Holiday Food Stretching

Thanksgiving and Christmas are coming and that usually means heading to someone's home (maybe yours) and stuffing your face with loved ones. For the food insecure this often is an upsetting contrast and also a welcome reprieve from their everyday struggles. Putting food on the table every day can be a stretch, particularly this time of year when the garden can't help (if you are lucky enough to have room and time for one); getting to the cheapest store is sometimes too cold of a walk so you settle for the higher priced, but closer one; you are expected to provide some type of Christmas gifts, often extravagant ones if your Jones' are significantly better off than you are; plus you need to do it all full of spirit and cheer. I know that sometimes it is hard to ask for help, but please know that there are many people who want to help, without judgement or pity, you just have to ask.

I have put together some ideas specific to holiday meals to hopefully make this time of year a bit less stressful.

The absolute first thing is ASK FOR LEFTOVERS! I know yelling isn't nice, but seriously! You would not believe how much food gets thrown away because either the host isn't one to use leftovers, they won't fit in the refrigerator, or they don't get used up before they go bad.

Now, what to do with those leftovers? Here are my favorite ideas, in no particular order:

Turkey

• dice and freeze in sandwich size ziptop bags (about 1 pound per bag makes a nice family size meal with rice or pasta)
• use it in place of any recipe that calls for chicken
• the carcass makes fantastic stock (this post has pictures of last year's bounty: December Meal Plan and this one gives a recipe: Chicken Stock)
• shred the meat and use it to make salad with mayo, celery, carrots, hard boiled eggs, walnuts, craisins, dill pickle, and whatever else suits your fancy
• add barbecue, soy, sweet and sour, curry, or whatever other sauce or seasoning you have, turkey accepts lots of flavors really well

Ham

• dice and put in snack size ziptop bags, it only takes a little bit of ham to add a lot of flavor
• add to scrambled eggs, omelets, or frittata
• ham and beans, of course! 
• dice very small, fry until crispy and add to mashed potatoes or use to top salads

Stuffing

• I haven't tried these, but they look amazing: Bacon Stuffing Bites 
• make savory pancakes by adding a little flour, an egg, and some milk to make a chunky pancake-consistency batter, fry in oiled skillet, top with gravy or sour cream
• cut chicken breasts in half, pound them out flat (I like to put them in a gallon freezer bag so I don't pound gross chicken splatters around the kitchen), put about a half cup of stuffing on the breast and roll it up, secure with a toothpick, bake covered at 350* about 30-45 minutes (until the chicken isn't pink and/or is 165* throughout)
• use to make breakfast muffins - here is my basic recipe (Muffins), just omit the sugar, substitute the stuffing for half the flour, add some savory filler like ham, bacon, scrambled eggs, onions, etc. and use seasoned salt or poultry seasoning for the seasoning

Mashed potatoes

• latkes! (true latke aficionados will not like this at all, but that's what we call them), add about a cup of flour and 2 eggs to every 3 cups of mashed potatoes, mix, smash into patties and fry in about 1/2 inch of oil, you can add some diced onions, ham, or bacon to the patties to make them really special, serve topped with sour cream, applesauce, or a fried egg (over medium for me, please)
• breaded potato balls - (Super Food has some pictures) basically, you need very thick potatoes, if yours aren't, you can add some stuffing, flour, or shredded potatoes to thicken them, then you just form them into balls, roll in beaten egg and then bread crumbs and bake until lightly browned
• use to thicken and add creaminess to any soup

Vegetables

• we are big pot pie fans here and adding leftover vegetables (green beans, corn, carrots as long as they aren't sweet) will work great, as a matter of fact, adding green bean casserole to your pot pie recipe would be magnificent!
• vegetable soup - saute some diced onions in some olive oil, add some tomato paste, garlic, chicken, beef or vegetable bouillon and Italian seasonings and saute another 3-4 minutes, add all the leftover vegetables (even the whole casserole if that's what you have) and cover with at least a couple inches of water, bring to a simmer and adjust to taste

