Morning all! How's everyone? Come on in an sit a spell. I have coffee. Join me!
So it's no surprise, prices are going up! And up and up! It's crazy! In addition to all the prices going up, availability is going down for certain things.
Whenever you order something from Walmart, they very nicely (insert sarcasm here) keep track of your purchases. You know to help you buy them quicker next time. I will admit it's more convenient, but I would rather not have every purchase I've made saved for posterity. I digress though. Yesterday I pulled up my Walmart "reorder" list and, while I should have been surprised, wasn't really surprised to see the bulk of my past purchases "Out of Stock". Walmart is one store, but you will find this just about everywhere. Products from outside the country have a hard time disembarking from their ships,. Products within the country have a hard time finding enough truck driver's to make the trip to their destination. If the product does make it to it's destination, it's having a hard time being unloaded and put on the shelf. This is the problem for products once they're made! These same "out of Stock" scenarios hamper a products ability to be created in the first place!
It's a never ending cycle. For that reason, and to save money during increasing prices; things we already have need to last longer and spread further! Thinking out of the box is a must in this day and age. Both my Dad and Grandmother (my Dad's Mom) held onto things "just in case". We used to shake our heads at them, but now? They would look at us with a smug "I told you so look". My grandmother grew up during the Depression. My Dad was born in 1939 near the end of the depression and was old enough to remember WWII and the subsequent rationing. There's a reason they held onto things thru their life. The things they held onto had the potential to be used in a variety of ways should the need arise. These items were and are assets! Utilizing these assets is a skill who's time has come around again. Making the most of what we have in our possession, and seeing things in a new way are a must!
For that reason, I wanted to give a few examples of both. These may or may not be useful to you specifically, but they are listed as a means to hopefully inspire you to look at your own assets with a new eye. What can you do to make things go further, or be useful in new and different ways? As you read, I hope you'll begin to formulate your own plans. Let's begin.
1) Meat- Meat is becoming expensive. My family likes their meat, so full on vegan ain't happening. For that reason, I stretch it to go further without losing the pleasure and nutrition of meat.
a) Use less in a recipe. Instead of a piece of meat with sides, I try to use meat in casseroles, and soups. Even then I use less meat than the recipe calls for. Half is a good starting point, but keep reducing til someone complains! Lol. In some recipes you can throw in lentils or beans to still bulk it up. You can also throw in more veggies to fill in for the missing meat.
b) Make the most of bone in meats. Many times you can get bone in meats cheaper than boneless. This is actually beneficial on multiple accounts. Bone in meats have a better flavor, texture, and make great broth! Save the bones! Use the bones to make bone broth! Here's an impromptu "How to" . Bone broth enables you to add much needed nutrients and minerals to your meals while also reducing the amount of meat in the recipe. It's also great for what ails ya! Season it though! Unseasoned bone broth is ick by itself.
c) Speaking of bone in, reminds me to not forget the fat! I've trimmed off fat from roasts ( back when we could afford them), and even saved the fat from cooking up ground beef, and rendered it into a nice white Tallow ( lard ) useful for anything from biscuits and pie crusts, to sautéing. Tallow is even used in candle making! Haven't done that though. I've cooked chicken skin in a pan and saved the resulting fat for cooking later. The skins are a treat for my dogs then. They love it when I do this. Most times I use this fat in the dog treats I make for them, but I've also used the chicken fat to sauté the veggies for a chicken dish when oil is called for. If you're interested in rendering Tallow or Lard, I'm about to cook up a 5 lb package of ground beef. When I do, I'll do a post on rendering lard or Tallow.
d) Left over roast becomes beef stew. Left over meat loaf becomes the ground meat in Chili or spaghetti. Any left overs become the meat used in another recipe!
2) Veggies-
a) Use as much of the vegetable as possible. I leave peelings on my potatoes. I do wash them, and all my veggies. When I need to peel carrots, celery, or onions, I save the peelings to use in my bone broth. That way I'm not needing to sacrifice an actual vegetable to make the broth, but getting the nutrients and minerals anyway. I also use the celery leaves and tops. I do draw the line at any bad places on my veggies. FYI.
b) When you have left over tidbits, but not enough for an actual serving to be consumed later, throw them into a decent size container. Make sure you include any liquid the veggies were cooked in. Once you've collected enough, you use them to make vegetable soup!
c) Repurpose those veggies! Add some flour, an egg, and a little milk to mashed potatoes to make a think batter, then fry in a pan to make potato pancakes. These are great with sour cream. You can also add some chives or chopped onion to the batter. Mashed potatoes, oatmeal and rice can be added to muffin or pancake batter to stretch the number of muffins or pancakes made. Usually about 1/2 cup to the batter to start with. Left over baked potatoes for dinner can become fried potatoes in the morning. Left over cooked carrots or sweet potatoes can become a sweet breakfast muffin come morning.
d) When buying green onions from the store, replant the ends where the roots are. Keep them well watered. They will begin to grow another onion. Keep that going and you'll never have to buy green onions again!
