Limit Your Repertoire

"Limit your repertoire. Variety may be the spice of life, but too much will give you indigestion. Most of us have kitchens filled with ingredients (especially spices) that we rarely use. One strategy is to collect about two weeks worth of recipes that meet your criteria for both cost and nutrition. Cycle through them, then begin again. Or designate each day of the week for focusing on a particular type of food: Monday, soup in cold months and salad in warm months; Tuesday, tofu; Wednesday, pasta; Thursday, eggs; Friday, pizza, Saturday, sandwiches; Sunday, beans and rice. Variety and flexibility are built in. Soup might be from a can, from a mix or from scratch depending what is on sale and what is in the cupboard. By beginning with just a couple recipes for each category, the system stays manageable."

Does this sound familiar? It comes from an article written by Meg McGowen which I highlighted in an earlier posting. It makes a lot of sense and when I look at the way I cook, I suppose that is what I do. After years of preparing meals, it is almost second nature. However, I do like to add new recipes now and again to my repertoire and I suppose that once every two weeks you could have a 'new recipe' day. I am going to re-examine the recipes I cook and see if I can't come up with a two week cycle and see how it works. I like the idea that you would have a number of recipes to call on in each category. More to come. However not for a week or so since I am off to Dorset to enjoy country cooking beside the sea! Hopefully I'll come back with more ideas!

Mary Jane's Strawberry Jam in Winter

Strawberry Jam in Winter....

Make when frozen strawberries are found on sale.

I buy a bag of frozen strawberries and it on the counter for about 20 minutes to thaw a bit.

I put the thawing berries into a pot with about a cup of brown sugar and the juice of a juicy lemon.

I cook the ingredients over medium heat till it is at stage where it darkens, thickens and "spits" at you. You need to stir constantly or it will burn.

Then I take it off the heat and let it cool a bit before putting into some jars. When fully cooled, the jars of jam must be refrigerated (at least I think they "must" refrigerated but I may be wrong).

I've played with this one a bit. I like it with orange rind grated into it but Mike prefers it without.

It's more like strawberry preserves than strawberry jam.

I don't think I'll ever use fresh strawberries for jam again as the frozen ones here are usually very good for jam and usually cheaper than fresh even when fresh are at their peak. mj

Strawberry Jam

Mary Jane said that she had made jam from frozen strawberries. I haven't been able to find such a recipe but I have come up with the following that might be of interest:

750g strawberry
125g granulated sugar
a squeeze of lemon juice

1. Rinse and hull the strawberries but don't dry them.
2. Pile them into a stainless steel or enamel pan with the sugar.
3. Roughly crush the fruit with your hands or a fork then place the pan over a low to medium heat.
4. Stir occasionally for 15-20 minutes, spooning off the pink froth as you go.
5. The jam should be thick enough to fall slowly from the spoon, like syrup, but nowhere near thick enough to set.
6. Pour into a bowl and serve with scones, (where it will drip down your fingers), or slices cut from a sponge cake, spoon over goat's yogurt or allow to cool and stir into a mess of whipped cream, fresh berries and crumbled meringue.
(Nigel Slater, Observer, June 22, 2008)

Strawberry Jam

1KG strawberries
800 g granulated sugar
the juice of a large lemon

1. Wash and hull the berries. Keep the small ones whole and halve or even quarter the large ones.

2. Put them into a stainless-steel pas with the sugar and lemon juice and bring to the boil.

3. Boil rapidly for 15 minutes or until the fruit is starting to look soft and translucent.

4. Skim off the pink froth that appears on the top then spoon into the sterilised jars, seal carefully and leave to cool.

(A fairly light set)

I made houmous this morning!

I tried one of the recipes this morning and was so proud of myself. It turned out great but it was a little runny. No wonder! I mixed up cans and cups on the Silver Palate cookbook recipe. So, instead of 4 cups, I used 2. It was good nonetheless, with a slightly stronger taste of tahini than usual. I will try it again in a week or so once I've gone through all the houmus that this recipe make!

The big question is whether or not this is cheaper. Mine made 28 fluid oz of houmous but I have yet to go through and do a costing. However, I can say that it didn't take long to make - between 10 and 12 minutes.

