Almost Frugal and Your Tip for the Day

Click here for my interview on Almost Frugal

First, my thanks today go out to Kelly at Almost Frugal, who published an interview with me in her regularly-occurring feature "This is What Frugal Looks Like."  I love Kelly's blog, and I especially love this feature, which demonstrates that frugality doesn't have to mean a life of monastic deprivation living off the grid and away from society (although it can, if that is your choice).  In fact, there are as many different ways to be frugal as people who consider themselves such.  Kelly does a remarkable job giving these various perspectives voice.

And....to round out today's column and give us a bit of a break from the gardening and cooking ideas that are so easy to focus on during summer, let me share a quick tip that saves time and money:  one-cloth cleaning.

A little history:  I am the type of person who likes to clean a room top to bottom.  I used to dust the walls (yes, I need an intervention), vaccuum the rugs, dust the furniture, and polish the metal and mirror (another intervention, please) before I would call a room "clean."

Then, I had a part-time job that required me to wake up before my husband.  I would get ready, sneak downstairs, and want to do some household chores before I left.  I couldn't vaccuum, because that would make too much noise, so I started doing one-cloth cleaning challenges on the main level of our house.

Basically, I would take a dust cloth, put on my dusting oil of choice, and see how far I could dust before the cloth was ready for more oil and the cloth was dirty.  That was it:  the cloth went in the laundry, and I stopped.  I did the same thing with reusable floor cleaning cloths by putting one on the old Swiffer handle, putting on whatever floor cleaning liquid I needed (or none, if I was dusting), and seeing how much dirt I could collect before the cloth was ready for the laundry basket.  Same thing with cleaning mirrors.  I do use paper towels for that, so I put my window cleaner on no more than two paper towels and see what I can get done.

I find that this approach keeps me from over-using any cleaning chemicals, because it eliminates the desire to re-wet a cloth every time you move from room to room.  It also limits paper towel use, for those times you choose to use them (I'm down to buying about two "bales" of paper towels a year, the equivalent of about one roll a month.)

And hubby slept through the whole thing.

Dried Tomatoes

When people talk about food preservation, they usually talk about canning and freezing.  These are two of the most entertaining, time-honored food preservation techniques, but they are also the newest.  What we call canning goes back to what used to be called bottling, when homemakers would place food in glassware and seal it with fat, cloth, dough, corks, or later parafin or canning lids.  Freezing is even newer in most locales, going back primarily to Clarence Birdseye and his work in getting consumers to accept frozen foods.  Prior to that, freezing really only was used in areas with naturally frozen areas, so places with permafrost or places where one could easily build an ice house, and it was not widely used for a complete range of products.

Even older, however, are cellaring and drying, both methods that control bacterial growth by using temperature or water content.  Drying is one of my favorites, because it requires almost no attention, and the end product is typically much smaller than the original food to be dried, a bonus when you are storing multiple crops.

The traditional way to dry foods is to hang them on a rack or place them in a solar drier.  Rack drying is great for herbs if you are processing them in small amounts, which is not true in my house; I regularly grow and store at least enough dried herbs to supply my family, my parents, and my in-laws.  Solar drying, which I haven't tried, appears to work best in areas with lower humidity than the Midwest.

That leaves the electric drier as your best option.  (You can use your oven on a low heat setting, but I dislike having the oven run all day.)  The one I use is a $40, five-tray model from Ronco (yes, that Ronco) that I bought at the local mega-mart about five years ago.  It works like a dream, and I figure since it is basically a low-wattage element at the bottom of a plastic bowl with trays on top, I should be able to keep the thing running more or less indefinitely.

What we have above is a tray of tomatoes waiting to be dried (plus some marjoram to round out this tray).  Dried tomatoes are one of the best products you can make in the summer, as the jars of "sundried tomatoes" are uber-expensive, and a few add a lot of flavor to dishes.  I like to chop up a handful and add to pizza and pasta dishes in the fall until they are gone.  There are never enough dried tomatoes.

To dry tomatoes:  Select salsa-type or other fleshy tomatoes.  Above, you can see I have used some salsa-type paste tomatoes (the ligher colored ones) and some black tomatoes (Black Truffle or Black Russian), the darker tomatoes.  Wash and cut into half inch rounds.  Place on dryer tray and salt with sea salt.  Then put them in the drier and wait.  Depending on the water content, it could take a day or two until they reach leathery consistency; flip them periodically to hastent the drying and keep them from sticking to the try.

Your drier does not need to run continuously; just unplug it at night or when you leave the house.  Store in a freezer container in the freezer, and pull out this winter when you need a concentrated burst of summer.

The Analysis

Fast:  Drying takes a while, but you don't have to participate very much.  It takes me about 5 minutes to cut tomatoes for drying and then store them on the other end. 

Cheap:  Dried tomatoes from your garden are very low cost, depending on cost of plant (mine were $2-3 depending on variety, so if I get at least two dozen tomatoes per plant, I am down to about 10 cents per tomato) and amount of electricity you use in drying (minimal).  By contrast, a small jar of dried tomatoes in oil is usually $3 or more.

Good:  Dried tomatoes are sweet, a little smokey or deep in flavor, and a few go a long way.  You really can never have enough.

Salad Days

As I pull up my chair to my desk for another morning of writing while eating, it occurs to me that my lunch, which you see above, teaches us two important lessons about sustainability:

1.  Bounty is about what you have now, not what you think you need.  As you can see, my lunch plate is filled with cucumbers; if you aren't eating cucumbers at every meal in this house right now, you aren't doing your job!  But there are also red, yellow, and grape tomatoes, a couple strawberries, and some really nice salami.  With the exception of the salami, these are all products from the garden, and I didn't pay a thing for them beyond the sunk costs of deciding to grow the plants.  I can either complain and say "I wish I had more tomatoes by now," or I can say "thank heavens for the bounty of cucumbers that are filling up many a plate right now with basically free, healthy food."  (Disclosure:  I grew the cukes from seeds I had languishing in my seed box, for which I think I paid $1.50 per pack, so $3 worth of seed.  By now, I am well below 10 cents a cuke in seed costs.)