3) Fruits- a) As with the vegetables, use as much of fruit as possible. Left over bits of applesauce or banana can replace some of the fat used in baked good like muffins, quick breads, etc. Apple cores and peelings can be used to make apple jelly, or even vinegar!. Apparently watermelon rind can be used for mock apple pie filling or sweet pickles. Orange rinds can be dried and powdered, or grated and dried (depending on preference) to use in recipes calling for grated orange peel. The same can be said for lemons, and limes. Orange peels can also be placed in a pot of water with a cinnamon stick and whole cloves to create your own home fragrance, or placed in oil for a while to make orange oil to polish furniture.
Milk and Eggs-
a) There's no crying over spilt milk, well unless you were needing it for something, but you should be at least a little concerned to throw out spoilt milk. Even milk that has soured is usable. In fact soured milk can give baked good the flavor of Buttermilk baked goods. I've had milk sour and chosen to freeze it in cup measurements to use in baked good. I just thaw it out and use it in biscuits, pancakes, etc. In fact you can use soured milk in any baked good.
b) To make milk go further, and cut calories at the same time, buy whole milk and mix it half and half with water. It will produce milk with a 2% milk consistency and taste, but at half the cost and calories! 2 Gallons of milk for the price of one! This is fine for kids over the age of 2. Before two, keep the whole milk full strength.
c) Yes you can freeze milk! So when you find it on sale grab a few extra to freeze. Also, milk is good for a week after it's expiration date. So when you see milk marked down because its close to it's expiration date, buy some to use and freeze. I will bring it home and pour it into quart jars and freeze. Then I only have to remove a quart at a time to use. It means I will go thru that quart before it has time to go sour. Just make sure if you're using glass jars/container, to leave the lid off until it's frozen to give room for expansion as it freezes.
d) As for eggs, I'll have to use an eggs wash for bagels or French bread, but I'll use the left over egg wash in another baked good as the egg called for in the recipe. Same thing applies when making French toast. The left over egg milk mixture will be added to flour, sugar and oil to make muffins, Those are put in the freezer. FYI, 2 eggs yolks are equal to 1 regular egg.
e) Yes you can freeze eggs! Take a 12 cup muffin pan. Crack about 20-24 eggs into a bowl. Beat them with or without salt. I add salt to mine to save a step later, but you can opt to not. Once the eggs are beaten, fill up the cups of the muffin pan. Cover with plastic wrap and freeze. Once frozen, submerge the bottom of the muffin pan in cold water. Once the eggs loosen, pop them out and into a gallon size freezer bag and freeze.
Miscellaneous-
a) I get my flannel and polycotton fabric from flat bed sheets at thrift stores. I can use this fabric anywhere I would use flannel or poly cotton; pajamas, scrubs for dh, shirts, etc.
b) I've taken ratty ole t shirts and cut them into strips which I use to tie up tomatoes. I've even used them to crochet hot pads for the kitchen!
c) I'll remove zippers, buttons, etc from clothes I have to throw away. I can then use them in new clothes I make.
d) Empty pill bottles make great storage containers for seeds
These are just a few ideas. Ironically in this day of being environmentally aware, we sure do throw out a lot. It's all designed to be disposable now. However, our ancestors were much more environmental then than we are now. Clothes hung on a line. Clothes handed down. Things mended and worn as long as possible, then converted to something else. During the depression, grain and flour sacks were made of fabric that was then used to make dresses for little girls. My mom told me once that people could tell how long a couple had been married by the age of their appliances. I guess the same could be said today in some cases, except now it's because marriages don't last as long and appliances are built to last about 5 years. Sad to say on both accounts.
The idea is to not pigeon hole an item into having only one function. It needs to spread it's wings and fly into something new! Always be willing to try, especially if you aren't going to be out anything by giving it a go.
