show me the money: part i, finding low-cost recipes

ramen with tofu and gai lan (Chinese Broccoli)

A lot of people are finding this blog by looking for low-cost recipes in search engines, and people are even linking to my site from message boards (I am so honored!) as a good resource for such recipes. So I thought I’d put together a post about low-cost recipes: some sites and my frugal recipes for Part I. Part II will be about deciding if a recipe is for you and your budget. Part III will be a collection of tips/ideas I’ve used myself or have known someone who truly benefitted from the use – not exactly food-related, but, I might as well get it off my chest.

 

Sites with Low-Cost Recipes / Food information

(I haven’t tried all of these blogs personally, but I think they will have decent, cost-sensitive recipes)

• Hillbilly Housewife Read the $45 Emergency Menu, for feeding a family of 4~6 during a week, including instructions for the cooking and prep. Even if you don’t like the dishes themselves, you will learn something from this menu – time management, how to shop – from the sheer amount of information.
• AskMetafilter AskMeFi has some excellent threads with dozens of suggestions for low-cost cooking. This thread was about mastering cooking genres, while staying within a tight budget. Another thread focuses on frugal meal planning for a single person. Yet another thread ponders the secrets of saving money at the grocery store. Just goes to show that two heads, or rather, thousands of heads, are better than one.
• Frugal Cuisine The name says it all. The recipes are always brilliant, clear, and unfailingly INSPIRING. She really focuses on nutrient-dense foods, tending to avoid empty calories. I have blog-envied this blog for YEARS!
• Consumer Reports CR has a short list of foods, and their nutritional value and cost per serving. Very helpful! It’s quite shocking to see that black beans, which are a nutritional powerhouse, are only $.07 per serving!! I would dispute the cost of the egg (I know for me they cost more than $.09 each) but it’s nice to have comparative data.
• Could I live on a dollar a day? Hm…well, some other people have done it! Andrew Hyde, (not a foodie blogger) post on how to live comfortably on $36/month impressed me! The bloggers doing the One Dollar A Day Diet Project also impressed me!
• I love comfy, homey recipes! Heritage Recipes has time-tested, old-fashioned recipes. Low cost is not the focus, but I notice that many of these recipes are very SIMPLE, which tends to run towards frugality. Frugal Recipes is something of a bulletin board with utterly charming recipes, with an eye towards frugality. CHOW has a series on basic recipes . these have pretty illustrations and very simple instructions. Most of them look totally delectable.
• Cheap Eats documents the blogger’s food choices (there are are a lot of product reviews) and very, very low-cost recipes, including some $3.00 recipes with very explicit cost break downs.
• $5 Dollar Dinners focuses on meals for 2 persons, and 2 small children for under $5.00. I like the fact that she breaks down the prices for each of the ingredients in the posts.
• Cheap, Healthy, Good has big, big recipe lists. The one for frugal party foods looks so interesting!
• Simply Frugal This Southeast Michigan blogger spends $15/per person each week, for 2 people. Her recipes look great! And she has great tips on how to shop for groceries more frugally – to get your cost per serving down to 45 cents. Really wonderful blog!
• Poor Girl Eats Well The PGEW blogger creates definitely gorgeous, gourmet foods, averaging around $2.00 per serving. This blog is justifiably famous.
• Casual Kitchen has 25 “laughably cheap” recipes. I also really like his application of the Pareto Rule, or the 80/20 rule, to cooking (as in, 20% of your effort yields 80% of your desired results). The concept of “heavy rotation” – getting your top ten favorite dishes over and over again – holds true with me.
• Food is always an important expense, and personal finance bloggers always write about food. Frugal Upstate , The Simple Dollar, and Get Rich Slowly, The Frugal Girl, have good, appetizing recipes in the context of frugal living in general. GRS’s post compiling 3 years’ worth of food tips is excellent! My Open Wallet has a great page on frugal recipes, collected from frugal foodies/personal finance bloggers. Frugal Abundance (the blogger is the original creator of the Hillbilly Housewife!) has a great post on addressing the rising cost of meat. The costs in that post are very different from those I experience in California, but the relative prices (whole chicken v. breast filets, etc.) are still applicable and therefore helpful in determing what to buy.

