Recipe: My Favorite Smoothie

 My go-to breakfast is a homemade smoothie, which I started doing because I noticed that Zach and I were hardly eating any greens. (Salad can be hard to eat sometimes!) A tasty, berry-heavy drink that you can sip through a straw first thing in the morning is a pretty easy way to start the day with some nutrition, and this recipe is pretty filling. Plus, it doesn't have a million ingredients, and you can make it even in a fairly weak blender.

Recipe: Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread

Peanut-butter-honey-chia toast with kale salad = delicious breakfast!

Since Zach and I loooove our carbs, we eat toast with peanut butter and honey basically every morning. And since we want delicious, hearty homemade bread for our toast, bread-making is a weekly ritual for me. 

What I've Been Up To: January

Hiking at Cuivre River State Park on a freakishly warm day

 This has been the month of both change and stagnation, a month of breathing easier and mastering myself and feeling depressed and letting myself go. Winter is a tough season for me because it feels claustrophobic— no amount of getting outside helps with that (incidentally, this is how I feel in the middle of summer, too)— and the feeling is intensified by the pandemic. But despite this, I've been finding joy in leaning into my everyday life, cleaning and decluttering my physical space, and reading good books. And let me just say, having a president who actually 1) believes in climate change and 2) is actually doing something about it is enough to make me feel like I've dropped into some sort of alternate reality. And yet in the middle of that sensation, I feel the gap between what's being done and what needs to be done, the social justice that still needs to happen, the systems that need to be remade, and I don't celebrate long. But still, the weight of being actively sabotaged at every turn is lifted, and I feel flickerings of hope that society can make some headway.

And maybe so can I. 

Recipes This Week: Violet Foods, Fermented Garlic, Vinegar, and Herbs

This past week, I vowed to get outside and take better advantage of the plants, herbs, and "weeds" growing in our garden! Foraging from my yard gives me such a deep sense of satisfaction, especially as I'm beginning to learn the specialty and medicinal plants. We also decided to try out two separate fermented garlic recipes. Here's what we've been making…

Recipe: Lentil Loaf

Lentil loaf with sweet chili sauce, quinoa, and red sauerkraut = delicious!

(Read all the Super Frugal Grocery Challenge posts here!)

A few months ago I decided that I was going to be more intentional about using up my pantry staples, which included a ton of dried beans. I stared down the half-gallon jar of brown lentils, decided that a gallon of lentil soup just didn't sound good, and began brainstorming ways to eat these easy-to-cook legumes in other contexts.

I soon hit upon the idea of the lentil loaf, which is similar in principle and technique to a meatloaf, but with a more plant-based texture. I make a couple loaf pans at a time and we eat slices in sandwiches, crumble and fry the loaf for a meaty texture in spaghetti sauce or tacos, and even thinly slice it to top pizza. 

I learned to make lentil loaf using this recipe from The Simple Veganista, (and please check out that recipe if you want to be sure the loaf will turn out), but now I use more of a method than a recipe. This technique is great for using up leftover beans of any kind, as long as lentils make up at least 50% of the legumes to create that earthy flavor.

Easy Lentil Loaf

Supplies: 

Large pot

Loaf pans (probably could also use a cake pan)

Ingredients: 

Dry lentils (or just used canned lentils)

Oats (quick oats are best, but I use old-fashioned in a pinch)

Flour of some kind (can grind up oats to make flour, or use wheat flour)

Cooked beans, optional (I like to use refried beans)

Bread crumbs, optional

Flax seed or an egg, optional

Lots of spices (garlic powder, onion powder, cumin, smoked paprika, cayenne, liquid smoke, a splash of balsamic or apple cider vinegar, etc.)

Salt and pepper

Oil, for greasing the pans

Ketchup, barbecue sauce, sweet chili sauce, or other sauce, for topping

Cook the lentils in a big pot by bringing them to a boil with lots of water, then simmering them for about 20 minutes, until they're a bit mushy.

Uncooked lentil loaf

Drain off the water and mash the lentils with a potato masher or fork. Salt and pepper to taste. Preheat the oven to 350ºF.

Add all of the other ingredients, tasting often to make sure the flavor balance is correct. It should hold together when you press it with a spoon, but you should be able to see visible lentils.

Grease some loaf pans and pack in the mixture into them. Pour some sort of sauce over the top (sweet chili sauce and kung pao sauce are delicious!).

Place the pans in the oven and bake for 30 minutes. Check to see if the mixture seems done, and if not, continue cooking another 10-15 minutes.

