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Used our 32 year old crock pot to cook pulled pork for tacos on Christmas Eve and last night to make BBQ pulled pork for dinner with friends. In between did a pork loin roast. I bet we have had 5 years stretches where the crock pot sat on the shelf unused but so happy I never decided to get rid of it.
My one year old washer had the lid lock light blinking. I was poring through the owners manual when DH came in. He unplugged and re plugged in the machine. Fixed. If I had been alone I probably would not have done that, and the manual,said nothing about it. I probably would have called a service tech. An electrical storm had blown through so it probably tripped something.
Heh. Technician's first rule: Is it plugged in? If it is, unplug it and plug it back in again.Quote:
Originally Posted by flowerseverywhere
It seems unsatisfying to fix things that way, but it works too often to ignore. :)
Too much eating out this weekend. Some frugal successes, like line drying laundry. I also used a $10 off $10 coupon for Kohls to get a purple towel for DD. She needed another for when hers is in the wash. I will sew a hood on it out of the matching hand towel. Was going to buy matching thread but decided white would be fine since only one seam will show an its on the inside. No out of pocket cost for this project.
DH is also going to paint out bedroom for my birthday gift. It won't be to expensive and is something I really want. I feel so cramped in this house already; the idea of more stuff in here is less than appealing.
I think I will take the kids to visit my dad in the nursing home today. I will bring him some grapefruit and an article from the paper about his father's greenhouse.
Ugh! Sorry for all the typos. Am typing one handed on my kindle while the baby swipes at it. ;-)
I don't know if this is frugal or not, but a friend called me today. She said "I just got this great top and it doesn't fit me, but it would be perfect for you!" I replied, "girl, just take the top back...why are you buying things that don't fit you and then giving them away?" She replied, "I got it at the second-hand store, and I never try things on there because the 'dressing room' [a corner with a blanket as a 'drape'] is awful, and I can't take anything back!" So I will be the recipient of someone else's generosity, caused by a failed attempt at frugality. Second-hand frugality = free blouse as bonus gift!
By the way...DH made french fries in the slow cooker/deep fryer and they were amazing, and right now I can smell the stew cooking--beef, carrots, potatoes, onions, water and onion soup mix. YUM! So happy to have this machine! :cool:
More food related frugals happening over here.
First, I decluttered (read: ate) the entire loaf of chocolate chip banana bread. :)
Next, my dearly beloved discovered a ham steak in the deep freezer and decided that it would make a nice addition to the cabbage soup. So he put it on the smoker today and later we'll have cabbage soup. I'm a strict vegetarian so he'll be adding ham steak to his portion only.
We received a huge box of fruit as a Christmas gift from his aunt and uncle. It's some hybrid-orange-citrus fruit that is apparently only available in January. So they gifted us a box. Hmmm...not really my thing, but fortunately he is a huge juice drinker and so has been juicing a bunch every day for fresh "orange" juice. They will not go to waste and I don't have to try to figure out how to consume them myself.
Finally, the dearly beloved has been trying to cut down on his caffeine consumption so has been making a huge pitcher of decaf green tea every few days. He likes to sweeten it with honey and as beekeepers that is a no brainer. He just finished jarring some honey over the weekend from a 5 gallon pail so he poured his tea into the empty 5 gallon pail and used the last of the honey to sweeten it this time around. That was a serious waste not, want not moment. Usually we would set the empty pail out for the bees to clean out, but this isn't feasible in the dead of winter in New England.
Another tea related frugal. When there was a holiday special happening, I bought a box of 100 tea bags from Mighty leaf tea. I usually don't buy that brand because it's more expensive than buying loose-leaf tea. But the discount plus free shipping made it reasonably priced and I thought it would be a nice chance of pace from my usually tea. I've been using my Bodum tea pot for months now to make a pot of tea every morning. I figured out that if I skip using the insert/tea press gizmo that I could simply use a tea ball and have more room for water and therefore more tea! It works out to be about 40 ounces of tea so I figured I would need 2 of the Mighty Leaf tea bags to make it strong enough. Okay, fine, that means I'll have enough tea bags for 50 days of tea. One morning, after closer inspection of the quality of tea in the tea bags, I realize that perhaps I can get away with just one tea bag and 40 ounces of water. I figure it is worth a shot, worst case scenario, I have a pot of weak tea. Turns out, one tea bag works just fine. Score!
Dh has been experimenting with sprouting beans before cooking. Interesting...I think anything that involves using more dried beans is pretty frugal.