Yams

• sweet potato muffins are great, use the muffin recipe above
• yams will freeze, when they thaw they might release some liquid, but will still be good
• use to make sweet potato pie

Breads

• cut into about 1 inch cubes, very quickly deep fry for the best croutons you will ever have, as soon as they come out, sprinkle with either seasoned salt or cinnamon sugar
• cut into cubes, let sit uncovered overnight, then crumble by hand or in the food processor to make bread crumbs, put them in a bag in the freezer and they will keep indefinitely (can be used for making meatballs or meatloaf or lentil loaf, breading fried or baked goods, etc.)
• tear into chunks for bread pudding
• french toast

Desserts

• most desserts freeze beautifully, just make sure you wrap them well 
• pumpkin pie and be cut into cubes, rolled in sweetened breadcrumbs or coconut flakes and baked or fried, then dusted with pumpkin pie spiced sugar for little bite-sized pieces of heaven
• almost boil milk, almond milk, or soymilk in the microwave or stove, add a square of fudge or a truffle and stir well or blend in blender for super hot chocolate

I would love to hear your clever ideas for leftovers!

$100 Proof of Concept Month

I set out to prove our Thrifty Month in a real-life experiment. "Haven't you done this before?" you might rightfully ask. Well, that's a darn fine question and the truth is that I'm not terribly great at sticking with anything or following rules so we had pretty much followed it and I based the meal plan off what we actually ate one month, but I wasn't able to say with certainty that we hadn't cheated.

First, my definition of what I mean by a $100 month is that two adults and two roughly 13 year old children can eat three meals and about two snacks per day without being hungry. This is not enough to make you stuffed every day, but also isn't so little that you have to go to bed hungry. This means 120 breakfasts, 120 lunches, 120 dinners, and about 200 snacks, loosely using the following breakdown of food cost per meal:

breakfast - $5
lunch - $33
dinner - $47
snacks - $15

What I found was that I had cheated more than I thought I did and current prices had changed a bit, but, overall I claim 90% success. If you knew there was really no more food coming, you would need to eat some smaller portions some days than we did and perhaps add a few more dollars (to make up for the meals we ate out) but it would absolutely work in an emergency month.

In our case, this was not an emergency situation and we did eat out several times so a true meal count didn't happen. We had a very busy month where we were out of the house a lot for a variety of reasons and while that isn't a great excuse, it is what it is. Here is that breakdown:

• 2 Colton's (leftovers added to bean dip and muffins) - We had a fundraiser for Project Graduation one night and just went to see daddy one day. *4 dinners, 4 lunches*
• 2 hot dogs and 2 pretzels at concession stands for Kolbi and Lucille - It is really hard to sell things and not eat them... *1.5 dinners*
• 1 small pizza for Doug and Kolbi - late night munchies :-) *2 snacks*
• Volleyball banquet - We took a salsa potato side dish, but ate a whole meal *3 dinners*
• Pantry meeting at Panera for Kolbi and Lucille *1.5 lunches*
• Big kids ate at Culver's for Student Council fundraiser *2 dinners*
• Chick-fil-A for everyone while we were cleaning our rental house for the new tenants.  *4 dinners*
• Pizza for everyone - A new place opened around the corner, how could I say no, seriously? *4 dinners*

Totals: 18.5 dinners (15% or $7.05), 2 snacks (1% or 15¢), 5.5 lunches (5% or $1.65) or generously $10 would need to be added to make up for all the meals eaten out.

In order to make sure I didn't cheat by using things not on the list, I removed all the food other than the spices and condiments from the kitchen.

I did all the shopping for the month in one trip to avoid any temptation to buy extra, with the exception of half the bananas and a loaf of bread because they wouldn't still be good by the end of the month.

I will admit to cheating by adding 1/4 pound of bacon ($2.29 for the whole pound) to some black bean and potato soup. It turned out so well I added it to the latest version of the print book. It would have still been good without it, I'm sure, but I had a craving so I caved and splurged on 57¢ worth of bacon .

