WHEN LIFE HANDS YOU TOMATOES

One of the most frugal ways to acquire food is getting it free. You’ve heard that expression, “if life hands you lemons, make lemonade”.

In my house, when life hands me tomatoes….yes, I make marinara sauce!

A friend gave me two large, very ripe tomatoes the other day and they smelled so sweet. I wanted to savor them as far as I could stretch them so I made marinara sauce.

You’d be surprised how much sauce can be made from two tomatoes. These two were extremely juicy which is why I did not want to slice and eat them. All that precious flavor would be lost on the cutting board!

A marinara sauce is a lighter tomato sauce in color and in texture as it has no meat and does not cook for hours on end. In about 30 minutes of simmer time, I had half an 8 oz jar of sauce.

So if you have a generous neighbor or friend who has a bounty of tomatoes this time of year from the garden, consider using the tomatoes for sauce. Serve over your favorite pasta or topping for chicken parmesan and savor the flavor!

MARINARA SAUCE –

Tomatoes

Pinch sugar

Salt/red pepper flakes

Oregano/basil

 

Boil water and add tomatoes until the skin breaks apart. Place them in an ice bath for a minute to cool them down. Peel. In a large measuring cup or small bowl, remove the section of seeds. Chop the remaining tomatoes. Whirl in a blender for smooth sauce or squish with clean hands for a chunky sauce.

 

 

 

 

Sauté several cloves of crushed and diced garlic in olive oil. Add the tomatoes from the blender. Season with the remaining ingredients and cook on a simmer until sauce thickens to your desired consistency. This takes about 30 minutes. The reduction can be poured into a jar and stored in the refrigerator until ready for use.

 

 

 

THE GHOST OF HUMPTY DUMPTY

 

In my weekly race against the cooking clock, I wanted to accomplish these tasks in twenty minutes. Cooks three types of beans; boil and peel eggs, make pasta salad and turkey chili.

All of the things that I needed to do were either already cooked and needed assembling or could be cooked in 12 minutes [ground turkey meat and eggs].

The hard boiled eggs would take the longest, I would start with eggs. I filled a pot with water, added my eggs and when the water boiled, I set the timer for 12 minutes for them to cook. Only a couple minutes were used off the clock.

Next, the turkey chili. The meat was browned and cooked in 10 minutes. While that was browning, the pressure cooker was cooking the first of three rounds of beans.

First round was navy beans. By starting with the lightest color bean first, I can reuse the hot water, decreasing my prep time waiting for water to come up to temperature for the next two pots of beans. Each pot of beans in the pressure cooker was going to take 5 - 6 minutes to cook. Three sets at 6 minutes each, I would have 2 minutes to spare which I used for draining and getting the next batch ready to cook. After navy beans, in went the garbanzo beans and last were the black beans.

Meat was done and drained; beans were cooking under pressure, next up to assemble was the pasta salad. Everything was cooked; it was just a matter of adding the ingredients to my 8-cup measuring cup and stir. Done, cover and into the refrigerator!  Quickly assemble the chili for the crock pot, cover and plug-in. Done.

Five minutes left on the timer. I dump the eggs into a bath of ice water to get them ready for peeling. Ten hard boiled eggs to peel and only a few minutes remaining on the timer. As I begin to crack the eggs, pieces of shell opted to remain on the eggs! NO!!!!!

Working as quickly as I could to beat the clock, I really didn’t take notice of the eggs appearance as I rushed to remove the shells. After all, I was the only one eating them this week for breakfast. Unlike an episode of a “Chopped”, plating didn’t count in this competition.

“Eggs-aspirated”, the clock won the challenge. I was “beaten” by some eggs. How ironic. Memo to self: never include hard boiled eggs in a 20-minute challenge!

SOUND THE BUGLE! Today’s tip: Menu planning is key to a successful frugal budget. Meal planning promotes using all your ingredients, eliminates waste while keeping costs down .                                                                        

 

                                            

                                                                        A Jar of Hard Boiled Eggs

                                                           Turkey Vegetable Chili

                                                                    Pasta Salad

                                                            Three Types of Beans

 

 

 

 

"JUST ESSENTIALS" JULY

A grocery challenge. It shakes up my grocery shopping so that I can appreciate my blessings.

