Frugal Feast: We've come a long way, baby (Frugal Tips)

Concord Monitor ^ | 3/25/2009 | Robin Broadbent

[JRochelle]

...Plan out a week's worth of dinners before going to the store. Check the supermarket fliers and base your menu on what is on sale. By doing a week's worth of shopping in one trip, you really will save money and time. Raise your hand if you have ever gone into the store for "a few items" and come out with $79.43 in stuff you didn't think you needed. Uh huh, we thought so.

Store Brands are just as good as name brands (most of the time). Our pantries are full of delicacies like Juicy Magic, Woven Wheats and Magic Stars. Grocery stores contract with brand-name companies to provide the same items in store-brand packaging. We have it on good authority that Hood makes all the dairy products for at least one of our local chains. And by replacing at least some brand-name purchases with store-brand equivalents, you'll feel better about splurging on hard-to-substitute or nonnegotiable things like Heinz Ketchup and Stonyfield Farm's Chocolate Underground yogurt.

Limit out-of-season purchases. We know, it's hard to resist the juicy tubs of cut watermelon in the produce case, but it is expensive and not great-tasting. Buy the citrus and think about how good the local watermelon will taste in July, when you are sitting in the sun on the back porch, barefoot and parka free.

Don't buy toiletries in the grocery store: Not only are they more expensive than at the big box stores or the pharmacy, but the selection is more limited. We like to peruse all the flavors of Suave shampoo before making our choice.

Cook once and eat twice: This is the simplest advice for saving time and money. We've done columns on turning roast chicken and ham into a few nights worth of dinners, but this theory can apply

[donna]

A fine mist descends on our wide selection of produce for Heaven’s sake.

And the sound of thunder!

It always reminds me that we are indeed blessed.

[mnehring]

Found a good blog entry from Michael Ruhlman on what you should stock in your pantry. Some of the items are crazy, but they all serve a purpose.

http://blog.ruhlman.com/ruhlmancom/2009/01/the-freezer-pan.html

[texas_mrs]

There was a story in 2007 about unsafe toothpaste from China being sold at the dollar stores. The toothpaste contained a poisonous ingredient also found in anti-freeze. I buy all kinds of other toiletries at Dollar General, however.

[John 3_19-21]

For 6 years I developed and wrote simple meals recipes for a living. If written properly almost any one can cook from “scratch”.
Restaurant chains and processed food manufacturers have convinced a generation of families that cooking is an expensive undesirable chore.
There are some really great tips in this thread for saving money and time.

[tomkat]

Casseroles ROCK     one dish cooking is my forte'

from m'wave to frig to m'wave to frig til it's gone !

[JRochelle]

Dollar General is the place to buy laundry soap is way cheaper than anywhere else.

[John 3_19-21]

Here are a few off the top of my head:

Don’t buy boneless cuts of meat. The bone(s) can be used to flavor a second meal.

Freeze bread. To serve, just leave it on the counter for a few minutes before serving. Or pop whole thawed loaves in the oven for a few minutes. By-the-way this is exactly how most restaurants and some bakeries do it. You wont throw away stale or moldy bread again.
Cook extra plain rice, potatoes or pasta they can be turned into a myriad of cold and hot meals in minutes.
Popcorn is a very cheap snack

[Twinkie]

Yeah. I’ve been doing the frugal thing all my life, cooking from scratch and the dollar menus are appealing to me more and more all the time. We’ve never been expensive restaurant people, so we go to the mom and pop restaurant down the road more often now. I’m just sort of tired of cooking, but am cooking more simple stuff now. Tossing a whole chicken into a roaster, salting and peppering it, sprinkling some McCormick’s all purpose seasoning on it and you can eat off that for about three meals and then put the bones on to boil and make some soup broth. (Add a tsp. of vinegar to pull the calcium out of the bones.) Leave a little meat on those bones and you can fix some chicken noodle soup worth eating. Add chopped celery and onions. Someone suggested adding a tsp. of plain gelatin to add body to shorter cooking soup stocks.

[patton]

I never knew that about the vinegar. Thanks!

[Ditter]

I brush my teeth with baking soda and it does a great job. It got where toothpaste was irritating my mouth, so I stopped using it all together.

[reformedliberal]

Use Debbie Meyer’s Gold Bags and bagbudee dessicant pacs to prolong bread life and prevent mold. You may have to wipe out moisture from the bag every once in a while. This is best for home baked bread. Commercial bread keeps almost forever in the fridge.

Stale bread makes great panko breadcrumbs:

Freeze ends and leftovers until you have enough to make it worthwhile. Defrost slightly and cut into chunks that fit a food processor. Using the grater blade, grate the bread crumbs (most panko has the crust removed; I don’t). Spread onto a baking sheet and bake 10-15 minutes at 285. You want them dry, but not browned. If you use whole wheat or rye or pumpernickle, go by feel...they will feel slightly dry, but not crunchy. Let cool. Package. I place the packaged crumbs into a gold bag and just keep them in the cupboard. I separate them by type and have different recipes for each type. Just google “*type* bread crumb recipe” and millions of ways to use them will come up. I use them up quickly enough to not worry about length of storage. BTW, Japanese chefs say they prefer Wonder Bread for panko.

[Marysecretary]

We’ve never had any problems, but we don’t get all our stuff from Aldi’s.

[Cindy]

Are you looking for a job?

This thread is updated daily:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2136635/posts

[antceecee]

I made cocido and rice today. Mexican vegetable beef soup with Mexican style rice.
I used a recipe from a dear friend.
It always comes out great and makes a huge pot of soup.

I split it up and will be freezing some for later.

[tbw2]

Does Aldi’s offer milk and refrigerated goods?

[dawn53]

Lots of refrigerated items. Milk, yogurt, cheese, cottage cheese, bagged salads, butter, refrigerated bakery good (like Pilsbury offers.) They also have fresh meat and lunch meat, and then lots of frozen meats. Ours has a good array of fresh vegetables as well. Here’s a link to their website, if you look under products, it has an overview. They don’t put out much of a sale ad each week, just a few items.

http://aldi.us/index_ENU_HTML.htm