Houmus, hummus, houmous

However you spell it, it is still a chick pea and tahini dip. According to a Guardian writer, it's easy to make and much less expensive to do it yourself. I have two cans of chick peas in the cupboard and a jar of tahini, a give away from the cupboard of a colleague. I have lots of olive oil and some lemons so I definitely feel an evening of humous making coming on. I have various recipes to choose from and here they are below:

From 'the Art of Syrian Cooking' by Zeinab Al-Abed, a former colleague:

1 lb. of dried chick peas
3 cloves of garlic
2 teaspoons olive oil
2 lemons, juice
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 cup (4 oz) Tahini
3 tablespoons of plain yogurt
salt to taste

1. Soak chick peas overnight, then boil for 45 minutes until they are soft.
2. Put chick peas, garlic, lemon juice and 2 cups of water (not mentioned in the ingredient list!), yogurt, salt to taste and tahini in a blender and blend at medium speed for two minutes.
3. Put in a bowl and sprinkle cumin on top, then add some olive oil.
4. Eat with pita bread.

Note: If I use this recipe I will use canned beans. However, dried beans would be less expensive.

Recipe 2: From 'Moosewood Cookbook' by Mollie Katzen. I love the illustrations in this vegetarian cookbook. Recipes are great too!

1 1/2 cups (a cup = 8 fl. oz) raw chickpeas soaked and boiled (I'm sure that canned beans are fine)
3 medium cloves minced garlic
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
dash of tamari (I have no idea what that is)
juice from 2 medium lemons
3/4 cups of tahini
1/4 cup (packed) finely minced parsley
lots of black pepper and dash of cayenne
1/4 cup minced scallions

1. Mash chickpeas to a thick paste, using a food mill or grinder or masher
2. Combine everything and chill thoroughly.
3. Taste to correct seasonings. Some people like extra garlic, tamari or tahini.

Recipe 3: From 'The Silver Palate Cookbook: Hummus bi tahini

4 cups (about 2 1/2 cans) chick peas, drained
1/2 cups of tahini
1/3 cup warm water
juice of 2 or 3 lemons
4 or more garlic cloves
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons group cumin seed
freshly ground black pepper to taste

1. Combine chick-peas, tahini, warm water, olive oil and juice of 1 lemon in the bowl of a food processor (or a blender). Process until smooth and creamy, pausing once or twice to scrape down sides of the bowl with a spatula.

2. Add garlic, salt, cuminseed and pepper to taste, and process to blend. Taste and correct seasoning if necessary. Add more lemon juice to taste. Crape into a storage container, cover and refrigerate until ready to use.

So, tomorrow night I will choose one of these and try it out.

How to save money according to a newspaper!

This morning, the Observer (which is the Sunday version of the Guardian), an English newspaper, included a section entitled 'How To Save Money: Shopping & Leisure'. I've had a look through and there are some good ideas, but when they come to the suggestions about food shopping and cooking, there are a few problems. Yes, the ideas are good and would save money. However, they forget that people buy a lot of products because they will save time.

One suggestion was to make your own pasta sauce instead of buying one. Some sauces can be put together easily and quickly and yes, they do taste better and you do know what went into them. However, it takes time to track down recipes if you have never made your own sauces before. Moreover, certain sauces, such as bolognese, take 15 minutes to prepare but up to 3 hours to simmer. So, pasta sauce suggestions please! One of next post will concentrate on those.

Another idea was to make your own hummus. I have tried this several times without making a hummus I like as much as the one I buy. However, I will try again this summer and see what I can come up with. Recipes for that would be appreciated as well.

It is also suggested that instead of buying packaged salad that you buy a 'proper' lettuce and grow much of the rest yourself. I'm sure that you can see the problem with this as well. Many people don't have the time or a place to grew salad greens. And if you do, you need to have made the philosophical decision to spend more time and energy on sourcing and preparing your food.

This leads us back to the previous post about the necessity to make a conscious decision to change and to adopt a 'plan'. I made the decision years ago. In fact I can't even remember when. I am a product of the late 60's so perhaps my beliefs were formed then. However, I do from time to time stray and buy time saving products. In the past I have felt guilty about this but not any more. Sometimes, you just need to take the easy way out but obviously, not all the time if you want to save money and eat better.

Here is a link to my bolognese sauce. As I said, it take a lot of simmering so you need to do this as soon as you get in at night to be ready for the next evening or make it on the weekend.

Make a plan

As I said in the previous post, I want to look in more detail at the 25 suggestions for eating healthily for less. (Sorry, I know the article title uses 'healthy' but I couldn't bring myself to use an adjective when an adverb was called for!) In her first, she suggests that you need to make a plan. I think it may go beyond that. I think you have to be ready for a fundamental change. It's rather like going on a diet. Unless you are ready to adopt a new way of eating, you won't succeed for long at dieting.

