Let's Talk: Being Thrifty

My mother instilled a sense of being thrifty deep within me as I grew up.  My dad had cancer in my early school years, and life was pretty hard for us when he was unable to work.  Fortunately, we were blessed with wonderful friends that made sure we never went without food during those dark times.  Later in years, we went through the typical family problems of getting laid off or companies closing.  Having extra money for school clothes and things of that nature was petty hard, but we always managed to get by in lean times...and you know what?  Some of those are my fondest memories of my childhood.

I know that sounds crazy.
No one enjoys not having enough money.  You're right.

The thing is, hard times are what brought us all closer together as a family.  Or maybe I was just really young and immature.  Either way, I get all warm and fuzzy when I remember my mom's and my shopping trips where we did some big time bargain shopping.  This wonderful woman introduced me to bargain outlets, dollar stores, yard sales and flea markets.  My entire family still turns to look at the expression on her face whenever we pass a yard sale to this very day.  Because of this, I just don't pay full price for anything that I don't have to.  I will always try and find the best deal for everything I buy.

Let's face it:  things aren't getting any easier for the average family financially.  Jobs are harder to find, and more difficult to keep.  People have to find innovative ways to save money, and coupons are just the tip of the iceberg of how you can do it.

Many guys out there aren't going to clip coupons (but if you do...kudos!), and possibly a lot of women won't do it, either.  Thankfully, that is not the only way to save money.  There are a lot of other things you can do:

• I have mentioned it before, but sign up for those frequent shopper cards for grocery stores, drug stores, and other kinds of stores as well.  Not only do you get items at a discount, some of them give you rewards such as coupons for percentages off your next bill.
• Do you drink soda?  Sign up for My Coke Rewards or Pepsi Rewards +Plus.  You can turn in your points for any number of things, but my favorite is magazine subscriptions and coupons for MORE free soda!  (FYI:  gamer = massive soda consumption)
• Get to know your area discount and dollar stores.  No reason to spend $3-4 on Ziploc bags for your sandwiches if all you do is toss them.  They are also a great place to stock up on spices, snacks, cleaning supplies, and lots of other things.  Plus side?  Dollar Tree takes coupons!
• Get on the email lists for stores.  Don't want to feel spammed?  Make an email specifically for these communications. Weekly sales ads from grocery stores will help you when shopping.  Also look into being on email lists for restaurants.  Not only do a lot of them give you a free meal on your birthday, they also send coupons for BOGO meals and specials.  (Noodles & Company is great for this, and so is Logan's Roadhouse)
• Speaking of birthday freebies...you might want to check out this website for a lot of cool things.  February in this household is free meal month for me!
• If you have not used Freecycle, check to see if you have one in your area.  It's a group of local people in your town that have things they no longer want or use and list them to give away free of charge to keep them out of landfills.  An added plus:  if there is something you are looking for, you can make a "Wanted" post to see if anyone has an item they are willing to part with.

I hope some of these give you ideas on how to save money in your household!

Beef and Broccoli Sans Grease Fire

I am not the best cook on Earth.  I'm pretty good...the food I make is at least edible, and some of it is better than others. My husband scarfs it down like it's his last meal every time we eat.  I refuse to admit that he eats super fast because he's ex-military and that is what he got used to doing in between drills, and try to make myself feel better by saying that he thinks I am the best cook ever and can't shovel it in fast enough.

Well that isn't true.  There was this one time I made cube steak and gravy...and the salt shaker kind of fell in, so to speak.  That poor, sweet man actually continued to try and eat it while assuring me it "wasn't so bad" - until I took a bite and nearly choked.  Once I verbalized how salty disgusting it was, he finally agreed and seemed pretty happy to stop eating it.  Bless his heart. ♥

I'm getting thirsty just remembering that junk.  Blecch.

Another testament to my cooking failures in the past is the time I tried to make a beef and pepper stir fry and didn't know not to let the oil get too hot.  WHOOSH!  Grease fire!  Ugh.
Sorry mom and dad.  I kind of almost burnt the house down and ruined your wok.  Oopsy.
*delicate cough*

Thankfully my kitchen prowess has gradually improved over the years.  I won't be hosting any cooking shows any time soon - in fact I chopped the very tip of my finger off just this month while chopping bacon for a frittata (yay, me!) - but there thankfully have not been any fires in the kitchen for quite some time.  I know the basics and I attend the practice makes...umm...better...school.