2.  The inexpensive stretchers are what allow you the little luxuries.  The above salami wasn't terribly cheap, but since I filled a plate with garden veggies, I can put a few slices of protein on the plate and still come in at a lunch cost of less than $1.  (This is always my goal for the main part of my lunch, although I may add a dessert.)  If you are enjoying the bounty of your garden right now, use that cost flexibility to allow yourself to try artisinal cheeses or specialty meats with them.  A bonus for me is that having one primarily-veg meal a day (avoiding adding things like bread or pasta) typically lets me shed a few pounds in summer.

The Analysis

Fast:  No cooking required with a meal that is garden veggies and some meat or cheese.

Cheap:  As I said, this plate is less than $1, a bargain for any budget.

Good:  Healthy, filling, and yummy.

The Perfect Mojito

It is HOT in the Midwest, which means that it is time for the Caribbean's favorite cocktail:  the mojito.

A mojito is, at its most basic, a rum and club soda concoction flavored with mint and lime.  Occasionally, it will contain lime juice and cane sugar or syrup.  In our travels, we have discovered that the farther south one travels, the more likely one is to get a very dry mojito, without juice or sweetener.  In Maryland, we had some delicious mojitos that were more like really sweet rum soda pop than anything else; hit the Southernmost key in the union, and a mojito is very likely to be more along the lines of a gin and tonic, with the garnishes flavoring the mix as they sit and combine. 

With much experimentation for the benefit of you, my dear reader, I believe I have come upon the Perfect Mojito.  You will need:

2 oz white rum (I prefer Ten Cane)

2 oz club soda

2 oz lime juice (look for Nellie and Joe's Key West Lime Juice)

2 oz simple syrup (Make your own:  it is a 1:1 combo of cane sugar and water.  Heat until combined and keep a jar in the fridge.)

1 lime (Key limes are best, but you can use Persian limes in a pinch, as I did above.)

2 sprigs mojito mint (Grow your own from Richters, or use spearmint if you must.)

In a rocks glass, muddle the lime (cut in half and retain a slice for garnish) and one sprig of the mojito mint.  You  need to muddle, or crush, these elements to release the oils from the lime skin and the flavor of the mint.  Mojito mint, as I have mentioned, is a more robust, less sweet Cuban mint that gives a more authentic flavor.

Add the rum, lime juice, simple syrup, and club soda, and mix.  Garnish with the remaining lime wedge and sprig of mint.

Enjoy, and dream of the tropics!

The Analysis

Fast:  If you have all your inputs in one place, you should be able to mix this pretty quickly.  If you need to make mojitos for a party, cut your limes ahead of time and keep your mint sprigs in a glass of water.  Mix the club soda, lime juice, and simple syrup ahead of time in a pitcher, then add the rum individually to the cocktails.

Cheap:  Um, no.  A bottle of Ten Cane is north of $35.00 around here, and this is before you buy the premium lime juice and start growing your own mint.  The cocktail above is easily $3-4 in ingredients, which is about half the price for which you can get them in local restaurants and is far less than the $10-12 for a mojito in Key West, which is usually made with far-cheaper Bacardi or Mount Gay rum.  There is, however, that beach element that makes it worthwhile.  However, for those of us trapped north of Cayo Hueso, I am not going to recommend any but the finest mojito I know how to mix!

Good:  Yes.  Oh, yes.

The Sustainable Bookshelf: Grandma's Wartime Kitchen

By the time WWII rolled around, an entire generation of homemakers had a Great Depression's worth of experience dealing with the challenges of putting nutritious meals on the table and in the lunchbox without breaking the bank.  Add in the challenges of rationing, preserving the product of a victory garden, and making treats that could ship to a serviceman halfway around the world, and you can see that these women had to amass quite an arsenal of culinary tricks to fight the war on the homefront.

These tips and tricks are just as relevant today for those of us embracing the sustainable lifestyle.  My next entry into "the sustainable bookshelf" is Grandma's Wartime Kitchen, a book that gets nearly constant use in my house as canning season swings into full production.  The "Cultivate and Can" chapter alone is reason to buy this book, but it offers much more, including a selection of desserts that travel well and use sweeteners other than the then-rationed white sugar, a section on stretching meats, and a number of vintage recipes and historical annecdotes that give you inspiration for ways to stretch and save while feeding your family.

As we build our sustainable bookshelf, I will be recommending books like this, which I would want to own rather than borrow from a library in order to feel truly prepared for independent living.  Who knows, maybe this year is the year I take inspiration from one WWII bride who found a way to make stuffed peppers using ground Spam!

Orecchiette Au Gratin with Farm-Fresh Corn, Leeks, and Sage

OK, we are deep into cooking fresh from the garden, and recently I made orecchiette au gratin withe farm-fresh corn, leeks, and sage.  (Feel free to call it "mac and cheese with corn" if you have a picky eater; otherwise, with the other title, you can charge $12 a plate for it!)

This is a great way to use some of the fresh corn from the farmer's market as well as the leeks that are starting to be ready.  The introduction of the veggies means that you get to use less cheese, making it a lighter and less expensive dish.  I did splurge on orecchiette pasta; literally meaning "little ears," these shapes are the perfect little bowls to hold the cheese sauce and corn while you eat.  If you are seriously on a budget, try for a corkscrew or medium shell, which will do the same thing.

Orecchiette Au Gratin with Farm-Fresh Corn, Leeks, and Sage

2-3 ears corn, cut from the cob

1-2 small leeks, cut and "split" so the little rings come apart

1 box orecchiette

1.5 cups whole milk

1 cup cheddar cheese

1 T flour

2 T sage

3/4 cup stuffing mix

Blanch your corn and cut off the cob while you are dicing leeks and boiling pasta to the al dente stage.  Meanwhile, make your cheese sauce:

Melt cheese in milk over low heat.  Add sage.  2 T is a lot, and I use that much because my family likes it, and because I have a surplus of dried sage from the garden.  You may want to start with 1 T and work your way up if you are unsure.  One note is that the sage gives "mac n cheese" dishes a very meaty flavor, so this is a good option if you are trying to coax a meat eater to join you in a vegetarian meal.  Right before assembling the dish, add the flour for thickening and stir until thick and smooth.