More cheating:  I let Paige keep some frozen fruit and flax seed that she uses for smoothies (about 3 cups of mixed fruit, plus she used 3 bananas that were on the list.) I also increased the amount of flour and added vegetable oil and apples to the original list printed in previous versions of the book, but added them to the updated grocery list (below) and it still was close enough to $100 (before tax) that I think it counts.

Paige and Doug were each sick for two days so they didn't eat much those days.

I didn't follow the meal plan exactly because some days we simply felt like something else, but I didn't buy any more food, just used it differently. I consider this an acceptable deviation.

Updated grocery list:

4.00	flour (10 lb)
1.00	baking powder
0.10	salt
2.90	shortening
3.00	milk (1 gal)
4.50	eggs (3 dz)
4.60	old fash oats (2)
1.20	brown sugar
2.60	olive oil
2.00	vegetable oil
1.70	bouillon cubes
1.60	sugar (4 lb)
1.00	tomato sauce (32 oz)
0.40	tomato paste
2.40	can diced tomatoes (4/14 oz)
2.00	can crushed tomatoes (2/28 oz)
1.20	carrots (2 lb)
1.40	celery (1 stalk)
2.00	onions (3 lb)
2.30	potatoes (5 lb)
2.50	bananas (20)
3.00	apples (12)
.90	green bell pepper (4)
1.00	garlic
2.00	sandwich bread (2)
1.80	can chili beans (3)
0.90	can pumpkin
1.40	can tuna (2)
0.80	refried beans
2.00	frozen mix veg (32 oz)
5.00	CA blend veg (60 oz)
1.00	frozen corn (16 oz)
1.00	frozen peas (16 oz)
12.00	whole chicken (3/4-5 lb)
1.50	rice (3 lb)
1.00	lentils (1 lb)
1.80	penne pasta (2 lb)
1.50	elbow pasta (2 lb)
1.00	spaghetti (1 lb)
7.50	dried beans (6 lb)
2.00	peanuts
1.70	peanut butter
1.20	tortilla chips
1.25	raisins
1.70	jar alfredo sauce
2.70	crackers (3 boxes)
102.05	TOTAL

So what does that amount of food look like? More than I expected, honestly;

The middle shelves (with the toaster and wine glasses) hold my spices. I admit that not everyone would have quite as many as I do, but I don't feel like I need to add any to the grocery list as most people would have enough to make do and I did include chicken bouillon and salt.

The beer and wine shown are obviously not in the grocery list. The things shown that I did not list that we used are pickle relish, margarine (one tub of regular and one tub with garlic added), and two eggs that were left in the carton. It should be noted that only one half gallon of soy milk is shown, but the grocery list is made with one gallon of cow's milk. In actuality, we used about three quarter's gallon of soymilk (there is some in the door.) These items are also found in the door of the fridge: mayo, ketchup, two kinds of mustard, syrup, sriracha, barbecue sauce, worcestershire sauce and soy sauce.  

And the receipt to prove it:

One question that may come up is, "what did we do with all that flour?" We are certainly not gluten free, everyone in the house absolutely loves bread. Ten pounds is equal to about 38 cups, and this is how we used it:

• 4 batches of muffins: 2 pumpkin, 1 banana, 1 sweet potato (1 1/2 c each)
• 1 batch banana pancakes (2 c)
• 2 batches scrambled pancakes with sugar glaze (yeah, it's not a health food, sorry) (1 1/2 c each)
• 3 batches of biscuits (2 c each)
• 2 pot pies with biscuit topping (2 c each)
• 2 batches of tortillas (2 c each)
• 1 loaf bread (4 c)
• mini pizzas (3 c)
• 16 cinnamon rolls and 16 dinner rolls (5 c)

We did end up with some extra food that came to us for free:

