gumbo2176
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Re: $2.50 a day challenge

How much money have I tossed away when making chicken stocks over the years? I take the finished product once it cools enough to put it in the fridge in a big stainless steel bowl and let it refrigerate over night. The next day all the fat has risen to the top and congealed into a wax like consistency that I simply cross section and remove it to expose an almost aspic like jellied chicken stock. That is the base of many of my soups and stews.

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Chicken wings are expensive here too. At one time they were the cheapest part since they are mostly bone and skin. I have used chicken skins with the fat like bacon a few times, but I never rendered a large amount.

I have also made stock, but I think I did not put enough vegetables and salt since it wasn't very good. It may also be because I used a young chicken not an old one. The older chickens make better stock. I have made some good pork stock though.

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pomerinke
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One of my favorite snacks is fried chicken skin. I actually found it for about $0.70 for 100 grams at a farmer's market today. But I passed because everything else was so cheap already and I had a full basket.
If you throw the skin into a non-stick pan by itself, and set the heat real low, once the fat starts to render the skin will fry to a crisp. It takes some time so you can do it without burning the fat, but well worth it in my opinion. Once they're nice and crisp, I like to add a bit of salt.

gumbo2176
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pomerinke wrote:One of my favorite snacks is fried chicken skin. I actually found it for about $0.70 for 100 grams at a farmer's market today. But I passed because everything else was so cheap already and I had a full basket.
If you throw the skin into a non-stick pan by itself, and set the heat real low, once the fat starts to render the skin will fry to a crisp. It takes some time so you can do it without burning the fat, but well worth it in my opinion. Once they're nice and crisp, I like to add a bit of salt.
Earlier this week a local market put chicken leg quarters on sale for $.29 a lb. and sold in 10 lb. bags for $2.90. I bought 2 bags of them and cut them to separate the legs and thighs. On the thigh, they leave a small part of the back that I cut off and use that for making stock. I wound up with 3 quart bags of nice rich stock that was cooked down so much it actually jelled when refrigerated overnight.

I will salt and pepper the pieces to be used in the stock, brown them off a bit in a large heavy pot, add a large onion, 3-4 stalks of celery, 5-6 cloves of garlic, 3-4 carrots all roughly chopped. Then I'll add a couple bay leaves, some Worcestershire sauce, a few dashes of soy sauce and also some tabasco sauce. I'll then cover this with at least 1.5 gallons of water and let it simmer for up to 8 hours on the stove. Then drain it through a fine strainer and let it cool enough to be put in the fridge. The next morning I'll cut away and discard the fat that sets on the surface and bag it in quart bags and freeze for later use. The stock comes out looking like jello when cooked for this long and properly cooled.

The biggest thing to making a good meat stock is to leave it simmer for many hours. Seafood stocks, not so much as they tend to become a bit bitter if cooked too long. A typical shrimp stock only takes me a an hour or so to make.

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pomerinke
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That's an amazing deal. I haven't made stock in a while, but I certainly would have done so with that opportunity.

I learned the hard way not to simmer a seafood stock quite so long. I didn't figure out why it went bad until I just happened to be reading one of my cookbooks while looking for some inspiration.

I might find an excuse to make some stock later this week. Just because I haven't in quite some time.

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I love making all my own stocks to use when cooking. This past Thanksgiving I fried a total of seven 13 lb. turkeys and got the carcasses of 5 of them. I broke up the carcasses and put them in a huge stock pot I have and simmered it overnight with the above mentioned vegetables.

For beef stock, it is a bit harder now that many markets no longer have real butchers and get their beef and pork already sectioned from wholesalers, so there are very few opportunities to get large quantities of beef bones. I do have an old friend that is a butcher and has his own shop that I will go see from time to time when I need to make beef stock. My wife loves my French Onion soup and it takes me a couple hours to make it. I use beef stock for this dish and it is so rich even though the broth is quite watery.

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$0.29 for chicken legs. It is $1.99 a pound here. It would never be used for stock. Even chicken feet sells for more than that.
When you make stock what do you put in it and do you roast or cook the parts first?

gumbo2176
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imafan26 wrote:$0.29 for chicken legs. It is $1.99 a pound here. It would never be used for stock. Even chicken feet sells for more than that.
When you make stock what do you put in it and do you roast or cook the parts first?