Plugging my own blog

Dude, where’s the Stove? Hey, of course I have to plug my own blog! Here are some of my posts with price breakdowns, that yield meals that cost less than one dollar per serving.

• Madras Chicken Curry
• Feijoada (Brazilian Black Beans)
• Pasta Fazool / Pasta e Fagioli
• Poached Eggs
• Cornmeal Fish Cakes
• Hawaiian-ish Spam Fried Rice
• Spicy Instant Sardine Spaghetti
• Chana Masala / Chole (Curried Chickpeas)
• Three Bean Salad
• Red Cabbage and Sweet Potato Curry
• Adraki Kebabs (Spicy Potato and Greens)
• Kohi Kanten (Vegan Japanese Coffee Jelly/Pudding)
• Mango Kanten (Vegan, Japanese Jelly/Pudding)
• Chickpea Fudge/Halva
• Forty Cent Chicken Soup

Here are some of my blog posts that may/may not contain price break downs for the recipes (but are very inexpensive to prepare):

• Vegan Capellini and White Beans
• Cream Puffs
• Spinach Frittata, Egg in the Nest, Oven-Fried Potatoes
• Spicy Roasted Chickpeas
• Parsley Pesto

My own rough guidelines

I spend about $35 (or less) each week on groceries for myself. (Note – I live in a truly pricey part of California). That figure does not include larger-ticket items like vitamins, a 25-lb bag of rice, oil, and other bulky pantry items. (Yes, I realize a true frugalista would include that – maybe I’ll count that in the future). But that $35/week includes: eggs, tofu, poultry, fruits, vegetables, dry beans, canned foods, dry pasta, soy milk, yogurt, cheese, and impulse(!) purchases of junky snacks.

I tend not to buy red meat. I’m not actually that enamored of beef. But I LOVE pork. Pork makes everything better.I will buy it very eagerly – ONLY if it’s on sale! Mostly, I buy chicken. In my neck of the woods, I notice that the supermarkets are fighting it out on the chicken fronts – each week, at least one of them is selling chicken at less than $.80/lb. I pretty much never buy fresh fish. I love it, but, good fish is expensive. Very, very, rarely, I will buy some fresh wild salmon. The farmed stuff is bland to me, so I tend avoid it. I actually like the canned stuff, because it’s wild. I love canned fish in general, but, I don’t have to drag you into that right now.

I buy fruit very rarely, because I love sweets – but it’s something I should cut down on. I’ve started buying apples recently, due to their high fiber, and high satiety factor. Oh, and it’s apple season!

In general, I eat pretty darn well – my figure is quite well-padded.* I could probably spend less – a truly frugal friend of mine spends about $15-20/week on groceries for herself – but I consider $35 reasonably OK as a guideline – breaks down to daily average of $5.00/day. Also, I will confess that I too could furnish a “Hall of Shame” – when I am busy, or just plain lazy, I often fall into the trap of eating convenience foods that are expensive and junky! Anyways, I’m including this in here so that you can see how my perspective on “low cost” relates your own cooking/shopping guidelines.

Over the last  few years, I’m tried to become a bit more frugal.** Mostly by listening to friends and family who are truly, TRULY frugal. I don’t actually consider myself to be frugal (not YET), so, I’m really happy to see that people have used this blog to help themselves and their budgets! If you have a favorite frugal tip/recipe/etc., please feel free to share. I am always happy to learn. Thanks for reading!

* In the words of Just Hungry, I’m not an Asian gazelle. OK, but if I’m not a gazelle, uh, I’ll have to think of a nice, graceful animal that looks like me.

