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Posted
Jun 26 2008, 01:37 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Frugal Babe has boiled water, made both oatmeal and rice, baked biscuits and reheated lasagne in her new-to-her solar oven/cooker. Pretty impressive, no? Next she's going to bake a chocolate cake. We've been reading about solar ovens and wondered if they really work. In her post and the comments that followed, Frugal Babe answers a lot of questions about them. For instance, does solar cooking take more time? Just a little bit more with the one she bought, she writes. Hers gets to 350 or 400 degrees quickly and stays there if the oven's position is changed every half-hour as the sun moves.
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Posted
May 07 2008, 10:48 AM
by
Donna Freedman
Rating:
We're in awe of the way "HollyM" does lunch. This thrifty reader starts by cooking big batches of soups, stews, stuffed peppers, lasagna, casseroles, enchiladas and other goodies -- all of it made with on-sale ingredients. The entrees get frozen in individual servings because variety is the spice of lunch.
"No boredom. Lunches ready to grab. Saves time/energy/money."
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Posted
May 07 2008, 10:34 AM
by
Donna Freedman
Having raised eight kids, reader "SGW" can make a little bit of meat go a long way. She would buy a chicken on sale and make a huge pot of soup -- but they didn't eat the chicken itself, just the broth with vegetables. Then SGW would cut up the bird and freeze it in one-cup portions.
"Yep, I make chicken enchiladas, chicken chow mein, chicken salads, you name it for a family of 10 using only one cup of chicken each meal."
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Posted
May 07 2008, 10:00 AM
by
Donna Freedman
Rating:
"Frugal-Cook" doesn't skimp on ingredients. Check her shopping cart and you'll find stuff like shallots, fennel, olive oil and fresh herbs. Yet she spends only about $500 a month to feed her family of five-going-on-six -- the mom of three is expecting again -- even though she lives in spendy Chicago.
Frugal-Cook bases her meal plans on weekly grocery specials, viewing the ads online at http://www.centsible.net/groceries.shtml. She also hits smaller markets in ethnic neighborhoods. Then she cooks one and only one type of cuisine per week.
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Posted
Mar 03 2008, 10:03 AM
by
Donna Freedman
Rating:
Crunch time: Exams are approaching, two final projects are due, and I am still fairly shaky on certain fine points of Spanish grammar.
That's why on Saturday I filled the slow cooker with great northern beans, ham scraps, chopped onion and grated carrot. I stirred up a pan of cornbread and settled down to read Hélène Cixous. By midafternoon, I had five or six nights' worth of dinners in the fridge.
I refer to this as "one-pot glop" nutrition. Some days you don't have time to wonder what you'll fix for supper. Leftovers rule, and one-pot leftovers reign supreme.
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Posted
Dec 14 2007, 12:08 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
If CC Christiansen has picked through your trash, chances are she knows your dirty little secrets: that you threw away the holiday cookies a friend lovingly baked because you're watching your waistline (expand), or that you were too lazy to return or donate the jacket you bought and decided you didn't like. It's in your trash, with the tags still on. CC writes about lessons she's learned about human behavior from Dumpster-diving at a post at The Dollar Stretcher.
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Posted
Dec 13 2007, 04:09 PM
by
Karen Datko
If you make a coffee cake, the cost of the ingredients in one slice is just 8 cents. How do we know this? Sense to Save has prepared a recipe cost calculator. File this away under "cool tools." In an example, she demonstrates how to figure out the cost of ingredients for tacos for two people. It's only $2.47. That doesn't include the cost of using the stove or your labor. (In our case, it's free. No one is paying us to be a chef.) She also provides her weekly dinner menus and the cost of each.
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Posted
Nov 16 2007, 08:52 AM
by
Donna Freedman
Rating:
Want to save a ton of money and enjoy comfort food to boot? Bake some potatoes in your slow cooker. I did this one recent weekend morning and they were done to a tender turn after two hours on the high setting. The aroma was irresistible, even though I'd had a late breakfast, so I split open one of the smaller spuds, glossed it with butter and sprinkled on some coarse kosher salt. Afterward, I realized this was probably the cheapest snack I've had in ages. At 99 cents for a 10-pound bag, the per-spud price was about 4 cents. The butter cost less than 2 cents (loss-leader price plus coupon). The price of the salt was infinitesimal, since it came from a one-pound box I bought at the dollar store . They can make a cheap supper, too, and involve practically no labor. We know that on some nights, we're more vulnerable to the allure of Thai takeout or the fast-food drive-through – maybe Mondays send us reeling, or Thursdays are crunch days at work. So on those nights, plan a spud supper instead
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Posted
Nov 13 2007, 03:03 PM
by
Karen Datko
Folks, we are not making this up. Dawn C at Frugal for Life wonders why anyone would spend up to $400 for a vacuum sealer when you can make a low-tech version at home . All you need is a straw, Saran Wrap and a freezer bag. We'll let Dawn explain the rest: " ... I wrap the food item in Saran Wrap (tape closed if necessary) and then place the wrapped food in the freezer bag (so I can reuse later). Once the food is in the bag I push as much air out as possible and seal up the bag. Then I grab my straw, crack open a small section of the bag and insert the straw. The last step is to suck the air out until the bag forms tightly around the food item." The only drawback to the low-tech vacuum sealer: The air in the bag "doesn’t always 'taste' good," she writes.
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Posted
Oct 30 2007, 05:12 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
We love a fun quiz, so we decided to go along when Lynnae at beingfrugal asked readers to play " Frugal or cheap? How would you rate each of the following situations? " Some of the 11 are easy, like reusing margarine containers to store food in the fridge. (We picked frugal.) How about these: "Leaving no tip for a waitress, because you can’t afford to tip." (Tacky. We picked cheap.) Or "serving leftovers when you have people over for dinner." (Tasty? It's frugal.) Is it frugal or cheap to regift a wedding present (it depends), or to ask "family members to chip in for Thanksgiving Dinner"? ( They're bordering on cheap if they haven't already asked.) Join the fun and play along with Lynnae, who writes, "The bottom line is, when your 'frugality' begins to impact other people in a negative way , it becomes cheap."
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