In a prior post on this thread I mentioned that the leg quarters come whole and I cut the legs and thighs apart. On the tail end of the thigh there is a piece of the back the processors leave attached that I cut off, and this is what I use for the stock. It is akin to our pelvis in the skeletal structure and about half the size of a persons palm. I'll season them and brown them off in a heavy pot before adding everything else I use to cook it down.

Scroll up a couple posts and you will see my list of ingredients and time it is cooked.

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Something knocking around in the back of my lumber-room memory tells me this started life as a 'food stamp' budget...

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digitS'
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I read through this weekend's posts at lunch. Today I made 2 grilled tuna sandwiches out of a can of tuna, mayo and, to make it a little interesting, a spoonful of pickle relish. First course was carrot soup. Grated onion, garlic and ginger were sauteed in oil. The carrots and all were pureed with the hand blender before sour cream was added. I've been using a few "carrot centric" recipes trying to use up a surplus of the roots. This was pretty good and it was a low-cost lunch.
imafan26 wrote:$0.29 for chicken legs. It is $1.99 a pound here. It would never be used for stock. Even chicken feet sells for more than that.
When you make stock what do you put in it and do you roast or cook the parts first?
I often roast the bones from chicken, turkey or beef before making stock. I haven't been buying bones specifically for stock but we prefer cuts of meat with bones in them partly because we want to make stock. They are on their "3rd cooking" if I've had them back in the oven and I've never boiled them for very long for stock. Recipes often say 90 minutes or 2 hours is sufficient for chicken stock. With steak or roast bones browned in the oven, I use the same time plan.

Those carrots and an onion is about all that go in some stocks. We often have celery and that's real appropriate. Maybe a clove or 2 of garlic ... then, it's the seasonings. Mom often put cloves in her stock but DW doesn't care about them quite so much. Bay leaves in the beef stock or maybe a sprig of rosemary and in chicken, thyme ... I can't remember the last time that I just sat down with a cup of broth to drink or to dip bread in. I'm more interested in pulling it out of the freezer and using it to make a more complex soup, or as a casserole ingredient, or as a liquid with stir-fry vegetables.

I grew up on a farm with milk cows and I remember Mom saying that we used about a gallon of milk each day. That was quite a lot for just 3 people. Dad was lactose intolerant and I guess I am as an adult. I no longer drink milk and have soy milk for my cereal. My wife is also lactose intolerant so a quart of milk for cooking is often a little hard for us to finish but cheese and yogurt are always in the fridge. I have been trying to learn something about using Greek yogurt.

Steve

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ElizabethB
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The closest I have come to being really poor and hungry was the first 12/18 months of starting my landscaping business.

I owned my home with the mortgage company - house payment, insurance, utilities. No cable or internet - those were luxuries that I could not afford.

I owned an old truck - no payments - fuel, insurance and upkeep.

A borrowed trailer

The most basic tools -

rear tine tiller - borrowed

weed eater, blower, cultivator tiller, shovels, rakes, hand tools etc.. - owned - maintenance, fuel, string.

I hired day labor. There were times when I paid my labor more per hour than I paid myself just to get the job.

In addition to paying my labor I provided transportation, drinks -water and gator aid and sandwich fixings for lunch.

I ate a lot of Ramon Noodles, eggs and peanut butter. Fortunately I had friends and family who had fruit trees and vegetable gardens. I was not proud and gratefully accepted any offerings. I occasionally purchased a loaf of bread at the "Day Old Bread Store". It was stale bread picked up from grocery stores then sold cheap.

Meat, poultry and fish were a rare treat.

Friends and family would offer me fish if they caught more than they needed. I scoured the grocery stores for "quick sale" meat.

I could turn 1 lb. of ground meat into a stew that would feed me for several days. I lived near a family owned grocery store/meat market. I knew the family. I was able to get cast off vegetables and vegetable trimmings as well as bones. They cut a lot of their own meat. That was the basis of a wonderful soup or stew.

When the pickings were really slim I went to St. Joe's Diner for a free meal. Today I donate food every time G comes home with a deer or lots of fish. Some of it always goes to St. Joe's.

I did miss coffee - could not afford it. I also missed real milk. I bought powdered milk. Cheese was out of the question.

I look back now and wonder at my own resourcefulness.

Necessity is not the mother of invention she is the mother of resourcefulness.

On one hand I hope I never have to live like that again. On the other hand I am grateful for the experience.

I learned things about myself that I did not know.

I also learned how to scrounge without actually dumpster diving.