At the beginning of this year I had set some pretty lofty goals for savings each month. In order to reach these goals I knew I had to figure out where all our money is going. I decided to sit down and write my planned extra expenses for the month. Basic things, kids haircuts, money for school lunches, co-pays for scheduled dr appts, car registration. I now know how much extra I have for necessary expenses each month. I have also been tracking all of our spending and have a better handle on leakage.
I'm working on expenses for February and March, I'm trying to balance extra monthly costs to be able to keep up with my savings goals. DH told me today that the dog needs groomed, great, can it wait until February, I'll put it on the list for next month.
In the meantime we keep on track with cooking and eating at home. We have not eaten out since Christmas and that is a big deal for us. With two full time jobs and two teenage kids we are constantly running, it makes it a challenge to avoid eating out. It has taken a lot of advance planning but it is so worth it.
Cdttmm: Those sound like Honeybell mineolas. They are so good! They were a favorite treat when I quit smoking - for the first couple of weeks, Mom was rewarding me with daily presents of Honeybells and gourmet chocolates. We've been able to get really good mineolas at the grocery store these past couple of weeks.
rosa: Yes! I'm pretty sure you are right -- Honeybells sounds familiar! Hmmm...maybe I'll have to just try one to see what they are like. I just remember when I read the description in the card the first year we were going to receive them I didn't think they sounded like something I would be all that excited about. But maybe I should actually *try* something before declaring that I don't like it. LOL
Jan.13--No spend, though we did drive to visit Dad. Made enchilada casserole in the crock pot to use up lots of stuff from the freezer/pantry. Line dried laundry. Downloaded some free ebooks. Watched movies and read books from library. Found several books online that I want. Was tempted to buy them but will check interlibrary loan first. Supper tonight will be scalloped potatoes made with ham fr the freezer.
TMC, it's great to budget ahead. I would suggest, though, if you have not already thought of it, that you budget ahead for some bigger-ticket expenses. For example, a four-figure property tax bill arrives on our doorstep twice a year. Not the kind of payment we can swing in a random month and not the kind that can be put off, either. Car and house repairs also fit into this category. You may already be doing this. But, if not, month-to-month could yield some real surprises.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveinMN
Thanks for your advice. Luckily we do already do this. We have automatic transfers into various savings accounts, college, taxes, home maintenance and have accumulated some pretty hefty 401K accounts.
Despite these savings I knew we still had a lot of leakage, little things that added up to a lot spent on what? Halfway through the month I'm very pleased with what I have found and eliminated. It will allow me to put more money where we want it to go.
This week I'm doing pretty well at using up leftovers. Well, when the boys were home there weren't a whole lot of leftovers lol So far I have used the remainder of the rotisserie chicken in chicken a la king.
DH used up some bagged salad for dinner on Monday. He heated up some chicken nuggets and tossed them into the salad for a filling dinner.
Last night I used up the leftover rice & soy sauce marinated chicken in fried rice. Yummy. Too bad we're out of kimchi :(
Tonight I think I'm going to put some diced ham into the leftover scalloped potatoes. Plus warm up the leftover chicken a la king. It'll be a leftover buffet .
Now I am very tired of chicken lol
I got some reduced price ground beef at Meijer so it was only $2.39/lb which is about the lowest I've seen it in some time. I'm thinking chili sounds good.
I noticed that we had Jif Hazelnut spread on clearance at work. And I remembered that there was a coupon on Cartwheel for Jif. So today I bought 3 jars using the cartwheel plus my employee discount and Red Card 5% and got them for $2.05 each. That should last me a while!
I washed a blanket last night and when I took my clothes out of the dryer I put the blanket in but didn't turn the dryer on, thinking the residual heat would dry it somewhat and today I am hanging the blanket to finish drying.
The only spending yesterday was my Dh's doctor visit co-pay. But it was a frugal because he has finally been taken off blood thinners which will save us a lot of money! Plus he can now take motrin for his arthritic pain which will be cheaper than what he had been prescribed. And it works better than the rx too. So Yay!
A few warm January days sure make it easier to keep the heating costs down for the month -- woo-hoo! Now if only they could be sunny as well so that our solar panels would provide more of our electricity...but I'll take what I can get!