Oh no, you may say! All I want to do is eat less expensively. I don't want to adopt a new philosophy of life and you wouldn't need to do so if you were just trying reduce costs until the prices come down again. However, if you want to change the way you source food and cook it as part of a more environmentally friendly life-style, you probably do need to look at your philosophy of life. You may have no choice about reducing costs due to your income, or you may be able to cope financially with the increase but choose not to spend the money. In either case, you are more likely to continue with your changes if you aren't longing for the old food life-style. Yes, there are lots of wonderful things to eat but that is true about less expensive food as well. You will need to find ways of not longing for the food you used to eat and instead, enjoy what you are eating once you have made changes.

So here is my list of suggestions for starting the change:

1. Talk with the rest of the family. Make sure that they are on board with the reasons for changing. If they aren't, then you will have as hard a time as Jamie Oliver has had in changing the food English children eat for school lunches.

2. If your family/friends haven't shared your journey to this point, plan a campaign to change their point of view. However, don't proselytise! You will probably end up annoying people. If you have a young family, it should be easier. Start children out eating fruit and vegetables when they are young and they will continue to do so in later life. You could start by cooking a new meal once a week. You could also have the occasional discussion at mealtimes about food and a particular food issue.

3. Eat as a family. I know this can be difficult but it is one of the best ways to disseminate information to other members of the family. It's also good for bonding and forming a family philosophy. You can also keep an eye on what everyone is eating. If children watch television while they eat, they may well be throwing away food that you know nothing about. Furthermore, if you eat away from the distraction of television you are likely to eat less quickly and therefore eat less in order to make you feel full. That way you may start consuming a more appropriate amount of food.

4. Plan new rituals relating to food. If you have never planned out meals on a regular and consistent basis, this will need to become part of your ritual. You will want to do some menu planning as well. What meals are you going to cook during the week? What ingredients will you need? If you want to be efficient and save money, you must make a list and check the cupboards and refrigerator before you go out shopping. There's no point buying something you all ready have, not does it make sense to make a second trip out to get something you forgot to put on the list.

Eating Healthy for Less

In yesterday's post I talked about drinking water. The idea for that post came from the article below. I thought that to start off I would deal with Ms. McGowan's 25 tips and so here they are!

Eating Healthy for Less

by Meg McGowan

Keeping monthly expenses to a minimum allows me the flexibility to live with a writer’s unpredictable income. If the pen has not been as mighty as it might be, the one area of the budget that can always be squeezed is the food bill. Fortunately, eating cheaply and eating healthy have a lot in common. If the gourmet organic food trend has almost convinced you that only the wealthy can eat well or if you’ve come to accept your high grocery bill as better than a high medical bill, take heart. Here are my top twenty-five tips for eating healthy without eating up your retirement fund.

1. A plan is essential. Think in terms of creating new rituals and rhythms for your life rather than more schedules and routines. Take time to think about what you want to form the basis of your life and your menus. Eating healthy and eating cheaply rarely occur without some forethought.

2. Give some thought to why you want to make a change. If you are already eating well but you want to spend less money, ask yourself why. Of course most people would like to have more money left after paying bills, but why do YOU want more money? What will you spend it on? Define your goals, then make sure you follow through. If you want to eat better, being specific about your goals will help you formulate your plan. What is most important to you — buying more organic foods, less meat, food without preservatives, dairy products without hormones, eggs from uncaged hens, whole grains, more variety, less fat? Knowing what is most important to you establishes priorities, which creates a place to begin and forms criteria to help you make decisions.

3. Limit your repertoire. Variety may be the spice of life, but too much will give you indigestion. Most of us have kitchens filled with ingredients (especially spices) that we rarely use. One strategy is to collect about two weeks worth of recipes that meet your criteria for both cost and nutrition. Cycle through them, then begin again. Or designate each day of the week for focusing on a particular type of food: Monday, soup in cold months and salad in warm months; Tuesday, tofu; Wednesday, pasta; Thursday, eggs; Friday, pizza, Saturday, sandwiches; Sunday, beans and rice. Variety and flexibility are built in. Soup might be from a can, from a mix or from scratch depending what is on sale and what is in the cupboard. By beginning with just a couple recipes for each category, the system stays manageable.

4. Organize a food exchange. Convince a few friends to join you in an informal food tasting. When each of you cooks a favorite inexpensive, healthy meal, make a double batch. Divide the extra into sampler sizes for each participant. Everyone can take turns sampling and providing samples of new recipes without having to purchase all the ingredients, only to discover that half the family hates it.