In a non necessary way I still do that. My local vegetable market will give me bags of trimmings for my compost pile. I bring the bags. My neighborhood grocer/meat market will give me knuckle bones from their round steak trimmings for Demi Glaze. They even slice the bones for me.

I have learned that there are many very inexpensive/free resources available if you look hard enough.

Can I eat on $2.50 per day? Probably. Considering the family and friends resources and my scavenging skills and wonderful local markets. Can I LIVE on $2.50 per day? NO!

Thanks for the discussion. Very Eye opening. This discussion gets me on my knees to thank God for my blessings. I sometimes forget to do that.

:oops:

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Very enlightening indeed. I had always garden since I was a kid and actually I did it more for fun and a lot of times the vegetables in the garden would end up as compost because I would never get to all of it in time. Since I retired, I have had to live on 1/5 of my former income. The house and car are paid for but there is still insurance,taxes and maintenance to do.

I hoarded before and although I cut my spending a lot, I still manage to hoard so, I can still cut more out. What I did do is change what I ate. I did not go out once a week for dinner and a movie like I used to. I don't take vacations, but I really don't miss them. I did have to do more conserving in the house. Saving water for the garden by limiting water use in the house. Saving wash water to flush the toilet and soaking the dishes in the sink but doing the dishes all at one time and not one dish at a time. I always did full wash loads and I still use the dryer. If I can make more room and clean out my lanai I could hang more of the laundry instead. I sleep early and get up early and I turn off lights when I leave the room, so most of my electric bill comes from the appliances, water heaters, refrigerators, freezer. I haven't turned on the air conditioner for a few years now. I gave up tv (that was hard), and only kept the internet service. I have simplified house cleaning. I have all these special and expensive cleaners for everything and I use mostly baking soda, vinegar, alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, Purple Power, dawn dish soap, and windex in place of of a lot of the cleaners I used to use. Baking soda and vinegar are cheaper than laundry boosters, hydrogen peroxide removes blood as long as it is not set, and cleans grout, dawn and vinegar cleans the tub, so does toothpaste and baking soda, Purple power is a degreaser for the kitchen, fan, and cleans sap off the tools really well. Windex doubles as insect killer along with boric acid. Vinegar needs to soak but does help remove lime scale, cleans the washer, kills mold, helps soften clothes (mainly by removing excess soap residues in the laundry) while baking soda is a deodorizer as well as laundry booster. Baking soda in combination with toothpaste and vinegar can clean a lot of surfaces as well or better than some of the more expensive products. Lemon juice also works on lime scale, but it needs to soak or take things off in layers.

I changed the food I eat. I switched to cheaper cuts and more pork and less chicken and beef. Lots of Costco roast chicken. Really, can't beat the price. I plan my meals around the vegetables and herbs I have growing in the garden and a lot less around meat. Instead of thinking about chicken for dinner. I think about what to do with eggplant and tomatoes instead. I used to like to bake but I hardly do that now. I try to cook a pot of stew or spaghetti or a casserole (one dish meal) that I can cook once and eat for three or four days before I have to cook again. Sometimes I even cook multiple breakfasts so I only have to microwave leftovers and I don't have to turn on the stove for days.

I still eat out too much. Going to McDonald's nearly every day adds up to a lot of $ even though it is not a lot of money for each outing. I could save a couple of hundred dollars more a month if I can break that habit.

Now, that I have hardly anything growing in the yard except some lemons, calamondin and herbs. I really realize how dependent I was on the fresh vegetables from the garden to fill out my meals. I have had to buy vegetables that I used to grow and there is definitely sticker shock there. On $2.50 a day fresh fruits and veggies would be severely limited. I can't buy more than one non-staple vegetable because it doesn't keep very well.

I usually buy onions, carrots, potatoes but I used to grow cutting celery so I would have celery for flavoring dishes especially since I only could use a couple of stalks of celery not the whole celery. Eggplant, squash, cucumbers, beets, kale, chard, tomates, beans, peas, and Asian greens would round out the rest the veggies for my meals. I used to get tired of the eggplant since one or two plants produced 8-10 fruit every 10 days or so and it was like what else can I do with eggplant? When the squash comes in, there are sometime 3-5 ready at the same time and I would try to give them away because it was too much to eat and I did not want them to go to waste. I still have problems with timing and quantity. I have to remember not to plant too much of any one thing or I may not be able to get to all of it. I have to make sure that everything does not come due to be harvested in the same week because then it would be more than I could eat and I would have been better off planting something else in the garden instead.

