A note on keeping the kitchen clean and orderly

Today I used up some odds and ends in my fridge, you know the sorts of things that take up room in the fridge but you don't want to throw out?

For instance last night there was a small package of Sweet Chili sauce I received in the mail as a sample. I added it into my stir fry. Today I made Russian dressing, so I took the dozen or so sad little dill pickle chips floating around in the bottom of the pickle jar and chopped them up for the dressing instead of using pickle relish. I had some leftover chicken pieces I needed to use up after I made my Apricot chicken. I placed the pieces in a gallon size Ziploc bag and sprinkled the pieces generously with BBQ rub. I had an allllmost empty bottle of ketchup. I opened it up, placed a little water in it and swooshed it around. I squirted that all over the chicken in the bag, then I added a squirt of mustard and a few dashes of Worcestershire sauce. I also took a tablespoon of pickle juice from my now empty jar and added that to the chicken, sealed the top and shook the heck out of it all. Now my chicken is defrosting in the bottom of the refrigerator and marinating in an almost effortless and almost free BBQ sauce. I will broil the pieces on Saturday for either lunch or dinner.

I save everything. Leftover pieces of vegetables, like onion tops, carrot ends, the woody stems of asparagus, bell pepper tops, mushroom stems, or anything really get placed into ziploc bags in the freezer to be used for veggie broths, the cooking water for potatoes get saved in the freezer to make potato bread or to add to a potato soup base. Bones from roasted chickens or from bone-in roasts get saved for stock. Shrimp and lobster shells make a great fish stock too! Bacon drippings get saved in a jar in the fridge to sauté vegetables. Even a few tablespoons of leftover spaghetti sauce gets saved to go on a homemade pizza or to use as a dipping sauce. Label everything though or you might find yourself defrosting something just to figure out of it is a fish stock or chicken stock, you know?

Weekly Wrap-Up

Monday we had dance class, first day of carpooling with a new kid, Open House and Parent Night at the new school (plus volunteering for the event feeding the kids pizza, water and homemade cookies and then cleaning up) so we just had cheese pizza with the other families. It was a late night for us and we didn't get home until 7:15.

Tuesday we had chicken divan with broccoli and cauliflower instead of just broccoli. There are a million and one recipes for chicken divan out there, it is a classic southern dish. In fact I can't imagine a potluck or family reunion without a warm casserole dish topped with breadcrumbs or even potato chips and containing this strangely addictive dish. Most recipes for chicken divan call for a can of cream of chicken or broccoli cheese soup, I used some leftover chicken gravy I had made over the weekend,. Most recipes also call for a certain amount of cream and cheese as well, so I used some leftover alfredo sauce. I know, I KNOW, right? But here's the thing. I am super frugal by nature and super broke most of the time by circumstances so I often make these kind of strange substitutions or even plan meals around what ever bits and bobs of food I have leftover in the refrigerator. In any case the dish came out just fine, very tasty, and I loved the addition of cauliflower to the usual broccoli in the casserole, or as my kids call it, broccoli and white broccoli.

Wednesday we had red beans and rice with smoked sausage, this was another frugal feast. I found both buy one get one boxes of red beans and rice and buy one get one smoked sausage this week, I knew instantly it would make a very nice dinner for a busy night. The kids and I don't get home from gymnastics until 6:30 on Wednesdays so this was ideal. My husband got it ready for us and we were able to wash up and eat as soon as we came in the door.

Thursday we just made some simple vegetarian pasta for dinner. I chopped up some tomatoes, onions and garlic and sauteed them in olive oil and then threw in some 4 Cheese tomato sauce. I made some multi-colored veggie pasta and tossed the noodles with the sauce and some freshly grated parmesan cheese.

Friday my husband brought home rotisserie chicken and I made homemade mashed potatoes steamed mixed vegetables. I found an organic frozen mix with broccoli, cauliflower, carrot and squash in it and it's great simply steamed and tossed with butter or maybe even some grated parmesan cheese. The leftover chicken served to make us a nice lunch of chicken salad today and I boiled the carcass with some ends of carrots and onion and a bay leaf to make some lovely broth which I freeze and then use whenever I need chicken stock. Which is like all the time, I use stock to cook vegetables, be a base for soups, make gravy, flavored mashed potatoes, cook rice, or a host of other things.

I tried to get a jump on this week's cooking by making some vegetarian chili for Monday night, today. I think chili tastes better the second day and so it will have all night and all day tomorrow to get flavorful. Tomorrow I will bake some fresh cornbread to go with the very veggie chili; it has tomatoes, green peppers, onion, garlic carrot and some cooked from scratch red beans that I made in the pressure cooker. I flavored it all with 2 TB of chili powder, salt, pepper and 1 TB of BBQ rub. I am making some black beans and rice plus a cuban picadillo for dinner tonight and I have some plans for a roasted whole chicken later in the week.

Pinch-hitting and Penny Pinching

We get paid once a month. And by "we" I mean my husband gets paid once a month. I am a stay at home Mom. I live in an area where with my background and education I would have to work more than full time to make enough to justify childcare expenses for my 2 kids. And that is only IF such a job were available, there isn't one. I also happen to live in one of the most expensive places in the U.S. This goes a lot toward explaining why I have taught myself to really cook and bake over the last few years. I did the math and a decent loaf of bread where I live is about $2.50 - $3. I can make a loaf of bread for less than a dollar. Pictured here is an Irish Soda bread that literally contains flour, baking soda, salt, and soured milk.

We have to budget everything, and consider every purchase. An unexpected trip out of town means canceling anything even slightly optional, from doctor's appointments to a once every three years hair cut. And of course if there is anything like a big expense in a month that means squeezing out every penny from every non-fixed expense. My food budget is one of the few areas where I have some discretion.

