one packet of food. They would also have special packets for the holidays and Super Bowl Sunday. Not all states have the Share Food progam but it's worth looking into.
Josie
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compound complex
Dear Josie and restrangled,
Many thanks to both of you! I will look into what's available in our county, which is quite generous toward low income individuals and families. Am looking forward to trying those recipes, r.!
Gratefully,
CoCo
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reneeisorym
I'll tell you what we do here in the southern USA -- A whole chicken is cheap here. About 3 bucks. And you use the chicken and some broth for the next two recipies:
Chicken and dumplings:
1 Chicken, thawed
Enough water in stock pot to cover chicken plus a few cups.
1 Tbs Salt
3 chicken bullion cubes. (or use chicken stock instead of water and buillion cubes)
1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup margerine/butter (melted)
(Dumplings)
2 c flour
1 tsp salt
3 Tbs butter/margerine
4 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup milk
Put chicken in water with salt, pepper, and chicken bullion cubes and cook in stock pot on medium 1 hour (until its done -- the wing will put apart from the side easily and it will reach whatever temp your meat thermometer says). Reserve broth after chicken is done. (Reserve 1/2 cup broth if you plan to do the next recipe too) Remove the chicken and debone it. You can use just a part of the meat and save the rest for other recipies.
Mix flour and margerine/butter in a large bowl. Add some broth to it and thin it until it becomes very soupy. Pour back into chicken broth.
While the chicken is boilingMake dumplings -- Mix flour and baking powder with electric mixer for a minute. Cut in the butter until it looks like sand. Make a hole in the center of this flour mixture and pour the milk into it. Mix with a wooden spoon or your hands until just mixed (handle dough as little as possible). Roll out dough to very thin (1/8 an inch or so) and cut into 1x2 inch squares.
Add these dumplings one at a time in boiling chicken broth until no more will fit or you are out of them.
Add however much of the chicken you want to. If you are trying to use the chicken for another recipe, you could use about one breast. I usually use about 2 breasts and save the dark meat for another recipe.
For the rest of the chicken:
CHICKEN CRESCENTS
1 can crescent rolls
1 8 oz pkg cream cheese
6 Tbsp margarine (for a low fat version, use 6 Tbsp chicken broth instead of butter)
1/2 medium onion diced (Could add a small can of mushrooms too if you want to)
1 stick of butter melted (entirely optional)
Mix deboned chicken, chream cheese, 6 Tbsp margarine (or 6 Tbsp chicken broth), 1/2 onion. Put as much of mixture into the center of one of the crescent rolls as you can fit and fold the crescent roll around it. Do this for all 8 crescent rolls. Roll the rolls around in the melted butter.
Bake until golden brown at 350 degrees.
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Finally-Free
Got some ground venison I have not idea what to do with.
Mix the ground venison 50/50 with ground pork, spice to taste, and make your own sausages. Venison on it's own in sausages can be too dry. If you don't want to bother putting it in casings then make patties out of it. Just google venison sausages and you'll get some good recipes.
Food is one place where I don't compromise quality. If I need to save money I'd sooner do without a vacation. That doesn't mean I always insist on brand names for everything. Some generic or no-name foods are good, depending on how you use them. As for bread, I make my own. I grind my own meat which gives me better control over the fat content. I make my own sausages. When I see a good price on foods I buy more than I need and freeze it in predetermined portions. I make my own soups from scratch. In fact, I make almost everything from scratch. I also measure/weigh my portions for each item so I always have a good idea of how many calories, fats, and carbs I'm consuming each day. When I cook I make enough for several meals. I don't mind eating the same thing for 3 days in a row. I've eliminated soft drinks and snack foods entirely. If I feel like a snack I'll have some fresh fruit.
When it comes to food, footwear, tools, and mattresses, money will always be second to quality. If I get a deal, that's nice, but that's not what I'm looking for.