Combine pasta, veggies, and cheese sauce in a casserole dish.  Top with a crushed handful (about 3/4 cup) of stuffing mix.  (You can use bread crumbs or cracker crumbs if you prefer, but I find many store brands of bread crumbs have HFCS.  Make your own if you prefer, or use stuffing mix for a bit of an herby kick to the topping.)

Bake at 350 for about 25 minutes, until the cheese is bubbly.

The Analysis

Fast:  You should be able to put this vegetarian meal on the table in under an hour, with much of it being cooking time.

Cheap:  Garden and farmer's market veggies and a crumb toppping mean you have to use less expensive cheese than you do for straight "mac n cheese."  Cut costs further by not being seduced by the specialty pasta shapes, as I was!

Good:  This has a gentle herb flavor and some crunch from the corn, leeks, and topping.  It is a nice change from the heavier pasta dishes and makes a ton! (About 5 servings, I would estimate.)

More Veggies in Less Space: The Cucumber Trellis

Every year, DH and I budget for a garden improvement or two.  In this way, our vegetable production space has grown from a small, unfenced patch that we had nine years ago to a large fenced space, supported by a container garden and five ancillary spaces and raised beds.

Last year was kind of a low-budget, high DIY year in which we nearly doubled the primary garden space, a task that involved a lot of sod cutting.  However, we did buy a couple of the cucumber trellises that you see above.  Ours are from Gardener's Supply, but you could fairly easily make your own; they are basically a trellis in front supported by legs in the bag and held in the ground with garden staples (not included).  It would be a pretty easy project, but we were in the throes of cutting so much sod that it seemed like a good investment.

And it has been.  The cucumber trellis (it also works well for peas, beans, and other vining veggies) allows the cucumber vines to grow up the front, keeping the majority of the fruit off the ground, safe from critters and decomposition.  It also allows the fruit to hang down straight, which means cucumbers are easier to fit in pickle jars.  Because the vines are held up off the ground with good air circulation, they are less likely to contract molds that will kill the plant, and if they do, they do a better job of fighting it off. 

It is hard to quantify vegetable production year to year, but I had cucumbers for about a month longer than I usually do, and I believe I was typically harvesting more at a time.  A valuable bonus is that the vines crawling up the trellis create a shaded spot underneath (if you have positioned the trellis correctly), so you can grow lettuces and cool season small crops underneath even in the hot weather, further increasing your yeild. 

I left the trellises out in the garden all winter, and they weathered beautifully.  At about $60 for two (including shipping), depending on your love of cucumbers and pickles, I estimate these could pay for themselves in two or three years.

Red, White, and Blue Potatoes

I am not the type to make specific foods colored for certain holidays (those red, white, and blue Jell-o parfaits from the 1970s make me cringe), but this Fourth of July I made a dish that is a riff on holiday colors to illustrate two points about sustainable living.  First, the recipe:

Red, White, and Blue Potatoes

6 red skin potatoes, sliced thin

3 blue potatoes, sliced thin

2 ears corn, cut from cob

1 onion, diced

1-2 cloves garlic, crushed

1 cup shredded parmesan

1 handful fresh thyme

A few grinds black pepper and sea salt

Preheat oven to 350.  Boil water and throw in ears of corn to blanch so you can more easily cut them off the cob.  This is not a true food preservation blanching -- you just want a little cooking to soften things up.

While the corn is blanching, cut your red skin potatoes and form in a layer in a small baking dish (a couple of spritzes of olive oil on the bottom will keep things from sticking).  Then, in a bowl, cut the corn off the cob, and combine with onion, garlic, 3/4 cup of parmesan, chopped thyme, and salt and pepper.  Mix well and put on top of the potato layer.  Add another layer of red skin and blue potato slices and the remaining cheese.  Bake for 45 minutes or until cheese is melted and potatoes are soft.  I covered mine with foil for about 25 mintues and then took the foil off -- save it to cover the dish in the fridge if you have leftovers.

Lesson One

Our first lesson is that sustainable living is about making do with what you have, not starting with what you want and procuring the inputs.  That is, I had red skin potatoes and corn from the farmer's market, onions in the pantry, and blue potatoes and thyme in the garden.  I figured out how to cook them all to be sure they would not go to waste. 

However, I don't really want you going out and trying to buy all of these ingredients (unless they are all at your local farmer's market).  Sustainability isn't about opting not to make a dish because you need a quarter teaspoon of lemon zest (and I have been guilty of the equivalent of going out and buying a bag of lemons and a zester to make this happen, just as everyone does from time to time).  Sustainability is about using your current bounty.  I could have made this dish equally well with any hearty veggies I could bake and pretty much any cheese or herbs.  For example, try:

• Eggplant (I think; I haven't tried this)
• Zucchini
• Leeks
• Paste tomatoes
• Oregano
• Basil
• Cilantro
• Cheddar
• Mozzarella

I'm sure this is just a partial list.  For example, even though I love the corn in this iteration, I don't really need it:  zucchini and onion bakes up just as well with dried sage and cheddar.

Lesson Two

Get outside the traditional supermarket, and you will find many variations on standard veggies that will improve your diet.  Blue potatoes, which I grew this year because they are pretty and they are hard to find elsewhere, have some of the same phytochemicals that make blueberries blue.  These phytochemicals may be neccessary for optimum health, but it is tough to find a blue food beyond berries and eggplant. 

So, if you have a family member who likes only potatoes, you can improve their intake of a variety of phytochemicals by including blue, red skin, yellow, and fingerling potatoes in addition to plain brown bakers.  Carrots come in orange, yellow, white, and red (their original color, some say).  Tomatoes come in yellow, red, green, and deep purple, among other colors.  This is not an argument to limit one's veggie consumption but rather to broaden it by exploring a well-loved category.  And hey, once you talk your fussy potato-lover into a blue potato, he may be willing to try a blueberry.

The Analysis

Fast:  This dish takes about 20 minutes of prep (a little more if you are out sticking your hands in the potato hills, like I was) and about 45 minutes to bake.

Cheap:  This depends greatly on how much you have to buy.  I'd say I spent about $3 since I had to buy a few farmer's market potatoes and ears of corn, an onion, and some cheese.  Later in the season, the only thing I'll be buying is the cheese. 