Pull it out of the oven, let it cool a bit, and then slice it up. Enjoy!

~~~

Super Frugal Grocery Mini Challenge #4: Share Food

Hoping for more cucumbers to share this summer!

(Read all Super Frugal Grocery Challenge posts here!)

(This post, when I drafted it three weeks ago, was originally titled, "Have a Potluck." LOL how times change! The potluck ideal is still relevant, though— I just added some pandemic-friendly ideas, too.)

Today's challenge, should you choose to accept it: Find some way to share food with your community.

In the modern Western world, we tend to think of everything in an individual sense: how can I (and possibly my immediate nuclear family) accomplish this? Money and food are no exception, but stepping outside of that mindset a bit allows us to see a whole new host of possibilities: food, like most resources, is best (and cheapest!) when it's shared.

You all know that I positively adore potlucks. I love the random things that people bring, and the way that 90% of the time the dishes harmonize perfectly, and the other 10% everyone brings carrot sticks and popcorn and we have the weirdest meal ever. I love sitting down and talking over a meal that everyone contributed to. 

It wasn't until recently that I considered the money-saving part of a potluck, too. On the first day of our challenge we had a potluck at our house, and I threw together a simple dish of rice, collard greens, and roasted carrots with a homemade kung pao sauce. Other people brought veggie dishes, pasta, cheese and crackers, and more. My dish by itself wasn't a good full meal, but with our powers combined, it was part of a filling and wholesome dinner! Then everyone who wanted leftovers got to take some home.

If you're trying to save money on food, I encourage you to think of the ways that you can share food with other people. This can look like all sorts of things: having a "use up the dregs of the pantry" cooking party, doing a cookie/tea/baked good/casserole swap, a dinner club, or giving away the chili you've been eating five days in a row that you just don't feel like eating anymore. 

If sharing food in a communal meal isn't an option (like, I dunno, maybe there's a global pandemic going on and you're not supposed to hang out with people), there are still ways to pool resources. Dig out the canned goods in your pantry and offer to swap with someone. Bake two loaves of bread and give one away. Grow some food, find other people who are growing food, and share the extras. If you need an ingredient, put out the word among your friends and see if someone will give it to you for free (or in exchange for a value-added item, e.g. bread in exchange for flour.) See if a restaurant, catering company, or grocery store will let you take their leftovers before they hit the dumpster, and share the bounty. The possibilities are endless!

We are stronger and more resilient together, and community support is one of the best ways to maintain a frugal but abundant life. How will you share your food (or other resources) this month?

~~~

The Super Frugal Grocery Challenge, Week Three

Lentil-couscous patties with tahini sauce and foraged dandelion and purple deadnettle

(Read all Super Frugal Grocery Challenge posts here!) 

Dollar amount of food consumed this week: $42.86

Total "spent" so far: $169.47

I'll admit, I'm getting tired of this challenge.

The existential dread has really been getting to me lately, and recording how many ounces of rice I'm using for supper feels futile sometimes. The only thing that keeps me going is the thought that I'm gathering useful data for us— getting a sense of what $200 of groceries in a month actually feels like for two people. Doing it the way we have is very time-consuming and detail-oriented, so I only want to do it once. Then, in April… we'll probably keep eating just about the same, just without worrying about the details! (Oh, and Zach will start putting half and half in his coffee again.)

I'm also trying to focus on how much I'm learning. I continue to be astonished at how much stuff adds up, even with relatively few "big-ticket items" on the list— and I'm becoming convinced that the best way to save money on food is not simply being thrifty, but learning to share (look for a post about this later this week).

I asked Zach if Walmart had butter, and he sent this photo

Our goal this week was not to shop at the store too much, but we ended up buying about as much as usual, mostly because… well, we were both stressed and we didn't want to do anything to make life harder. Zach has to put his health at risk to go work at the store five times a week anyway, so the incentive to avoid buying a couple packs of tortillas and replenish our butter reserves was just not high. That said, we didn't do any major stocking up, and we didn't buy any toilet paper, so maybe that's a win?

Some random thoughts and events this week:

1. Vegan baking recipes are my new favorite. Organic butter, milk, and eggs are expensive, so I've been relying on vegan recipes which use cheaper ingredients like oil, flaxseed, and plant-based milk (I usually sub watered-down milk kefir). 

