Contents - Real Food for Less Money

Throw Away Your Recipe Book, Save Money with Methods!

Contents Design a Recipe...........................................................................................................................................................2 Design Your Ingredients .............................................................................................................................................3 Design a Muffin ..........................................................................................................................................................4 Design a Soup/Stew ....................................................................................................................................................7 Design a Casserole ................................................................................................................................................... 10

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Millie Copper www.realfoodforlessmoney.com 2012


Design a Recipe One of the best ways to stretch your food dollar is to learn how to design or create your own recipes or method. Using a general method for making things you can personalize with ingredients that are less expensive or abundant to you will help you realize the biggest savings on your food bill. This is a concept that I learned young but didn’t realize I was learning it. My mama rarely used a recipe to create meals. I can’t say we ever ate gourmet style foods but they were filling and, especially when I was quite young, made from real food ingredients. I lived on a dairy farm as a young girl. We had an abundance of fresh milk and cheeses since those were part of the ‘perks’ of a dairy farm. Since money was often tight on a hired dairyman’s salary other ingredients were rather frugal. I remember lots of pinto beans, some ground beef (also part of the dairy farm perk) and assorted pastas along with the very rare sweet treat in the form of homemade cakes or pies. Even with these limited ingredients we still had a nice meal variety. The reason was my mama was very creative at changing simple ingredients into different meals. Fast forward to my early days as a young (broke) wife. I had learned these basic cooking skills from my mama but thought they were not ‘good enough’. I tried every new recipe in whatever cooking or women’s magazine that came along. This often resulted in me buying special ingredients that were only used that one time. Somehow I came across the book The Complete Tightwad Gazette by Amy Dacyczyn. In this book she shares the article Create a Muffin Breakfast. In this article she states “…blindly following recipes won’t help you save the maximum amount on your food bill.” This was a huge ah-ha moment for me. I realized that maybe my mama was onto something. Don’t get me wrong, there are times when I use a recipe but many of the things that are made in my kitchen are created following methods or formulas instead of a written out recipe. In this eBook I’ll be sharing some of my favorite methods. My hope is that this will provide you with a few tools and inspiration to create your own methods and formulas. I am confident that by learning this skill you will see a decrease in your overall food bill and enjoy a wide variety of meals and flavors.

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Design Your Ingredients I think it is important to note that starting with the best quality ingredients that you can afford is important. What does best quality mean? In our house, we choose grass fed (and finished) beef, free range poultry (ours are home grown), eggs from free range hens (also home grown and truly free range), wild game, organic produce for items that are high spray and sometimes organic grains and legumes. We also pick traditional fats such as butter, duck or chicken fat, coconut oil, palm oil and olive oil—and we eat these fats liberally! What if your budget is too tight to afford grass fed beef, free range chicken, etc? Or what if these items are not available in your area? Then I believe that choosing the best option available to you and in your budget would be a good choice. A wonderful resource to help you with this is the series Good, Better, Best by KerryAnn Foster at Cooking Traditional Foods. In this series, she breaks down several categories (meat, dairy, grains, etc) and gives detailed information in each category. Be sure to check the resources at the end for the Cooking Traditional Foods webpage. In addition to your base ingredients, having a variety of herbs, spices and seasoning will go a long ways to adding excitement to your method dishes. Sea salt and pepper are great but spicing things up a bit with dried or fresh herbs or spices with a bit of a kick can change an ordinary meal into something extraordinary. Using different spices you could easily eat chicken every night and feel like you are not eating the same old boring thing night after night. A chicken dish flavored with chili and cumin tastes nothing like a chicken dish flavored with curry. A few miscellaneous ingredients are always nice too. While we do strive to eat a real/whole/traditional foods diet we do keep some ‘canned goods’ on hand to help with our meals. Coconut milk, tomatoes, tomato sauce/paste, teriyaki or Pad Thai sauce and ketchup (without high fructose corn syrup) are items we keep in our cupboard. When our budget allows, we also keep a few ‘goodie’ style components to add to some of our method meals. This might be something like almonds, peanuts, pimentos, olives, cheeses, sour cream, fresh cilantro, etc. These are the things that I believe can really spice up a meal. A simple skillet dish of leftover rice, soy or teriyaki sauce, chopped veggies and scrambled egg (essentially, fried rice) is almost becomes something special when almonds or peanuts and fresh cilantro are added to the top.