Have I pared down my spending as far as I can go? Although, I often wonder if I can go $10 lower. As prices in dairy, citrus and meat keep rising, I haven’t found the right time to try that challenge.

Instead, I came up with a challenge to only purchase the “just essentials” this month.

My meat and health/beauty/detergent stockpile is solid so unless I see a steal of a deal, my goal is to limit my spending to the “essentials”.

Each week, those essential grocery items for me, include fruit and vegetables. They fluctuate depending on the sale.

I’m hoping to find some green peppers this month. They freeze well and are usually in abundance during the summer months.

Periodically, my staple of root vegetables depletes and that will be one focus of July. Carrots, celery, potatoes, garlic, onions are low. They have been added to the list.

We consume soup for dinner on Tuesday evenings. If I can find zucchini, fresh corn and eggplant, that would be a bonus for my soup recipes.

An assessment of my refrigerator staples indicates that the supply of butter, eggs, milk and orange juice are running low as well. They are on the list.

My list for the month is ready. It’s time to review the ads and see what’s on sale to replenish my supplies.

Who knows, maybe this will be the month that I can shave off that extra $10 from my shopping budget!

 

SOUND THE BULGE! Today’s tip: Due to droughts earlier this year in various parts of the country, fruit prices and certain meat prices have escalated. Know your prices and when you see a good deal, scoop it up! Eating vegetarian one night or having soup will help keep your weekly dinner meal price lower as well.

 

                     START WITH HOMEMADE CHICKEN OR VEGETABLE STOCK

 

                                         

 

 

                                        

                        

                          

 

 

 

 

SLIPPERY WHEN WET

"I'm Chiquita banana and I've come to say - Bananas have to ripen in a certain way”.

For those who may not recognize this, it’s the first line to a most popular jingle released by the Chiquita Banana Company almost seventy years ago.

How about Harry Belafonte’s “Day-O” song, aka “The Banana Boat” song? 

Then there is the “Yes, We Have No Bananas” song.

Just in case you thought songs about bananas were only written for a generation of baby boomers, bands such as Radiohead and singer Jack Johnson have dedicated tunes to the fruit best known for growing in the tropics.

Now, I have nothing against other fruits. There is a song about… apples. There is one by the Osmond's, “One Bad Apple”. Another song by Bobby Goldsboro was about little green apples.

Presidents of the United States of America had a song in the late 90’s about “Peaches”.  Millennial readers may remember their song “Lump”. I dare say most millennial parents remember neither.

All this to say that when I want a song with appeal, bananas will win, hands down. When wanting fruit with appeal, don’t let one bad apple spoil the whole bunch.

SOUND THE BUGLE! Today’s tip: Soft or overripe fruit can be either frozen or cooked depending on the fruit. Frozen bananas can be used in smoothies or for baked goods. Apples can be cooked down to apple sauce and frozen. Applesauce is a healthy substitute for oil in baked goods. Overripe strawberries sprinkled with sugar will yield a summer syrup for ice cream or cake.  Decrease food waste by carving out those brown spots and consuming the remaining fruit instead of tossing it into trash.

 

 

 

THE 33-MINUTE CHALLENGE

One morning, I wondered how much could be accomplished in 33 minutes.

It may appear to be an odd amount of time but that’s how long it was going to take to bake a cake. The preparation of the cake would take 3 minutes but the baking would take a good half hour. The challenge was on!

I ran upstairs to toss wet laundry in the dryer for 5 minutes. Back downstairs in the kitchen, the cake mix is prepared and into the oven. Back up a flight of stairs and toss the contents of the dryer into the laundry basket. Next, head to the back room to hang up the laundry.

Drying clothes for 5 minutes seems to be sufficient time to allow for wrinkles not to set in when hanging clothes to dry. I’m not sure why or how, but it works!

There are 21 minutes left on the timer. Time to start a meal for dinner this week!

Do I need rice this week? I think not, so I skip rice at this point and start an entrée. But if I wanted rice, I would start it now. It would take 20 minutes.

My grandmother would make for us kids her version of hot dogs. When my grandmother cooked, everything contained tomato sauce, even hot dogs. I began by peeling two potatoes and an onion. Chopped both into small cubes and tossed into olive oil with garlic to get them browning and cooking. Chop a green pepper and toss that in as well.

