Frugal Babe

Good morning!  I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas.  We had a great day surrounded by family, and our son loved his kitchen and felt food.  We set it up in our dining room, and as I’m typing this he’s got an entire meal prepared and served at the dining room table.  And as predicted, our baby had all sorts of fun with the boxes and wrapping paper.  My parents brought over my new walker, and it works perfectly for dips, reverse push ups, and all sorts of leg/knee raises.  I love it!

Now that Christmas is over, a lot of us start thinking about the new year and what we hope to accomplish or change during it.  We don’t do resolutions per se, but we do set goals for ourselves and make plans for what we want to do in the coming year.  For us, 2012 will be all about our basement – we’re hoping to finish it entirely by the end of the year.  And of course we have our standard financial goals of maxxing out our IRAs, contributing to our SEP IRAs, and putting aside money to eventually pay off our mortgage.  One of the best things about automatic contributions to savings accounts, retirement accounts, college savings plans, etc., is that you don’t really have to think about them.  If you’ve been meaning to set up an automatic savings contribution, do it now so that you’ll be off to a great start in the new year.

If any of you have plans to eat better in 2012, you might want to take advantage of a special sale coupon valid until the end of the year at The Raw Food World.  This awesome online store is owned by Matt Monarch and Angela Stokes-Monarch.  They recently had a baby who was born at home in their tub – of course I loved that story!  I’ve been ordering stuff from their store for a while now, and it always arrives with samples of things like chia seeds or Supergreen powder, along with a photocopy of a handwritten note from Matt.

From now until the end of December, you can use the code HOLIDAY18 when you checkout at The Raw Food World online store, and you’ll get 17.5% off any size order (the coupon code works for everything in the store except appliances and exercise equipment, so they’re also offering another coupon – HOLIDAY12 – that you can use on some exercise equipment and some appliances.  Check out their store for more details).  It’s a pretty awesome deal, and I’m definitely going to be stocking up on some stuff this week.

In addition to the coupon, they have some awesome at-cost specials going on at the moment – I got an amazing deal on a bag of 1000 chlorella tablets last week.  And the best part?  Our three-year-old chomps on a chlorella tablet every morning with his breakfast and says he likes the taste!

I buy our chia seeds from them too, and we go through a lot of chia seeds around here.  Our Christmas morning breakfast was overnight oats/quinoa/chia in a mixture of almond milk and coconut milk eggnog (an amazing seasonal treat from the folks at So Delicious).  I had leftover quinoa in the fridge so I dumped it into a bowl with raw oats and a bunch of chia seeds.  Then I added the almond milk and a bit of the eggnog, stirred it around, and let it sit overnight in the fridge.  We had a great breakfast the next morning without any effort at all.  I make all sorts of chia puddings – they’re like magic!  I usually start with 1 part chia to 2 parts liquid and go from there, adding more liquid if it seems too thick.  I blend up nuts and fruit (cranberry chia pudding is a favorite around here) to change the flavor, and we always love a bowl of chocolate chip mint chia pudding during the summer when our mint plants are bursting with leaves.  Chia seeds are a great source of calcium, so if you’re looking for alternatives to dairy, these might be a perfect solution.

One of our new favorite foods – which we also found at The Raw Food World – is kelp noodles.  For about six months now, we’ve been eating very little wheat (or grains at all, other than oats and seeds like buckwheat and quinoa), and I’ve been searching for substitutes for pasta.  We used to eat a lot of whole wheat spaghetti, and I had replaced it with zucchini noodles (made with a spiralizer) in the summer when our zukes were in season, and spaghetti squash in the fall.  I thoroughly enjoy both of those options, but while my guys didn’t mind them, I don’t think they loved them either.  Then I found kelp noodles and my husband and son are coming back for seconds.  They are more expensive than spaghetti, but I’m able to stretch a single package into two meals for our family by adding tons of veggies.  That makes the cost of the noodles much more reasonable (and I love leftovers, since it means I get to skip cooking a meal).  Kelp noodles have almost no calories (6 calories per serving), but they provide calcium and a little iron too.  Their flavor is neutral, so they absorb the flavor of whatever you put on them.  Our favorite thing to do with them is sautee a ton of veggies (broccoli, onions, garlic, carrots, bell peppers) and some tempeh, and then make a variation on Gena’s awesome Asian sauce (I use less oil and more water, but you can tweak it however you like).  Then we mix the sauce, noodles, tempeh and veggies and have a fantastic dinner that comes together quickly and leaves us feeling satisfied but not overly full the way pasta sometimes does.

