Cass Cooks, Too!

posted by Cass on Oct 6

Boy, am I glad this week for a full pantry and freezer. Times are tough all over, and we didn’t have much money for restocking this week. That’s not a huge issue, because I’ve been shopping the good deals, and also, there is still a lot of food left from Angel Food. A little milk and oatmeal, and I can eek us out for another week, and we can eat well without taking out a personal loan for food.

Learning to shop frugally is an ongoing adventure for me. Right now, we are spending between five and six hundred dollars a month. 6 months ago, we were regularly spending between eight and nine hundred. I’ve shaved the equivalent of a auto loan payment off our grocery choices, just by making better decisions in the store. We are eating healthier and we are eating a better variety, and we are doing it for less. I’m really happy with that, and I haven’t even started using coupons yet! I said yet, because I do plan to start using them as soon as I make myself sit down for a few minutes and figure out how to start getting my hands on the Sunday paper for less than 2 bucks a week.

You may notice some repeats on this weeks menu. There were several nights last week where we had something off the “official” menu. Both of my older girls like to cook, and so if they have something they want to make, I let them do so, as long as we have the ingredients. This week’s menu is a little more rigid, since we will be using up the tail end of the frozen foods. That’s ok, because I will be going shopping this coming weekend. I don’t know exactly when, since we have football all day Saturday, and I have church on Sunday morning and I am singing in a talent show on Sunday night. Anyway, here’s the menu:

~pintos (these are already cooked and the famfam says they are delish. I started them before I left for the day yesterday, just adding a large can of diced tomatoes, about half a cup of dried cilantro and a bit of salt to a pound and a half of pintos, then cooking all day in the crockpot.)

chicken on a can
ribs
chicken and pastry
fried catfish
burritos

Hey, here’s an question for ya. How do you think the recent bailout will affect food prices? I know at first glance it seems like the two are unrelated, but I’ve found that everything effects food prices in one way or another. Is the government’s 700Billion dollar attempt at saving the banks a good thing for the people? Or do you think more families will be needing debt consolidation just to afford the basics? And if they do need it, will they be able to get it with the tighter strictures on lending?

posted by Cass on Oct 1

I told you on Monday to expect a post on Angel Food Ministries soon, and here it is. We used them for the first time this past month, and I am totally impressed. We’ll be using them again, that’s for sure! We bought two boxes and here’s what we got for 60 bucks:

2 pounds of pinto beans
2 bags of pizza poppers
7 pounds of chicken bites
2 pounds of ground turkey
2 pounds of broccoli
2 bags of french fries
2 pork tenderloins
4 pounds of boneless skinless chicken breast
2 boxes of mac and cheese
2 boxes of chicken flavored rice mx
2 boxes of oatmeal cookies
2 boxes of shelf-stable milk
3 pounds of steak
8 cheddar-beef brats
2 dozen eggs

There may be more that I am forgetting, but I really don’t think the price can be beat, and the quality is excellent! We had the steak last night, and it was so tender that some of the pieces came apart from their own weight as I was putting it on the grill. I got read to cut mine at the table, and it just shredded apart.

I don’t know how we’ll use all of this, but I definitely see chicken and noodles, chicken and pastry, chicken and dumplings and chicken and rice in our near future, all made with the chicken bites.

And next month? We’re doing it again, and the boxes will include:

1.5 lb. Ribeye Steaks (4 x 6 oz.)
4.5 lb. (Avg) Split Chicken Breast Family Tray Pack
26 oz. Heat and Serve Meatloaf and Brown Gravy
1 lb. Chicken Breast Fajita Strips
1 lb. Boneless Center-Cut Pork Chops (4 x 4 oz.)
1 lb. Fully Cooked Meatballs
1 lb. All Meat Hot Dogs
1 lb. Frozen Sliced Carrots
1 lb. California Blend Vegetables
1 lb. Pasta
28 oz. Marinara Sauce
48 oz. Hawaiian Punch
32 oz. Borden 2% Reduced Fat Shelf Stable Milk
12 ct. Corn Tortillas
One Dozen Eggs
One Dessert Item

We’ll get two boxes again, and we may get one of the “special” boxes as well. If you are trying to stretch your food budget, I seriously recommend Angel Food. As we go through the month, I’ll let you know more about how we used some of the different foods!

P.S. The french fries are also good. We had some with the corndogs I picked up BOGO at Piggly Wiggly on Saturday.

posted by Cass on Sep 18

I just want to let you know that I am indeed back, and glad to be home. I installed a few plug-ins this morning to make our user experiences a bit more friendly. On the outside, it’s mostly comment related: you can now click a button to subscribe to comments for any post, and also clickable smilies. Love me some smilies!

Internally, there are a couple of comment ones, and also Zemanta. I love me some Zemanta almost as much as I love clickable smilies. Which I also have in here. See?

Hahahahahahah.

And yes, next time, I will talk about FOOD.

posted by Cass on Aug 20

Did you know you can buy groceries from Amazon.com? Me either, until the other day I was looking for this picture so I could show some people what I was talking about. But, yes, you can. And the prices are even reasonable. And eligible for free super-saver shipping. Yeah, crazy, huh? You can even subscribe and have your Jello desserts show up automagically every 1, 2, 3 or 6 months. And you get a discount if you do that. The downside is that it’s a bulk buy–you have to get five boxes at a time. I know, it’s a real hardship, isn’t it?

posted by Cass on Aug 14

So, I showed you my menu, right? And yesterday, practice was cancelled, so I got to go to the grocery store. Now, last month, we ate pretty good, and I spent about $700 on groceries. Last night, I spent $400 on what I hope to make last 2 weeks. I wasn’t even able to get all the stuff on my list, for crying out loud! Remember that flood a while back in the midwest? I saw those fields covered in water, and I mentally said “Oh, crap!!” because I knew what was going to happen, and Lo! Behold!! It has come to pass!!! Groceries have increased at least 25%, and when you are feeding this many people, that is a crisis.