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Design a Muffin Just like my inspiration from Amy Dacyczyn in The Complete Tightwad Gazette, an adaptable muffin formula is an important component in my kitchen. The muffin formula in the Gazette uses standard ingredients. My muffin formula has been modified to incorporate soaking the grains (to aid in digestion and reduce phytic acid and other anti-nutrients) and uses healthy fats. I originally shared my Design a Muffin idea on an old family blog I had. I was quite honored when Wardeh from GNOWFGLINS tweaked my version and included it in her Fundamentals eCourse. The version I share is from my method. You can check the resources at the end for a link to Wardeh’s version. There are some ingredients that are required in your muffins. These are as follows; Grain: Use 2 to 2 ½ cup whole wheat flour. Or substitute oatmeal, cornmeal, or rye flour for the whole wheat flour. My best results come from 1 cup whole wheat flour and 1 cup old fashioned rolled oats. Liquid: I’ve listed several liquid options in the basic formula. But I wanted to let you know that I’ve also had excellent results by combining one of the above with water. Example: Use ½ cup yogurt and ½ cup water to end up with one cup liquid. This is a way to help cut your expenses without sacrificing flavor. Fat: Use ¼ cup melted butter or coconut oil. Or you can substitute an all natural nut butter for all or part of the fat. Another thing that works well is using a “wet addition” for all or part of the fat. Egg: Use 1 egg. This goes back to using the best quality ingredients you can afford. Pastured or free range eggs are great if possible. Sweetener: Use up to ½ cup of a Natural Sweetener. You could use Sucanant, Rapadura, honey, maple syrup, blackstrap molasses, evaporated can juice or a combination of any. Keep in mind that honey, maple syrup and molasses are liquid. Use caution when using these in combination with wet additions so your batter does not become overly wet. I have had excellent result using as little as 2 Tablespoons of sweetener especially when combined with additions that are on the sweet side. When using honey, I always use less than I would for something like Sucanat. I keep honey around ¼ of a cup. If making a savory muffin, use only 2 Tablespoons or eliminate completely. Baking Powder/Baking Soda: Equal amounts of both work well for me. You could choose to only use baking powder but I find that the soda works well with the slight acidity of the soaking liquid.

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Sea Salt: I use ½ teaspoon of Redman’s Sea Salt.

You could stop here and make your muffins plain. I’ve made plain muffins before and they turn out great. But one of the really fun things about a method like this is the ability to customize the muffins to items that you have on hand. Keep reading for optional items.

Additions: These can be used in any combination you wish. Dry Additions: Chopped Crispy Nuts (almonds, peanuts, pecans, walnuts), sunflower seeds, raisins, shredded coconut, etc. Poppy seeds are a nice dry addition. I usually use 2 Tablespoons. Moist Additions: Blueberries, chopped or shredded apple, freshly shredded zucchini, shredded carrots, etc. Wet Additions: Pumpkin puree, applesauce, mashed banana, cottage cheese, cooked and mashed sweet potato, cooked and mashed carrot, frozen zucchini that has been thawed and drained, home canned fruit that has been drained and cut in chunks. NOTE: When using wet ingredients, your muffins can get quite wet. This could cause the need for additional baking time. To help eliminate this, I keep the wet ingredients to no more than ½ cup. Spices: 1-4 teaspoons depending on your preferences. Use one or a combination. Cinnamon, nutmeg, ground ginger, cloves, grated orange peel, grated lemon peel, etc. All Natural Fruit Spreads: Here is an idea for a nice change of pace. Fill cups half full with plain batter. Add a teaspoon of fruit spread and then top with 2 more teaspoons of batter (my children love this). Savory Muffins: These make a nice accompaniment to a simple soup dinner. Use only 2 Tablespoons of sweetener or omit entirely. I have had great results using a combination of whole wheat flour and rye flour or whole wheat flour and cornmeal (1 cup each). For additions use things like shredded cheese (1/2 cup), a few strips fried and crumbled bacon (we would use turkey or beef bacon), 2 or 3 Tablespoons of any or all of the following; minced or grated onion, shredded zucchini, finely chopped, leftover cooked vegetables (I like broccoli), Parmesan cheese, fresh herbs of your choice. If using dried herbs use 1 to 2 teaspoons. As you can see, your choices when designing your own muffins are pretty limitless. Muffins are a great way to use up leftovers. Consider a sweet muffin made with that little bit of leftover baked butternut squash spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, allspice and clove which would be very similar to a pumpkin muffin. Or a savory muffin with a bit of leftover spaghetti squash combined with Parmesan cheese and Basil for an Italian flair. Now that you are familiar with the components to muffins here is your formula you can just follow your formula and begin the experimentations.