• 1 biscuit mix from The Pantry (2 partial spilled bags that couldn't be used there)
• 1 small head broccoli from a community garden
• 5-10 cherry tomatoes from our garden (we actually harvested a lot more than that, but diced and froze them for after this month, these were the ones we snacked on while dicing)
• several bunches of fresh basil from garden used for a pesto-like dip and pasta
• about 2 cups pasta salad from church
• sandwich size ziploc of raw carrots, celery, and broccoli from church
• One pint salsa verde from our garden
• Halloween candy

What is left over after our month? Not a lot as you may suspect:

• over half a can of baking powder
• about 1 pound of shortening
• 4 bouillon cubes
• about 2 pounds of sugar
• 1 cup of oats
• 1 cup brown sugar
• about 2 cups vegetable oil

Eating Well on the Cheap, pt 3

So, the first two posts in this series (Part 1 and Part 2) show how we really eat in our house (for the most part). If we have more money to spend, we often do, but it isn't necessary, just fun. :-) 

But, what if you are hit with an unexpected expense and have to REALLY cut back? This is what I would do. Notice that I don't cut out all the meat, or all the snacks, even cookies! Just because things aren't going your way doesn't mean you should have to do without all the good stuff. As a matter of fact, if things aren't going well, you might need more cookies! There is no reason to feel deprived the whole month (or months), you can still eat delicious food, the only difference is that it might not be as varied as when you have more money. That being said, changing up the spices can make two dishes with the same ingredients seem way different! Whole chicken is by far the most economical meat, especially considering the stock you can easily make that will make the bean dishes feel more "meaty". Ideally, you have been slowly building up your pantry and freezer so that you could absorb a grocery budget cut without much changing at least for a month or so. 

Could you spend less? Yes, but if you are in a situation where you have less than $100 to use for groceries for your family for more than a month or two, then you could, and should seek assistance, that's what it is for.

What if you only have $100?

Thrifty Meals (number of meals--name of meal--times I will make in the month)

2 Chicken pot pie X2

2 Chicken and dumplings

2 Spaghetti

2 Lentil loaf

2 Chili

2 Tomato and bean pasta

2 Chicken alfredo pasta

1 Potato salsa chicken X2

1 Frittata

2 Vegetable bean pasta

2 Chicken and veg pasta

2 White bean curry

2 White bean chili

1 Baked pot with chili

2 Diced pot with chk alfredo

1 scrambled eggs, pancakes

2 Beans and rice

Thrifty snack list:

Tuna

Tortilla chips

Pretzels

Granola

Peanut butter

Bean dip

Cookies

Bread

Raisins

Oatmeal

Saltines

Peanuts

Bananas

Pumpkin muffins

2.00	flour	2.99	frozen mix veg (32 oz)	1.00	carrots (2 lb)
1.50	baking powder	5.00	CA blend veg (60 oz)	0.79	celery (1 stalk)
0.05	salt	1.00	frozen corn	1.40	onions (2 lb)
3.00	shortening	1.00	frozen peas	1.75	potatoes (5 lb)
2.50	milk			2.50	bananas (20)
3.00	eggs (2 dz)	1.88	rice (2 lb)	1.00	green bell pepper (2)
4.58	old fash oats (2)	1.00	lentils (1 lb)	1.00	garlic
1.50	brown sugar	4.00	pasta (4 lb)
5.00	olive oil	1.00	spaghetti (1 lb)	3.00	sand bread (2)
1.35	bouillon cubes	6.50	dried beans (6 lb)	1.50	loaf bread
1.79	sugar
		2.00	peanuts	1.80	can chili beans (3)
15.00	whole chicken (3/4-5 lb)	1.89	peanut butter	0.79	can pumpkin
		1.19	tortilla chips	1.20	can tuna (2)
1.50	tomato sauce (2)	1.69	raisins	0.79	refried beans
0.50	tomato paste	1.49	jar alfredo sauce
2.40	can diced tomatoes (4/14 oz)	2.00	crackers (2 boxes)
2.00	can crushed tomatoes (2/28 oz)
47.67		34.63		18.52	100.82  TOTAL

That's the class, folks, minus the recipes and cooking, obviously, you have to participate for that :-). Thoughts?