** The other weekend, you could spot me in the supermarket, with a CALCULATOR in hand. Oh, I felt a tad self-conscious. I told my friend I was reinforcing every stereotype about Asians from teenage 80’s movies!!! How did I get to this point?!?!

P.S. Sorry for the hiccup the other day – the feed software published an old post from last year, and I don’t have any idea why/how that happened!

Forty Cent Chicken Soup

Wildflowers

In the summertime, I bought five pounds of chicken quarters at $.77/lb. A total steal.  AndI had bought ginger, garlic, celery, and carrots. I had grand plans to make curry chicken, which I had’t done in ages. But then a heat wave hit. Who has the will to brown five pounds of chicken quarters when it is HOT? I couldn’t do it. But I didn’t want to freeze it either. So…maybe it’s time to make some chicken soup! Using this recipe means you want a LOT of chicken soup. Are you ready for it? And the chicken meat is soooo tender!

Forty-Cent Chicken Soup

5lbs of chicken quarters (@.77/lb = $3.89);

majority of a bunch of celery ($1.79 per bunch);

1 large yellow onion about 3/4 lb ($.99/lb = $.75);

most of 2 heads of garlic (sold 2 for $1.00);

most of a 1/3 lb chunk of ginger ($2.99/lb = $.93);

1/2 lb of baby carrots (1lb for $1.00, on sale);

lots of water; and

salt to taste.

Total cost: $9.36

Total elapsed time: 90 min.  (including washing the pot, cutting board, etc.)

Yield: about 6 quarts (24 cup-servings)

Cost per serving: 39 cents.

0. Washing/Chopping

I washed and chopped the veggies first. Then I washed the chicken. I always handle the meat last, in the interest of food safety.

1. Sweating the veggies

I started a skillet on medium. Smashed the garlic cloves, in their skins. Then removed the skins, and added them to the skillet. Then added the chopped onion, celery, carrots and ginger. The proportions are really forgiving. I am fickle about carrots so I don’t put a lot of them. In general, any type of root vegetable – rutabaga, beets, parsnips, daikon, etc. – can be part of the soup (if you have any type of root vegetable. There are a lot of root veggies from the brassica family, a.k.a., the cruciferous vegetables, which are extremely good for you.

2. Bringing everything to a boil

Once all the veggies were sweated/carmelized, I added the chicken quarters. I didn’t even feel like removing the chicken skin! So I didn’t. Then I just added water to barely cover and brought everything to a boil, leaving the lid off.

3. Simmer

After the water came to a boil, I lowered the heat to a simmer, added the lid, and did something else for about 45 min. The mass of ingredients was too large to place into my pressure cooker safely (you are only supposed to fill it to 2/3 capacity) but this would have been a good one for pressure cooking in a larger pot.

4. Homemade Chicken Soup is Mine

I let it cool down, and boiled some pasta for a simple soup-meal. Homemade chicken soup makes everything taste better! I eventually refrigerated it, skimming the fat (schmaltz) off of the top to use later.

5. Schmaltz

Chicken breasts are not my favorite. I usually eat them last, when there is no dark meat left. I had some chicken breasts leftover from a whole fryer I was using to make chicken curry, and I thought about trying the schmaltz from the chicken soup. Oh, it was SO good. The schmaltz picked up all the wonderfully deep flavors of the soup and gave them to the chicken breasts.

Someday I might have to try a stock recipe – just using the bones, and no meat.

P.S. I added to the Tips page the other day: The always-brilliant Frugal Cuisine says to never throw out chicken fat – use it  in lieu of expensive, fancy butters. Also on the Tips page – how to make a vegan stock.

Okonomiyaki and my gratitude (for 20,000 views!)

I’m still on blog-cation but I thought I couldn’t let 20,000 views pass by without saying hello and by golly, thank you!!!* So thank you for reading, commenting, linking. THANK YOU!!! You know it totally makes my day to obsessively check my sitemeter and see that someone in Salt Lake / Perth / Bombay / Tokyo / Lima / Sao Paulo was reading my blog for 25 minutes! And to get comment luv. Awww, it’s great!!!