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Basic Muffin Formula (makes 1 dozen plus or minus) 2 to 2 ½ cups grain 1 cup buttermilk, yogurt, kefir or milk with 1 T apple cider vinegar added Combine your grain(s) with you liquid of choice. Cover with a cloth and let sit at room temperature for 8 hours or overnight. After you soaking time has completed add; Up to ¼ cup fat 1 egg Mix well. In a separate bowl, combine; Up to ½ cup sugar 1 teaspoon baking powder 1 teaspoon baking soda ½ teaspoon salt Up to 1 ½ cups “additions” Combine the 2 bowls until mixed. Occasionally, the mixing will be challenging and you might have ‘bits’ of grain that doesn’t combine. I don’t worry too much about this and just do the best I can. Your finished product might have spots of a slightly different color but will still taste great. Put in your muffin tins and bake in a 400 degree oven for 18-25 minutes. Your baking time may vary depending on how wet your batter is to start out. I usually set the timer for 18 minutes and then check them every 3-5 minutes afterwards until a toothpick comes out clean. I rarely make a single batch of muffins. Save energy and time by making a double batch. These keep very well when covered or can be stashed in the freezer for future use. Variation: Instead of making muffins put in an 8 inch square pan or a loaf pan and sell to your family as “Breakfast Cake”. I like doing this so I don’t have to wash out each little muffin tin. A double batch fits perfectly in a 9x13 pan. Watch your quantity when pouring into pans. Sometimes your choice of ingredients can result in a batter that makes more than will fit in a pan without running over. Don’t fill your pan more than ¾ full. When batter exceeds the pan, put the remainder in muffin tins. Only batter enough to fill a couple of tins? No problem putting water in the empty tins will aid in cooking and avoid burning the tins.

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Design a Soup/Stew When the temperatures drop a hot bowl of soup really hits the spot. Believe me, with our Wyoming winters we enjoy soup quite often! Soup is also a wonderful way to use up leftover ingredients. By starting with nutrient rich bone broth an incredibly nourishing meal can be made with almost any combination of ingredients. I usually make construct my soups as I’m standing at the stove, viewing my soup pot as the perfect opportunity to use up those little bits that are hanging around in the fridge or freezer. This is a great way to help cut down on food waste which in turn helps with reducing your food bill. I use the word soup and stew interchangeably; I understand there is a bit of a difference. Usually in my house, a soup is something I’ve pureed or made on the thin side. A stew tends to be heartier. Let’s talk about ingredients: Bone Broth: It is my goal to have bone broth readily available. Bone broth. Not the stuff that comes in a can or a cube but homemade from real bones. Homemade broth or stock acts a protein sparer. This allows you to consume (costly) meat less often and still maintain excellent health. Making broth in a crock pot requires very little effort. Be sure to check out the resources at the end of the book for links to different broth preparation methods. The Vegetables: Root vegetables are my first choice for soups and stews. Carrots, onions and potatoes which we almost always have on hand are my ‘go to’ vegetables. Celery is great too but isn’t something we normally purchase. Sometimes I’ll add tomatoes or tomato sauce/paste. Shredded cabbage is spectacular in stews and adds an extra bit of heartiness. Vegetables that have been leftover from a previous meal make a wonderful addition to our soup pot. If you keep frozen vegetables on hand, they work well in soups/stews; this is an especially good way to use up partial bags. The Protein: My husband’s first choice for protein in soups (or anything) is meat. I tend to agree with that thinking. I will sometimes use stew meats if I have it on hand (I don't buy stew meat but do have it from antelope, venison and sometimes our beef CSA will put a package in for me) but the bulk of our stews and soups are made from leftover meats. I'll cook a roast or a whole chicken and specify a portion of that meat to use later in the week for soup or stew. Making one meal and turning it into additional meals is a great way to save on time and money. I call these stretchy meals and spend a lot of time talking about these on my blog. Sometimes I will plan a soup where the protein is beans or even eggs such as in an egg drop soup. And on occasion we will have a soup that is just bone broth and vegetables which we usually puree with our hand held blender to make a Cream of Vegetable Soup, more about that later.