Anyway, if you’re looking for some inspiration and excellent deals on super-duper food to start off the new year, I highly recommend The Raw Food World.  Everything I’ve bought from them has been great, and they have a huge selection of products.  There’s a link at the top of their left sidebar for “at-cost specials” and they have all sorts of great deals there (like 1000 chlorella tabs or 1000 chlorella/spirulina tabs for $15.95, and those amazing kelp noodles are also in the at-cost specials list right now).  Or you can just browse around the site and know that you can save 17.5% on whatever you buy this week.  They really do have an amazing selection of stuff, which is especially helpful for people who don’t live near a health food supermarket.  In addition, they sell products in all sorts of sizes, so you can try a little of something new or purchase a bulk size if you already know it’s something you love (that would be an especially good idea this week, with the HOLIDAY18 coupon code).  Have fun, and here’s to a happy and healthy 2012!

A while ago, I wrote about getting on board with the idea of a menu rotation in order to simplify life in the kitchen.  I doubt I’ll ever be able to really stick to a set rotation of meals, because I just enjoy experimenting in the kitchen way too much.  But I have found ways to simplify cooking a bit, and that has left me with more time and energy to experiment and have fun in the kitchen.

Several weeks ago, a friend came to stay with us for the weekend, and she cooked dinner while she was here.  She cooked some whole grain pasta, sauteed some veggies (asparagus, tomatoes, garlic, and peppers), and tossed them all together.  It was simple and delicious, and has become the inspiration for my go-to meal when I’m in a hurry.  About once a week I cook a package of whole grain pasta and a big pot of brown rice.  Then throughout the week it’s easy to whip up a one-dish meal that only takes about 15 minutes.  I chop up a whole bunch of veggies – whatever I have on hand – and usually add one Field Roast “sausage” that I dice up (Field Roast is the one meat-substitute that I buy.  It’s relatively expensive ($5 for a package of four “sausage” links) but I always dice up the sausage and only use one link per meal, so a little goes a long way).  I sometimes add Daiya vegan cheese (I buy it in bulk from the co-op and keep it in the freezer), depending on what flavor I’m going for.  Then I mix in some of the rice or pasta from the fridge.  By altering the veggies and spices I can make this meal taste like anything I want:  curry, Italian, Asian, Mexican, etc.   And since all the veggies get cooked in one pot and then precooked rice or pasta is added in at the end, it makes for easy clean up too.

Cooking rice and pasta is easy, although brown rice (the only kind we use) takes a while, and even pasta requires an extra pot on the stove.  So I’ve found that it’s helpful to cook an entire package of pasta at once and store the leftovers in the fridge.  Same with rice:  I usually cook two or three cups of dried rice at once, and have leftovers all week.  A package of pasta and a pot of rice last us for quite a few meals, because I try to make sure that the pasta or rice is not the primary ingredient in any meal.  The meals I’m describing end up being about 2/3 veggies and 1/3 grain, which makes them a lot better for us than a big pot of pasta/rice with a few veggies thrown on top would be.

I’ve also started cooking at least one pot full of dried beans at the start of each week.  I can either use our sun oven or the crock pot, and with very little effort have several cups of cooked beans in the fridge ready to go in whatever recipes I need them for.  I have the pantry stocked with several varieties of bulk dried beans (garbanzo, pinto, kidney, black), but they’re not much use to me if I remember at 4pm that I want to make a meal that would go nicely with beans in it, if the beans are still dry.  By cooking up a pot or two of them once a week, I have beans on hand all week, ready to go in whatever I’m cooking.

