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Cooking Conservatively in Tough Financial Times
Vanity | Feb, 18, 2008 | JRandomFreeper

Posted on 02/18/2009 2:24:13 PM PST by JRandomFreeper

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To: dennisw
They were probably old.

No, they were good, and the store is a regular beehive. Just pleasantly more chewy than the usual mushy navy bean -- more like a kidney bean in texture, but much larger. Fava beans are over an inch wide.


Dried fava beans

61 posted on 02/18/2009 3:40:35 PM PST by Albion Wilde ("Praise and worship" is my alternate lifestyle.)
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To: JRandomFreeper

We get a nice preroasted chicken for $4.95 here.


62 posted on 02/18/2009 3:40:43 PM PST by Kackikat (.It's NOT over until it's over and it's NOT over yet....The Trumpet will sound....)
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To: OB1kNOb
We Americans eat too much meat, and it shows. If you really want to cut your food costs, cut your meat consumption by including it as an ingredient to a dish, rather than as the main entree. Everyone gets some meat and no one fills up on just meat.

I totally agree. I recently learned that some of our beef contains thyroid hormones, which will mess you up if you eat beef frequently.

63 posted on 02/18/2009 3:43:27 PM PST by Albion Wilde ("Praise and worship" is my alternate lifestyle.)
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To: JRandomFreeper; Gabz

Hubby and I love to fish, so we look forward to filling our freezer with freshwater favorites, crappie, bream, and catfish, with a few bass thrown in for those who like them too. It’s that time of year again in our neck of the woods!
We are still enjoying fish out of the freezer from our last fishing season.

Hubby also bags enough venison to furnish us with steaks and ground meat until well into the next deer season. You can make sausage, summer sausage, and jerky too, if you’re so inclined.

We think venison is just as good, or better, than beef in most dishes, if you know how to prepare it and season it.

Another thing that’s done among friends and acquaintances around here, and in other places too I’m fairly certain, is to exchange a type of food or to give it in exchange for a service when payment was refused by the person who rendered service. For example, someone who doesn’t hunt, but likes game, might exchange beef, or pork, for venison, etc., if they raise cattle or hogs. Someone might need help with something, and the person helping wouldn’t accept a monetary payment, so they would be given some food item as a kindness for their kindness.

Hubby came home recently with some packages of home cured bacon, and homemade sausage because he helped the person without charge. That’s pretty much a way of life around here regardless of hard times. : )


64 posted on 02/18/2009 3:44:56 PM PST by LucyJo
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To: Glenn
Wow. Sis just slaughtered a sheep/lamb (It was a sheep or yearling, by definition and size but she called it a lamb) for dog food.

It was good enough that the dogs are getting a little extra corn-meal and a little less meat in their dog-food, and we kept the good parts.

NZ lamb for restaurant use? I can see the $13US price, maybe.

I wouldn't pay any more for lamb than goat, and they go under the knife when they start costing me $0.85/lb.

That doesn't count the cost of processing the meat. I do that here. Anyone that can read and is willing to try can learn to process a carcass.

/johnny

65 posted on 02/18/2009 3:44:57 PM PST by JRandomFreeper (God Bless us all, each, and every one.)
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To: OB1kNOb

The closer to the natural state that you buy something the cheaper it is.

Instant rice is more expensive, so is quick cooking barley, and rolled oats.

Ethnic groceries are one of the best kept secrets, you can buy 4 or 8 ounce bags of spice for 10% of the stuff in jars.

Same thing on the grains. Local Indian grocery has chickpeas, every color of lentil and many other dry beans at a fraction of the 1 lb sacks the grocery’s carry.


66 posted on 02/18/2009 3:47:14 PM PST by TASMANIANRED (TAZ:Untamed, Unpredictable, Uninhibited.)
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To: Albion Wilde

I never cooked large favas. How are they supposed to come out? Soft or chewy? I don’t like al dente beans. I like soft because you digest them better and get no gas


67 posted on 02/18/2009 3:48:43 PM PST by dennisw (Archimedes--- Give me a place to stand, and I will move the Earth)
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To: Grut
So, why do you think your ancestors fled Europe?