W
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OUTLAW
Coco..Where do you live that bread costs $3-$4 dollars..Apples 75cents each..Outrageous!..Everyone here has good suggestions..Buy some pre-made pasta you only have to boil..There are many varietys..Check your local super market..Get the water boiling,put in the desired amount of pasta..Boil for 9 minutes..Drain..Toss it in the soup.....What else have you got in that freezer?...CHEF OUTLAW..Trained in Classic French Cuisine
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AllAlongTheWatchtower
In my early 20s after I got out of the military, I lived really cheap, by neccessity. I lived on ramen noodles, (10 packs for a dollar), pork-n-beans (3-4 cans for a dollar, depending on sales), bread (at roughly a dollar a loaf, dunno where the heck you're buying $4 bread at, unless it's some kinda multi-grain health nut stuff), and canned tuna for protein and some meat (3 for a dollar when on sale, .50-.70 a can when not). Of course, that was some years ago, and inflation has raised prices...best I can do on tuna these days is usually 2 for a dollar even when on sale, but that's still less expensive than most other meats.
As was said by others, pasta is a good filler and stretcher of food, so is rice, which is dirt cheap unless you're lazy/a bad cook and buy the minute rice boxes. Potatoes are another good cheap food, and can be added to others to increase the bulk of your meals. To this day I can still get decent generic store-brand wheat bread for about 1.39, whether it's Kroger, Farm Fresh, Food Lion, whatever. Canned vegetables are generally much cheaper than frozen bagged vegetables, most times I can get them on sale 2 for a dollar, and each can is about a pound, whereas most frozen vegetables are a dollar or even more a pound.
One thing I always do when food shopping is convert the given price to price-per-pound. Many grocery stores do this for you on a label on the shelf beneath the product, stores that list prices by item, or by the ounce, annoy me, as I feel like they're actively trying to confuse and ripoff the customer. I remember that when I was a kid, it was a given that buying the 'family size' was ALWAYS cheaper than buying several smaller packages, but that is not so today-gotta compare.
Manufacturers, and/or the stores selling the groceries, seem to go out of their way these days to change package sizing (like 10 or 12 oz packs of lunchmeat instead of 16 oz, or 6oz packs of sliced cheese instead of 8oz) and offer many different "bargain" tactics, like '3 for $2' or '4 for $5'. Seems to me like they're targeting people too lazy and/or bad at math to figure out how much they're actually getting for their hard earned cash.
Always figuring out the price-per-pound before you buy can save you a lot of money, and save you from being hoodwinked by various "bargain" schemes. On a related note, items like toilet paper, I always figure the price-per-square-foot. Anything in the neighborhood of .01 per square foot is fairly decent. One of my pet peeves is stores that list the price-per-roll; who cares how much each roll costs, when every brandname's roll can be a different size?!
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compound complex
Greetings and Gratitude, Friends, Who Know How to Eat Better for Less!
It's a little after 3:00 a.m., Northern California time. I live in the mountains above Sacramento, and even though my community has all the major supermarkets, bread really is between 3 and 4 dollars a loaf. Even at the discount stores. I am always on the lookout for fairly decent "healthy" bread, regularly at $1.99 each, but it goes very fast. The balloon bread @ $1.00 a loaf is inedible.
Buying in bulk, down in the valley at COSCO, is a great way to shop, but the initial outlay of cash and finding adequate storage for perishables is a daunting obstacle. Not impossible to do, but it requires some forethought obviously.Renee - you are glowing in your new pic! Congratulations on your new life and the very best of wishes. When I was a little kid "She'll Be Comin' 'Round the Mountain" was a favorite song of mine because of the ref to chicken and dumplings! I love them and will certainly try your recipe. Your efforts to type all that out is appreciated by the readers. Moi too!
Finally Free - You DO matter to all of us, not only to Rocco! Your suggestions are terrific and I will be learning to bake bread due to Hortensia's kind offer of help. I have Grandma's circa 1940 Sunbeam MIXMASTER and a hand-crank meat grinder. Better put them to use. And cooking ahead saves time and energy on every score. Thank you so much. And yes, quality does count - amen!
OUTLAW - One of my art clients just fixed me a wonderful meal that incorporated fresh pasta - I died and went to heaven, though I was baptized after 1935 [rules for who gets to go have changed - LOL!]. I will try harder to find bargains - scout's honor. Thanx, cool guy.
AllAlongtheWT - I really got a lesson reading about your observations - and outrage - re: gimmicky pricing. THE HIDDEN PERSUADERS, by Vance Packard, is quite an eye-opener on tricking the buying public into purchasing so-called bargains. You have helped me become more aware of today's selling tactics. Those comments are helpful and appreciated. Thank you very much.
Good eating!
CoCo