Food prices have gone up while the selection of Manager Specials, marked-down food items, coupon availability have all gone down. The selection of available food was down. Yeast hardly existed. Rain checks are no longer being issued by grocery stores. The senior citizen discounts have been permanently discontinued. Double coupons are extinct as well.
Because grocery stores were considered “essential” operations during the pandemic, they remained open. The days of lingering and strolling looking for deals were now gone. Online grocery ordering with pick-up or delivery replaced the in-store bargain experience. The hunt for bargains was replaced with a “get-in and get- out quickly” mentality.
During the shut-down, there was little in the way of “entertainment” during the pandemic. I watched one too many you-tube videos on extreme food budgets to pass the time.
You know the ones. How to spend $10 at Walmart and eat for 5 days? How to spend $5 at Dollar Tree and eat for 3 days? Old Mother Frugal was consumed by the talents of these shoppers.
Could Old Mother Frugal feed two adults on $10 and for how many days?
On one food excursion, there was a hodge-podge of interesting marked down items at various stores that looked perfect for this type of challenge. Hoping to spend $10, the out- of- pocket expense was $11.11. Over budget by $1.11.
How many meals would these items feed two adults over the course of one week?
These were the items from which to create meals:
§ Bone-in chicken thighs (4)
§ Yellow Onion (1)
§ 2 lbs brown rice
§ 3 tomatoes
§ 16 oz whole mushrooms
§ 3 lbs small golden potatoes
§ Vegetable/meat tray w/complimentary ranch dressing
§ Spring mix w/spinach salad
§ ½ Gallon 1% milk (8 cups)
§ 8 oz sliced mozzarella cheese
§ Dozen large eggs
§ 2 lbs all purpose flour
Let me say that the biggest lesson that was reinforced was that families eat like this week in and week out.
This challenge was an eye-opener.
When confronted with limited funds for food, meal prep is time consuming. Why?
Literally, one factor was pre-sorting and measuring every ingredient for each meal and setting it aside to be sure there is enough ingredients to create a meal. One counts the numbers of cups in a ½ gallon of milk and the number of cups in a 2#lb sack of flour.
When confronted with limited funds for food, buying in bulk was not the answer. It became the question.
If 5# lbs of flour is bought then what is being eliminating from the meal plan menu? Maybe not as cost effective but the purchase of a 2# sack of flour from Dollar Tree works better for this week.
The pantry was used for salt and pepper, coffee and tea but mostly tea. Coffee requires milk and sugar.
There were no fruits in the meal plan that week. We did have fresh veggies, eggs and meat.
Chicken broth was made from chicken thighs. Then a 2nd pot of broth was made using only the bones and skin. The congealed fat (chicken schmaltz) was the “fat” for cooking. Not the healthiest of fats, but survival calls for doing what needs to be done to have food in one’s belly.
Vegetable broth was made from onion peels, mushroom cap peels, celery ends.
The container of Spring Mix salad contained spinach. Spinach was sorted from the Spring Mix salad greens.
No bread was bought but there was 1% mark-down milk. From that, yogurt was made. Once there was yogurt, flatbreads were made by adding TBS of flour to the yogurt.
When the week was over, here is a sampling of the meals.
BREAKFASTS:
· Non-leavened Pancakes
· Non-leavened Waffles
§ Mushroom/Spinach Crustless Quiche
§ Spinach/Mushroom Cheese Breakfast Burritos
LUNCHES and DINNERS:
§ One slice quiche leftover/Chicken Rice Soup
§ Spring Mix salad with ½ tomato and complimentary ranch dressing
§ Chicken and Rice Soup (shred chicken, carrots, celery, onion) (3 days)
§ Potato Chowder w/chicken broth (4 servings: lunch and dinner)
§ Homemade tortillas with melted cheese and ½ tomato slices
§ Homemade tortillas with sliced tomato/spinach/melted cheese.
§ Rice balls
§ One Sheet Pan Little Smokies/Potatoes/carrots/onion/tomato over rice
§ Chicken Fried Rice: one thigh/onion/carrots/broccoli stems/brown rice
§ Chicken Thigh & Mushroom caps with country gravy and potatoes
§ Chicken Thigh & Cheese Quesadillas with tomato slices
§ Chicken Thigh Crepes (1 egg) with Broccoli/Mush in white sauce and spring mix
§ Potato Chowder w/chicken broth leftovers
§ Little Smokie Hash with leftover veggies
The servings were small but sufficient. Not that feeling of “fullness”. When broth was running low, more water was added. It was an emergency plan for a week. It was exhausting. Figuratively speaking, Old Mother Frugal’s front burner was coming in hot for working parents confronted with this dilemma day after day.
Some creative cooking took place that week. Scratch cooking took on an entire new meaning as well. To get bread…first came milk from which yogurt was made…and then flour to make flatbreads. Tortillas were flour with chicken fat as the “lard”. Black pepper went far to season otherwise bland tasting meals.
For certain, necessity is the Mother of invention.
Old Mother Frugal has come out of the 2020 pandemic and is trying to resume to normalcy in 2021, only to discover things are not the same in the grocery shopping world any longer.