5. Or swap complimentary foods. I have a friend who loves to make soup, but her husband rarely eats soup. I like the idea of making soup, but I rarely get further than imagining a robust pot simmering on my stove. Instead I make a variety of quick breads and trade my friend for soup. We both get homemade meals with less work and less cost.

6. Drink more water. Even if you drink bottled water, it is still the cheapest beverage available. By consuming the recommended eight glasses of water a day, you support all your body’s systems and reduce the number of more costly beverages you consume.

7. Eat less meat. Most Americans still eat too much meat relative to other components of their diets. Meat also takes the biggest bite out of the food budget. The answer seems almost too easy.

8. Grow your own herbs. A vegetable garden is also a good idea, but an herb garden is much less daunting. Herbs require little space or care, and once established, most provide a continuous harvest. Fresh herbs add a gourmet taste to any meal. They also provide nutrients. You can buy fresh herbs at the store, but for the price of a few sprigs you could buy the whole plant. Freeze or dry your harvest at the end of the season and you can use them all winter.

9. Good produce gone bad can make you feel as though you are throwing your money away (though, I hope, you are composting it!) Expand your selection of produce on hand and reduce waste by using high-quality frozen vegetables available in large polybag sizes. You can easily add a handful of frozen peas, carrots, and corn to a recipe, then reseal the bag and tuck it back in the freezer. Frozen veggies can augment rather than replace your fresh produce purchases.

10. Look for recipes that don’t have a lot of ingredients or that lend themselves easily to substitutions. You can always be creative and add herbs, spices, or vegetables that you have on hand.

11. Make meal preparation a family time. Meals prepared together nourish each person’s spirit as well as their bodies, and every step of preparation at home saves money at the grocery store. Avoiding convenience foods means food that is fresher and has fewer preservatives.

12. Decide where you can and cannot compromise. I stock up on regular name-brand spaghetti sauce when it’s on sale (preferably with coupons as well). Most of the sauces are preservative free and I can recognize all of the ingredients. I buy only organic milk and free-range eggs. Your priorities may be different but should be in line with your own values.

13. A diverse diet costs less at my local food co-op where I can choose from a wide selection of bulk pastas, grains, legumes and rice, without having to buy more than I need. Look for stores that also let you select only as much produce as you will use. Farmers markets are often a good source for finding flexible quantities at excellent prices.

14. Keep snacks simple. Healthier snacks tend to be cheaper snacks. Gourmet chips abound, and though they may be baked not fried none are as healthy as carrot sticks. Other choices that tend to be low in fat, calories and cost are seasonal fruits and vegetables, pretzels dipped in mustards, popcorn (the traditional evening snack served at the Heartland Spa), and graham crackers.

15. Make your own convenience foods. Blend your own spice mixes. Prepare an extra large batch of pancakes or waffles and freeze them between sheets of wax paper to pop in the toaster oven at breakfast time. Freeze chocolate chip cookie dough in pre-formed balls to bake later. Many of the mixes in Make a Mix Cookery and More Make-A-Mix Cookery (H.P. Books, 1978 and 1980) can be modified and prepared using high quality, organic ingredients while still saving you money.

16. Realize that if you can control costs on items you consume regularly, you will realize the greatest savings for the least amount of effort. You can purchase organically-grown coffee beans for far less than a barista-made beverage — even if you add organic, hormone-free half and half. The same is true for any snacks and meals consumed away from home. If you make and take your own, you control the quality and the price. And remember: one simple change that saves you a dollar each weekday adds up to over $250 per year.

17. Consider, however, that paying extra for the feeling that someone else is taking care of you may be meeting an emotional need. If this is the case, is there an alternative way to meet your needs? Can another family member start the coffee in the morning? Would a neighbor or co-worker be willing to bring you coffee in exchange for a small favor in return? An extra benefit of trading is a more genuine feeling of being nurtured.

18. Play the stock market. Stock up on non-perishable items you use regularly when they are on sale (Here’s where your plan comes in handy!). When prices rise, you can serve yourself a large share of savings.

19. If you are really ambitious, you can freeze fresh fruits and vegetables when they are at their peak and their prices are not. Berries are best frozen in a single layer on a cookie sheet, then bagged, so they are easily separated. Even if you are not too ambitious, you can freeze your leftover, slightly wilted vegetables for soups or stews. Fruits can be frozen and added to muffin, pancake or waffle batter.

