The $0 Grocery Week! ~ Thursday ~

Confession time Thrifties!

I purchased fruit today and my husband bought milk yesterday. Had I been better prepared I would have bought lots of that sort of thing before the series, but I am not a well-prepared person, which makes this blog more organic, no?

Lesson learned for you though! Before your very own $0 grocery week, buy lots of fruit, veggies, and milk (not over and above your grocery money for that week though, or else it defeats the purpose). I don't believe that health should ever be sacrificed for the sake of frugality. Let Honey Boo Boo's family be a lesson to you! 

~ Day 4: Thursday ~

Easy Stroganoff day!  

This is one of my favourite easy meals for my $0 and regular weeks.

The basic Easy Stroganoff is based on just three ingredients:

(you may need to double or triple for larger families, but this recipe makes a decent amount)
 

1 can Cream of mushroom soup
1 cup Milk
1/2 cup Sour cream/ Plain yogurt (or a mix of both if you don't have much of either)

The measurement for the yogurt is approximate. I usually taste and add more. It all depends on your preference to taste the sharpness more, or the mushroom soup more. I probably use closer to a cup of the yogurt/sour cream because I like the sharp flavour)

In a pinch you could probably use water instead of milk too, since you can when making the soup, it just won't be as creamy.

Whisk these three together and from here it is all options!

You can: 

Put in a slow cooker for the day with raw chicken or beef (even ground beef is very good)

Cook stovetop for about 10 minutes with leftover meat. (Canned tuna or salmon will also work for a tuna helper style meal)

And as always, add any vegetables you want. At the bare minimum I usually add onion (green or regular) and celery. You can also add canned corn, peas, green beans, etc. It is also pretty good with lentils.

Traditionally you would serve over egg noodles, but since most people don't have these on the shelf, it is fine over any pasta and also good on rice or baked potatoes.

For myself I almost never use egg noodles because I try to stick to healthier carbs like whole wheat pasta or brown/wild rice.

In contradiction to my healthy noodles, I like to top with a sprinkle of cheese. :) mmm... cheese.

On this particular day, I had leftover stroganoff in my freezer already (made from leftover pot roast), along with leftover pasta. So I decided to try something new. I beat an egg and tossed the pasta in it. Then I pressed into a greased baking dish as a crust and baked for 5-10 minutes at 400. I reduced the heat to 350 and added the stroganoff to the middle. Then I baked for another 15-20 minutes.



  It turned out not bad. The noodles in the bottom were a little softer than I would have liked, but that is true of most casseroles. I am just particularly fussy in that department.

At any rate, enjoy your "custom" stroganoff! 

I would like to advocate at this time about the benefits of hoarding cream of mushroom soup. Whenever it goes on sale for $0.50 per can or less, I usually buy a flat of it. It can be a lifesaver when you don't know what to make. I have gotten it for as little as $0.06 per can when I combined a coupon with the sale price, and it keeps for a long long time.

I would also like to say hello to my German readers! I wasn't expecting to see you here, and I hope you do not cast me aside after my thrifty attempt at one of your favourite dishes! Stroganoff is Russian but I understand it is very popular in Germany as well. My apologies if I have butchered it! 

Get ready for Day 5!
 

The $0 Grocery Week ~ Lunch ~

Good afternoon Thrifties!

Welcome to days 3.5 of the frugal eating series.

Day 3.5 is so named because it is very similar to day 3, which was mystery soup day. 

Day 3.5 ~ a Lunch for any day

The soup I created on this day was actually leftovers of a previous mystery soup day - later named taco soup. It all began with an experiment with eggplant. I always like to try new veggies at the grocery store and on this particular occasion I came home with an eggplant.

For those who have never cooked with eggplant, it is the tasteless sponge of vegetables. I tried roasting it with olive oil but the eggplant just drank it all and stored it like a camel. Needless to say the result of my roasted eggplant was nothing like the zucchini style sticks that I thought it would be. It was just warm sogginess.

Next I decided to cube the eggplant and toss it into my taco soup. Mistake #2.
It became extremely swollen and disgusting. The soup itself was actually quite good, and my husband liked it. But I had serious texture issues that I just couldn't get past, and so the extra soup languished in my freezer. 

