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.

                                                     

 

 

BRACING FOR S'MORE

It’s been many years since the Mother’s Little Helpers were pre-teens and teenagers. One of the most challenging experiences being “Old Mother Frugal” was raising teenagers in my frugal world.

It was not only a matter of economics that prevented them all from participating in after-school activities. It was also matter of not being able to be in three places at the same time!

One after-school activity that two of my helpers participated in was that after-school activity known as “going to the orthodontist”.

New food habits had to be formed while eliminating old foods from diets.

One of those food items off the menu were marshmallows. The youngest of Mother’s Little Helpers loved marshmallows as a child. He also loved to prank Old Mother Frugal.

One afternoon after school, little helper was left alone in the kitchen with an after-school snack. Suddenly, an inaudible phrase emitted from his vocal chords. It sounded like….

“Mom, do you think I’m allowed to eat marshmallows”? We were on different levels of the house. Since I wasn’t clear as to what was asked, it was repeated for me, yet again in the most garbled of tones.

“Do you think I’m allowed to eat marshmallows”?

Eating marshmallows? Braces?  Oh, this cannot be happening. Racing into the kitchen expecting to see a mouthful of gooey marshmallow crème affixed to silver braces, what waited for me was my prankster child with a marshmallow-less grin from ear to ear.

Humor can be a very frugal form of entertainment and one that Old Mother Frugal has em-“braced” for many years. To this day, nothing conjures up a smile as quickly as those little square white plumps of sugar and Mother’s Youngest Helper.

SOUND THE BUGLE! Today’s tip: Be frugal with calories as well as finances. When making S’mores, break or cut the marshmallow in half to reduce the amount of calories consumed when placing them between the graham crackers. The same principle can be used with the chocolate component. Replace solid chocolate candy bar with a few chocolate chips or drizzle chocolate syrup over the marshmallow. You will not miss the reduced flavors or the calories!

 

SPIRALING OUT OF CONTROL

Have you ever peered into your kitchen cabinets and thought “there has to be a better way”?

Sometimes, all that is needed is a better mousetrap.

What began as an exercise to find space for a newly purchased kitchen tool, quickly sent Old Mother Frugal into a downward spiral. Overwhelmed, this began the search for the illusive better mousetrap.

Money for closet and cabinet organizers were not options. This had to be a frugal redesign. Scattered around the house there were shoe boxes, a few baskets, CD racks and Clementine crates. Time to get to work with these hodgepodge containers.

Three piles were created. There was the pile for the recycle bin, the pile for Goodwill and the pile that needed to find a new place in the kitchen cabinet.

Tupperware and plastic containers could have a cabinet all unto themselves. Actually, they did but an afternoon of purging greatly reduced the inventory of containers without lids. Twelve aluminum pie tins went to the recycle bin with them.

Unused items warranted contacting Mother’s Little Helpers. If they had no need for the Crème Brulee torch, it was going onto the Goodwill pile in its new box with all its little ramekins.

In the end, there was room to add a 9” spiralizer to the kitchen tool shelf. Another “Mother’s Little Helper” has come to our home. And although it  does requires food, it doesn’t consume any!

SOUND THE BULGE! Today’s tip: Think outside the box by using a different type of containers as a closet organizer. Shoe boxes and Clementine crates make for sturdy and inexpensive closet organizers to corral those small items on your shelf or in your cabinet.

 

 

 

 

MISERABLE MERINGUE

In yet another tale of a frugal beginner cook, there would be that of a failed baker.

One technique that Old Mother Frugal did acquire growing up was the skill of making a pie crust from scratch.

Many bakers have their favorite tips to a successful pie crust and the continuous learner in me can still acquire a good tip here and there.

The most recent tip that came my way was before filling an unbaked pie crust, place it in the freezer for 20 minutes and the result will be a flakier pie crust! 

Until then, the only tips that had come my way for a successful pie crust were using Crisco from the blue and white can along with ice water when preparing the dough.

You might wonder, why is knowing how to make a pie crust a good frugal skill when there are a variety of frozen pie crusts readily available for purchase in the frozen food section of the grocery store.

Those do cost money and being frugal is all about using what you have on hand. In an emergency, purchased frozen pie crusts will suffice as a vehicle for your recipe. No judging here.

Pie crusts can be used for desserts as well as for dinners. With eggs, milk and leftover cubes of ham and Swiss cheese or broccoli and cheese, a quiche is a wonderful dinner or breakfast.

As a young bride, my problem was not the crust. It was the meringue. Oh, it whipped up nicely and looked amazingly wonderful as it sat atop the lemon pie filling. I placed it in the refrigerator and proudly took it out to display it for my loving, new groom to adore when it was time for dessert.

But much like the facial expression that confronted me when served boiled hamburger, lemon meringue pie was received with the same quizzical expression.

“Aren’t you supposed to bake this”?

Really? Darn. How did I miss that step in the recipe!

Quickly my new groom was realizing he did not marry Julia Child.

SOUND THE BUGLE! Today’s tip: Not every two-crust pie recipe needs to be made with two-crusts. If you are looking to cut calories [frugality takes on many roles], make a single-crust pie. For example, generously grease a pie plate and add your pie filling, such as apples. Then, cover the apple mixture with the single-crust and bake. If you like pumpkin pie but not the calories of the crust, generously grease the pie plate before adding your pumpkin pie mixture and bake

                              HAM, BROCCOLI and CHEESE QUICHE

 

GRANDMA'S DISH

One of my favorite things about family gatherings is the food. Now that Old Mother Frugal’s family is growing and adding more cooks, this brings more family recipes to our dinner table.

With family recipes come some great family stories.

I have a personal obsession with Depression-era cooking. I am in constant amazement the depth at which (mostly) mothers went through to place a meal on the kitchen table for their families. As a result, I look at dandelions as something other than a weed in the grass.

It seems every family has a dinner entrée referred to as “Grandma’s Dish”. Most “Grandma’s Dish” recipes came out of need to feed a large family during the Depression.

In Old Mother Frugal’s family, my grandmother’s dish was “Jumbutt”. It was a skillet dish of varying bell peppers, onions, potatoes and hot dogs or some type of sausage. Grandma never measured; she just counted the mouths she needed to feed and chopped accordingly.

For my daughter-in-law, that dish is aptly called “Grandma’s Dish” which is a tomato-based ground beef dish with varying spices.

At my daughter's wedding reception, she incorporated her groom’s grandmother’s favorite dishes and the family’s favorite salad dressing.

Whether it’s from Manhattan, NY or near Manhattan, KS or along the coast of Charleston, SC the legacy that grandmother’s leave to their families are the stories of family. Salute!

SOUND THE BUGLE! Today’s tip: My favorite website for Depression-era cooking is www.greatdepressioncooking.com with the late Clara Cannucciari. She was 98 years old when she passed away yet she share recipes that her mother made when Clara was a child.  These are simple yet inexpensive meals that can be applied to today’s frugal cooking.

                                                                   JUMBUTT