Good:  I think this makes a great grill-out side dish; if you are mostly-vegetarian like me, this is a hearty main dish.

It's Garlic Time!

Behold, my first garlic harvest!

Well, most of it, anyway.  Three heads had already made their way into the kitchen.  But here you go:  from two packages of "seed" garlic, I was able to grow 36 head of garlic.  Best of all, I was able to grow the garlic in a strip of land that had previously been a real wasteland:  it was full of construction debris from when the house was built 40 years ago, had very thin soil, and really only wanted to grow nettles.  Any attempts to grow anything else -- tomatoes, zucchini, or sunflowers -- ended either in plant death from malnutrition or a really good breakfast for the rabbits.  And one attempt to grow breadseed poppies -- for lemon poppyseed bread, I swear! -- wound up teaching me more than I wanted to know about how rabbits would have fared in the 1960s.  Let's just say that one year, I had a semi-tame rabbit called "Jerry," after Mr. Garcia.

Anyway, I planted my seed garlic last October, and it responded by sending up little shoots that lived until the soil froze.  They wintered beautifully and were the first bits of green in the garden.  When the tops started to bend over and dry, I figured out it was time to pull the garlic. 

I let the garlic cure on the outside patio for a few days, then cut the tops.  I was going to do a beautiful country-style garlic braid, but I realized I had so much garlic that hanging a braid in the pantry would result in it sprouting (from the warmth), and leaving it hang unprotected "down cellar" in our lower level would let it get dusty.  So, I sewed a drawstring bag from the back half of an old pillowcase (I wanted to keep the embroidery on front), and my garlic is now safely hanging "down cellar," ready for me to reach in and get a head any time I need one in the kitchen.

One error:  In my enthusiasm to order seed garlic last year, I neglected to note whether I had purchased a hybrid or an heirloom, so I don't know if I can use this as seed garlic.  I will order an heirloom variety this year, so in the future I can use a couple of heads to start the next year's crop.

The Analysis

Fast:  Maybe not fast, per se, but definitely low effort.  DH and I spent 20 minutes last October shoving cloves of seed garlic into the ground, and that was the last thing I did to the garlic patch until I pulled the crop.

Cheap:  I didn't keep my receipt from the seed garlic (sorry...) but I know that 6 heads of seed garlic cost about the same as 6 heads of "cooking" garlic from the store.  So, I got 6 times the garlic that I would have had I bought it in the store. 

Good:  Garlic and onions are two of the things that keep me from going crazy in the winter from wanting fresh veggies.  And cellaring is the ultimate in cheap food storage:  just pull the crop, cure it, and take it downstairs.  Easy!

Freezing Cherries

We used to have a sour cherry tree.  I didn't know it when we bought our property; after we had been here for a few months, my father-in-law wet out back gleefully and started eating off what I was sure was a tree with ornamental berries.  When he informed us we were the proud owners of a pie cherry tree, I started preserving cherries in earnest.

Alas, a couple of years ago, our cherry tree was hit by lightening.  It survived another year, with one pathetic limb leafing out and bearing fruit, until it fell over in another storm.

This year, I purchased cherries from the farm market.  I got five heaping pints for $3.50 a pint, which was actually enough to freeze 6 pints worth.  If you want to do this yourself, it is easy:

• Wash and pit cherries.  That tool you see in the bowl of pitted cherries above is a pitter; you just place the cherry in the little pocket, then close the tool to drive the spike through the cherry, taking the pit with you.  This tool is great if you are going to do a few pints to a few quarts every year; if you are planning on a cherry production in the bushels, you may want a different tool built for volume.  If you don't have a pitter, you can do the job with a paper clip or your thumb fingernail.
• Coat the cherries in cane sugar at the rate of about 3/4 cup to a quart of cherries.  You want enough to coat but not overwhelm.
• Place in storage containers, label, and freeze.

With six pints of cherries in the freezer, I probably have enough for three deep dish pies or the equivalent amount of smoothies.  They join the strawberries I already have as my fruit supply for winter.

The Analysis

Fast:  Pitting cherries takes some time, but I still put up these six pints in about an hour.

Cheap:  No doubt these cherries are more expensive than canned prepared pie filling from the store, but they will be cheaper than the "fresh" imports from California or whereever in the middle of winter.

Good:  Once you make a pie with cherries you put up in summery, you'll never go back to the industrial crap covered in HFCS.

Meat Calculator

I don't cook a lot of meat, so when I go to the store looking for a particular cut, I am often dependent on my visual assessment of size to determine if I have enough in the package I'm considering.  However, to truly make good decisions, I need to have a better understanding of how many servings I have per package of a given cut, and what the price per serving works out to.

That's why I was pleased to see in this morning's Everyday Cheapskate a link to a very comprehensive guide to Buying Meat By the Serving from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension.  In it, you will find a comprehensive chart detailing servings per pound from particular meat cuts, as well as a chart that allows you to cross reference price per pound and servings per pound to find your cost per serving.  So, you may find that a cut you think is more expensive actually works out to a lower cost per serving if you can get more servings per pound. 

One caveat:  this calculator does not take into account secondary uses of the leftovers, nor personal preference about trimming.  So, if you find a well-marbled steak and plan to cut off the majority of the fat, you are also decreasing the weight and the theoretical number of servings.  Additionally, if you buy a bone-in cut of meat and plan to make stock with the bone and trimmings, I think it would be fair to add another serving or two to the computation to account for the multiple uses.

Calculators like this are invaluable to truly understanding your food costs, and that is why I decided to pass this tip along today.  (Thanks again to Everyday Cheapskate for covering this first!)  Additionally, let me note that state extension offices are great sources of information like this, free to the public.  If you have some time to devote to web surfing, it is fun to look up your state extension office and see what free publications are available -- almost certainly, you will find information on growing and preserving foods that do well in your geographic area.

Deal of the Week

In the absence of an example of truly sustainable living, I decided today to blog (gloat?) about my two most recent great deals.  If nothing else, I hope they illustrate the kinds of deals you can get if you keep your eyes open.

