"frugal cooking" news and stories

Ever since I switched to buying raw milk in bottles a couple of months ago, I've been searching with ways to use up slightly sour milk. I'm working at incorporating more milk into my diet and cooking, so that I'm able to use it up before it goes off, but I'm just not always able to manage it. However, I'm learning that there are a number of ways to incorporate the sour milk into cooking and baking and I'm beginning to see it as a culinary asset as opposed to a hassle that must be dealt with if I want to prevent waste.

Saturday afternoon, knowing that I had about two cups of sour milking hanging out in the fridge, I started googling around and discovered that in addition to biscuits, pancakes and waffles, a number of people make cake using sour milk. There was one story that I found particularly endearing, about how when one woman was young, she and her siblings would hide a glass of milk in the back of the fridge, so that it would sour and their mother would have to make this cake.

I cobbled together pieces of several recipes and came out with a cake that was light, fluffy and with just a bit of tang from the milk. I used a lot of cinnamon and so it ended up tasting a bit like coffee cake. The next time I make it, I think I'll dust the top with the turbinado sugar, in order to end up with a caramelized, crunchy top. It would make a great addition to a brunch menu, or would be wonderful for a special treat, especially topped with a cream cheese frosting. The recipe for my sour milk cake is after the jump.

Recently I've been hearing from some friends that while they want to eat better and more healthfully, they just can't seem to afford to make it a reality. I don't believe that healthy eating needs to be particularly expensive (okay, it might be a little bit pricier, but it doesn't have to break your budget). Our friend, the Urban Vegan, has compiled a list of 25 money saving tips for eating a better diet. These tips are geared for frugal vegans, but many of her recommendations can extend out to a variety of eating patterns and choices.

She reminds us that some kitchen appliances will eventually pay for themselves (her ice cream maker has been pulling its own weight for some time), that baking your own bread will save you money (try the No-Knead recipe if you are challenged by yeast) and that the goal should be (classic New England wisdom) to "Use it up. Wear it out. Make it do, or do without."

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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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