Beyond Baked Beans

Continuing this week's theme of posting the tips other food bloggers employ to save on groceries and eat well on a budget, today I'm featuring Beyond Baked Beans written by Nicola Mirams.

Nicola, a college student, lives in the U.K. and she writes her blog specifically for cash-strapped students. Despite the ocean between us, and despite that we're not all college students, I love the universal nature of her tips -- in other words, we can all learn from each other, no matter our circumstances, and no matter where we live.

Note: I've edited some of Nicola's British English so that it translates easily.

"Many cash-strapped students jump to the conclusion that having little money means they will be condemned to eating baked beans and value noodles for the duration of their studies. However, it is possible to eat healthily and cheaply, and here's how:

• Know your budget: by working out how much money you have to spend on food each week, you avoid spending money you don't have on food you can't afford, like take-away.
• Cook for yourself as much as possible.
• Use what's in your cupboard – it's easy to buy more than you need, even when you have cupboards full of food. Before you go shopping each week, think what you could make out of what you currently have in the fridge or freezer. For inspiration, check out the Student Recipe Finder on this website and cookingbynumbers.com where you can input what ingredients you have and it gives a selection of recipes.
• Plan your meals ahead so you only buy what you need.
• Learn to recognize when things are discounted - both supermarkets and markets reduce items regularly, watch out for sales.
• Make batches of meals – for example if you’re making a bolognaise sauce make more than you need for one meal so you can freeze extra portions.
• Don’t be tempted to spend more than you have on groceries.
  
• Don’t go shopping ... when you're hungry
• Share grocery expenses with your roommates, then cook and eat together (although this isn’t always possible due to diets, timetables, individual preferences etc.).
• Check out the value brands – with ingredients like meat you generally want to buy the best you can afford however, things like value tinned tomatoes and butter are as good as their more expensive counterparts at a fraction at the price.
• Look at websites to find discount coupons on the things you buy regularly.
• Use cookery books and recipes that are geared to cooking on a budget (Like the Beyond Baked Beans series).
• Keep basics in your cupboards such as pasta, rice, tinned tomatoes, herbs, spices, onion and garlic, so you always have something on which to base a meal
• Check the prices on the shelf to find out which products are best value – in general the larger tins or packets are, but that's not always the case. Especially check 2-for-1 items, but only buy them if you'll use the products, and then only if they're great value."

If you like Nicola's tips, visit Beyond Baked Beans for further posts on budget shopping and cooking.

Leftovers Made into Delicious Lunches

You've probably noticed that one of my budget-conscious strategies is to use fish, chicken, turkey, and beef -- animal protein-- sparingly, rather than as the focus of my meals.

I'm not a vegetarian, though I once was, however I'm very physically active and blood-type O, so I tend to need at least 3-4 oz of flesh protein a day, though some days I'll skip it altogether without consequences.

Try making main meals with less fish or meat, and instead peruse the dishes I post on this blog for ideas on how to build a meal with animal protein as a side to colorful vegetables, grains and pulses.

This one simple tip is a great budget-wise strategy since fish, meats and poultry tend to be the more expensive items on our shopping lists. Also, less flesh protein in your diet is ultimately better for you health.

I haven't addressed lunches yet, but using the Feb 5th grocery list there are a number of lunch options using leftovers. The trick to using leftovers is to jazz them up -- that way you have a completely new meal.

In other words, don't serve for lunch or dinner the next day exactly what you ate the night before; your poor taste buds will be terribly bored.

Here are several examples of lunches using leftovers from meal ideas I've posted recently:

1) My Spicy Butternut Pumpkin Soup will jazz up well with the addition of say, half a cup of cooked millet or rice per person. The grain will create a stew like consistency. Serve with a blob of yogurt on top, and sprinkle with toasted almonds.

2) Leftover Garbanzo Bean Casserole will roll up inside corn tortillas. Just mix in some feta or mozzarella, heat in the microwave or oven, and serve with avocado pieces on top and some crackers or chips on the side.

3) I suggested you freeze some of the 1.5 liters of turkey stock made with the turkey wings. Stock is great to have on hand because you can make nourishing soups with it. There's plenty of celery and beetroot leftover from the Feb 5th list, so a Beet, Celery & Apple Soup (pic above) would be a great lunch.

Simply chop some celery, a beet, apple, an onion if you have it, and put it all in a pot with enough stock to cover. Simmer till the veggies are soft; season, and then whiz up in the food processor or serve it chunky. Serve with a couple corn tortillas or a chunk of crusty bread and any leftover feta or mozzarella.

Do you get the idea? Making meals with leftovers is fun because you already have something to work with. You just need to be unabashedly creative, adding other ingredients in the fridge and cupboard to make a whole new dish.

Grocery Shopping and Cooking on a Budget

On February18, 2009 Boulder's Daily Camera food section ran an article titled Value Meal.

Five local chefs talk about eating well and cheaply by showing us how to prepare a delicious meal for 4 people for $15.

Hoorah to the Camera for running a piece on budget cooking with panache!

And I have an additional message: Recession-strategy dining-in is not about following a recipe and cooking up yummy economical meals.

Enjoying "Value Meals" requires knowhow such as grocery shopping on a budget, then once home, efficiently storing and managing your food for the week so that there's no waste -- this all before actually cooking anything!

And then we all have recipe books and access to articles like "Value Meals," but following recipes often leads to expensive, impulse purchases at the grocery store. In other words, it's more economical to think ahead, rather than from meal-to-meal and recipe-to-recipe.

Thinking ahead means planning for the number of meals you intend eating at home for the week, then writing a list of groceries that will cover those meals.

When writing your list, it may help to peruse your favorite recipe books for ideas on dishes you'd like to prepare during the upcoming week keeping in mind the following:

• your budget,
• the time you'll have available to cook,
  
• the difficulty factor of the recipes, and
  
• whether or not you intend having a friend or two over during the week for a meal.
  

Because I shop at Whole Foods on a budget, I usually go to their website and check the "Good Stuff For Less" for weekly sale items and "Whole Deal newsletter" for coupons. I'll write my list and do my weekly menu-plan according to WFs best buys.

Once home, I organize my perishable groceries. For example, here are three things I might do:

• If I've bought say two-for-one bunches of chard, I'll wash and lightly cook one bunch, freezing it for later use.
  
• If I've snatched up a sale on hamburger and bought 2lbs for the price of 1lb, I'll freeze about 3/4 of that, separating the meat to be frozen into one-meal portions.
  
• Asparagus has been a great buy lately, but it can quickly go limp in the fridge so I always put it bottoms-up in a cup with about 1/2 inch of water -- that way it stays crisp longer.

And did you know it's perfectly fine to buy conventionally grown asparagus over the higher-priced organic? Apparently, minimal-to-zero pesticides are used during the growing process because insects don't like asparagus.

Having organized my groceries in the fridge and dry goods in my cupboard, I'm very aware of what I have available to cook with for the week.

I might go back and peruse a few recipes, gathering ideas, but I never follow a recipe exactly. Rather, I prefer to be recipe-independent, improvising by calling upon my inner culinary expert and engaging my desire to have fun in the kitchen, and my love of creating healthy, colorful meals.

As you begin putting meals together without following recipes directly, engage you inner culinary expert and try making simple and colorful meals with a variety of fresh vegetables.

Chances are you'll find your meals look appetizing while being full of are flavor, texture and nutrients.