Sunday, October 7, 2012

Brag to Your Friends

In the theme of my money-saving posts this week, I am going to show you another thing I have started doing to save cash when I cook: I make my own chicken/vegetable broth. I tend to just call it "scrap" broth because it's made from all the vegetable and chicken scraps that I save over a period of time. Basically, I don't ever buy the sodium-rich broth from stores anymore, I find a use for my scraps before I just toss them, and I get to brag about how that makes me a gourmand. Gourmand?

About how that makes me all gourmet and stuff.

This is actually a SUPER easy thing to do, you already have the stuff for it anyway, and it's great especially in the Fall when soup season begins.

Basically, the starting point is a plastic baggie in your freezer where you will start placing all your leftover scraps. My scraps usually consist of things like leftover chicken bones from roasting, corn cobs, bell pepper tops, onion peels, broccoli stems, carrot and bean ends, celery stalks, potato peels, squash ends. Pretty much any vegetable is usable.

I save up my scraps in my freezer until I have two baggies like this:


When you're ready to make some broth, empty your two baggies into a large pot and add enough water to cover, plus about a half inch more. What I like to do next is add a few of my favorite herbs like rosemary, sage, and thyme. Set the heat on your stove to medium-low and let the pot simmer for about an hour and a half.


When your broth is done simmering, take a slotted spoon and remove all the large scraps. I like to put them into a plastic bag before putting them into the trash to help control the smell.



Next, get a measuring cup and a small strainer. You'll strain the broth into a measuring cup (it's easier to pour into a storage container) and then place the storage container in the fridge. Let the broth sit overnight.


Letting your broth sit overnight allows any remaining fat or fine herb particles to solidify on the surface so it can be removed before freezing. The next day, you'll restrain the broth back into a measuring cup to remove all the extras. Then, pour the broth into either ice trays or muffin trays to go into the freezer.


TAKE NOTE of how much broth fits into your freezing trays so you know how much you have for future use. I usually let my broth freeze overnight so it's thoroughly frozen. Once it's frozen, pop the broth out of the trays and place cubes into freezer storage baggies. Mark the baggies with the quantity of broth and the date it was frozen. Use within 3 months in soups, sauces, and anything else to add healthy, virtually free flavor and nutrients!


Thursday, October 4, 2012

Menu and Shopping List

As promised, I have taken inventory of our latest trip to Aldi and decided to share the menu we based our list off of, as well as the shopping list itself and the cost of our purchase. Keeping track of where you shop and how much you spend is such an easy, yet effective, way to track prices for things you buy regularly, and it can help you get organized when it's time to head back to the store.

For the next few days and the following week our menu consists of meals that can easily be used for leftovers; we try to incorporate at least 2 or 3 of these during every 2-week period. It's just so much easier to have hot lunches that require minimal assembly, and it keeps us from having to spend extra money on sandwich meats and other lunch foods. Anything that gets leftover that we're not ready to eat right away goes into the freezer, and we save those for busy (or lazy) nights.

Here is what our menu looks like for this week and next (I'm going to include a full 2-week menu to give you an idea of a realistic, easy, affordable and delicious meal plan):

Sun: chicken-fried steak, macaroni and cheese, broccoli
Mon: burrito bowls (like at Chipotle)
Tues: BBQ pork fajitas and rice
Wed: spinach-alfredo pasta with sausage
Thur: honey-mustard chicken cutlets, leftover macaroni and cheese, honey beer bread and broccoli
Fri: lemon-dill salmon, baked potato, squash
Sat: chicken penne pasta with white wine tomato cream sauce

Sun: We're going out to dinner! (We try to plan for these meals as well)
Mon: spaghetti and meat sauce
Tues: homemade chicken-noodle soup (this makes a large batch)
Wed: leftover chicken-noodle soup
Thur: homemade chili, biscuits
Fri: cajun chicken pasta
Sat: any leftovers we haven't eaten yet

As you can see, there are some meals that are really quick and easy (like spaghetti and meat sauce) and some that are more labor-intensive, like salmon. We plan these meals around my class schedule since my classes are all at night and we try to eat dinner before I go to class instead of after, which would put us at the table at 10:00 p.m.

Now, here is a disclaimer: we had about half of the ingredients we needed for these meals before we went to Aldi, so our purchase consisted of a lot of other elements like fruits and meats for future menus. Here is what we bought! (And what it cost)


Milk
2 bags of tortilla chips (we go through these like nobody's business)
2 1/3 lbs. ground beef
1 package of 5 pork chops
1 bag of frozen chicken breasts
broccoli
yellow squash
3 small cans tomato sauce
4 roma tomatoes
1 package of strawberries
1 package of blackberries
1 bag of salad
1 avocado
unsalted butter
1 bag of onions (about 5 small ones; they freeze well)
1 bottle of dried parsley flakes (great for adding to pastas and soups!)
honey
2 boxes of white cheddar macaroni and cheese (for when we're too lazy to make the homemade version)

Our total: $45.00!

Basically, we are able to complete our menu for the next few days and the whole next week, plus we now have extra pork chops and chicken on hand--- for less than $50. While that isn't a terribly "cheap" amount compared to the extreme couponers out there, it's a big deal for us. We base our menus off of what we already have, so the extras we bought today are going to help us build our meals and save us from buying more later.

Bottom line: On average, Eric and I can eat very well (hello, we're having salmon!) for 2 weeks for about $50-60.

Like I said, check out your local discount grocery store-- you'll be amazed at how doing this can empower you to be able to eat what you want AND save your money.

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

One of THOSE Blogs

(I swear I'm not turning this into a home/cooking blog. BUT.)

Several months ago I started posting a series on how to establish and use a budget for your household, based on a living situation that roughly resembles a college student. I've been working on maintaining a fairly strict budget for over a year now, with some specific goals: I want to save enough money each month to build up a nice little savings egg, and I also want to allow myself to spend enough each month to eat well and afford little extras like coffee or a new sweater.

One of the biggest areas I've been working on to maintain my budget goals is grocery spending. Luckily for me, I live one block away from a well-known, deep discount store called Aldi. You may or may not have heard of this place, or even shopped there, but I seriously encourage you to find a location near you if this is a place you've never heard of. I can find almost everything I need at Aldi. Some things like produce and lean meats or specialty meats/fish I look for at the regular grocery store. But most other things like cheese, pasta, canned goods, butter, and milk are things I get at Aldi.

Almost every single time I check out I approach the counter thinking that I've either met or gone past my spending goal for the trip (I tend to impulsively grab multiples of things I'm purchasing since I'm there)-- and almost every single time I am literally astounded at how CHEAP my purchase is.

Eric and I are planning to go shopping this week. We have planned our meals for the remainder of this week and next week and we're going to shop for all of our ingredients. I'm going to be posting my meal plan as well as my shopping list (and the final cost). Hopefully you'll get some delicious meal ideas and some inspiration-- it IS possible to eat well and save money.

In addition, I'm planning to post a few other things that I've started doing over the last year to save money and live healthier, so be sure to come back and check out what I've got up my sleeve!