I think I found a way to break my afternoon vending machine habit at work. We had a bunch of dark chocolate mint Lindt truffles in pantry. They are good, but not great and we got a little tired of them...I know, I know, how does one ever truly tire of dark chocolate? So I brought them to work and basically decided that if I need a chocolate/sugar fix in the afternoon then I need to eat from stash and not hit the vending machine. It's only been a few days, but so far it's working. My vending machine habit was only costing me about $5 per week, but $5 is $5 and I'd much rather save it then spend it!
We had students on campus today for orientation, which means we had a handful of student volunteers as well. Our office provided the volunteers with lunch, which meant I got free lunch, too. Not the healthiest of lunches (Mac-and-cheese, rolls with butter, salad, cookies and soda). There were lots of leftovers so I stashed the salad in fridge at work and will eat it tomorrow (although I'll bring my own salad dressing because I didn't like the one we had). Free lunch number two! I sent the leftover Mac-and-cheese home with one of the students who I know is a single mom. Most of our students are not too proud to accept the offer of leftovers, but I always want to be careful about making them feel uncomfortable. So I packaged up the leftovers in a way that it wasn't obvious what it was and then asked her if she thought her kids would want Mac-and-cheese for dinner. She said yes and thanked me for thinking of her. I felt good about helping her out and not letting the food go to waste.
The free lunches also mean that I've been able to out off grocery shopping for a few extra days. I don't care if the meal options are unusual for a few days if it means the next trip to the store can be that much more well thought out.
Doing well on my efforts to decrease the number of loads of laundry around here. It helps when my dearly beloved is out of town because I'll opt to wear something else rather than do laundry just because I want to wear a certain article of clothing. Him, not so much. Getting better about using the absolute minimum amount of detergent, too.
Watched a movie via Netflix last night. Definitely still getting our money's worth out of our Netflix subscription. But I really should log on to the library's website and check out those options as well. There are some movies I'd like to watch that aren't available on Netflix and I don't want to pay to rent them via iTunes if I don't have to.
Didn't get to make the scalloped potatoes since DH ended up not getting home from the doctor until 7 pm! He worked overtime last night and has physical therapy tonight, so I probably won't get it made today either. We've managed to eat at home despite all this, and the overtime pay will be nice, but I struggle to get dinner made and on the table after 14+ hours on my own with two fussy kids two and under who do not want to nap. The baby doesn't want to sleep at night, either, so I am really exhausted! Anyway, I went shopping yesterday and bought some quick and easy convenience foods. Not the cheapest, I know, but better than ordering in, which I am always on verge of doing when DH is gone all day and at night, too. Hats off to single parents everywhere. I have no idea how you do it...things have been this way since September when DH got hurt, and it's killing me!
My big score while out shopping was a bunch of kid's pjs clearanced out to $2.50 and $3.48. I stocked up and used my Red Card for another 5 percent off.
Hang in there Kat, it will get easier.
Its been a fairly quiet week around here. I filled in at work yesterday instead of taking the day off making pretty good tips and lowering payroll.
While at the store the other day, I noticed several empty Coke boxes by the recycling. I tore them apart and took home coke codes from nine 12 pks. and 2 cases.
We used coupons for dining out that night saving ourselves $10-13 dollars.
I understand what you're saying about the convenience food, I feel guilty when I break down and buy convenience food too. But I have to say I think you did exactly the right thing. There is only so much of you to go around and it is still cheaper than eating out or takeout and probably healthier too.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kat
Somedays if everybody is fed and fairly clean that's all the accomplishment you need.
Hi everyone!
Haven't felt particularly frugal this week. It's AMAZING how a lack of meal planning results in more spending and stress for us. I spent some time this evening making us a custom shopping list (since we order online, it was easy because they have our "master" list already in the system of everything we've bought in the last six months or some such time) so we can make the lists more easily. I am also going to make a list to hang on the fridge of meal ideas we have on hand. I don't like planning something for Monday, Tuesday, etc. because sometimes we just don't feel like making it that night. But if we at least know, ok, we bought the stuff for spaghetti one night, for burgers and home fries another night, for salads and soup another night, we can save the agonizing and feeling like "there's nothing in the house" desperation.
Hang in there, all . . .
fidgie: that was always my preferred method of meal planning too. Like you said, sometimes you just don't feel like having a particular meal, and some days are busier (and tired-er) than others - so having a list of 5 or 6 meals posted somewhere, and knowing you have everything in the house to make them - sure does make life easier. And cheaper.
I got in the habit of checking "the list" every evening, thinking about the next day's main meal and how busy or tired I would be, to see if/what I needed to take out of the freezer to thaw. And go from there. I still do this - only anymore I don't have any busy/worn out days to consider!