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Timing is tricky not to be inundated with one thing.

But freezing really helps with that. I have a big container of minestrone thawing in my fridge right now, that I made last summer when there were lots of veggies in the garden. I made a very big batch of it at the time. I froze half and we ate the other half for a couple meals. Now we will have a couple more meals from it. I sometimes do freeze veggies directly, especially things like peas, corn, and spinach, but I like to make up meals (soups, lasagna, etc) and freeze them. If you grow winter squash, you can just put it in a cupboard. I still have winter squash left, even though I have made curried squash soup for a crowd, to bring to potlucks, three times already.

The homemade cleaning products are much more eco-friendly as well as way cheaper and at least in some cases do a better job. My Sierra Club group just had a workshop where we made a bunch of them. I'll post some recipes in the recipe section.

The hoarding is really a serious problem. If you could get some help with this (there are therapists who specialize in it), your life would be cheaper (how many times have you bought something you already own, maybe own several of, because you can't find it in the hoard?), simpler, and more comfortable.

I don't know anything about your situation. I retired a year and a half ago. Since then I have had half as much income as I did and half of that is retirement savings which are being spent down and will eventually be gone. It's this nasty game we have to play, how long am I going to live? Am I going to outlive my savings or will they outlive me? Anyway, my financial situation was starting to feel pretty tight, so I just applied for (and I think will probably get) a half-time job. It is woefully underpaid and has no benefits. But since for me it will just be spending money and I have Medicare (assuming the current administration doesn't screw SS and Medicare up too much, but that's a conversation we can't have here), I can afford to take the job and it will take some of the financial pressure off.

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digitS'
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In life, timing is everything. And, gardening is all about timing.

I won't get into "lifetiming" on this post.

Gardening with marketing in mind got me into serious timing efforts with plantings and harvesting. I can't control the weather but I could pay attention to my climate. Storage vegetables are cheap at the supermarket. More perishable veggies are not.

At one ... uh ... time, I grew lots of storage vegetables and would go right through spring and nearly the entirety of summer with little to eat from the garden. Then, I began to change my diet and gardening. I still have the storage veggies and trying to get through too many onions and carrots right now, for example. But, I have more time to be creative with recipes this time of year (and will again today, try that cream of carrot soup with the grated gingerroot that I grew this summer. Pretty good)!

Leafy vegetables are more perishable and expensive. Still, although they are quick to spoil - they are quick to grow. After 2 years of success and 2 years of semi-success ;), I think I may set up both the hoop house and the greenhouse to grow Asian greens this next winter. The timing issue is when to sow plants to transplant into the greenhouse. The missed harvests in December had to do with October growing conditions in the open garden. Unusual heat in 2015 meant that the greens intended for transplant were too mature and harvested, for the most part, in October. Record rainfall in 2016 meant that the greens didn't grow through the fall. So, they were tiny in the December greenhouse and still are. Seed sown in the greenhouse comes up fine. Nothing is harvestable in January but it's a good thing that I had 2 Decembers with good harvests to know that its possible, maybe even likely. January, there's going to be nothing that I've yet discovered. February, there will be too much ~ or, nearly so ;). Yes, to have a really plentiful harvests during any of the months of winter, I need more room.

Having plants that can take some freezing, while NOT turning the heat on, means I have to cover the beds with an extra layer of plastic film on the coldest days and nights. Plastic film isn't free but I can use it outdoors in the spring and for more than one season. I'll need quite a bit of it to cover the temporary hoop house but I've set that thing up every March for years. Maybe I can make it a little stronger so that it can stand up to snow ... it has failed that test in a few March storms :roll: .

Yes, freezer storage helps but, you have to be in agreement in your household as to what vegetables are worth eating from the freezer. DW doesn't want any leafy greens in there, not even broccoli! I understand why but I'm also struggling to use up the sweetcorn. She likes next to no canned vegetables or fruit ...

Steve

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I do freeze some things but not a lot of veggies. I should look into how to do that better. I actually don't have a very large garden space and I really have to figure out how to plant it so that I can have a variety of things and at the same time stagger it all so it doesn't come in the same week. I have figured out the best way to store my ginger harvest, but now I have more ginger and I still have some left from last year, so I guess I have to make smaller bottles for me to use and give more of them away.