My tips for eating well when you have a lean month?

*Eat vegetarian, cheaper pound for pound and often food that has a long shelf life. If you see dry beans on sale 10/$10 you jump on that. Same thing with dried pastas, jarred sauces, canned tomatoes, all the staples.

*Stockpile some versatile frozen veggies for weeks you come up short.

* You can freeze milk, FYI, just pour some out first and put it in the freezer. It will thaw overnight in the fridge just fine, just shake and serve.

*Make your own pizza dough and make it in double batches, make one, freeze one. Makes a fast economical dinner.

*Breakfast for dinner, cheap and tasty! Scrambled eggs, pancakes, french toast (great way to use up stale bread), juice and milk.

*Buy in bulk when you can. Things like peanut butter, jelly, olive oil, vegetable oil, oatmeal, cornmeal. I actually could write a whole post about all the things you can make with cornmeal. Corn bread, corn bread muffins, polenta, grits, use it to bake pizza dough on, corn meal waffles, LOTS of uses.

*Use leftovers for lunch the next day. My husband works 5 days a week, the cheapest lunch near him would cost $6/day, that's $30 per week right there!

*Use your leftovers in interesting ways. Leftover spaghetti sauce makes a great pizza or calzone sauce. Leftover chili can be made into a chili casserole, become taco filling or turned into chii mac. A roast chicken one night can become chicken salad, chicken enchiladas, or chicken soup!

*Bake your own bread, google some no-knead bread recipes, you can make bread in 5 minutes per day (not including bake time).

*Share deals with your friends. If you know someone who has a warehouse club membership offer to split the cost of some larger quantities of vegetables, especially stuff that can last for awhile like onions, garlic, hard squashes, potatoes. Or buy stuff that can be easily made into other things, like berries into sauce or pie and tomatoes into sauce, salsas, or soups.

*Save everything. When you cut the tops off of carrots and onions and other veggies put them in a freezer bag and stash them in the freezer to make vegetable or chicken stocks. Stale bread can be made into bread pudding, bread crumbs, bruschetta, stuffing, dressing. Leftover bacon grease can be refrigerated in a clean jar and used to season vegetables, brown meats, fry eggs, or flavor beans.

Waste not, want not

I have been dying to get back here and write some long and involved bit of culinary wisdom, or some funny anecdote about my life as a Mom, daughter, volunteer, sex kitten (part-time), domestic engineer. But the actual Moming, daughtering, volunteering, sex-kitten thing got in the way. I'd like to say my duties as a domestic engineer got in the way too, but frankly, you'd just have to look at my house to know that ain't true.

Ahem.

So today I am going to write about something near and dear to my heart recently and that is making sure you do not waste food. Food is a pretty big part of my limited budget and nothing irks me more than having to throw away my hard earned money with food that has gone past its prime.

The biggest things that go bad for me are fruits and vegetables. I have very little time to write today, so this post will focus on the vegetables and the next one will be about fruit. *Note: I have never had any ice cream go bad.

My best tips for preventing food waste are:

• Make a list, not only of what you need to buy, but also how you are going to use it. So you need to make a menu for the week, noting what side dishes you are making to go with what. Try to use your most perishable veggies first, but be flexible, if that broccoli is starting to "bloom" early (it develops a yellow color) then use it up quick.

• Make substitutions. Tonight's dinner was going to be chicken and rice plus broccoli and squash, but oh look a tomato is going bad (Attack of the Killer Tomatoes bad!) and needs to be used up. Cut off the bad spot and chop it up into the rice side dish. Chopping it and adding salt helps break it down and by the time it has cooked with the rice it merely becomes a flavoring agent for the rice. Good times.

* Make soup/stock. I have a freezer full of old bones. No, I am not a serial killer with grisly trophies (but you know I totally would be on Criminal Minds). I just love to make stocks. I therefore have LABELLED ziploc freezer bags of chicken and beef bones and very occasionally fish bones and crustacean shells (shrimp and lobster mostly). Now to these animal parts one must add vegetables. Do you have wilted celery? Put it in the freezer. When you cut off the tops of the onion, put it, skin and all into the freezer, more garlic than you can use all at one time? It freezes beautifully. Very pungent vegetables, like broccoli or asparagus get frozen in separate bags also LABELLED for use in what I call the "Great Green Soup" (featured elsewhere on the site, keyword green soup).

* Make a meal of them. If you find yourself, late in the week with a bevy of quickly aging produce, make fajitas or stir-fry or even a casserole or two. Cook finely shredded carrots into a tomato sauce, chop zucchini into zucchini bread, roast an entire pan of assorted vegetables with sea salt and olive oil.

* Make a rescue attempt. Sad, wilted greens can be briefly revived using the scientific principle of turgor pressure. Basically those lettuce leaves have dried out in your refrigerator. Give them a brief rinse and set them stalks down in a large container of ice water that you have dosed with a liberal slug of white vinegar. They will be perky and presentable in 20 minutes or less. Then spin dry or pat dry the leaves and serve yourself a great big salad that night.

* Make compost. Sometimes despite our best efforts, stuff goes bad. Return it to the earth by starting a simple compost pile. I had one on my balcony that was completely contained in a large rubbermaid tote. Besides vegetable matter I added egg shells and coffee grounds, plant clippings, shredded newspapers, paper towels, grass cuttings and the like. I was rewarded with dark rich compost for my container garden. You can also google search for how to start your own "vermiculture" composter (worms) and something intriguing I read about called a "bokashi" bucket.

Vegetables are cheap and abundant this time of year, so take advantage and buy up your summer favorites. This summer I am going to be investigating some home canning options, (yay strawberry jam!) and maybe even parching my own sweet corn. Wish me luck and I will keep you posted.