LAYERED SOUP

Autumn is right around the corner and it is that time of year where it is cold in the morning and warmer as the afternoon comes around.

It’s a time of year when dressing in layers is needed to fend off the morning cold at the bus stop yet peel off a sweater by lunchtime to accommodate the afternoon sun.

It seems to be the perfect time to also bring up the idea of cooking in layers. Many may be familiar with the “7-layer taco dip” appetizer especially during tailgate season. Lasagna is another table item that is cooked in layers.

Have you ever considered layered soup?

Old Mother Frugal has several varieties of layered soup.

There is the two-layer variety, the three-layer and the four-layer soup.

The two-layer soup consists of a base that starts with water in a pot. Add either cleansed vegetable peels or water with chicken bones brought to a boil and then a low simmer for about 45 minutes or 20 minutes in a pressure cooker. This is the first layer of your soup.

The next layer is a vegetable or vegetables. Season to taste with salt and pepper, garlic and onion if you have it available, and soup is ready when the vegetables are cooked to taste. Old Mother Frugal likes mushy vegetables, some like them crunchy.

For a three-layer soup, add a starch such as a noodle or rice to the liquid base. If the pantry is bare, Old Mother Frugal recommends the liquid with either the vegetable or the starch, whichever you have on hand in the pantry. If there is a bounty of both, add that third layer to your soup.

A four-layer soup includes meat. This is what could be referred to as “scrappy soup”. Scraps of meat can be used to flavor the soup. It is not a required ingredient. As each layer is added, it becomes optional, depending on the type of food you have on hand in your pantry.

Homemade soup is one of the most economical foods one can make on a tight budget. During the Great Depression, soup sometimes consisted of warmed water and stale bread with salt and pepper for seasoning. Soup had humble beginnings. Depending on your pantry, soup can be as expensive or inexpensive as you need for it to be.

SOUND THE BULGE! Today’s tip: Did you add too much liquid to your mashed potatoes and now they are runny and watery instead of thick and fluffy? Since you’ve gone this far, add additional liquid (milk or water) and rescue your mashed potatoes with cream of potato soup!  Your dinner guests will never know that you accidentally added another course to your dinner.

 

                                              HOMEMADE CHICKEN BROTH
                                                free with chicken carcass

 

 

 

VEGETABLE GUMBO MIX

free with store coupon

 

 

STUFFIN MUFFINS

Real food, it’s what many home cooks today are buzzing about. Real food, it’s what home cooks of the Great Depression were all about. It was a different time back then.

Real food of the Great Depression could be dandelion leaves from the yard. Bread was made without a bread machine with yeast, flour and water. If it went stale before the loaf was eaten, it was incorporated into soup. Nothing went wasted.

Cooking was all about using what one had on hand or what your neighbor had on hand to share. Meat bones were never used one time. Neighbors would share a meat bone to flavor water for soup.

During the Great Depression, food was portioned onto your plate. Fathers ate first. In some families, parents ate first and children ate whatever was leftover.

Dandelion leaves from the yard. In today’s terms, that would be “farm to table”. Real food dining is “farm to table”. No added preservatives or unpronounceable words on a box.

An inventory of the food in Old Mother Frugal’s pantry is a combination of “real food” and boxed items. There are ingredients to create real food and there are boxes.

How is the busy home cook to move from boxes to “real food”? After all, one of the benefits of boxed foods is the convenience factor. Are home cooks ready to exchange time and convenience for an alternative form of meal preparation?

Some hacks that Old Mother Frugal has used over the years include:

§  Making master mixes of dry goods and storing them in Ziploc type bags such as cookies/muffin mixes, cupcake/cake mixes, pancake/waffle mixes.

§  Prepare and store spice mixes for tacos; rubs for roasts in the slow cooker.

§  Make your own flavored oatmeal mix and store in Ziploc type bags.

§  Make your own rice/spaghetti and freeze.

§  Create your own pumpkin pie and apple pie spice mixtures.

Using the freezer to store prepared “real food” saves time and money. Feeding your family “real food” is possible with some advanced planning and batch cooking. They say what goes around, comes around.  Come around to real food meal planning and save time, wealth and health!

SOUND THE BUGLE! Today’s tip: Stuffin’ Muffins! Stuffing is a bread mixture that is inserted into meat. Dressing is a bread mixture that is baked in the oven as a side dish. If you have leftover corn muffins, make stuffing or dressing. It can be used in chicken breasts or pork chops. The mixture can also be “stuffed” into muffin tins and baked. The end result is stuffing that looks like a muffin but has that external crunch factor. As a bonus, it’s the perfect portion to accompany each dinner plate too!

 

BOXED FOOD VS REAL FOOD?