First, when we purchased our new mattress a year ago, I was left with an orphaned flat sheet; the fitted sheet from the set simply didn't have deep enough pockets, but there was nothing wrong with the flat sheet.  Although I did buy (and get given as a gift) two sets of sheets that fit properly, I realized that I was only a fitted sheet short of a third set.  (I always have plenty of pillowcases, because sewing fleece ones and embroidering percale ones is one of my hobbies.)  With three sets, I would be able to wash sheets every other week, two sets at a time in my large capacity washer and on my large capacity outdoor line.

So, I waited until I had amassed enough reward certificates from my L.L. Bean credit card, which I use for regular purchases and pay off each month.  I saved up $30 of certificates, then found a lovely fitted sheet for $35.  If you pay with your L.L. Bean Visa, you also get free shipping and handling.  Therefore, one "new" set of sheets (plus every other week off from washing that load of laundry) was $5.  Score!

Then, our local Meijer had an offer in which you would receive a $10 coupon if you brought a new prescription into the pharmacy.  As it happens, my family had a one-time prescription we needed filled, so we took advantage of this.  I was able to go to the grocery  and get a bag of stuff I needed, which included some basics like pasta and beef bullion cubes, and I got $0.79 back!  Again, score!

These aren't necessarily approaches I will be able to easily repeat.  I can certainly save up cash back credit card coupons and use them to get something I need (which I do frequently with the L.L. Bean Visa, which I love because it also doesn't assess any fees for paying in full every month), but you only need a new prescription occasionally, and it is rare for that to line up with a great coupon offer.  Nonetheless, keep your eyes open, and I'll bet you can score a deal in your daily life.

What is the best deal you've gotten recently?

The Wood Corral

Like any good "micro-farm" (I say this with tongue firmly in cheek, for those of you with actual farms), we have one or more of everything:  a range of food plants, a barn full of tools, and a few wood piles.  It is this latter that has been of great concern.

We typically separate our wood into multiple piles.  The pine we save for cooking out, replacing charcoal or propane for our meals cooked outside.  (It makes for a wonderful flavor, by the way.)  The hardwoods we separate out for burning in the house, where we have a fireplace insert/stove that does an admirable job of heating our primary living area.

To say that we heat with wood would be a gross overstatement on par with calling our 0.71 suburban acres a "farm."  (I am planning a post, in fact, on the damage I think writers do when they take on the "farm" label as a writing stunt.)  However, there are about a half a dozen weekend days a year that we wind up avoiding use of the whole-house heat in favor of heating the primary living area with the fireplace insert.  There are an additional comparable number of deep winter weekends that we can close off this primary living area, cut the whole-house heat down to the bare bones, and cuddle up with a cozy fire.  We have secured most of our wood over the past several years from deadfall and tree trimming, so it is free.  (And, for those of you keeping score, it would also already be giving its carbon back to the environment by rotting, so burning just speeds the process a bit.)

Our piles, however, are in disarray under our pine trees, and I decided to do something about it while hubby was out of town on business.  I went to the local big box hardware store and got a dozen foot-square tiles and eight garden fence stakes.  Total cost:  $41.  (Actually, less, because I  bought 12 stakes but used four of the stakes in the garden.)  I contributed some rabbit fence to divide a small kindling area off from the main log area, as you can see in the photo above.  It is nice to know that rabbit fence does something on our property, because it doesn't do anything else other than keep the rabbits feeling safe while they sit in the garden and eat my veggies.

I laid the tile out in a 4x3 grid, then put the stakes in the arrangement you see.  It is a very loose design that will just keep logs from rolling off this platform, while allowing the wood to cure a little faster.  With any luck, it will also eliminate those days when we opt against a fire because we haven't brought wood up to the house, and going out back would mean prying wood out of the soggy ground.  Also, should we have to store a significant amount of wood one day, it is easily expanded, and we can move it if we ever replace the barn.

The Analysis

Fast:  This took about 90 minutes for me and my wimpy muscles to construct.  But I found I am strong enough to swing a sledgehammer!   Go, me!

Cheap:  I don't think $41 is that bad for solving a problem and cleaning up the appearance of the wood area of the property.  However, it will take us a while to have enough extra fires to truly offset the cost in heat savings. 

Good:  I'm pretty proud of myself, actually, and I burned a few calories in the cause of gaining a few BTUs this winter.

Super Pine Cleaner

Our culture is obsessed with shipping water.

Think about it:  From bottles of drinking water shipped coast to coast or even from overseas to cases of soda pop to bottles of household cleaner, we spend a tremendous amount of fuel, time, and energy carrying a small amount of the desired product suspended or dissolved in a lot of water.  This is insane:  water is heavy and cumbersome to ship, takes up a fair amount of space, and is usually as readily available at the destination as at the source.

I'm not going to address bottled water or soda pop other than to say:  get a filter on your tap if you are worried, and save pop for an occasional treat (and know that I'm not perfect either on the latter).  However, paying extra for diluted household cleaners is a waste of money, even if you are unconcerned about environmental impact.

I recommend to you a product like the above:  Super Pine, available at Lehman's.  This is a super-concentrated form of the pine oil that you are usually seeking when you buy bottle after bottle of household cleaner (such as Pine Sol).  At $13.95 for 32 oz., this product comes in at $0.44 per ounce before shipping.  An ounce is plenty to make a bottle of cleaner (keep one of your old bottles from the other cleaner brands, and use this as a handy way to know how much water to add), or you can double up if you want "extra strength." 

This product is biodegradable, very effective, and very versatile.  I use it primarily to clean the bathrooms, but I use it everywhere:  counters, floor, and toilets.  It leaves a wonderfully clean smell, and it isn't irritating and chemical-smelling like some of its competitors.  Best of all, your pre-shipping cost per bottle will wind up between $0.44 and $0.88, depending on how much of the base cleaner you add.  I have never seen household cleaner at the grocery for less than $1.75 per bottle, and that was a promotional special on a store brand.  You can easily spend $2-$3 on the stuff, and it is easy to need a bottle every week or two. 

For budget friendliness, if nothing else, stop paying to ship water.

The Analysis

Fast:  The time it takes to mix a bottle is about equivalent to the amount of time it takes to pick up a bottle of cleaner at the grocery and tote it into the house, so, pardon the pun, it is probably a wash.