This leads us to Day 3.5! I am never one to waste food and I couldn't bring myself to call it a loss and just throw out the soup. I also have too healthy a conscience to send it to work with my hubby every day when I won't eat it myself.

Bring on the blender!

I tossed the offensive soup into the blender to make a taco flavoured puree.



Next I poured into the mini slow-cooker with some small bits of stewing beef (seen on Day 3 in my pile of leftovers.)

 










I also added half of the squash seen on Day 3 and some black beans. 

I forgot to take pictures of the finished product but after cooking overnight the beef was tender and the result was one of the better soups that I have made. I called it Taco Chowder and I would make it again on purpose!

For anyone wondering, the original soup was some leftover spaghetti meat sauce, beef stock, extra veggies and some chick peas (as far as I can remember.)

I forgot to mention on Day 3 as well, that I have never used leftover spaghetti squash in my soup before but I am a fan! In the first soup it separated nicely into pieces that resembled noodles, so there was no need to add pasta or rice to beef it up. Spaghetti squash is also fairly cheap and extremely filling. Fantastic for anyone avoiding carbs.

~ Disclaimer: I am not a professional photographer. The pictures taken are a sad representation of what my food looks like. I promise that in real life, these meals look more edible! ~

Bring on day 4!

The $0 Grocery Week! ~ Wednesday ~

Welcome Thrifties to part 2 of my $0 grocery week!

It has been longer than I meant it to be... I know, I'm the worst.

Let me first begin with a confession. 

Monday's Chinook defrosted a few more of my "outside freezer" meals than I had hoped that it would. So in all honesty it was kind of a poor week for this challenge because the weather was out to get me. I ended up eating the fruits of my labour on previous occasions for most of the rest of the week. 

I have a solution however! I will continue in the spirit of the challenge until I have actually scrounged a full seven days of mains.

~ Day 3: Wednesday ~

Wednesday I had more food than I could handle! I had to cook many a defrosted dish (okay..3) in addition to the cleverly scrounged meal that I had already committed to for this series:

Freezer Mystery Soup! (Later named "Creamy Tomato" for appeal purposes)

When I had first read this idea in Amy Dacyczyn's The Tightwad Gazette, I will admit; I was horrified. The idea of pulling random leftovers from the freezer into a soup goulash didn't have much promise, flavour wise, to me. However thriftiness won out, AND she had promised that this method yielded some surprisingly good combos.

~ Rabbit Trail ~

 The key to having a great $0 grocery week, and eliminating waste, is really to freeze your leftovers right away. I am not as religious about this as I really should be, but I kick myself regularly for throwing out food that I should have just frozen. 

Amy D. advocates for freezing things immediately, but I try to give myself a one to two day window to eat as much as we can for lunches etc. For people with larger families, it may work better to freeze immediately because there is probably not as much left after one serving. Since my house is just me and my husband, freezing larger dishes after one use would fill my freezer almost instantly! So I usually try and get things into a small re-usable container before freezing. 

(This is probably also my problem, because then I forget about things entirely sometimes.)

~ End Rabbit Trail ~

On to the soup!

Step 1.)  Open your freezer(s) and have a good look around. I usually empty the entire thing onto my counter, but I only have the little one in my fridge. Pull out any leftovers that can be incorporated into a soup - be imaginative! You will also need chicken or beef stock. If you don't have any homemade stock, I usually add some bouillon and enough water to just cover the rest of the Clearly a lasagna is not ideal, but do not be picky beyond reason.

Here are the ingredients for my freezer soup:

We have some beef stewing meat, cottage cheese (I over-bought for perogies once, thus the whole container), homemade salsa, half can of cream of mushroom, spaghetti squash, spaghetti meat sauce, lemon butter sauce w/almonds (leftover from fish.)




After the picture I decided to use the beef for something else, and I added the leftover seafood spaghetti sauce from Monday. (This time my husband was actually tricked into eating the mussels...mua ha ha) Also not pictured is the chicken stock which was my base.

Step 2.) Everything goes into the slow cooker on low overnight.

Step 3.) In the morning I added milk to make it creamier (complementing the cottage cheese.)