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Throw Away Your Recipe Book, Save Money with Methods! The Spices and Seasonings: I'll admit that I am not very creative with spices and seasonings. I'm good with the basics (sea salt and pepper) but then the rest of the seasonings I cross my fingers and hope for the best thinking about how I want the end result to be depending on what meat and vegetables I'm using. Such as, if I’m creating a taco style soup then I'll use chili powder, cumin and cayenne pepper. For Italian I’ll use basil and oregano. Acid: A little bit of an acidic base really brightens up soups flavors. Lime juice is my favorite (about ¼ cup) but more often I use fresh lemon juice or apple cider vinegar since we usually have those on hand. On the very rare occasion that I have wine available, I’ll add that to soup. If you feel the need to be proper, use red with beef and white with chicken. I have also had great success with using kombucha as a flavoring. Please keep in mind that when heating kombucha you destroy the probiotic components of it but as a flavor enhancer only, it is spectacular. The Additions: Toppers: An easy way to take a simple soup to a new level is by adding something extra to it past the basics. When I'm making a chicken soup my family loves the addition of dumplings. After the soup is in the bowl is a great time to add other additions such as sprouts, chopped green onions, shredded cheese, sourdough croutons, avocado, salsa, cilantro, or my favorite, homemade sour cream. Joe likes to add lacto-fermented sauerkraut to his soups. Bases: Need to add a little more bulk to your soup? Put it over leftover cooked rice or pasta. Homemade noodles make a particularly wonderful base. And a favorite of my husband’s is to put a slice of sourdough bread or chunk of cornbread in the bottom of his bowl and put his soup/stew on top of that. Pureed Soups: A few years back I bought a hand held blend for $15. It was a wonderful addition to my kitchen. We often have pureed soups which are very reminiscent of creamed soups once sour cream, yogurt or fresh cream are added to them. In the book Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon and Mary Enid is a recipe for Cream of Vegetable Soup. I’ve used this soup as a guide to create creamy soups. Just about any combination of bone broth and vegetables make a wonderful creamy soup. Of late we have really been enjoying using butternut squashes in our soups. Broth, butternut squash and fresh ginger pureed together is wonderful. A great topping for this is the thick cream off of coconut milk. Just a small amount stirred in totally changes the flavor. How I cook it: I start with chopping up the onion (1/2 or a whole onion) and cooking it with a little coconut oil in my soup pot (if I'm using celery I cook it along with the onion). I keep it over low heat and cook it until just soft (about 7-10 minutes). If I am using uncooked stew meat it goes in now to brown. While that is cooking, I peel and chop the potatoes and carrots (I usually use 3 or 4 of each) plus whatever other non-cooked vegetables I'm using and the precooked meat into bite size pieces. After my onions have cooked until just soft, I add in my broth (anywhere from 1/2 gallon to a full gallon or occasionally half broth/half water). Now the carrots and potatoes go in so they can start cooking and I add salt. I do not pre-salt my broth so I am pretty generous with the salt. I let the potatoes and carrots cook about 10

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Throw Away Your Recipe Book, Save Money with Methods! minutes. Do I have other raw vegetables that need to go in? I add them now and allow another 5 minutes or so of cooking time. At this point, the carrots and onions have cooked a good 15 minutes and are just getting soft. Now is the time to add in any already cooked vegetables, the precooked meat and my seasonings. If I'm doing dumplings those go on next (they take 20-30 minutes to cook). If I'm not using dumplings then I cook the soup until the potatoes and carrots are soft and everything is heated through. That's it. These soups are fairly quick and easy since a good portion of the work (cooking the meat) has already been done. Some Tasty Combinations: When discussing pureed soups I mentioned that broth, butternut squash and fresh ginger combination. This is a very tasty soup! For a hearty stew I like to load it up on vegetables. Onions, potatoes, carrots and shredded cabbage along with leftover roast or stew meat are very good. Add a can of tomatoes and a tomato sauce for extra richness and maybe a ½ cup of red wine. Spice it up with chili powder, garlic, rosemary and allspice. The quickest soup I make is basically an Egg Drop Soup. Sautee your onions, when soft add a teaspoon or two of Garam Marsala (a wonderful blend of spices) and then add your broth. Bring to a boil. While that is heating lightly beat up 3 eggs. Turn your broth down to medium. Add a few ‘chugs’ of soy sauce, salt and pepper to your broth. Taste it and adjust as necessary. When it is perfect then stream your eggs into the broth while stirring rapidly. A few additional thoughts: Let your personal tastes and budget determine how much meat you want to use in your soup, I use anywhere from 1/2 cup to 2 cups. Remember, if you are using a real bone broth it acts as a protein sparer and you can use less meat. I taste my soup/stew as I go along so the seasonings can be adjusted. I have a bad habit of never getting my salt right in soup so this is necessary for me. You do not have to be rigid in the way you make your soups/stews. Only have chicken broth in the fridge but have leftover roast beef? No problem. Mixing your broth and meat is totally allowed. Here is another really great thrifty tip from The Complete Tightwad Gazette; Keep a container in the freezer to add any bits of leftover vegetables served with meals and then thaw (or not) and toss into the soup pot. You could also keep a container to put leftover meats in and use in the same manner. This is a great way to keep down the waste when you are not in a ‘soup mood’.

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Design a Casserole Do you have an odd collection of leftovers but don’t feel like making your trusty Design a Soup/Stew? Perhaps the perfect alternative is to Design a Casserole. This is a great way to help cut down on food waste which in turn helps with reducing your food bill.

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