Cheap:  Savings will depend on how much product you use, whether you pay to have this shipped alone or add it to another order (Lehman's has great canning supplies, if you need them, so it pays to make a bigger order), and how much you usually pay for your household cleaner.  Nonetheless, I'm pretty confident in saying you will save at least $1 per bottle.  If you usually run through a couple of bottles a month, that would be $24 in yearly savings. 

Good:  I find the cleaning ability of this product to be as good if not better than the water-logged versions from the store.  And avoiding paying someone to ship water to me is a moral victory.

Feverfew

If there is one thing that regularly plagues my life, it is headaches.  These can range from tension type headaches that seem to never go away to migraines that cause me to spend a few unpleasant hours laying on a cold bathroom floor, trying to make them stop.  While I have tried both over-the-counter and prescription medications, I'm not happy with the potential side effects of some of the more common migraine pharmaceuticals.

I have read for years about the potential headache-busting effects of feverfew, and it has always been on my list of things to try.  This year, I ordered some up from Richters, and I have it growing in my new front herb bed.

Wikipedia gives a nice summary of the potential benefits of feverfew, including:  "It has been used for reducing fever, for treating headaches, arthritis and digestive problems. It is hypothesized that by inhibiting the release of serotonin and prostaglandins, both of which are believed to aid the onset of migraines, feverfew limits the inflammation of blood vessels in the head. This would, in theory, stop the blood vessel spasm which is believed to contribute to headaches. Feverfew may also have GABAergic effects." 

Disclaimer:  I am not a physician.  This is not medical advice.  I elected to experiment on myself after research that goes deeper than Wikipedia, plus the reports of others.  Don't try any herbal medication along with a prescription or OTC medication, and be sure to tell your doctor so that he/she can take them into account.

OK, so disclaimer done, let me say that feverfew ROCKS!  I don't know whether the plant is helping, or if it is a placebo effect, but I have had precisely one headache of any duration in the past three weeks.  This is, um, really uncommon for me.  I have also noticed the effect that was mentioned on the plant tag that feverfew can produce a sense of well-being.  It is subtle, but I occasionally feel simply terrific.  Of course, who wouldn't without a headache.

Herbal medications have a lot to recommend them.  We tend to distrust them because of our reliance on other pharmaceuticals, but herbal medications have been a staple of human life for millennia.  While there are many, many occasions that call for a visit to the doctor and pharmacy, I think -- for me  -- it is worthwhile to experiment cautiously with more natural solutions to health issues.  If you do, do so after doing your own research, and do so cautiously.

For those of you who decide to join me in nibbling the landscaping, I have been eating about an inch worth of feverfew leaf every day.  The plant tag suggested one could eat one to four leaves, and I'm staying cautious at the moment. 

The Analysis

Fast:  It takes very little time to nibble a leaf as I get the mail.

Cheap:  I thought this would be a money-loser, but if feverfew continues to help, I'll get the plant price back in ibuprofen savings alone.

Good:  A day without a headache is sustainable living at its best.

The Sustainable Bookshelf: Putting Food By

Search Amazon.com for Putting Food By

I spend  lot of time on this blog talking about things you can make yourself to save money and live a healthier life, but part of sustainability is being able to do the things you want and need, in an emergency or for enjoyment.

To that end, I will occasionally be suggesting books that I have on my "sustainable bookshelf."  These are titles that I turn to time and again to give me instructions and input on how to do things "Fast, Cheap, and Good."  Today's selection is the Bible of home food preservation:  Putting Food By.  You can see my stained copy above.

If you have ever wanted to preserve food in any way, this is the book you need to talk you through the steps of doing it safely and emerging with a yummy product.  It is broken down by preservation method - canning, freezing, drying, and even salting and cellaring -- and then by fruit, vegetable, meat, or other product that you might want to preserve. 

I turn to this book every time I want to know how many minutes to process tomato sauce in quart jars in a water bath canner, how many minutes to blanch green beans for freezing, or whether it would be best to can, freeze, or dry any number of products from garden and farm market -- and how to know when they are safely preserved with the best flavor.  I have never tried the instructions for preserving meat, but I'm sure they are as helpful as those for fruit, veggies, and even gift products like wine jam.

My husband often jokes that if The End comes, one should watch for the people who are looting the hardware stores for tools and supplies and invite them to the hypothetical safe house; forget about those who are looting the big box electronics store for plasma TVs.   I will be watching out for those raiding the stores for canning lids and jars -- I'll bring my copy of Putting Food By, and I think we'll all be fine.

The Analysis

Fast:  It is a cliche, but this is truly the only food preservation guide you really need.  This is the one I recommend to beginners and experts alike. 

Cheap:  Just shy of $12 on Amazon.com, a new copy will pay for itself in your first season of preserving.  As a frugalista, I should tell you to check it out of the library, but the librarians will not appreciate getting it back covered in tomato sauce. 

Good:  In our house, this is called "The CYA Canning Manual" -- if you follow the authors' instructions, you are covered. 

Strawberries!

Just got back from the "u-pick" strawberry farm yesterday, and I did not go a moment too soon.  The last day for u-pick is Wednesday, although area farms should still have strawberries for another week or two.  Depending on where you live, you may have a couple more weeks of u-pick strawberries, or you may be joining me in the wait for the next wave:  blueberries and blackberries.

Picking berries in the sunshine is one of the true treats of summer, so if you can find a farm that will let you do so, you will have a ton of fun, and you will save some money in the process.  Here are some reminders for when you go:

• Expect to spend a couple of hours out there, so if you are the type that needs a hat or a long sleeve shirt, bring one.  (These things are called "frugal sunscreen.")
• Bring your own containers.  If you do, the farm will weigh them, and you will pay just for the berries.  If not (I forgot yesterday), you will wind up paying for the box they give you.
• Bring a picnic cooler and an ice pack to store your berries for the trip home.
• Please handle the plants gently. If you are a novice, or if you have kids, this is a good time for a practice session with the first plant you encounter.  Hold the main plant with one hand and pull the berry with the other.  Otherwise, you will pull entire chunks of stem off, which is not good for the plant.  Later, you'll get your mojo going and learn how to do it with one hand.
• The berries will keep for a few hours while you take a break, but do process them that night while they are full of sugar.