On the frugality front, same-o same-o around here. Mostly cases of "do you really need that?" (online ordering) And coming to conclusions of "nope, don't need that, don't want more stuff in the house. They're gonna have to discount that a bunch more to tempt me" etc. etc.)
Stopped at Dollar General on the way home for a few items, which means the grocery trip can be put off another week. Thursdays we all congregate at Mom's for dinner (it's her hair appointment day, we fill her fridge for the week, fix her pills, put out her trash and recycling, etc) and I added our trash to hers as we don't have trash pickup. I brought home some leftovers for my lunch at work today and some scratch for our chickens.
...this is how I meal plan. Based on what we have in the pantry/fridge/freezer, I come up with the meals and then as the week goes on I use the ideas that correspond to how busy my afternoon/evening is. It's super simple and I can change things as I wish.Quote:
I am also going to make a list to hang on the fridge of meal ideas we have on hand.
Last week I asked DD to plan the meals. I gave her a list of protein foods (choose 1 for dinner) and a list of everything else (salad, veg, potatoes, grains - finish the meal) and she did a great job both in using the foods and in having diverse meals. I assigned the meals to the specific days since I understand time and schedule. This was useful for me on multiple fronts - she was guaranteed to eat the meals (not usually a problem, but she was recovering from a stomach bug and had a low appetite); I got to see her preferences; and I saved myself some time.
Great week with my laundry challenge -- only 4 loads this week, down from our usual 6 or 7. Now to just keep that up for the entire year!
Brought my lunch to work on Thursday and Friday, plus green tea and water. So no trips to the vending machine for me this week -- woo-hoo!!! Also was gifted three bags of cough drops and a bottle of ibuprofen at work so those went in my desk. We're not supposed to distribute stuff like that to students even though they are all adults. But let's be honest...it's going to happen and I would rather they use it then go without. I'm going to stock my desk with some hand sanitizer, too, even though I never use the stuff personally. And I have a coupon for $3 off a bulk pack of Lysol disinfecting wipes so will pick those up when I go to BJ's this week. I'll consider that my contribution to the cause...it's worth it to me if it prevents me from getting sick myself!
Been doing a pretty good job of eating out of the pantry and fridge. Finishing off a package of corn tortillas, the rest of the the oatmeal, the bananas, and most of the oranges so far. Have been snacking on raw almonds and hard boiled eggs. Are cabbage soup from the freezer for dinner last night. Feeling much better about our grocery spending this month so now just need to keep it up and stay focused! I'll make some brown rice today so that I can have it to eat next week for breakfast in place of my usual oatmeal. And my dearly beloved is home for a few days so I'll get on him to bake a few loaves of bread, too.
The cats are still sick with upper respiratory infections and that has made for some not-so-frugal vet visits. There's not much more I can do for them -- like humans, it just needs to run its course. So I've been locking them in the bathroom with me when I shower so that the steam/humidity can help to clear up their breathing passages. And I've been I warming up their Snuggle Safe heating pads in the microwave in the morning so that they can be warm and cozy throughout the day and I don't have of leave the heat turned up when no humans are home.
Why so quiet on this long weekend frugalistas?!? I'm assuming it's not because you are out shopping!!! :~)
Very productive on the frugal home front yesterday. Made a batch of brown rice in the rice cooker. Enough for eight portions, which I separated into containers and stashed in the refrigerator for a week's worth of breakfasts. Dearly beloved baked two loaves of bread. We had some with dinner last night, which was carrot-lentil soup from the freezer. And then I made a batch of yogurt in the crockpot overnight. This morning I set aside a little bit of yogurt to use as starter for the next batch, which I think will be a double batch because we tend to eat a lot of yogurt around here. And dearly beloved also made a gallon on iced tea to drink. Wish I could convince him to switch to water, but iced tea is still cheaper than juice so I'll take it.
The leftover ham steak from last week has been deemed dog food, so I've been cutting up little pieces and adding it to the regular dog food in the mornings and evenings. The dogs are happy and it will save a little on buying their expensive prescription dog food. Don't get me started on what a racket that whole thing is...
Been using the delayed start option on the dishwasher so that it is just finishing the rinse cycle about the time I get up in he the morning. Then I stop the cycle and open up the dishwasher to allow the dishes to air dry. Saves on electricity and adds some humidity to our very dry house. Hung part of a load of laundry on the drying rack yesterday, too, to help with the same issue. I would hang all the laundry, but dearly beloved protests so I hang my stuff and not his.