Meanwhile, I glance over to the counter and the pineapple needs to be cut. I tackle carving while cooking potatoes and onion with garlic. Done!

Next, red beans need to be cooked in the pressure cooker. Those will take 8 minutes and onto the stove top they go!

Grabbed a package of hot dogs from the refrigerator. It’s a real treat for me to eat those given how laden they are with sodium. I’ll only need four. While there, I reached for a jar of tomato sauce. A large tablespoons worth is all that would be needed and into the pan it went with the sliced hot dogs. Season with pepper. Cook until heated through as the timer on the oven begins to beep. Time’s up.

My 33-minutes have expired and the cake has baked to perfection. My kitchen counter has a spread of my accomplishments, minus the laundry which is hanging in the upstairs back bedroom. In a few hours, I’ll spread some frosting and coconut on the vanilla cake and have dessert for the week. Now the rest of the day is for fun!

SOUND THE BUGLE! Today’s tip: Multi-tasking condenses chores into a smaller block of time. Is laundry getting away from you? While laundry is in the machine, do another chore. You’ll find that both are done at the same time and it required no extra time on your part!

 

                                       THE 33 MINUTE CHALLENGE

 

A 9 x13 cake

One pineapple cubed

Pineapple flavored water

3 cups of cooked red beans

Grandma's Hot Dogs

 

TALE OF TWO CARDS

I have two credit cards that I use for shopping. One is for groceries, one is for everything else.

I’ve been debating whether to put every purchase on one card to simply my life.

Each card has its own advantages. One provides points, which I convert to gift cards. The other provides money, which provides dollars to my checking account.

Decisions, decisions.

I swipe my card when I purchase groceries, losing track of how much has accumulated on my account.

Admittedly, it takes awhile to accrue enough points on my grocery credit card to amass increment sums of $25 in money. With a monthly grocery/food budget of $160 for two adults, sometimes a shopping trip will amass only 15 cents towards cash rewards.

 

This week, my credit card paid my checking account $32.05!

 

With an average budget of $40 week for shopping, this deposit of $32 is almost a full week of groceries for my pantry.

I’m still trying to decide if it’s better to use one card or two. For now though, I’ve targeted my $32 and plan to spend it during a month when there are five weeks of shopping instead of four. Looking at the calendar, that is closer than I thought!

SOUND THE BUGLE! Today’s tip: Using a store loyalty card in addition to a credit/debit card that provides “rewards” can be a bonus to savings when shopping for groceries. However, comparison shopping still is Rule #1 as stores that do not offer loyalty cards can often times have better prices.

 

ONE SHELL OF A MEAL

There are fewer things more exciting to a frugal shopper than a great deal.

Several months ago, I found boxes and boxes of Pepperidge Farm Puff Pastry Shells marked down to 99 cents a box. They were a fraction of their regular price of nearly $4 a box.

These boxes contained six puff pastry shells in each box. Doing some fast short division from my parochial school days, I quickly decided that would be too good of a deal to pass up.

Featured on the box was a luscious berry dessert with whipped topping.

I bought three boxes, wishing I had room in my freezer for more. With summertime coming, those pastry shells would make a great receptacle for blueberries and strawberries.

So much for good intentions.

Instead, I had a turkey breast. I divided it into two sections. Cook once, eat twice!

One half of the breast was prepared as a glazed apricot turkey breast.

I decided to chop the other cooked half into small cubes. I went to my freezer a found a bag of mixed frozen vegetables. Meshed with a can of cream of mushroom soup, this would be the makings of a delicious turkey pot pie.

I didn’t want to heat the oven on a summer Sunday morning to make a turkey pot pie. Feeling a bit pressed for time, I didn’t want to make a pie crust either. Then I remembered my puff pastry shells in the freezer.  Instructions read: baked while frozen! I baked the shells, assembled the pot pie mixture inside the shells and covered them with the little pastry lid carved from the top of the shells.

Spending less than $5, I was able to prepare a dozen shells which were divided amongst 5 adults. Now that’s one (s)hell of a frugal meal!

SOUND THE BUGLE! Today’s tip: Jumbo pasta shells are another great vesicle for using leftovers and creating a delicious meal. Ground cooked turkey or beef with tomato sauce or chopped chicken/turkey with an Alfredo sauce and you have elegant leftovers and satisfied diners!