This year, I froze my berries because I still have plenty of jam and preserves from last year.  To do this, just trim the tops, and combine with about a half cup of sugar for every quart of berries, enough to coat but not overwhelm.  Put in a freezer container, label, and enjoy all winter!

The Analysis

Fast:  It depends on how you look at it.  Picking and processing strawberries eats up the whole day, but it is just one day out of the entire year of being able to pull berries out of the freezer for shortcake or smoothies.

Cheap:  Yes, actually.  I spent about $18 on 12 pounds of strawberries, which was about 8 quarts.  This works out to $2.25 a quart.  The same market had pre-picked on sale for $4 a quart, so I saved $1.75 a quart for picking myself.  It took two hours to pick, not including travel time, so I wound up saving $14 or $7 an hour, which is not a bad hourly rate considering it is tax free. 

I'm not even going to do the math comparing these berries to store-bought berries in the middle of winter, which is when I will consume them. 

Good:  Like so many homegrown treats, there is no comparison between store berries and ones you pick from the vine yourself. 

Mojito Salmon

If you have been reading this blog for any amount of time, you already know of my love for mojitos.  What you may not know is that the basic set of mojito flavor -- lime, mint, sugar -- work well in a lot of culinary applications.

One of my favorite recipes is Mojito Salmon.  You will need:

1 package wild caught salmon (2 pieces at Trader Joe's were $6.22)
1 handful mojito mint* (I grow this in the garden)
Juice of 3-4 limes, or a comparable amount of bottled
Sea Salt
Fresh Ground pepper
Olive Oil
(You can add a bit of cane sugar if you prefer a sweeter marinade.)

Chop and crush the mint, and place on top of the thawed salmon.  Drizzle with olive oil and lime juice, then sprinkle with salt and pepper (and sugar if you wish).  Put in the fridge for a couple of hours so the flavors blend. 

Cook in a 350 oven until salmon is done, about 20-30 minutes according to the thickness of your pieces and how many you have in the pan. 

Meanwhile, cook rice.  I used Goya yellow rice ($1.79).  Top the rice with shredded garden greens and fresh garden peas.  Place the cooked salmon on top.  The heat from the salmon and rice will wilt the greens and warm the peas without really cooking them, so they maintain a crunch.

*I grow genuine mojito mint from Richter's.  You can make any mojito drink or dish with any available mint, but this mint has a deeper flavor and a bit less sweetness to it.  If you grow traditional spearmint, start all of your mojito projects with less cane sugar and adjust to your own taste.  I also freeze mojito mint the same way I do cilantro, and then I just thaw the mint and oil at the same time I do the salmon, then combine the whole mess along with the other ingredients to marinate.

The Analysis

Fast:  I can bang out this dinner in about 45 minutes, with much of that being baking time.  I am not counting the marinating time, because I'm really doing nothing at that point.

Cheap:  Other than garden inputs and spices on hand, I spent $8.01 for the rice and salmon.  Depending on how much of the other you need to buy, this dish probably comes in at $10.00, which is usually my upper limit for "nice dinner at home."  What you see above gave us two dinners and two small lunches.

Good:  Healthy, summery, and just a little bit Cuban in influence.  Mix up some actual mojitos to go alongside, and you are all set.   (I should share my mojito drink recipe, shouldn't I?)

Lunch Al Desko

I have a shameful admission to make:  I just discovered guacamole.

It isn't my fault, really.  I am a product of my environment, and my environment growing up was a small Midwestern town in the 1980s.  We didn't have a Mexican restaurant terribly handy, and my family did not count Latin cuisine in its food heritage.  On top of that, the 1980s were known for the low-fat, low-protein, high-carb diet.  This diet theory held that you should fill up on carbs, which provide four calories per gram, and stay away from fat and protein, which provide nine.  Most diet books of the era said you could eat all the veggies you wanted, but whatever you did, you should stay away from the high-fat avocado.  Being an impressionable teen, I decided that I had never had avocados and was not about to start.

Fast forward to about a month ago, when I was sitting at a Mexican restaurant with my husband and some family.  As everyone ordered guacamole as an appetizer, prepared fresh at the table, I muttered to my husband that I didn't like guacamole.  In fact, I continued, I'd never had it.  Naturally, he urged me to take a bite.

Oh.  My. Goodness.  Why had no one told me about this before?  Why did no one ever make me eat it?  This stuff is friggin' awesome!

Once home, I did a little research, and I found that avocados may be full of fat, but it is healthy, monounsaturated fat that lowers blood cholesterol levels and balances the "good" versus "bad" cholesterol levels in your body.  Plus, it is a vegetable!  What could be wrong with a veggie, even a high fat one, in moderation?

I quickly developed my own guacamole recipe, which is perfect on a rice cake for "lunch al desko," those lunches you consume with one hand at your desk while you work (or blog...).  The whole lunch comes in at less than $1.25, which is actually fairly expensive for one of my lunches, but much less expensive than a fast food burger and far yummier.

Guacamole
1 ripe avocado (yielding to the touch) (4 for $2.99 for organic avocados means $0.75 each)
Juice of one lime (limes about $0.25 each, or you can substitute a splash out of a bottle)
1 spoonful salsa (for me, canned last year from the garden)
Sprinkle garlic powder (maybe 1/8t.)
Fresh ground pepper
Fresh ground sea salt
1 rice cake

Split avocado in half and remove the pit.  If you wait til the avocado is nice and ripe, you can pretty much squeeze it and have the pit pop out.  Remove the soft green flesh of the avocado and mash in a bowl until smooth. 

Ad salsa, lime juice, garlic powder, and salt and pepper.  Mix thoroughly, and heap on a rice cake.  Enjoy!

The Analysis

Fast:  This probably takes me 10 minutes from kitchen to desk.

Cheap:  The avocados are the big price-driver here.  Wait for sales, and make sure your avocados are fully ripe so you can get as much flesh as possible out of them.  Your budget concerns should limit your avocado consumption to the healthy range.  (Final cost:  south of $1.25)

Good:  You all know how good this is.  You just weren't telling me so you could keep the avocados to yourselves!
 