2. Anxious eating drives up the food budget. When I feel anxious, I tend to eat a lot, and this week my anxiety has generally been through the roof. I've been snacking on relatively cheap things— mostly bread and oatmeal— but that certainly adds up over time. I'm trying to work on ways to sooth myself without resorting to food.

3. Spring greens are coming up! I was so excited this week to do our first foraging: onion grass (field garlic), purple deadnettle, tender dandelion greens, red clover, and garlic mustard! (Stinging nettles, violets, and redbud leaves/flowers are coming soon.) Early spring greens are mild and delicious, giving our bodies a much-needed boost of nutrition. My kale, which survived the winter, has started putting out new growth, so I was able to make some pesto with it (using nutritional yeast instead of parmesan). Hooray for spring!

This went to feed almost thirty people!

4. Yesterday we ended up getting an unexpected windfall of food: a couple hundred pounds of leftover produce from a restaurant! I was so excited to be able to give most of it away, but we still have oranges, potatoes, cabbage, a lot of cheese, and a few tomatoes for ourselves, and I wasn't quite sure whether to consider them "bought" or to accept them as free. After some discussion, we decided to go ahead and count them as free, since this event, while unexpected, is similar to what I've experienced sometimes when volunteering at my local food pantry and getting leftovers (or harvesting from our garden during the summer). Plus, if we were in dire financial straits, I wouldn't think twice about getting food at a local food pantry— that's what they're there for!

In the meantime, here's what we've been eating this week…

Snacks and drinks: Whole-wheat flatbread with homemade hummus, leftover pancakes, cornbread, coffee, water kefir

Day 15: Peanut butter toast, leftover pasta, rice and beans (Zach) and chickpeas and rice (Lisa), burrito, quinoa with pork (gleaned from a damaged package last month).

Day 16: Peanut butter toast, pasta with pork and kale pesto from the garden, chili and cornbread, leftovers.

Day 17: Toast (Zach) and oatmeal (Lisa), leftovers, pancakes, corned beef and cabbage (a gift from our housemate) with roasted potatoes and sunchokes with pesto, zucchini bread (a gift from our neighbor).

Day 18: Rice with lentils and sweet potatoes, leftovers, rice and chickpeas, oatmeal, lentil-couscous patties with kale.

Day 19: Toast, leftovers, lentil-couscous patty wrap, oatmeal, patty wraps with foraged spring greens.

Day 20: Toast, leftovers, lentil-couscous patty wrap, oatmeal, lentil-couscous patty wraps with foraged greens.

Day 21: Toast with peanut butter (Lisa) or eggs (Zach), burrito, patty wrap, mac n' cheese with salad (leftovers/gleaned).

Stay safe and well, y'all!

~~~

How to Make Cheap Food Taste Good

Sweet potato shreds and frozen kale: drown in curry powder, fry in butter with eggs, and enjoy the awesomeness.

(Pulling this one out of the archives for my Super Frugal Grocery Challenge!)

For most of my life, I’ve eaten cheap food. Beans, pasta, rice, old bread, bulk-discount chicken breast, ground beef, sub-par vegetables, bruised fruit— all have been staple parts of my diet for as long as I can remember. Over the years, as I’ve refined my diet, I’ve learned a lot of tricks for helping make cheap food tasty as well as nourishing. For instance:

1. Stir-fries, smoothies, salads, soups, burritos, and other combination-heavy foods are your friend. Sure, a simple “American-style” dish of separate ingredients is nice, but if the green beans are freezer-burned and the potatoes were mushy even before you cooked them, they’re not going to stand alone very well on their own. You’ll do much better if they’re smothered in a sauce (see point #4) and mixed with a bunch of other elements, rather than the star of their own dish.

2. Learn to understand how food can be incorporated into a new dish. The most famous example is using stale bread to make French toast or bread pudding, but the concept applies to veggies as well. During the summer, my mom passes on damaged produce from a local stand to me and several other people, so I’m often rooting through boxes of mushy tomatoes, browning kale, or wilted carrots, all of which can be saved with proper treatment. The tomatoes, for instance, are not destined for a nice Caprese salad, but a heavily-seasoned pasta sauce. Instead of making a salad with the kale, I trim off the brown spots and freeze for smoothies, where you can’t taste it anyway. The carrots aren’t suitable for raw snacking, but I can use them to make broth or soup.

3. Invest in spices. Let’s face it: beans and rice are bland, and cheap veggies usually are too, so having a good stash of spices helps you stretch your dollars. I use ground chile, cumin, garlic, onion, paprika, and crushed red pepper (and salt and freshly-ground pepper) a lot. Spice blends like curry powder and chili powder are nice, too.

4. Learn how to make sauces. This is related to the previous point— if you have some discount veggies or a plain bowl of pasta, a sauce can make all the difference. (Right now I’m addicted to this Kung Pao sauce, which made even Zach willing to eat Brussels sprouts.) It’s also nice to have some pre-made sauces around, such as nice jarred pasta sauce, homemade vinaigrette, or Sriracha. 

5. Use aromatics and garnishes. A little garlic, onion, ginger, or crushed red pepper can go a long way in making food taste better, and garnishes such as olives, capers, and jarred roasted red peppers make anything taste classier.

6. Cook with fat. Fat is tasty. Fat keeps you full. Don’t be afraid of fat! Investing in real butter and olive oil will make your food taste a lot better. If you eat meat, you can save the lard/tallow and use it for frying or sautéing.

Do you have any tips to add to this? How do you make your cheap food taste delicious?