 I also added some frozen shrimp to give it a little more heartiness (My husband and I are big omnivores! I very rarely have a meatless lunch or dinner. If your family has a tolerance for vegetarian dishes, so much the better for your food budget!) 

This is where you taste and tweak! Try the soup and add to it as necessary. Salt, frozen veggies, and assorted spices to taste. Onion powder and garlic are a good helper for soups that need a little something extra. Soy sauce is a great addition to beef based soups. It can also help out an overly weak beef stock. I also usually add more fresh veggies at Step 2, but this time I had enough in my leftovers.

At this point you would also add any leftover pasta. It is important only to cook noodles long enough to reheat them. Do not add them as the beginning as they turn into disgusting mushiness. Clearly I tried this one time thinking it would not be that bad. It was. Don't do it.

And voila! Creamy tomato soup. 

Do not be afraid of mixing pretty much anything as long as the flavours could conceivably go together. I say "conceivably" to push the limits for the faint of heart! Between all of my leftovers I have a soup with traces of beef, chicken, mussels, shrimp, and almonds. Not to mention lemon (fish sauce), lime (salsa), cilantro (salsa), and mushroom (mushroom soup)! AND it did turn out very well!

I also made another small soup with leftover taco soup, which will be my next post! This was something that I left out because I didn't think it would go, but who knows! Maybe I should have let it be!

I can honestly say that beyond my soggy noodle soup, I have enjoyed the results of this mystery dish every time! Even the soggy noodle soup actually tasted quite good, I just have some long-standing texture issues. Other people told me that they enjoyed it.

So go ahead! Take out those leftovers and hide the process from your family! It will be very satisfying.

Stay tuned for day 3.5 ( a similar adventure with taco soup that I won't cheat by calling day 4.)

The $0 Grocery Week! ~Monday/Tuesday~

Hello, dear Thrifties!

Once in a while I like to challenge myself to a week of no grocery shopping. This serves as dual purpose because I can empty my tiny fridge freezer and save money! I did start this week on Monday with the intention of sharing every day, but here I am half a week behind! We will start from the beginning anyways. I also am mostly just going to be sharing the mains, because my husband and I have cereal for pretty much every breakfast and last night's leftovers for lunch.

Day 1: Monday

Seafood Spaghetti! I used a can of pasta sauce and a small baggie of homemade from the freezer. I pretty much always make my own pasta sauce because it is so simple and I like to "vegetize" it more than the canned version. However, I got some cans on clearance a little while ago.

~ Rabbit Trail ~

 When making my own spaghetti sauce I usually buy from Costco one giant can of diced tomatoes and one giant can of tomato sauce (they both go for about 3.50-3.99 each at Costco). I empty them both into my slow cooker with diced onion, celery, and carrots. I add a tbsp or two of diced canned garlic, and a few other spices. Pasta sauce is not all that picky for spices. Sometime I use my "Italiano" blend which is a mix of peppers mostly and sometimes just basil or oregano. Just whatever I have on hand and can find! I've used Clubhouse "Parmesan and Herb" for a cheesier version which was quite nice. Naturally the Clubhouse blends were gifts, as I am too cheap to buy such things! :p 

Once the sauce is cooked (veggies are soft) I cool and separate into various sizes of baggies and containers. Some are large enough for full meals of spaghetti etc., but I also make little portions for pizza. I use the same sauce for my pizza (carrots and all!) and it is just fine. Amongst the other toppings, the extra veg is not really noteworthy, and I actually quite like it as it makes for a more substantial pizza.

 ~ End Rabbit Trail ~

I combined the pasta sauces with the remnants of a bag of "Seafood Medley" that was in my freezer. Unfortunately my husband does not especially like mussels, and that was mostly what had sank to the bottom of the bag. Too bad for him. 

I had meant for this to be a red wine seafood spaghetti but when I looked for the leftover wine I realized that my husband must have drank it. I still had some cooking sherry in my cupboard, so I used this instead. If you do not have any alcohol remnants, some balsamic vinegar can substitute, but be careful as to how much you add! Pretty much any alcohol will work though, beyond overly sweet flavoured ones.