20. Never go shopping without a list. If you don’t have a list, go home and put the tail ends of all of your frozen, polybagged vegetables together in a melange. Serve with your last piece of cheese grated over bread heels and toasted. Return to the store tomorrow when you have a list.

21. Never shop when you are hungry.

22. The more often you shop and the longer you are actually in the store, the more money you will spend. This is why preparation time saves you money. Not only are you able to think about what you want, away from the hypnotic hum of the merchandising machines, but you also spend less time in the store and need to make fewer return trips for forgotten items.

23. Put your intentions before you. If you are full of menu ideas while shopping but your follow through is less than stellar, jot a quick list of your plans as you unpack your groceries. Post the list in a prominent place in the kitchen.

24. Keep things simple, and begin with small bites. If you suddenly decide that you are going to cook only from scratch, it is likely that you will end up with a cupboard full of ingredients that will torment rather than tempt you and a huge bill for that most expensive eating option, take-out food.

25. Choose a starting point and begin. My personal touchstone is oatmeal for breakfast. It is where I began and what I return to if I feel I am losing my way. Oatmeal is easy, cheap, and good for me. It means I don’t have to think in the morning. I can eat it plain or dress it up with whatever is on hand or on sale. With that one piece in place, I start my day with a tangible affirmation of my resolve to eat healthy for less.

Whatever your first step, simply take it, now. If you wait until your plan is fine-tuned, you will lose your enthusiasm and become bogged down in details. When you move your household, you can’t wait until each picture is hung in the right spot to resume the business of your life in a new location. So it is with all change. Decisions are made, the framework is shifted, and small adjustments are made in all the days that follow.

A simple way to start

I've been reading some of my cookbooks, especially those written by members of the Mennonite community, and doing some reading on the internet and have come up with some simple ways for me to start my change in lifestyle. I suppose that the most important part of all this is the decision to change my life and

Most importantly for me is a plan and a change of lifestyle. I want to eat better, eat less meat

1. Drink more water. Even if you drink bottled water, it is still the cheapest beverage available. However, there is no reason why you shouldn't drink tap water in most places in North America and Europe. Not only is bottled water expensive to produce, but it isn't always better for you.

By consuming the recommended eight glasses of water a day, you support all your body’s systems and reduce the number of more costly beverages you consume.

Finally, water is far cheaper as a beverage than sugary drinks, and better for you obviously. Yes, we all enjoy the sugary part but why not make sugary drinks a treat on special occasions.

I can see that some might feel that they and their families were being deprived by not buying sugary drinks. However, when you consider that these drinks are not doing any good, are you really being deprived at all?

A beginning

It is difficult to start something new like this especially when you don't know exactly where you're going. We are heading into difficult times, more difficult for some than others, perhaps. To get through, I think that it's important for us to group together, help each other and share our ideas with others. This blog will be mostly about one of the most important aspects of life - eating.

It's obvious. Without enough food, the right kinds of food, we will not survive. Even if we have enough, it may not feed our souls.

Once upon a time food was a simpler question. We grew it, raised it, or bought in in shops or markets. Our mothers taught us how to cook so that we could go out into the world ready to do the same for ourselves and our families. And then things changed. Our lives became more complex and there were more calls on our time. We started to buy convenience foods and ready made meals. Take out (or take away) food became cheaper and more available. Many of us are of a generation whose mothers used convenience foods and so we didn't learn to cook.

Cooking shows in the United Kingdom have turned food and cooking into entertainment. We watch these wonderful creations being prepared, buy the books to go along with them, perhaps we even prepare some of the recipes but do we really learn the basics of cooking? Do we learn how to cook on a limited budget? Recently, Dehlia Smith presented a series on cooking using ready made goods from the supermarket. The dishes were meant to be ones that you could prepare quickly with the aid of these products. It was wonderful for people who had the money to buy these expensive products but not for those who didn't. Did they know anymore about making their food 'dollar' go further? Not really! You missed out on an opportunity, Dehlia!

The supermarket chain, Sainsbury's, has come up with a good idea fronted by another celebrity chef, Jamie Oliver. It's called 'Feed your family for a fiver'. However, I still can't help but think that you can do it even less expensively than that.

Finally, and more importantly, is the question of whether or not people have enough time to learn to cook, hunt for recipes, get the best deal on food buys when our lives are so busy and stressful all ready.

So, where to go from here? I think that I will probably work in a somewhat random manner initially. I'll highlight anything that seems interesting or germane to the issue of living more (and eating) more with less and just hope that it helps friends and family. Please feel free to comment and to send along ideas and recipes through the comments section.