I actually spend less now, since I really do try to check things to make sure I really need them and make a list before I buy and things I don't need right now, I try to put off until I really do need them. I am finding though that the pile still dwindles very slowly because while I am buying less, I seem to have gotten to the point where I also use less of things. I don't bake as much so I don't use as much flour, sugar, or butter as I did before. I changed the things I eat a lot so some things I ate more of, now rarely get used and I have increased the use of $ stretching meals that use less meat, less rice, and when my garden is producing more veggies. When I don't have a lot in the garden, I really don't like to pay the high prices for inferior produce so I usually resort to canned or frozen veggies or no veggies and more cheap carbs like pasta and noodles. I don't eat a lot of bread and I probably would use the equivalent of one loaf a month. I usually buy one or two loaves but only use about half before it gets too old and I use the remainder as filler for meatloaf, french toast, or bread pudding.

Where most of my meal costs are adding up is the fast food spending since I often am out for most of the day and I just stop and get something to eat going from one place to another or after a long day, I stop on the way home since I don't want to cook or even take the time to reheat anything once I get home. I got a part time job because that was all I could get. It was a minimum wage job with no benefits. I have since changed to another job with a few more hours a couple of dollars more an hour and at least there is medical benefits so I have some job income to pay for expenses. My expenses also increased as the job is farther and uses more gas, I had to get more work clothes and I have less time to take care of my house and garden. It costs me the same whether I work for 4 hours or 8 for gas.

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pomerinke
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ElizabethB wrote: I ate a lot of Ramon Noodles, eggs and peanut butter. Fortunately I had friends and family who had fruit trees and vegetable gardens. I was not proud and gratefully accepted any offerings. I occasionally purchased a loaf of bread at the "Day Old Bread Store". It was stale bread picked up from grocery stores then sold cheap.
Now that you mention the "Day Old Bread Store" I recall when my parents were going through a tough financial time, my mother would shop at a store which would buy the "expired" goods from manufacturers. Sometimes they weren't even expired, just not ideal for the supermarket. Things like dented cans of soup, a half smashed loaf of bread (or slightly squished, usually though it was less than a quarter for something like that.) I can't recall the name or the location. I'd love to find something like that where I live now, but I'm not sure there is anything like that out here.

We also lived near a Wonder store. I guess there was a Wonder factory near by so they always had treats extremely cheap and fresh.

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I remember when I was working, but not making a lot of money, I would go to the bakery thrift store to get bread ( I like raisin bread) and pastries. (They were more like 5 days old). My friend liked to go to different places and we would get things like cheese and there is a commercial seconds store where we could get produce and canned goods that were damaged for a discount.It was actually the warehouse of a food distributer. In those days gas was cheap, but now, with the price of gas added in, it isn't always worthwhile going a long distance or going to multiple places just to get a $1 of savings.
I still shop the store discount shelves and reduced meat bins. I learned that if I went to Sam's after a certain time, all the cooked food would be sold half off. I can get a chinese plate lunch with an extra entree if I go 30 minutes before closing.

None of these would fit on the challenge today anyway since bread would not be anything I would buy since even the cheapest loaf of bread that I do buy is $2.50. A plate lunch now is $10-$12 even if made 2-3 meals out of it. Gas for the car was cheap then, but now I would have to weigh any savings against the cost of driving all over the place to get these things.

Chinatown markets are still a good deal. The prices are competitive and if I go early the quality is good. Shopping anywhere else even at the farmers market you would need to be a savvy shopper and know what things cost and even bring along a fish scale since things are sold as bundles or by the piece and you have to know the weight to make a true comparison. Even some things at the local supermarkets can be cheaper than Costco or Sam's. Other things are cheaper at Costco or Sam's but since I can't eat it all, and the bulk price is still over $10 on average. I am better getting a smaller quantity at a slightly higher unit price but a smaller package price that won't have any waste.

I still get my best deals from my friends when we trade our fruits and vegetables. My neighbor gives me lettuce and I can get squash, some lettuce, fruit, and herbs from the garden. My friend brings me pizelles, and chicken enchilladas. When I have my garden up and running, I usually have hot peppers, eggplant, tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, lemons, mandarins, calamondin, and squash. Right now I have ginger that I need to start preserving, a few meyer lemons, and herbs. I can get limes and bananas from my mom when her bananas give fruit.

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pomerinke
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Our local grocery store, San-e, does the same thing at the end of the day. I usually don't buy prepared food, but the meats with the best buy date for the next day are always half price.



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