~~~

Recipe: How to Roast Vegetables

Many of us are familiar with the cooking advice to make a big pot roast on Sunday, and then creatively rework the meat into meals throughout the rest of the week. This is great advice, but Zach and I rarely eat meat. So what is the vegetarian equivalent of this advice?

Enter roast vegetables. Although they serve as a different part of the meal than meat (the starch/veggie rather than the protein), they have a similar function to the pot roast: make once, eat all week. Plus, I am convinced that roasting is the #1 way to cook almost all hearty vegetables (sweet potatoes, beets, broccoli, potatoes, onions, Brussels sprouts, radishes, cauliflower, butternut squash, carrots, etc.). I've often had people exclaim, "I didn't think I liked sweet potatoes, but these are delicious!" This is because a nice hot roast brings out the sugary starches in the vegetables and caramelizes them, creating a delicious taste unachievable by boiling or even frying.

How can you eat roasted vegetables? Let me count the ways…

• Mixed with a protein such as fried eggs, tofu, black beans, lentil loaf (like meatloaf but with lentils), or refried beans

• In a stir-fry with rice

• On a tortilla with cheese and refried beans

• As a side dish to fish or other main dish

• On top of pizza

• In a wrap with hummus and lettuce

• In an egg scramble or quiche

• With toasted bread cubes in a broth to create savory stuffing/dressing

• Warmed up and topping a green salad

• With any grain, such as barley, quinoa, or couscous

• Tossed with pasta, especially when white sauce is involved

• Blended with broth into a creamy soup

• Straight off the pan, because they're so tasty

• And more that I'm probably forgetting!

So without further ado, here is the basic method:

Roasted Vegetables

Supplies:

Rimmed sheet pans

Spatula

Good knife and cutting board

Large bowl

Ingredients:

Hearty vegetables (sweet potatoes, beets, broccoli, potatoes, onions, Brussels sprouts, radishes, cauliflower, butternut squash, carrots, etc.).

Oil (I use olive oil)

Salt

Pepper

Place the sheet pans in the oven and preheat it to 425ºF. (Having the pans nice and hot will help sear the veggies and make them not stick.)

If you are roasting multiple kinds of vegetables, cut them up one kind at a time, since you'll want to place them on separate parts of the pan because they will roast at different speeds.

Chop up one kind of vegetables into whatever size you like. I tend to err on the side of cubes the size of board game dice, but any size will work.

Pour the veggies into the bowl and drizzle oil over them. Add a generous sprinkle or two of salt and a few pinches/grinds of pepper. Grab the bowl by the sides and shake/toss the vegetables until they are completely coated in oil, adding more oil if necessary.

If using other kinds of vegetables, repeat with different bowls.

When the oven is preheated, use oven mitts to remove one pan at a time, and pour the vegetables onto the pan. Give the pan a good shake to evenly distribute the veggies— they can touch, but they shouldn't be piled up on top of each other. You have to give them room to sear.

Place the pans back in the oven. Check the vegetables after 15 minutes by removing a pan and poking the veggie with a knife to see if the blade slides in easily (done) or if you meet resistance (still needs to cook). Flip the pieces over with a spatula and return to the oven.

Cooking times will widely vary depending on what kind of veggie it is. Cubed potatoes can take 40 minutes, while radishes might be done in 15. If the knife easily slides into a few of the veggie pieces, they're ready to pull out.

