Tips and Recipes

Consider making from scratch many of the things you usually buy in prepared form, such as brownies or salad dressing.
· Time is a valuable resource. It's usually not worth the time, or gasoline to hopscotch from store to store to save a few dollars.
· Limit trips to the store. Multiple trips usually mean more incidental items added to the cart.
· Beans are an inexpensive protein. Add them to tacos, casseroles, salads, etc., so you can use less meat.
· Dried beans, per cooked serving, are often less than half the price of canned beans. But they take a lot of time to cook. Soak a batch overnight in your slow cooker on low heat, then portion and freeze for later use. They also will be softer after being frozen. Beans are still somewhat of an experimental process for me in cooking. I have experimented with grinding the beans into a flour to add as a thickening in soups and other dishes. We use dried beans to avoid sodium intake. Canned beans have high quantities of sodium per serving, that can be reduced with rinsing before use. With dried beans I can control the salt and know exactly how much I have added...no guessing involved.

· Freeze butter to keep its fresh flavor. Grate it, frozen, over toast, baked potatoes, etc. for portion control.
Butter is one of our "can't live without" food items. I try to keep my "butter shelf" in the freezer stocked, especially when I find butter on sale (which isn't often enough!) My husband doesn't tolerate olive oil well (headaches) and I don't care for the taste or texture when using oil in many of my recipes. Shortening works well in baking, oil for high heat cooking, but butter is my favorite in baking bread and chocolate chip cookies, over freshly popped popcorn, dabbed on salmon before cooking, melting in the cavity of a baking turkey, and always always always a dab melting on top of any homemade muffins, rolls, biscuits......yum!

·Unless they're on special, breasts are the most expensive part of the chicken. Boneless, skinless thighs offer the same convenience for less, and dark meat is more moist and flavorful anyway.
· Don't throw out your bacon drippings. Sauté bread cubes in it for croutons, add to cornbread batter, add to barbecue sauce and brush on ribs or chicken while they're cooking.
· Invest in a popcorn popper. You can make ten times more popcorn for the same price as microwave popcorn. You'll have to add you own butter and salt, but you have more control over the amounts.
The grand kids LOVE to make "old fashioned" popcorn. Plus we all like the taste, no artificial flavoring, just the spice or seasoning of choice.

· Use and rotate your food storage. If you aren't using it, it is basically a waste of space and money. Rule of thumb: Store what you use and use what you store.
Learn, learn, learn how to use what you have! It takes lots of experimenting to discover what extras spices you may want on hand, or kitchen gadgets or tools you need to prepare food items more easily.
I have an electric citrus juicer, but realize now that I need (MUST HAVE) an old fashioned ceramic juicer for when the power is out. We drink fresh squeezed orange, lemon, or lime juice daily through out the winter and store the extra juice (frozen in baggies in the freezer) for use through out the summer.
Same with a manual wheat grinder....I have one, but have never used it. Are all the pieces there, does it function properly, do I need a different kind of grinder? I use almost all 100% whole wheat these days, in waffles, cookies, cake, muffins, bread and rolls. How long would it take me to grind the five pounds I use every few days if I had to do it manually? Almost every morning I run about 1/4 can of wheat through my grinder to use throughout the day in my cooking needs. It's fresh and ready as needed, especially to feed my sourdough starter daily!
The big must have is a manual can opener. I have never owned an electric can opener except for when I received one as a wedding present. A hand held can opener can be popped into the dishwasher for easy cleaning or held under hot running water to get off the food splatters.
Cleaning kitchen appliances of far flung food items, dried and caked on, is not my favorite past time. It's amazing to see the creativity of children and the husband's culinary skills. Cooking by others is such a rare treat that I often volunteer to clean up the kitchen afterwards (to encourage them to have the desire to make more frequent visits to the kitchen!) I haven't identified the food source on the ceiling and that looks like tomato sauce on the linoleum where it is coved up under the cupboards (didn't notice that one for months or maybe years until I was on the floor looking for a pill I had dropped! Old fashioned, down on the knees scrubbing the floor instead of using a mop would have revealed that mess a lot quicker!) Then there are the days when after cooking for hours I'm too tired to do more than get the dishwasher going and the pots washed. The appliances just get "a lick and a promise." Fortunately I have made a vinegar and citrus peel spray which does make the dried on mess, cleanup much easier.