Surprise snowstorm yesterday evening and through the night so now there is snow to clear. Good thing it's a weekend and we don't need to be anywhere any time soon. My dearly beloved postponed his trip to Vermont until tomorrow. Thankfully that's not screwing up anybody's plans or causing stress.
Made it through the week on a single tank of gas. Will have to fill up today, but will do it when I go to the gym for my Tae Kwon Do class, which means I can seek out the least expensive gas. We hit the gym yesterday, too, and we were able to combine that trip with several other errands. I think we could probably do better in this regard...baby steps, baby steps.
Hope everyone else is having frugal successes!!!
Well, DH took a full-time job after working part-time for the past four years. We were excited about what this would do for our budget, but the reality of the job was awful. He came home from his first day totally dejected, with back pain from standing all day and hundreds of cuts all over his hands (he was told he would build up calluses and would get used to it). The work was incredibly boring as well. So we talked it through and decided this was not a good fit for him. He's been through a lot of medical crap in the past two years, and I feel pretty strongly about sparing him any physical pain that can be avoided, and while we would have LIKED the extra money, we didn't really NEED it. Although I think we are frugal lightweights, we have at least been frugal enough to be in the position for DH to turn down this job, which is what we opted to do. So that's a major score in terms of the freedom even a somewhat frugal lifestyle can give you. Luckily his manager at his part-time job (which he really likes) hadn't even taken him off the schedule yet, and she was happy to have him back as though he had never left. :)
Our favorite flannel sheets developed a hole in the fitted sheet. I considered patching it, but the location meant that someone would very likely be laying on top of the patch which would be uncomfortable. Luckily, LL Bean still carries those sheets, so I was able to order just a fitted sheet to match and they're having a 20% off sale if you use your LL Bean visa, so this turned out to be a lot less expensive than it could have been.
I'll be working tomorrow, so no hanging out at the stores for me!
That's an inspiring story about your husband's job, rosarugosa. That may be the best definition of simple living that there is.
So nice you were able to make that decision rosaruga!
We went to watch Tyler run on Friday so that was not a frugal day. But so worth it!
Saturday we went to Meijer and bought a few groceries. Including grape juice for a new wine recipe my DH is trying. Spent about $31. Now we have about $13 left in grocery money until Friday. I can't think of anything we'll need though.
Today we stayed at home. Paid a few bills on-line but otherwise didn't spend any money. Worked on the budget. Did some housework and laundry. Hung several things to dry. I had leftover chili for dinner and DH had grilled ham & cheese. A quiet & frugal day.
My crock pot is getting a workout! Cooked up a batch of chick peas yesterday, separated into small servings and froze for future meals. At the same time soaked some black beans and, after coming home from the gym, put those in the crock pot to cook overnight. Now I've got plenty of black beans for the freezer, too. Felt super motivated yesterday afternoon and made a batch of chocolate tapioca pudding. Put it into single serving containers before refrigerating it. Hopefully this will mean it lasts all week. I've been known to eat the entire batch in one sitting in the past...
Dinner last night was mushroom soup from the freezer and homemade bread. We're eating a loaf of bread a day around here...they are small loaves, but still... So I've started more bread in the bread maker this morning. We just use the bread maker for the dough cycle and then take it out to rise and bake it in the oven. Probably uses more energy that way, but we think it is better bread than what comes out of the bread maker.
It's amazing how much food we have in our pantry and our freezers. Now that I'm developing some focus around this I can see that we don't really need to grocery shop nearly as often as we have been. If I can just get that meal planning thing down that would be fantastic! :D
Other frugals are just the usual stuff...maybe one day soon I'll have something big and exciting to report, but for now it's going to be all about the small stuff. :)
Haven't been home much this weekend until today. Didn't spend much money and had a lot of fun - Sat went to an antique show - paid admission but it was a fundraiser for a good cause. Did purchase a few items but spent less than I had allowed for. Sat evening my cousin scored free tickets to the local philharmonic, which performed with a Stones tribute band. Very interesting and fun show. We even got free garage parking (which was nice as the weather was crap and the car would have been snow and ice covered if on the street). Yesterday DD and I helped my DB and DSIL with some paperwork, for which they bought us lunch - and went to my mothers for the evening. Filled up the gas tank on the way home at the cheapest station (2.98 a gallon! cheapest in months!!). Barring something unforeseen, today should be a no drive, no spend day. I will write a few checks but it's a holiday so they won't be going anywhere, and thus I won't count the money as spent until tomorrow, lol.