Serve over noodles and voila! In my version I carefully topped with lots of parmesan petals in order to cleverly disguise all of the mussels. (Yes, he still noticed that the seafood mix was "somehow just mussels now")

Decent substitutes to the seafood medley would be shrimp or chicken. A can of tuna would also work in a pinch or leftover potroast. Pretty much anything could go in a tomato wine sauce.

No alcohol? No leftover meat? You could also try making "Eggs in purgatory". Just drop the eggs into the hot pasta sauce and cook until they are firm. The pasta sauce keeps them pretty much in place. This makes for a surprisingly heavy meal I have to say. You can also beat the egg first and add to the sauce slowly so that the egg is throughout the sauce in pieces.

Monday also saw a Chinook roll in. All of a sudden my "outside freezer" was just a chest of food on my porch. Unfortunately this meant that ....

Day 2: Tuesday

Was leftover-appies-from-New-Years night! I had three defrosting boxes of breaded appies on my hands. So this was dinner. I understand that this is a cheat. Give yourself a pat on the back and pull out that frozen pizza or KD!

Tune in tomorrow for Wednesday: Freezer clean out challenge!

Lazy Sunday

Hi Thrifties!

Yesterday I took another trip to GoodWill for some second-hand retail therapy and I came back with another great find! I got a brand new stick blender with three attachments and a swiveling head for only $8.99 still in the box! I also got a copy of Phil Edmonston's 2010-2011 Lemon-Aid used car buying guide for $2.99 (less than the cost of the app!) This was a great find because my husband and I are still surviving on just one tiny hatchback, which will not work forever. I brought home a game for my husband as well, which he was very pleased with. Games and toys are some of the best priced items at GoodWill. I find occasionally that their ladies clothing can be over-priced for being used, especially considering the great prices you can find at Winners on new merchandise! It does not however, come close to the ridiculous prices of the un-named thrift store (rhymes with Balue Billage.)

I should learn to stay out of GoodWill once in a while, or I will fill my kitchen with nifty accessories and my living space with books!

I have started making my own tea lattes at home now. I developed a teeny tiny Starbucks addiction over Christmas with all of their great specialty lattes and I just can't stomach the price! I can now make something for myself that I like much better, and it is easier to wait until I get home! 

I make a strong tea by boiling either a chai or other spiced tea for a few minutes in the kettle (I actually boil with the bag in for a stronger tea rather than just steeping.) Then I make a sweet whipped cream with honey and vanilla (or vanilla vodka, yum!) Next I microwave a mug of about 1/4 cream and 1/4 milk (1% or skim) until hot. Mix in some honey and fill the rest of the mug with tea. Top with my whipped cream and enjoy! 

I understand that this is not a light beverage and probably not a true latte either, but it does taste similar and somehow better than the $4.00+ Starbucks delight.

Frugal on!

Weekend Fun

Happy Saturday Thrifties! 

In GoodWill news I purchased a full size food processor for $9.99 this week. Very pleased! My mini was only really useful for one ingredient at a time. (This was more than I would like to have spent, but it was a good design and I don't often see them.)

Also my husband broke the handle off of my GoodWill ice cream maker... which reminds me why I shop thrift again, because he just loooves to break kitchen usefulls.

I was looking into re-uses for Keurig K-cups and it didn't take long to find out that you can re-use them! I'm sure other people are well aware of this fact, but being that there is a hole in the bottom of the cup after one use, I assumed that this is why you buy the "My K-cups". Turns out these were a waste of my money as they take a while to switch the mechanics from regular to "My" K-cups and you can just as easily save and fill the used plastic cups! I won't clog up the blogsphere with directions but if you search "re-use K-cups" there are a lot of results with pics and directions. (I've linked to one of my favourites!)

I had originally balked at the idea of a single serve coffee brewer because it goes against everything I am about as a tightwad. However when I realized I could purchase the single-serve brewer as my husband's Christmas present, or watch him get a drive-thru coffee every morning when he was too late getting up to make a regular pot, the savings do make sense. $0.50 per pod (on sale) vs. $3.00 per cup (approx. Because he also doesn't often get a regular coffee, he buys a mocha usually once he is there.)  I also did my research and settled on a Keurig because it does not use the barcode system and therefore you can use your own coffee. I did skimp a little on the purchase as I bought an "Oster" brand Keurig. It is still endorsed by Keurig and has their logo splashed all over it, and for the most part all the mechanics are the same.

