Frugal SBD

[Chris55]

Buying beans in bulk and cooking them in large batches saves money and time. Every few weeks I cook a pound of black beans in my pressure cooker, then freeze them in small portions in silicone muffin cups. When I want to use them, I pop them out of the freezer, microwave for one minute, and sprinkle with taco seasoning. I used them in quesadillas or my favorite breakfast - beans topped with shredded cheddar and a poached egg. I also defrost them to toss on salads or to have when the family is having meat tacos - I fill mine with beans instead. I got tired of constantly finding containers of the remains of canned black beans in the back of my fridge. Now I buy dry ones, cook them, and freeze them - about $1.30 per package.

Cooking large batches of brown rice is helpful, also. I like having some on hand to throw into last-minute soups or to have when my family is having their mashed potatoes.

[Magna]

That's a good idea! I think I'll try it with the beans in plastic bags. I will probably drain them and use the cooking liquid for soup.

BTW, not all beans take the same amount of time to cook. Some white beans take literally hours. But if I cook them in a batch and freeze them, that would be another matter.

[Magna]

Here's a story on being a savvy buyer/consumer. A couple of the items are about cooking and how it relates to health and saving money:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/How-to-Be ... 2.html?x=0

[Magna]

Here's an article on trends in frugality among consumers:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Frugality ... 3.html?x=0

[Chris55]

The price of seafood, even in Maine, has risen drastically the past few years. I've joined the first seafood co-op in our state and will start getting my shares next month just like my CSA for veggies. I'm not sure how economical it will be, but I'll be getting very fresh fish caught with sustainable methods by local fishermen. I've been very frustrated trying to find local seafood, even though I live on the coast.

Meanwhile, my local independent grocer has "chowder fish", which is pretty much nice-sized trimmings of fish that is usually used for chowder. This week it was on sale for $1.69/lb. Usually it's around $2. My family isn't wild about fish chowder but love thick creamy clam chowder made with potatoes. So I decided to buy some and try making it into an asian soup since my family, especially one son, is more likely to eat things that involve soy sauce and mushrooms. It would also be much more SB friendly than a traditional New England "chowdah". So I filled a pot with water, added a few dry asian mushrooms, miso paste, soy sauce, garlic, ginger, thinly sliced mushrooms and zucchini, scallions, and some salad greens (arugula) that were getting wilted. They absolutely loved it! Made me write down the recipe so I can make it again. The soup cost $2 for the fish, maybe another 1-2 for the other ingredients, and it fed four happy people. Plus it took about 20 min. to make!

[Magna]

Here's an article on foods under $1/pound, and general shopping tips:
http://shine.yahoo.com/event/green/50-h ... d-1677000/

Most of the foods are SBD-friendly (and there are a lot of other SBD-friendly foods that weren't mentioned).

[Chris55]

Great little article! Nice links to other things, too.

I lucked out this week - stopped by a farm stand to get some strawberries and found a sale on lettuce - huge heads that were probably ready to go to seed, had major thunderstorms so they were muddy, don't know why, but they were $1 each. I brought one home, soaked it in water, spinning it out in about 6 batches, wrapped in paper towels and put in a green bag. I have enough lettuce for our family for days.

I know this has shown up in another thread, but those green bags do really work, and are reusable. I know I can stock up on veggies on sale without them getting gross after a few days in my fridge.

[Chris55]

My bargain of the week is a 5lb. package of lean ground turkey for $6. That's a lot of turkey, so tonight we're having turkey burgers with some Greek flavors - feta cheese, olives, maybe some orzo for the non-SB family members and a nice large Greek salad. I made up more burgers for the freezer and also two small packages that will be turning into white chili at some point, on a cooler day.

I've learned to keep my eye out for those manager's special and dollars off stickers in my supermarket. Just because the package is dated that day or the next day is no reason not to buy it and pop it in the freezer. Usually after I do a grocery haul, I'm tired, so I just shove everything I can into the fridge. Then when I'm starting dinner that evening I package everything up for the freezer or meals later in the week.