Bread is baked! I discovered that baby bella mushrooms were on sale at the grocery store. So I stocked up and used my day off to make a huge batch of wild mushroom soup. I already had a box of dried gourmet mushrooms in the panty that were not slated for another use so into the soup they went! Smells so good in my house right now!!! Should be about 20 servings of soup in the end, which means we'll have plenty of quick and easy meals to pull out of the freezer in the future.
Later this week I need to tackle the giant butternut squash in my kitchen. Perhaps that will become soup as well... Now if only I could get motivated enough to make vegetable stock on my own, then I would really be making some frugal pots of soup!!!
cdttmm: We've used a modification of this recipe, which sounds like something you might like with the squash. It's from The Gardener's Cottage blog, which I enjoy. I'm not sure if this link will work, so I'm posting the recipe too.
http://thegardenerscottage.blogspot....ch?q=butternut
2 cups cubed butternut squash
1 small onion diced
1/2 cup white wine
1 cup arborio rice
4 cups vegetable broth
salt, pepper, fresh or dried sage
Roast your butternut squash that's been drizzled with a little olive oil and s&p on a sheetpan in a 400 degree oven for about 30 minutes or so.
In a heavy saucepan saute the onion in a tablespoon of earth balance til soft then add the butternut squash. Add the arborio rice and thoroughly mix it with veggies. Add the white wine and cook until wine is absorbed. Then add about 1/2 cup of hot broth to the mixture, stir until slowly absorbed. Repeat this until all the broth has been added. The slow stirring is quite medatative. :)
I taste at this point and if it needs adjusting then I add salt and pepper. I garnish with fresh sage and cracked black pepper and serve.
Mmmmm, soup talk . . .
We had a squash soup tonight out of some acorn squashes and another winter squash that I don't know the name. Used up that coconut milk, too!!
Finished up a bunch of errands this morning. Not particularly frugal, though we did use gift cards for as much of it as we could, saving $60 at Target and had a Starbucks treat, too, on a GC.
Meals are planned for the week, laundry is folded, I am pooped!! We had a productive weekend, I groomed the dog but I think for the last time in a while. It is really physical, at least it is with squirmy fraidy boy and me with my low skill level - though now I figured out how to better utilize the blades I have, so part of it went a lot better. I had to take a nap when we were done.
Not too much else to report! We did break down and go out to eat this weekend. We've been doing super on that, and my DBiL and DSis had come to help us unload a piece of furniture, so we treated. Speaking of! That's a huge frugal! DH scored us a free oak buffet for our basement project. It was a built-in, and it's beautiful, though it needs a little help with new glass and such. For free, who cares?! We did rent a UHaul cargo van to go get it, so there was a small cost, but so worth it. It will become our wet bar.
rosa: that soup recipe sounds delicious! I've made a roasted butternut squash soup in the past, but never from a recipe that uses arborio rice -- that sounds like a fantastic addition and it just so happens that I have some in the pantry!
cdttmm, I keep a jar of Better than bouillon brand vegetable base in the fridge that I use to make a quick vegetable broth. It's pretty good in a pinch. I found it at Costco, though the grocery store might have it also.
I'm also looking at changing some things to change lifestyle, pay down debt etc. I can't put this much away each payday. (sadly). I'm confused about what you are allowing yourself per pay period though.Quote:
Originally Posted by Onyons
Put that rotisserie chicken carcass in the crockpot with chopped celery and carrot and onion and garlic to make a chicken broth.
The recipe I shared makes a creamy risotto, but I'm sure it can be modified to make a soup.
DH is doing some forensic examinations of our grocery bills and is becoming a finely-tuned comparison shopping machine. Since we usually buy pretty much the same thing every week, he is getting it down to an art form regarding where to shop for what, and how much to buy in bulk--that sweet spot that maximizes discount for bulk purchases, but minimizes wastage from spoilage.
I keep looking for tasty, frugal, and healthy recipes we can now make in our WONDERFUL slow-cooker. Since we both work from 2 p.m. up until 1 a.m. and often don't have a dinner break together, we're finding it much easier and less stressful to do slow-cooker cooking in the morning. Good for marital harmony and our pocketbook!
Ahhh...that makes more sense in my brain now! :~)Quote:
Originally Posted by rosarugosa