Groceries 11/12/11

Had the great fun of dividing up and freezing veggies from the store so that they don't go bad before I get around to cooking with them.

For stir-fry (chow-mein)

 1.5 pounds of bean sprouts from the Asian market.  $.89 per pound =  $1.33 unexplained but awesome customer discount $.07.  Bag, label and freeze in four portions $.32 per meal.

 Just under 1 pound of snow peas, $2.57.  Markdown $.55 = $2.02.  $.50 per meal.  Snap off tips divide in four portions bag and label.

 2 medium carrots, peel and cut off tips.  Using previous figures about $.20.  Will be portioned into 4 so about $.5 per meal.    Half then slice down the middle so that they lie flat.





Slice Carrots thinly then chop up into
smaller pieces.  Add to bags of snow peas.





Cut a few small slices of onion
for each bag and  toss in freezer for variation add a few slices of bell pepper, green beans or broccoli too.  I like to keep the peas/carrots/onion mix for using with noodles to make more like a chow mein and to use more veg for true stir fry over rice.

 On to veg for pot pie and fried rice.  (I know culture crash of a mix)

rice

Cut a large carrot in half and cut up to be put in the food choppie dealie.  We are going to use bigger pieces for the pie and smaller pieces for the rice.


 

pie

Cut up maybe a 1/4 of a large onion into thin slices and chop into a large dice.


Toss carrots, onions and some frozen peas into the baggies, label, date and freeze.

Side note, chicken broth:


Remember that chicken broth we put in the fridge from the boiled chicken?

Here's why:  That lovely film on top in the container there is all the fat in the broth that has risen to the top.  You can now just skim it off the top with a spoon throw it out and then portion and freeze your broth.  I do it in (guess what?) ziploc baggies, labeled with the amount I do most of it in 2 cup portions but also some in half cup portions as well.  You want to pay attention that when you lay them out to freeze to place them flat in the freezer, like so :


So that when they are frozen solid you can store them vertically in the freezer door like these marinara sauces I have here.  Also especially with the smaller portions you can whack it against the countertop to divide it easily into smaller portions with out having to defrost.

Cottage? pie 11/9/11

ooo tasty

We love Shepard's pie and one of the perks of living in the "'hood, 'hood" of Jackson was that we were apparently the only people who ate lamb so it was frequently on manager's special for super cheap.  I haven't noticed lamb, but I haven't really searched it out since we moved but I keep finding ground beef and ground turkey super cheap and am always looking for new ways to use it.  So I came up with my own little recipe that I guess is more related to a Cottage pie than a Shepard's pie.

Turkey and beef

Food chopper dealie

I mix ground turkey and beef together to create my mince.  And being totally lazy I chop the heck out of the veg with the little food chopper dealie rather than grate.  I am really bad with graters.  My meat portions are really weird but that's because when I buy meat I will for example buy a 3.5lb pack of ground beef and then I will freeze that into 4 sometimes 5 portions, which I freeze and then will usually use half of to combine with a similarly treated portion of ground turkey.  Now I'm not a math whiz but here are my calculations

6oz Ground beef                 paid $2.39/lb                         $.90

5oz ground turkey               paid $1.49/lb                         $.37

1 large carrots (peeled)     paid $.99/lb                           $.16

1/2 medium onion                paid $.79/lb                          $.20

4-5 small potatoes              paid $1.99 for 10lbs             $.30

appx 1 cup milk                   paid $2.79/gal                       $.17

1 egg yolk                              paid $1.29/dz                         $.11

2 tbsp butter                         paid $1.99/lb                          $.06

3 tbsp Parmesan cheese  paid $2.39 for 8oz                 $.20

Now I didn't factor the garlic, salt and pepper, tomato paste and Worcestershire sauce because I didn't have the amount I paid or consider the amount used really negligible.  But for all the main ingredients that makes it $2.47 for the meal. 

Totally awesome with it is french bread, which I have taken to making my self.

3 cups all purpose flour       paid $1.59 for 5/lb            $.22

1 packet active dry yeast      paid $.79 for 3 packs       $. 26

1 egg white                              paid $1.29/dz                    $.11

The water is obviously free, the salt, sugar and oil tiny amounts, so I didn't factor that all in.  So that is $.59 for the recipe.  But I divide it in to two baguette sized loafs (other wise I carb overload) so $.29 per loaf.  Even better is that if you make these at the same time you can split the egg so count the white as free making it $.48 cents for both or $.24 cents for one loaf.  Not a bad deal there.  

Whole chicken 11/8/11

perdue.com 

Every time I buy a whole chicken I have lovely visions of a beautiful roast chicken straight out of the oven or even better off the grill, but I am cheap and grill-less so I boil the suckers most often instead.  It works out much better in the long run because instead of having, 'dinner and leftovers for sandwiches or whatever' I have pre-planned meals out of it.

My boiled chicken (not lovely)

Today's chicken weighed 4.52lbs and I paid 85¢/lb bringing the little bugger in at $3.84.  (The fact that this is the regular price at Aldi makes me so happy).  By boiling I created meat for 4.5 dinners and 1 lunch for the two of us.  That makes it roughly 70¢/meal or 35¢/person.  Plus nearly 16 cups of broth. Equivalent of about 9 cans of broth.  

ooo thrifty

Lunch: Chicken salad sandwiches (in the Tupperware)


Dinners: (freezer ready in labeled and dated Ziplocs)

• Stir-fry
• Fried Rice
• Pot Pie
• Tacos

Still wondering about that half? (in the metal bowl)


Super easy meal of orange chicken, orange shrimp and rice, using wok sauce from the store.  

Beginning

I've decided to start up a blog about cooking and doing other stuff cheaply in part as a challenge to myself to be fully aware of what I am doing.  I tend to create meals that I can never recreate or to forget how I did things last time to make it work out so well, so if I have to tend to the blog then I have a central gathering place for one time good ideas. And if anyone should happen to be interested or benefit then more power to them.  I also am going to try to tie in things that I post on Associated Content here such as recipes and the like.  So as to get in the spirit of linking things and the like.

So welcome and I hope someone out there finds this interesting if nothing else.