 

WHISK, WOOD SPOON OR MIXER

Rock, paper, scissors?

Over time, the home baker has used many tools to mix his/her ingredients for baking batches of savory or sweet treats.

Old Mother Frugal has witnessed two previous generations with the task of mixing and baking desserts.

“Grandma Frugal” was very basic. She used her hands. It was a common occurrence to see her elbow deep in flour.

My own “Mom Frugal” evolved through the years with various tools. Whisk. Wood spoon. Then there was the hand beater which was the precursor to the electric Hand Mixer. Mom was beyond excited to purchase the mother of all mixers…the standing, upright SUNBEAM Mixer. This was long before Kitchen Aide designed standing mixers for every color in the rainbow.

But Old Mother Frugal is partial to the hand-held, electric hand mixer. There is a shiny, beautiful, Cuisinart mixer with Captain Hook attachment perched in my kitchen cabinet. Yet time after time, I reach for my Betty Crocker 5-speed. Officially, it’s a BC-1205.

After decades of use, the beaters no longer hold firm around the rubber ring. Although the mixer works, the beaters fall out.

And so the search began for a replacement hand mixer, only to discover beaters are not universal to hand mixers and that companies no longer are in business to purchase replacement parts.

Where replacement parts are available, the cost is the price of a new mixer.

The hunt for a hand mixer began at the local Goodwill stores. Every Tuesday, there is an active treasure hunt. You see, on Tuesdays, Goodwill stores in my area discounts merchandise 25% for senior citizens. They also offer a “color of the week” with a 50% discount. No double dipping. On Tuesdays, you can only choose one offer.

At less than $3.00 for a hand mixer with beaters or beaters alone less than a dollar with the senior discount, through trial and error there were mixers…and beaters purchased….and there are now several complete sets.

The quest continues for a mixer using BC-1205 beaters and beaters for a Black & Decker model 4101. In the meantime, there is a variety of hand mixers now occupying the kitchen cabinet waiting for its turn at baking!

SOUND THE BUGLE! Today’s tip: Someone’s trash just may turn out to be your treasure! Scout yard sales; thrift stores and online for replacements before opting for brand new.

 

THE CASE OF THE CHAOTIC CREPES

Old Mother Frugal is forever looking at a variety of ways to recreate leftovers. The key to a successful recreation is the vehicle used to deliver the new dish.

 

Some favorite vehicles for delivery include large pasta shells, manicotti shells, tacos, tortillas, lettuce wraps and crepes.

 

When lacking a vehicle, an alternate way to recreate leftovers is to transform them into a casserole.

 

Many years ago frugal guru, Amy Dacycyn, described a casserole as a combination of any protein, any starch and any vegetable with a thick liquid to hold these three components together. The combinations are endless.

 

If you are not familiar with Amy’s work, she is worthy of a Google search!

 

Recently, the task at hand was to turn a package of mushrooms, one chicken breast and a few slices of Muenster cheese into a delicious crepe dinner for four adults.

 

The crepe recipe was experimental as it was adjusted to be gluten free. These were delicious when eaten fresh but freezing/defrosting them turned into an epic fail.

 

Once stuffed with filling and placed into a baking dish, all the crepes split. Oozing out of the sides of the crepes were mushrooms, sliced chicken strips and gooey Muenster cheese!

 

In this format, this was not a suitable dinner presentation. It was pure chaos disguised as crepes. Minutes of long glares and stares came the realization that this would convert perfectly into a casserole.

 

Remembering the definition of a casserole, all this baking dish needed was a liquid to hold the chaos together.

 

A mixture of flour, butter, milk and additional Muenster cheese slices churned into a viscous cheese sauce necessary to hold together the dinner components for a casserole. The sauce covered the crepes to hide the underlying chaos of the casserole. Topped with a few pieces of chicken, mushrooms and dried parsley, the casserole baked in the oven and the dinner rescue was complete. Phew!

 

SOUND THE BUGLE! Today’s tip: Need to find a use for those cereal crumbs at the bottle of the cereal box? Save them as a crunch topping for a casserole or as a breading for chicken tenders! They also be sprinkled on top of yogurt or ice cream.

 

 

                                        A TRAY OF FILLED CREPES

 

STACKED AND READY TO BE FROZEN

WHEY-ATE A MINUTE

Dairy and egg prices in my area, and maybe yours, have skyrocketed this year. 

Old Mother Frugal often cooks with soft cheeses such as cottage cheese and ricotta. However, an unwillingness to pay the high prices for these products sent me to the internet to find an alternative way to keep costs within my budget.

As a bonus, making my own soft cheese allows for the control of the salt content which is important for my health. Store bought ricotta and surprisingly, cottage cheese contains large amounts of sodium.