I have always been a thrifty girl, so when I ran across almost a pound of thinly sliced top round steak for less than four bucks, I knew I could make dinner for the two of us for super cheap even though I didn't know my dish yet.

I make it a habit of knowing the day the meat department does markdowns so I can load up and get it in the freezer for future meals.  Once you get some meals in rotation, you basically know what kinds of meats to look for, but don't be afraid to get some inexpensive and unfamiliar cuts and experiment.

Get a sharp knife and slice the meat at an angle into thin strips.  Make sure you cut against the grain so that the meat will be tender.  (that's something that took me a lot of time and dental floss to learn)  How can you tell which way the grain in meat runs?  I ran across this website that explains it quite perfectly!

As for working with any raw meat, cut on a glass (preferably) cutting board and make sure you clean everything well.  I am a huge believer in bleach kitchen spray.  Just watch your clothes...that stuff goes everywhere...I have lost some shirts that way!  Also make sure you wash your hands well after using it.  It goes without saying you don't want to ingest bleach...but for some reason my cats go insane when they smell bleach on my fingers.  It's like digital catnip.  So save your fingers from kitty teeth and claws and wash them well.

Prepare your head of broccoli by breaking down into individual florets.  I don't suggest the usage of frozen broccoli for this recipe unless you just like broccoli mush in your stir fry.  Once you have it broken down, rinse it well under running water for several minutes.

Now get ready :  make sure you have all of your ingredients ready to use, because everything goes along pretty fast from here.

Grab a heavy-bottomed skillet and start getting it hot over medium high heat.  Add 1-2 tablespoons of oil once the pan gets hot (any kind but I don't recommend olive oil for this...I used sesame oil). Once you add the oil to the pan,  let it coat the bottom and then immediately add the beef strips.  Stir fry until meat is no longer pink, then add 1/3 cup soy sauce, a pinch of red pepper flakes (optional), and 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper.

You will want your sauce to thicken up, so you will need to make a slurry of corn starch and water.  How much you use depends on how thick your sauce will be.  For this, I used a tablespoon of cornstarch mixed with about a teaspoon of water.  Make sure you stir it well before adding.  Also, it doesn't work if you just throw cornstarch in there.  Everything just gets disgusting and all glued together. You will have to trust me on this one.  Let it cook a few more minutes to thicken up.  If it isn't as thick as you like, add more slurry a little at a time, letting it cook in between so it can thicken.  You might want to taste the sauce to see if it needs salt or pepper.  Yes, even with soy sauce it can still taste bland.

When you get the sauce where you want it to be, add the broccoli, stirring to incorporate all of that wonderful sauce into the florets.  Let it cook a few minutes to soften the broccoli without overcooking it.  Mushy broccoli in stir fry is disgusting.  How do I know?  See that broccoli in that picture there?  It was almost overdone.

Enough said.

Serve this over brown (because it is better for you and the sauce helps the taste) rice.  You can steam your own or grab a bag of frozen and zap it in the microwave.  I do both, honestly, although buying rice is cheaper and steaming it yourself.  This batch made two healthy sized portions, but I could have squeezed three out of it...if we weren't starving, which we were.

Beef & Broccoli Stir Fry

• about 1 pound of thinly sliced beef, sliced against the grain
• 2 tablespoons sesame oil
• 2 cups fresh broccoli florets
• 1/3 cup soy sauce
• pinch red pepper (optional)
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• cornstarch for slurry

Prepare all ingredients before beginning to cook.  Put heavy-bottomed sauce pan over medium high heat until hot.  Add oil, then immediately add beef.  Stir fry until no longer pink.  Add soy sauce, pepper flakes and pepper.  Stir and then pour in slurry, allowing to cook a few minutes to thicken.  Toss in broccoli last, stirring to coat with sauce and cook a few minutes more.  Serve over rice.

Gamer Girls and Taters Precious!

So I am a geeky gamer girl.  Board, console, tabletop...I love them all.  Fortunately, so are a lot of our friends.  After about year of being totally immersed in the land of Borderlands 2, my husband picked up Diablo III for Xbox.  Welcome to our newest obsession.  I simply love the fact that I can play video games for hours with him, and we both love it.  In fact, it is one of our favorite ways to spend time together.