While I’m here, I should show the lentils I sprouted, as well as the riff on okonomiyaki I did with them. Is is really okonomiyaki if I just put stuff into a pancake, and ate it with Worchestershire sauce on top – without the genuine soup and other such? Yes, I know I’m taking liberties – so, feel free to see Just Hungry’s more comprehensive recipe here. But if you are lazy like me and want to just have a whiff of that Osaka sensibility with minimal work….read on!!! (Instead of “lazy” you can always use the word “busy” – works just as well!)

Sprouted Lentils, in a Colander

How to Sprout Lentils

It’s pretty easy. Soak 1 cup of lentils overnight. The next day, rinse and drain. Then loosely wrap the lentils in a few layers of paper towels (or I guess cheesecloth would work too). Leave the wrapped parcel in a shallow bowl. Check on it everyday – keep the lentils slightly wet by dripping enough water. Mine were “done” in about 5 days. Makes 5 cups of sprouts.

Pancake Mix

Lentil Sprouts with Pancake Mix

Okonomiyaki in the Making!

Slice of Okonomiyaki, plated (pre-Worchestershire Sauce)

Slackerrific Impromptu Okonomiyaki

• 5 cups of sprouts; (from 1 cup of dried brown lentils = 1/4 lb = about 20 cents)
• 1 cup of soy milk; (about 50 cents)
• 1/2 cup of prepared pancake mix; (I think this was still too much batter – likely better to just use about 1/4 cup);
• 1 egg; (about 16 – 18 cents)
• Worchestershire sauce to taste.

Wash and dry those sprouts. Because you have been watching over them as vigilantly as hawk, you will have very few “bad” sprouts – rotten / dry / etc. Pick through and discard. Mix the soy milk, pancake mix, and egg into a very large mixing bowl. Mix. Add the sprouts Fold them in. If you have other good stuff, this is the time to throw it in – I think shredded cabbage would be great here too. Heat up a skillet. You can do what I did – made a huge one – or make a few smaller ones. Totally up to you.

Pour the mixture into the pan according to the size you desire. The sprouts will wilt a bit. Check the bottom of the okonomiyaki by slipping the spatula underneath – what color is it? Golden brown? Time to flip it! Flip it. Then do the same check. Eat immediately! Slosh generously with Worchestershire sauce. Makes three – four servings. Takes less than 1/2 hr.

Next time, I’ll use less batter, and will add more more more stuff, like maybe some protein (tofu / chicken / etc.) How did it taste? Well, you can definitely enjoy the sprouts – earthy, not quite crunchy, yet offering some small resistance to one’s teeth. My diners gave it big, big thumbs up! I liked it. Well, maybe because it was breakfasty. Also, anything that gets browned in a skillet with starch is likely to win my heart. (like those jack mackerel cakes! and that spinach frittata!) I think the lentils plus the soy milk makes it very very filling and satisfying.

And now, I’ll include here a totally gratuitous picture of Watermelon Kanten. Yeah, it’s good. Why? Because you have that almost-crunchy resistence of the watermelon flesh, then the give of the kanten. Ok! I’m back on blog-cation now!

Watermelon Kanten

* Right now, this blog has over 19,000 views, and I expect it to reach views 20,000 in a few days, since it’s averaging about 2000 ~ 2500 views/month. (And I remember when I used to get 180 views per month!!! – and it still boggled my mind that anyone would read this blog back then! I don’t even force my dearest friends and family to read it!) Thank you so much for reading!!!

Update: one of my dear kin tells me that my enthusiasm for the number of views I’ve gotten is a bit impassioned, to the degree of causing laughter on her part. Surely you cannot take me too seriously! Doesn’t everybody remember Sally Fields’s 1985 Oscar acceptance speech?