Food prices have gone up while the selection of Manager
Specials, marked-down food items, coupon availability have all gone down. The selection of available food was down. Yeast
hardly existed. Rain checks are no longer being issued by grocery stores. The senior citizen discounts have been permanently
discontinued. Double coupons are extinct
as well.
Because grocery stores were considered “essential”
operations during the pandemic, they remained open. The days of lingering and strolling looking
for deals were now gone. Online grocery
ordering with pick-up or delivery replaced the in-store bargain experience. The
hunt for bargains was replaced with a “get-in and get- out quickly” mentality.
During the shut-down, there was little in the way of “entertainment”
during the pandemic. I watched one too many you-tube videos on extreme food
budgets to pass the time.
You know the ones. How to spend $10 at Walmart and eat for
5 days? How to spend $5 at Dollar Tree and
eat for 3 days? Old Mother Frugal was consumed by the talents of these
shoppers.
Could Old Mother Frugal feed two adults on $10 and for
how many days?
On one food excursion, there was a hodge-podge of
interesting marked down items at various stores that looked perfect for this
type of challenge. Hoping to spend $10, the out- of- pocket expense was $11.11.
Over budget by $1.11.
How many meals would these items feed two adults over the
course of one week?
These were the items from which to create meals:
§ Bone-in
chicken thighs (4)
§ Yellow
Onion (1)
§ 2
lbs brown rice
§ 3
tomatoes
§ 16
oz whole mushrooms
§ 3
lbs small golden potatoes
§ Vegetable/meat
tray w/complimentary ranch dressing
§ Spring
mix w/spinach salad
§ ½
Gallon 1% milk (8 cups)
§ 8 oz
sliced mozzarella cheese
§ Dozen
large eggs
§ 2
lbs all purpose flour
Let me say that the biggest lesson that was reinforced was
that families eat like this week in and week out.
This challenge was an eye-opener.
When confronted with limited funds for food, meal prep is
time consuming. Why?
Literally, one factor was pre-sorting and measuring every
ingredient for each meal and setting it aside to be sure there is enough
ingredients to create a meal. One counts the numbers of cups in a ½ gallon of
milk and the number of cups in a 2#lb sack of flour.
When confronted with limited funds for food, buying in
bulk was not the answer. It became the question.
If 5# lbs of flour is bought then what is being
eliminating from the meal plan menu?
Maybe not as cost effective but the purchase of a 2# sack of flour from
Dollar Tree works better for this week.
The pantry was used for salt and pepper, coffee and tea
but mostly tea. Coffee requires milk and sugar.
There were no fruits in the meal plan that week. We did have fresh veggies, eggs and meat.
Chicken broth was made from chicken thighs. Then a 2nd
pot of broth was made using only the bones and skin. The congealed fat (chicken
schmaltz) was the “fat” for cooking. Not
the healthiest of fats, but survival calls for doing what needs to be done to
have food in one’s belly.
Vegetable
broth was made from onion peels, mushroom cap peels, celery ends.
The
container of Spring Mix salad contained spinach. Spinach was sorted from the
Spring Mix salad greens.
No
bread was bought but there was 1% mark-down milk. From that, yogurt was made. Once
there was yogurt, flatbreads were made by adding TBS of flour to the yogurt.
When the week was over, here is a sampling of the meals.
BREAKFASTS:
·
Non-leavened Pancakes
·
Non-leavened Waffles
§ Mushroom/Spinach
Crustless Quiche
§ Spinach/Mushroom
Cheese Breakfast Burritos
LUNCHES and DINNERS:
§ One
slice quiche leftover/Chicken Rice Soup
§ Spring
Mix salad with ½ tomato and complimentary ranch dressing
§ Chicken
and Rice Soup (shred chicken, carrots, celery, onion) (3 days)
§ Potato
Chowder w/chicken broth (4 servings: lunch and dinner)
§ Homemade
tortillas with melted cheese and ½ tomato slices
§ Homemade
tortillas with sliced tomato/spinach/melted cheese.
§ Rice
balls
§ One
Sheet Pan Little Smokies/Potatoes/carrots/onion/tomato over rice
§ Chicken
Fried Rice: one thigh/onion/carrots/broccoli stems/brown rice
§ Chicken
Thigh & Mushroom caps with country gravy and potatoes
§ Chicken
Thigh & Cheese Quesadillas with tomato slices
§ Chicken
Thigh Crepes (1 egg) with Broccoli/Mush in white sauce and spring mix
§ Potato
Chowder w/chicken broth leftovers
§ Little
Smokie Hash with leftover veggies
The
servings were small but sufficient. Not that feeling of “fullness”. When broth
was running low, more water was added. It was an emergency plan for a week. It
was exhausting. Figuratively speaking, Old Mother Frugal’s front burner was coming
in hot for working parents confronted with this dilemma day after day.
Some
creative cooking took place that week.
Scratch cooking took on an entire new meaning as well. To get bread…first came milk from which
yogurt was made…and then flour to make flatbreads. Tortillas were flour with chicken fat as the “lard”.
Black pepper went far to season
otherwise bland tasting meals.
For
certain, necessity is the Mother of invention.