Yeah, I just admitted to being a couch potato.
I know...it'd be healthier if we went for a hike together.
If I'm going to do a load of walking, I'd rather it be on a beach during sunset with waves crashing at our feet.  Like on our favorite beach in the world:

*mental shake*

Back to planet Earth.

As any hardcore gamer knows, sometimes you just don't have hours to spend in the kitchen making dinner.  Hence, this blog.  My goal is to share recipes that are quick, easy, sometimes actually not bad for you, and that will cater more to the cook who isn't trying to be the next food star.  Just real food, made easy...and on a budget.  You see, that's one of my other great loves in life:  saving money.  I take being thrifty very seriously, and I am on a mission to keep my husband's and my grocery budget under $100 for a whole month.

When I was a little girl, my parents used to make something that we called Hamburger Casserole.  My husband refers to it as Shepherd's Pie, although it doesn't really give justice to what the actual Shepherd's Pie is.  I have no idea where this particular recipe originated from, but I can't take the credit for it.  I can only pass it on.

Grab a few potatoes and dice them up.  Place them in salted water to boil until tender.  I like to keep the skins on for my mashed potatoes for textural issues, but you certainly don't have to.  You can tell they are done when you can pierce them easily with a fork.

Just a little Cooking 101 from Smeagol.  Nothing to see here.  Let's move on.

Meanwhile, dice a small onion and add it to a half a pound of ground beef. 

Don't like chopping onions?  Grab a bottle of dried onions and pour some in a bowl.  Reconstitute them with a bit of water for about 5 minutes and use those instead.  

Brown your beef and drain it, then return it to the pan along with 1/4 teaspoon of pepper, a can of (drained) green beans and a can of tomato soup.  Again, feel free to doctor this with anything you wish.  Use a can of mixed vegetables, or several smaller cans of different veggies.  Use frozen or fresh veggies, but make sure you boil them to be tender before using them.  The most cost effective is usually store brand green beans, though I always pay a bit extra for the reduced sodium variety.

Mix that all together and then transfer it to an 8x8 baking dish.  You don't have to spray it with nonstick spray, but I do simply because it's easier to clean later.   You're welcome.   ;-)

Grab your potatoes and mash them with 1/4 cup sour cream, 1/4 cup milk, and 2 tablespoons of butter.  Grab a spoon and give them a taste. Add a little salt or pepper, crushed garlic or garlic powder, or even shredded cheese to them if you like. Just make sure they are yummy and don't taste like cardboard!  It ruins it, precious! You can sub instant potatoes, cauliflower mash or creamed sweet potatoes if you like!

Finally, spread the potatoes over the top of the beef mixture.  Baked uncovered for 30 minutes.  Make sure you let it rest for at least 5 minutes after taking it out of the oven or you're gonna burn your tongue!

(yeah this pic isn't pretty, but I was scarfing it down so fast I almost didn't get an "after" picture.)

This recipe makes 6 servings or 4 very big servings.  Serve to your starving hubby, your gamer friends, your normal friends (heh), your family, or even just your own hungry tummy.  Double, even triple the recipe if you have a large crowd or just a large appetite.  It freezes wonderfully if you ever have leftovers.  You can also make it ahead and put everything in a freezer safe dish after assembling it and freeze it without baking.  Then let it thaw and cook it as per original directions.  Well covered leftovers should last in the fridge for 3-4 days.  It's even good cold...but I'm strange and like most leftovers cold right out of the fridge anyway.
Am I the only one like that?
Surely not.

Hamburger Pie

Ingredients

• 1 small onion, diced
• 1/2 pound ground beef (or turkey)
• 1 can green beans, drained
• 1 can tomato soup
• 2 cups prepared creamed potatoes
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1/4 cup sour cream
• 1/4 cup milk
• 2 tablespoons butter

In a heavy-bottomed pan, brown the ground beef and the onions together.  Drain and return to pan.  Add green beans, pepper and tomato soup.  Stir together and then pour into 8x8 baking dish.  Boil potatoes until tender.  Drain, then add milk, sour cream and butter.  Mash together until creamy.  Top meat mixture in pan with potatoes, spreading from edge to edge.  Bake at 350­° for 30 minutes.  Remove from oven and let it sit for at least 5 minutes before serving.