And do you understand that I am not talking about luxury food items like ice cream and chocolate chips????? Those prices are about the same, but the flour and sugar and meats and dairy are insanely high.

And have I mentioned that my husband drives for a living? I knew that we weren’t quite keeping up with the Joneses and all, but I’m finding it hard to understand how meeting our basic food, clothing, shelter and transportation needs has put us in a financial crisis. How do you get Debt relief for basic recurring life expenses?

Well, I don’t know what to do about clothing, shelter and transportation, right off hand, but I know what we are going to do about food. I had been making a clear separation between lunch foods (usually cheaper dishes with less meat) and dinner meals (more meat, spendier ingredients), and in order to make that food I bought last night last $400 worth, that has to change. We’ll be eating lunch and dinner meals for dinner, and lunch will be leftovers or a sandwich. And we will be eating the leftovers. All of them. Because we can’t afford not to!

It’s just smart financially to not be wasteful! The first step to financial prudence is to be wise in how you utilize your resources. After all, it’s hard to invest if you spend all you have on necessities. And how do you plan for the future if every bit of your energy is spent trying to make it through the today?

But enough gloom and doom! This means that I get a chance to share some pretty frugal cooking ideas with you. Let’s start next time when I tell you just how far 2 pounds of dry beans can go. You’ll need one pound of chub sausage, and 2 pounds of either pintos or blackeyed peas (or a combination), and a hunk of salt pork. You should be able to purchase that for less that $10, but you’ll also need rice and tortillas. And sausage patties or links. If you can afford them. They aren’t necessary as rice and beans together form a complete protein. However, adding sausage patties, rice and tortillas will only cost you another $10, for a total of $20, and you’ll get several meals from it. If you are feeling really extravagant, or already have rice and tortillas on hand, pick up some cheese and sour cream.

ETA for you yankees:

A “chub” is a roll of sausage. And a good substitute for salt pork is bacon ends.

Thanks, Ang. for pointing out the geo-differences.

posted by Cass on Aug 7

Did you know that I used to be a smoker? I just passed my one year non-smoker anniversary. One of the things I have noticed since I stopped smoking is that I taste more, and taste diferently. I no longer taste just the top tones of a spice or flavor, but the undertones and aftertastes as well. It’s kind of interesting to know now that most of my life I wasn’t tasting what I ate. Which is kind of amusing, considering how much I love to eat, LOL!

I called this paprika eureka is that the first spice I re-discovered was paprika, and I was reminded of that when I wrote my review of The Spice Merchant’s Daughter today.

Consider this post the cyber equivalent of me passing around the bottle and saying taste this! Try it in dry beans, on chicken and fish, and also on popcorn!

posted by Cass on Aug 1

Do you guys drink wine with your meals? I have to admit that I usually don’t have wine until the evenings after the kids are in bed. I’ve never really bothered to figure out what goes with what, and my folks never served wine, so it’s just not something I know how to do. But I’d like to. I guess if I ever get around to throwing an actual dinner party, I will make the effort to put it all together with the right wines for the courses. I am actually kind of proud of myself for moving out of my white zinfandel comfort zone in the past half-year. There are some really nice wines out there, yes, even at Wal-Mart and even at less than $10 bucks a bottle if you can let your tongue do the tasting instead of your “palate”.

In the meantime, since studying wine is not on my official agenda, I can cheat. I read Rachel Ray’s mag, and in the back of every issue, she suggests wines to go with the recipes. That works for me, for now. Only most of them aren’t available at Wal-Mart, nor are they under ten bucks. Also, Boone’s Farm still burns my tongue. Just sayin’

posted by Cass on Jul 26

I want to give a good shout out to my friend, Retta. She’s a good egg, and really smart. Back when this blog was a glimmer in my eye, I asked he to make a theme for me, and she worked head down for a bit and came up with this one for me. I loved it! But in the meantime, you can’t have a naked blog, so I had installed another one. Inertia took over and I just left the other one up because my attention had wandered. However, when I decided it was time to renew my passion over here, I went and found this theme, filed away at easywahmwebsites.com, just waiting for me, as if Retta knew I would come back for it.

Anyway, that’s the story, Morning Glory. Retta blogs over at Just Not Martha. Go read her. She’s a keeper.

posted by Cass on Jul 20

you probably ought to check out one of my other blogs! Each Thursday, I run a segment called “Cass in the Kitchen” over on Cass Knits! I do cookbook reviews, talk about the occasional cooking website, and share some of my best recipes, along with mouth watering pictures to tempt you into succumbing to my culinary magic. Seriously, it’s good stuff!

posted by Cass on Jul 14

I was looking through my photo cards trying to find some pictures I had taken for this blog of various kitchen utensils that I have burned and mangled beyond recognition, and I found this photo I took for SPS of me frying bacon early on Sunday morning. Good thing I at least found this, because I think I deleted the others. Too bad, because they were worth a giggle at least. Oh well. I guess I can re-take them.