[Magna]

Article about "best foods for the buck":
http://shopping.yahoo.com/articles/ysho ... your-buck/

It's worth noticing that every one is appropriate for SBD. The article doesn't specify what kind of peanut butter to buy, but the price quoted in the article (20 cents for 2 tablespoons) amounts to about $3.20 for a 1-pound jar. I pay a much lower price for my regular brand, about half the price listed in the article.

[Chris55]

That looks a lot like my weekly shopping list. Also a lot like the foods we distribute at our local food pantry, more evidence that you can eat healthy food on a budget. Or save money on those items and have a little to splurge on that fresh salmon or nice piece of beef.

I would include other greens along with the spinach, though. Spinach cooks down so much that 5 ounces is just a mouthful! How about kale (my old favorite) and swiss chard (my new favorite)? Chard tastes a lot like spinach but keeps its bulk a little better. And rainbow chard is pretty enough to entice kids to eat it!

I think that just by purchasing foods that haven't been processed you can save a bundle. Have you ever looked at the prices on those rice mix packages? They have a cup of rice and some seasoning and they charge almost as much as my 5-lb bag of brown rice.

[Magna]

My local store sells hulled sunflower seeds in bulk for about $2.30 a pound. You can get them raw or roasted, and the roasted kind come salted or unsalted. Because they're sold in open bins, I kind of suspect people may be ignoring the "no sampling" signs and sticking their hands into the bins, so I have avoided buying the pre-roasted ones (which are 10 cents a pound more, anyway). My thinking is that the raw ones get "sampled" less, plus roasting them myself will help kill any germs from dirty hands.

I bought the raw ones and roasted them for about 15 minutes in the oven. I drizzled them with a little canola oil, mixed the oil in with a wooden spatula, then sprinkled salt on them. While they were roasting, I used the spatula to mix them around so they toasted more evenly. The toasting is still a bit uneven, but yields an interesting variation in color and texture. I keep them in a Ziploc bag in the freezer, and portion out some into a small plastic bag when I'm packing my lunch. By doing it this way, I save a lot of money compared with sunflower seeds in a jar or packet, and I can control the amount of salt. Most packaged sunflower seeds are a little too salty I think.

BTW, I could buy large packages of sunflower seeds for a comparable price, but I would have to buy larger quantities than I probably have room for or could use up quickly.

Small packets of home-roasted sunflower seeds would make good additions to lunches, or snacks for hikes, picnics, etc. (A very convenient and tasty snack is a banana accompanied by sunflower seeds.) A creative person could also turn packets or containers of sunflower seeds into party favors or small gifts. They are not a common allergenic food (compared to nuts, for example).

I also looked up sunflower seeds on the World's Healthiest Foods site, and they are a real nutritional powerhouse, with huge amounts of vitamin E, various B vitamins, and minerals:
http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tnam ... ce&dbid=57

[Magna]

Interesting article about how stores get us to buy more, and ways to avoid the lure:
http://shine.yahoo.com/event/financiall ... r-2029497/

[Chris55]

My local grocery store underwent a major expansion about two years ago. It's wonderful that they have such a wide selection of foods, but I feel like I've run a marathon after shopping there. They organized the aisles differently so that the meat is in one long case along almost the entire length of the store and you can't get to it except from either end, so you end up walking through all the "processed" food aisles first along with their piles of cookies at the ends of each aisle. Very irritating. I do my veggies/fruits first, hit the meat, then go down the two or three aisles that I need to, grab my dairy, and escape. When I just need a few things I go to a much smaller store without a big selection, but I can get in and out in 15 minutes without emptying my bank account.

Another thing I've noticed in my large chain store is that they have their own brand of nearly everything now with prices that they used to charge for the major brands. This happened almost overnight with them raising the major brand prices about 20%. They've also come out with their own "designer" brand with a fancier name and fancier prices for things like store brand marinades and dressings. Big bucks for them with all these changes.

[Magna]

Update to the sunflower seed post: I found Trader Joe's is now selling a pound of roasted sunflower seeds for $2.00. That beats the bulk rate, so it's TJ's from now on!