I think there's a joke in there somewhere, but I haven't gotten it yet. What does Europe have to do with fava beans from a middle-eastern grocery here in the States? At least some of my ancestors fled Europe because of the potato famine; others came for the fishing, farming and trading; still others were born here as native Americans.

68 posted on 02/18/2009 3:49:31 PM PST by Albion Wilde ("Praise and worship" is my alternate lifestyle.)
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I buy beef neck bones and made soup stock and always buy whole chickens (unless there’s a sale I can’t pass up), save out the backs, tail, and wing tips to make chicken stock. Lately I’ve been canning what stock I don’t use up...need freezer space this summer for squash.

I have Bouillon cubes for emergencies, but like my homemade stock better.

And I make my own pizza.


69 posted on 02/18/2009 3:50:13 PM PST by Overtaxed (Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.)
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To: Petronski
YEAH! My favorite. Once you beat a bread recipe into submission and learn to make it right every time, you won't go back to store bought.

I make exceptions for some of the chain baguettes which are par-baked and the store just finishes them, those are excellent, much better than I can do without a fancy oven.

Soups are a favorite here as well, considering the cats sometimes hide my teef.

/johnny

70 posted on 02/18/2009 3:51:08 PM PST by JRandomFreeper (God Bless us all, each, and every one.)
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To: JRandomFreeper
Consider building a solar oven. There used to be some guy who canned tomatoes in his - dr. dougie or some such site. The acidity made homecanning possible.

http://solarcooking.org/plans

71 posted on 02/18/2009 3:51:56 PM PST by bgill
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To: JRandomFreeper
Thanks for this.

Off to read the rest of the thread.

72 posted on 02/18/2009 3:51:58 PM PST by lysie
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To: JRandomFreeper
Once you beat a bread recipe into submission and learn to make it right every time, you won't go back to store bought.

It's taken me four months of trying, but by jove I think I've got it.

73 posted on 02/18/2009 3:52:13 PM PST by Petronski (For the next few years, Gethsemane will not be marginal. We will know that garden. -- Cdl. Stafford)
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To: JRandomFreeper

Bookmarked.

Great thread. Thanks!


74 posted on 02/18/2009 3:52:17 PM PST by mom3boys
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To: Overtaxed
Homemade stock is great. You can freeze it in zip bags laying flat, and then stack them to save freezer space.

/johnny

75 posted on 02/18/2009 3:52:45 PM PST by JRandomFreeper (God Bless us all, each, and every one.)
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To: TASMANIANRED
Same thing on the grains. Local Indian grocery has chickpeas, every color of lentil and many other dry beans at a fraction of the 1 lb sacks the grocery’s carry.

Same here for an Indian store near me plus lots of cheap spices
A Korean store makes its own kim che near by and sells it at a low price

Indian stores have beans and pulses I've never seen in my life. Beans are a crucial protein source in India

76 posted on 02/18/2009 3:52:56 PM PST by dennisw (Archimedes--- Give me a place to stand, and I will move the Earth)
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To: dennisw
I don’t like al dente beans. I like soft because you digest them better and get no gas

You're no fun.

77 posted on 02/18/2009 3:53:39 PM PST by Albion Wilde ("Praise and worship" is my alternate lifestyle.)
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To: tiki

I picked up a T-Fal pressure cooker at a second hand store late last year for 3 bucks. It had never been used. I’d always been afraid of them, but never again.

And talk about frugal. Yes, you can get cheap meat and turn it into something amazing (those cheap, tough cuts also have the greatest amount of flavor). But what’s great about it is you’re only running the stove for 1/3 of the time you ordinarily would.


78 posted on 02/18/2009 3:54:34 PM PST by Paul Heinzman ("Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end; then stop.")
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To: Albion Wilde

Thats a Jack and the Beanstalk kind of bean


79 posted on 02/18/2009 3:55:11 PM PST by dennisw (Archimedes--- Give me a place to stand, and I will move the Earth)
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To: JRandomFreeper

Right now I’m trying to eat down the freezer (lots of turnips and squash from last summer) before this year’s garden comes in. It’s bad when you don’t have freezer space for ice cream. :)


80 posted on 02/18/2009 3:56:11 PM PST by Overtaxed (Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.)
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