I used the first of my frozen wine iceblocks in a minestrone soup - and it worked superbly. Homemade soup must be one of the most satisfying and frugal meals around. I threw in some basic veg {onion, garlic, celery, carrots}, diced up around 200g of speck {bacon on steroids, mmmmm}, threw in a handful of lentils du puy, a tin of tomatoes and some chicken stock and simmered for a couple of hours with nothing but a few bay leaves and sprigs of thyme adding flavour. Nearing the end of cooking I tossed in a cup of risoni and simmered for 10 minutes before serving. This fed four of us that night, and me for lunch on Saturday and Sunday - cost per serve - around $1. Nutritional value - enormous!
Making your own ingredients is the best way to jazz up a meal for little cost. I have a few different oil bottles so now have regular olive oil, garlic oil and lemon oil on the go. The garlic oil is simply a couple of cloves sliced up and infused in the olive oil, while the lemon is just a few slices of lemon rind {no erky white bits - just the vibrant yellow skin} in olive oil. It costs next to nothing, but adds a bit of an edge when drizzled over any food.
Letting nothing go to waste is the best mode of frugality. Leftover stale bread can be grated and frozen in small portions in a ziplock bag - or, if you're short of time, just throw the pieces in the freezer and grate when you need them - frozen bread is a lot easier to grate by hand than fresh bread. If you have any leftover herbs, why not finely dice them up with some leftover breadcrumbs and a little garlic and lemon zest and freeze to have the tastiest crumbing mixture for pork cutlets or salmon cakes ever.
This week my aim is zero food waste. If it's in my fridge it's going to be eaten - even if I have to think outside the square. So before making up my menu for this week, I'm going to see what's in the fridge, freezer and pantry - I reckon I'll have the basis for a couple of meals hanging around in there - saving me a motza at the supermarket.
I've been doing something new in my brain lately, everytime I want to go out to get take out or whatever, I think, how much would it cost me to make that at home? Works about 80% of the time to talk myself out of eating out.
ReplyDeleteI've also been trying, when I go grocery shopping, to think about what I'm making without sacrificing quality. For example, if I'm making stew or soup, I ask myself if it would be fine with frozen veg or is the flavor "made" with fresh?
I've also adopted eggs as a main source of dinner protein. By eating eggs more often, I'd say we've cut a big portion of our grocery expense. In fact, I may blog about that!