Use immediately, or let cool and put in the fridge to enjoy all week!

~~~

Super Frugal Grocery Challenge, Week Two

Rice, lentils, red sauerkraut

(Read all Super Frugal Grocery Challenge posts here!) 

Dollar amount of food consumed this week: $46.02

Total spent so far: $126.61

Welcome to the ongoing scintillating adventures of the Super Frugal Grocery Challenge! This week we ate a lot of beans, accepted some food (a meal at Cracker Barrel, fish sticks and tater tots with a friend, and a jar of almond butter someone didn't want), but also made the call to "buy" an expensive juice concentrate from our pantry ($10.99) in order for Zach to continue making water kefir, which he drinks instead of soda.

Zach works at Walmart, so he's seen firsthand the crazy runs on the paper goods sections and the way that people continue to ravage the food aisles. With this in mind, our goal this week is to eat from our pantry as much as possible, to lessen the burden on grocery stocks right now. If everyone who was able kept a full pantry year round, the stockpiling and hoarding happening during times of supposed scarcity wouldn't be an issue. 

We know that food banks are feeling the strain right now, so we went ahead and donated the $75 we'd promised from this challenge to our local food pantry, along with some extra. This is the whole point of frugality: allowing ourselves extra cash to put toward people who are truly vulnerable in a time of economic turbulence like this.

Anyway, on to the meals!

Snacks/drinks this week: Homemade crackers, pancakes, homemade hummus, roasted chickpeas, lots of bread with honey, homemade water kefir, coffee

Day 8: Peanut butter toast, chili and cornbread, burritos (Zach) and oatmeal (me)

Day 9: Peanut butter toast, (lunch at Cracker Barrel which my parents paid for), almond butter toast, egg burritos

Day 10: Almond butter toast, leftover chili, chocolate oatmeal, burrito, egg and veggie flatbread

Day 11: Peanut butter toast (Zach) and oatmeal (me), flatbread, burrito (Zach) and dinner at a friend's house (me)

Day 12:  Peanut butter wrap/toast, flatbread, oatmeal, rice with lentils and kimchi

Day 13: Toast/oatmeal, leftovers, rice with lentils and sweet potatoes

Day 14: Toast/oatmeal, sweet potatoes and sauerkraut, leftovers, homemade pasta with white sauce

Two and a half weeks to go! In the meantime, do you have any questions for us?

~~~

Super Frugal Grocery Mini Challenge #3: Plan Ahead

Sauerkraut, pickled sunchokes, red sauerkraut, and kimchi— make once, eat all month!

(Read all Super Frugal Grocery Challenge posts here!)

Today's challenge, should you choose to accept it: Take some time to plan ahead.

When I look over my food budget for the past several months, what jumps out to me is that most of the times I spent more than usual, it was because I was unprepared.

The weather was nice and we decided to take a day trip, and I didn't have any snacks for us to bring. We were spontaneously invited over for dinner and didn't have a side dish to share. I forgot to pack snacks for Zach to take to work. We were out errand-running and got hungry in between meals. I didn't know what to make for dinner and getting pizza seemed easier. The excuses go on and on, but they boil down to one thing: a lack of planning ahead.

One of the best ways to consistently keep a budget of any kind low, but especially on the food front, is to think about what you can do now to make your meal prep easier later.

The best way to start is to think back to all the times that you were caught unprepared. What was the reason? How could you have avoided it? How can you block out time to prepare so you won't get caught off-guard again?

This will be completely different for each person, but this might look like…

• Making a meal plan at the beginning of each week so you know exactly what you're making for dinner each night

• Keeping a stash of snacks in the pantry, your purse, and/or the car

• Having meals, side dishes, or snacks in the freezer

• Growing a garden (you're never caught unawares when someone asks you to bring a salad to the barbecue!)

• Prepping a lot of grab-and-go meals on a week when you know you're going to be rushing around

• Starting a meal in the crockpot in the morning so it'll be ready in the evening

• Baking a loaf of bread

• Making sauerkraut or other preserved veggies 

• Taking snacks as well as a sandwich to work

• Roasting a big batch of veggies, cooking a bunch of beans, throwing some meat in the crockpot, and boiling a couple different grains at the beginning of the week for easy mix-n-match meals

• Removing items from the freezer to thaw the night before you need them

• Making your own fast food

• Doing the dishes so it'll be easier to cook later

• Making an extra meatloaf, lasagna, or pot of chili so you can freeze some

• Creating a grocery list rather than just going to the store and grabbing whatever looks good

• Soaking beans or grains to cook later

• Keeping a stash of granola bars in your purse

What are your favorite ways to plan ahead?

~~~