"FrugalFood" news and stories

For about 3.7 seconds today, I was asking myself if I have, perchance, been spending a tad too much time on Twitter lately. But, seeing as how said dallying then led to a deftly jazzed-up ramen recipe, courtesy of the author of one of my favorite food memoirs of the recent past, I don't see how any of us could afford not to. Kathleen Flinn is no stranger to the tireless, if sometimes penniless, pursuit of the delicious; The Sharper Your Knife The Less You Cry chronicles her loss of a lucrative corporate lifestyle and subsequent savings investment in a degree program at Le Cordon Bleu. While the the corner shops of Gay Paree may not have been chock-a-block with student budget-friendly ramen bricks, Flinn picked up a flavor trick or ten between puff pastry and boning lessons and shares her method for infusing the noodles with the brightness of miso, green onions, fresh herbs, Sriracha and citrus, as well as other light-wallet recipes.

Clearly, at-home ramen can be a reward rather than a last resort. How are you gussying them up, or are you hooked on the packet? Please share with the rest of the (broke...oh, so painfully broke) class, why don'tcha?

Kathleen Flinn's Quick Miso Ramen with Shrimp, Chicken or Tofu

We all know that times are getting tough. Food, energy and transportation prices have all gone up substantially. Cookbook's addressing this fact are doing well, or going to do well. That's one reason Delia Smith, the famous British cookbook author, is re-issuing her classic 1970's cookbook, Frugal Food.

This cookbook is chock full of inexpensive recipes and energy saving tips. There's a whole chapter dedicated to 'Pauper's Puddings" and includes the "cheap charter", which talks about how to use leftovers creatively among other things. There is also advice about using offal, unfashionable cuts of meat or kinds of fish, and also how to "conjure up the maximum flavour from the most frugal of ingredients".

The re-issued cookbook is coming out on October 30 for £17.99 ($36-ish in Us dollars). Some have suggested, though, just getting a copy of the original printing of the cookbook for half that amount. I found it on Amazon.com for $15.

[via The Guardian]

Marisa wrote about yogurt making about a month ago. I would like to re-visit the subject from an extremely frugal angle. With wild fruits coming into season (like mulberries), yogurt is a great way to serve nature's sweet bounty.

I can remember trying yogurt for the first time as a kid. Most of the brands had a distinctive sour taste, and fruit on the bottom. They came in 8-ounce containers, and sold for anywhere from 25 to 50 cents a cup. Now, with prices double that or more, and the cups shrinking to 6 or even 4 ounces (who can eat 4 ounces of yogurt and call it a satisfying experience?), I decided to re-visit the old fashioned way of getting yogurt. MAKING IT YOURSELF!

This isn't just for frugality. I really enjoy making things at home that most people buy prepared. Some of the things we purchase without questioning whether or not they could be created right in our kitchens are actually quite easy to make. Yogurt is one of them, and requires very little in the way of equipment.

There are yogurt makers that you can purchase. I have to tell you though that they are really not necessary. The only piece of equipment you might need to buy is a kitchen thermometer. You will need a thermometer that can read as high as 100 degrees Celsius (212 Fahrenheit) and as low as 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit). For your first batch only, you need starter. A tablespoon of good plain yogurt works fine as long as it has active cultures (check the label). After your first batch you just need to conserve some yogurt each time to use as starter for your next batch.

I thought I could do better than the Hillbilly Housewife, whose weekly menu of weiner stirfry and tuna-and-peas-over-rice didn't appeal much to my sense of budgetary gourmet. I'm not the only one, evidently. The good people at the Better Times Almanac have created what they call the "Slow Food for Poor People Challenge."

Taking the "Food Stamp Challenge," they ate on a food stamp budget for a week (about $61 for two people) and tried to make their example an even better one by employing "(1) frugal supermarket shopping, (2) preparing meals from basic ingredients, (3) buying local foods, (4) gardening, (5) food storage, and (6) home preservation of food."

Menus like "Buffalo meatloaf, oven fries, corn on the cob, green beans," biscuits and gravy, buffalo pot roast and a breakfast of "2 scrambled eggs, 1/3 lb sausage, hash brown, potatoes, rolls, apple cobbler" are a little more my speed. The drawback is that their menu is a bit repetitive (and, being from Oklahoma, relies heavily on buffalo meat). But you can hardly argue with a $60 weekly menu that employs organic eggs from free-ranging hens and meats from local cooperatives. It's a nice attempt and only fuels my desire to come up with more and better cheap-but-gourmet meals.

[photo Sarah Gilbert]

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