Freezing Cilantro

This year has brought an unexpectedly robust crop of cilantro, which enjoys such a brief season.  You simply must keep cutting it back, or it will flower and go to seed.  Then you have a bumper crop of corriander, which is a completely different problem (in that I have no idea what do with it, in spite of the fact that I keep harvesting and saving it).  The cilantro, though, you want to keep producing for all of those Latin dishes that get their unique flavor from it.

This year, I have decided to freeze some cilantro for winter use in guacamole and ropa villeja.  It couldn't be easier:  simply take a good size handful, chop it fine, and put it in a half pint freezer jar.  I like the plastic ones from Ball.  Then,fill with olive oil, being sure to fill all the nooks and crannies.

That's it.  The top picture shows the end result; just pop it in the freezer, then thaw during those winter months when it feels like you need to head to Key West if you are ever going to get good Cuban food again.  (Not that I have a problem with that approach, either, but this is cheaper.)

The Analysis

Fast:  The entire process takes probably 10 minutes from harvest to freezer.

Cheap:  Your only costs are the start-up costs from reuseable freezer containers, and of course the olive oil.  I try to use a good extra virgin olive oil, which I have discovered I can buy in bulk for cheap at a local Italian market.

Good:  Since cilantro doesn't dry well, this is your only method to really ensure you have that summery flavor for Latin dishes year-round.  I am going to put up at least four, if not six, of these half pints.

The Beans are A'Poppin

There they are.  You can barely see them, but those are my beans popping up out of the ground.  I am useless on the day the beans start popping; I keep running outside to see if any more are up, and if the ones that are up have unfolded their true leaves.  Today will probably be no different.  So let me leave you with some short thoughts about growing your own beans.

Beans are remarkably easy to grow.  They aren't terribly particular about when you plant them, so you can succession plant throughout the season, getting several crops or just getting a late start.  I grow a bush variety that takes up very little room in the garden; you could probably sneak a few in to your foundation landscaping if that is all of the land you have available.  They freeze very well, requiring just 3 minutes of blanching before you throw them in the freezer.  And, for those of you with kids (or just fumbly fingers), the seeds are large and easy to handle.

The Analysis

Fast:  Just shove them in the ground and watch them grow!

Cheap:  A single pack of bean seeds (often $2-3) will yield enough beans to keep a small family going most of the year.

Good:  Fresh beans, or those you froze yourself, are infinitely better than those mushy things from cans.

What Could You Make?

I just finished reading Paul Roberts's excellent examination and indictment of the industrialized food economy, The End of Food.  In it, he suggests that as a way of measuring one's own ability to lead a sustainable life, one should occasionally look at what comes home from the grocery, then think about how/whether one could secure the same item from one's own back yard or the local foodshed. 

I think this is a great idea, and I decided to work through the exercise with this week's groceries.  This is a fairly normal haul for DH and I, perhaps on the small side, but representative of the things we typically buy.

We grow our own veggies and herbs for the most part, and we can, freeze, and dry them so they are available all year.  Typically, what is used up is not replaced from the grocery; we substitute others until the season comes again.  For example, I haven't had sun dried tomatoes since last December, because that is when the supply ran out.  But I still have canned tomatoes and chili sauce as tomato products.

We get our eggs from a local farm through a colleague of mine, so I'm set there.  We also stock the freezer with hormone- and antibiotic-free meat from a local farm, so that reduces the amount of meat I buy.  That leaves:

• Milk:  I buy hormone-free milk at the grocery.  Presumably, I could find a local farm that sells milk if the industrial food system falls apart, but I worry about supply.
• Limeade:  Luxury item.  I do have a dwarf lime tree that is budding this year, so I might occasionally have limes to make it myself one day.
• Club soda:  I hate to think that my mojito supply might be compromised by a lack of club soda, but I hear you can make them with plain water in a pinch.
• Cookies/Snack Cakes/Brownie Mix:  [Cringe]  You caught me.  These are luxury items, because we have a sweet tooth.  I have been baking a batch of cookie each week since the first of the year, and my goal this summer is to do all of our dessert and bread baking.  But right now, the desire for sugar frequently outweighs the desire to be sustainable. 
• Pizza crust mix:  Sort of a luxury.  I can certainly make my own, but I do like the flavor of the Jiffy mix once you add a little flax meal to it, so I buy it when it is on sale.  Giving it up wouldn't be a hardship, but when it is 50 cents a box, it wouldn't be that much of a savings either.
• Sliced provolone:  I can make my own cheese; I have the citric acid and the rennet in the fridge right now, waiting for me to make a batch of mozzarella.  However, if the End comes, hard cheeses like provolone might take a back seat until I improve my technique.
• Maple syrup:  Easy.  I know of a local farm that bottles maple syrup; if it comes to it, I'm not above tapping a tree and boiling sap.  In fact, that may be the only reliable source of sugar I have in a true crisis.
• Avocados:  My new veggies luxury.  You don't grow avocados anywhere near Ohio, so there goes my new-found guacamole habit.
• Yarn, ear plugs, deodorant, hair spray:  Not sure whether to include these as "groceries," but they are regular purchases from the super store.  Suffice to say, I imagine getting cotton yarn might be a problem in a true crisis.  I will probably be growing my hair for a pony tail if the End comes, so that takes care of the hair spray.  The deodorant is a concern (yes, tea tree oil, but where do you get that locally?), and the ear plugs might have to be replaced with some make-do so I can get some sleep.

Ultimately, I'm not in too bad a shape.  My main concern, should I have to make things long-term, is securing sugar and milled flour.  A truly long-term crisis would lead to more locally-available wheat (and other products), but right now, I don't grow wheat or any grain I can mill.  In a pinch, I guess I start keeping bees and use their honey as sugar, along with maple syrup.

So, yes, this is a crazy little thought exercise.  When I do it, I imagine a breakdown on December 21, 2012.  But you really don't have to be thinking about some cosmic End to be concerned; as Roberts argues, we are really just one crop failure, oil price spike, or disease outbreak away from a problem, especially since we source so much of our food from concentrated areas.  So, it is not hard to imagine (if you watch the news at all), an E. Coli outbreak disrupting the supply of produce from California, an oil drilling platform disaster driving gas prices to extremes along with food prices that carry their own transportation costs in their price, or a new piece of research determining that the way we farm our meat is killing us. 

So, take a look at your groceries this week.  What did you buy that you could make if you had to?