I began to notice that some grocery stores mark-down gallons of milk as their “best use by” date draws near.  To contain my costs for ricotta cheese, Old Mother Frugal waits for milk mark-downs and then prepares a cottage cheese/ricotta type of cheese.

My price point for a gallon of milk ranges between $0.99/gal to $1.49/gal. The only other ingredient needed for this product is a cup of vinegar.

Now, if you have a freezer and there is room to store a gallon of milk or two, milk can be frozen and used at a later time. If you come across a good mark-down price on milk, stock-up the freezer.  Defrosted milk can be used for drinking or cooking at a later date.

Once the cheese is made, there is an abundance of liquid remaining in the pot. This is the whey. Before you think about pouring that down the drain….whey-ate a minute! Cooled whey can be frozen into smaller one-cup portions and used in baking where milk or water is an ingredient.

Old Mother Frugal highly recommends going online and finding a recipe for homemade cottage or ricotta cheese. Don’t whey-ate an extra minute! Use homemade ricotta or cottage cheese the same way you would use either of these cheeses in any recipe. My preference is lasagna/ eggplant roll-ups or baked rigatoni.

A gallon of milk will yield 2+ cups of homemade cheese at a fraction of the cost of the store bought variety.

SOUND THE BUGLE! Today’s tip: The “best use by” date on a gallon of milk is not an expiration date. Milk can be frozen; if concerned that the gallon of milk will not be consumed by the “best used by” date, freeze the milk in 1 cup Ziploc bags for recipes at a later date that require milk as an ingredient. Adding 1 tsp of vinegar to the cup of milk will yield buttermilk in 5 minutes.

 

THE DEVIL IS IN THE DETAILS

During one of Old Mother Frugal’s excursions to the local Goodwill Store, there were several, nearly-new looking Dirt Devil vacuum cleaners on the showroom floor.

The one that caught my attention was missing the brush attachment.

For the price of $9.97, and in excellent condition, it was hard to walk away from the vacuum cleaner. A quick search online indicated a replacement part would cost about $8.00. If purchased new, this vacuum was a fraction of its original price.

After making sure it was in working order and thoughtful consideration, in short order it was in the back of my car.

I’ve been burned in the past, purchasing a previously owned appliance without all its pieces because replacement parts were either impossible to purchase or very expensive. This time, the unexpected happened before I had the chance to order the replacement part.

Several hundred miles away in another state, while at a recycling bin, I saw what looked to be a vacuum cleaner brush lying on the ground adjacent to the recycling bin. I had to adjust my Granny spectacles to view this spectacle.

The brush attachment needed for the Dirt Devil vacuum was at the tip of my toe! Excited by this discovery, I quickly snatched up my treasure, examined it and brought it home.

A brush of kindness from an unknown stranger and this free, very clean vacuum cleaner brush attachment sits on my Goodwill Dirt Devil vacuum cleaner.

 

SOUND THE BUGLE! Today’s tip:  Before I purchase a used appliance, I check its condition [clean, excellent or good]; it must work and it must have all its parts or the part can be purchased at a reasonable price. Some older “vintage” appliances parts have been discontinued making unusable your “new” older appliance.

 

                                   DIRT DEVIL FEATHERLITE BAGLESS VACUUM

 

A LABEL FABLE

Once upon a time….there were two little boys.

When they were young, they could eat Old Mother Frugal out of house and home. It didn’t matter that they started out as picky eaters; they more than made up for it in the pre-teen and teen years.

Batch cooking and freezing has been a principle of cooking for years. When the boys were home, instead of labeling meals with their recipe title, Old Mother Frugal resorted to labels that read: “DO NOT EAT”.

As they grew and moved on to homes of their own, the habit of labeling food as “DO NOT EAT” ceased and recipe titles replaced it.

Then one day, it happened. Dinner was missing.

One of Mother’s Little Helpers came home to visit and helped himself to the contents of the refrigerator. Normally, Old Mother Frugal wouldn’t have cared except he ate dinner… as a snack. Temporary amnesia must have set in as dinner did not have a label.

There is a happy ending to the story.

He didn’t eat ALL the meals in the refrigerator. Batch cooking saved the day!

Upon his next visit home, yellow Post-It notes appeared on the meals in the refrigerator. This time, each container was labeled with its recipe name.

Welcome home, little helper!

 

SOUND THE BUGLE! Today’s tip: When storing meals in a freezer, if using any glass-type container, defrost the meal in the refrigerator first and do not place it directly into the oven or microwave. You risk shattering the glass container and ruining a perfectly delicious meal. Recycle old newspapers or aluminum foil to wrap the meals to prevent freezer burn, label and store in the freezer.