I am currently conducting and experiment to reuse the coffee from the K-cups (what I had been searching for originally). I have opened each one and emptied into a plastic baggie which goes back into the freezer for the next cup. Once I have enough, I am going to make a traditional pot of coffee using the pre-brewed grounds. I imagine I am going to have to use less water or the coffee will be weak, but I will keep you posted. My little brain just can't believe that a quick run through my brewer actually uses up all of the coffee goodness in those little cups.

Until next time.....

Sunshine & Snow

Bonjour Thrifties! 

Last night I decided to be a "sweet genious" and make my own ice cream. I am happy to report that my $4.99 Goodwill ice cream maker did the job well. Before you get too jealous, be informed that it is the plastic hand crank style, the fully mechanical version was available at the un-named expensive "thrift store" (rhymes with Malue Millage) for $14.99 but I chose to leave it behind. Unfortunately I left the ice cream outside all night in the frigid temperatures and have yet to try and remove the paddle from the middle of the pot. Luckily the lid still pops off, so maybe I can just eat my way to it.

In other news, my kitchen looks like a war zone. It was almost clean last night when the sweet geniousness struck me. Back to square one.

In my internet travels I have come across a very fun site that nicely promotes the debt free lifestyle via modest living:

www.mobilehomeliving.org/2012/06/devine-double-wide.html

The "Divine Double Wide" in particular is a gorgeous reno of a mobile home. I came across this site after having seen a mobile in my local online classifieds for about 30k. Its half way through a reno already, the half where they rip everything out unfortunately, but the potential to buy a home with cash has just opened up a whole new world to me!

I know that there is much debate over whether it is ever worth it to renovate a mobile home, but to live debt free and save money that would otherwise go to a mortgage, does provide value in itself. I am prematurely obsessed with saving for retirement, so naturally this kind of thing appeals to me.

We also do not live in an area where you can buy a gorgeous new build with 5 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms for $120,000. Propery Virgins, I hate you. (The TV show, not as a class of people)

Do any of you live in mobiles and love it?

Resuming the thrift!

Good day all!

I have to confess that I had fallen off the bandwagon of couponing sometime in our move. Now that I want to get back into the swing, I feel like I am learning it all over again! I have no idea where to start in this new place. Particularly since my recycle bins here are monitored, as I mentioned before. 

What's a girl to do??  I am hoping that maybe some of my fellow small-towners can help. Post if you have a deep dark coupon infested secret! 

So far I am going to have to resort to hitting up all of the local supermarkets. I have had limited success perusing the aisles of Safeway in particular. (Not where I come back to use them though!) But I have been fore-warned that there are not many to be had here. The only newspaper here that carries the sale circulars is a paid paper, which to me negates almost any savings that I would earn, particularly if I wanted more than one circular.... which of course I DO! 

I am also confronted with the dilemma that I know a lot more people here than in my last city AND it is about 1/10th of the size. I used to boldly peruse every aisle in a number of supermarkets and leave without making a purchase while safely wrapped in the blanket of anonymity! I could let my freak flag fly and never see these people again! I was one with the homeless people and their handy trash picking sticks! I trash-picked my own trash-picking stick!

C'est la vie, and now its over.

The only benefit I have encountered thus far, is that even the homeless people (if there are any), are too snobby to shop at Goodwill. I have no such morals.

Life Changes

Good Afternoon Thrifties!

I have left a large void in the blogsphere after only two little posts this summer! My husband and I have relocated to a much smaller city where recycle centers are monitored. What is my world coming too?

After a short stint at an unfulfilling job, life has landed me on the couch. Thankfully I have only been unemployed since just before the holidays so I have an excuse for my lack of productivity. I have decided to go the road less traveled and become an entrepreneur. I guess you could call it a New Year's resolution. Good thing I've been honing my craft as a frugalista because I just waved my income bye bye!