I’m just about out of the tomato sauce I canned last fall.  I’ve been adding tomato sauce to some of my pasta/veggie creations, although I’ve found that I can make a really tasty meal without the sauce – good thing, since I only have one jar of sauce left.  Canning season will be here again before we know it, and we’ll have fresh tomatoes from our garden in another couple months.

I’ve also been making good use of my crock pot lately, for one-dish meals that end up being very inexpensive and easy to make.  Our two favorites are split pea soup (I run at least part of it through the blender before serving, to get a creamy texture) and French lentil soup (bottom left corner of the page that pulls up).  I always double the lentil soup recipe and add another 50% to the pea soup (all that will fit in my crock pot).  By doing that, I get two or three meals out of each soup.

Between those two crock pot soups and my rice/beans/pasta in the fridge, along with lots of veggies that I always have on hand (both frozen and fresh), I’m not having to think about meals too much anymore.  I still experiment at least once a week, and I love trying new recipes (which is how we come across winners like this amazing potato and asparagus salad!)  But my fridge always has either leftover soup or a partially-finished meal that just needs some chopped up veggies and a few minutes of cooking time.  Just what this mama needs to make sure that we’re eating high-quality homemade meals everyday, without me spending all day in the kitchen or worrying about what I’m going to make.

In addition to all the cooked food, we also have lots of raw fruits and veggies (no work at all other than washing them and chopping them up), and tons of greens from our garden (we eat green smoothies every day, plus lots of greens in salads and sandwiches).  I almost always have a jar of sprouts growing, and we also have lots of nuts and seeds in the fridge and freezer for snacks.  And every once in a while I whip up a treat, like these fantastic fig bars or chocolate chip cookie dough balls that take about six minutes to make (I made the whole blizzard concoction once, and we really liked them.  But I find myself making the dough balls by themselves too, as they’re really fast and easy and I can whip them up in a jiffy if people stop over or if my boys want a sweet treat.  I’ve also found that I can reduce the sugar and syrup a bit – even though there’s not much to begin with – and they’re still just as yummy).

So that’s where I am with food these days.  I hope you enjoy the recipes I’ve linked to – happy cooking!

After many years of resisting, I think I’m ready to get on board with the idea of a rotating menu plan.  I enjoy cooking, and I love finding new recipes to try.  Sticking to a schedule of meals always sounded boring, and like a good way to stifle kitchen creativity.  But with our second child due to arrive in a month, a busy business, a huge garden that will soon be requiring a lot of attention, and a basement remodel – I think it’s time to streamline our food preparation – or at least take the mental work out of it, so that I don’t have to spend time wondering what I should make for dinner.

I like the idea of a schedule that would repeat every two weeks, so that we don’t feel like we’re eating just a few meals over and over.  I can think of a few meals off the top of my head that will definitely be included – our favorite rice and beans dish, a crock pot soup that we love, spaghetti with homemade sauce (we still have jars of sauce that I canned last fall, and they should last for another couple months)… and I know that my husband and son will have some ideas that they will want to throw in the mix too.  I think I’ll shoot for 12 meals on the list, which will give me a little wiggle room for creativity and trying new recipes the other two days.

Breakfast is easy – we buy oats in 50 pound bags, and my husband cooks oatmeal every morning for us.  Lunch is usually leftovers, sandwiches, salad, or something along those lines.  I’ll make sure that most of the meals I put in our dinner schedule are big enough to provide us with leftovers for lunch the next day, which makes lunch a breeze.

Once garden season gets here, I’ll be able to go back to grocery shopping no more than twice a month (during the winter I shop more than that in order to get fresh produce, but in the summer and fall our garden produces enough to allow me to space out the shopping trips a lot more).  With a two week meal plan, our shopping list should look pretty much the same every two weeks, and the process should be pretty simple.

I know that a lot of other bloggers have been using menu plans for ages.  I remember my father proposing an idea for simplified cooking about 25 years ago.  This is not a new idea, I’ve just never been interested in it before.  But now I’m ready, so please share your favorite tips for menu planning, recipes that your family doesn’t get tired of, and whatever other ideas you have for simplifying the process of “what’s for dinner” while sticking with homemade and nutritious.