So this week I don't have so many frugal accomplishments to share, since not much got done in my household. I mean, that's not entirely true- I did a lot of spring cleaning, and that ended up yielding some frugal results, but this week my sharing is rather sparse...
Bought entrecote steak on sale, and basmati rice on sale, as well as reduced rack apples, and 4 heads of cabbage (2 purple, 2 green) at 10 cents a pound.
Been making a lot of chickpea based meals, with sprouted chickpeas, including chickpea mixed with ground beef for a bolognese sauce, chickpea based mock tuna salad, and chickpeas in repurposed leftover chicken soup.
My mom's co-worker sells eggs cheaply, and told my mom that some eggs just cracked and thus she couldn't sell them, and asked her if she wanted. My mom couldn't bring them all home, so she brought them to me to use; I got a whole bunch of eggs free (at least 15)- and used them as the base for my family's main meal that day and the next.
I made an order of groceries through a discount wholesale supplier being delivered locally, with super low prices, so I stocked up for a long time on many things, including 25 packages of potato starch (half the price I usually find it for, and I never see it on sale), 8 packages of cocoa powder literally 1/4 their usual price, etc...
I cleaned out my pantry and discovered some stuff I had forgotten I had there, so now am making sure to use up instead of buying double.
I ground mung beans along with some loose millet and amaranth (that I got free and couldn't figure out how to use that) I had in my cupboard, combined it with the dirt cheap cabbage I bought, and made nokdu bindaetteok- Korean mung bean pancakes.
I cleaned out my freezer and discovered a bunch of odds and ends that I wanted to use up. I made:
Scrap broth, from chicken bones and vegetable scraps.
I mixed the scrap broth with a few packages of chicken drippings I had, plus rice and lentils and some chicken frames, and some carrots that were on their last legs, and made a yummy soup.
I used chickpeas that I sprouted and had frozen to make a gluten free chocolate cake/brownie type thing, also for myself, and for a neighbor newly off gluten, dairy, sugar, eggs, etc... who was at a loss what to serve for desserts.
I took some leftover beef from my freezer, cooked it up with some eggplant from my freezer and random scraps of broth from my freezer, and made a really tasty dish.
I used cooked kasha from my freezer together with onions fried in homemade rendered chicken fat and gluten free pasta to make kasha with noodles, aka kasha varnishkas.
Made homemade ice cream from frozen fruit I'd had in the freezer, which I stuck there when it was super sweet and on its last legs, some of which I even got free, the rest reduced rack- banana, mango, persimmon, apples, and oranges- just blended them up, no sugar, no additional ingredients, and we all enjoyed it.
Combined leftover soup with leftover peas and corn, and morel mushrooms that I picked, and leftover buckwheat and noodles, to make a thicker soup.
What did you do to save money this past week?
So, here's what I did to save money this past week:
Bought entrecote steak on sale, and basmati rice on sale, as well as reduced rack apples, and 4 heads of cabbage (2 purple, 2 green) at 10 cents a pound.
Been making a lot of chickpea based meals, with sprouted chickpeas, including chickpea mixed with ground beef for a bolognese sauce, chickpea based mock tuna salad, and chickpeas in repurposed leftover chicken soup.
My mom's co-worker sells eggs cheaply, and told my mom that some eggs just cracked and thus she couldn't sell them, and asked her if she wanted. My mom couldn't bring them all home, so she brought them to me to use; I got a whole bunch of eggs free (at least 15)- and used them as the base for my family's main meal that day and the next.
I made an order of groceries through a discount wholesale supplier being delivered locally, with super low prices, so I stocked up for a long time on many things, including 25 packages of potato starch (half the price I usually find it for, and I never see it on sale), 8 packages of cocoa powder literally 1/4 their usual price, etc...
I cleaned out my pantry and discovered some stuff I had forgotten I had there, so now am making sure to use up instead of buying double.
I ground mung beans along with some loose millet and amaranth (that I got free and couldn't figure out how to use that) I had in my cupboard, combined it with the dirt cheap cabbage I bought, and made nokdu bindaetteok- Korean mung bean pancakes.
I cleaned out my freezer and discovered a bunch of odds and ends that I wanted to use up. I made:
Scrap broth, from chicken bones and vegetable scraps.
I mixed the scrap broth with a few packages of chicken drippings I had, plus rice and lentils and some chicken frames, and some carrots that were on their last legs, and made a yummy soup.
I used chickpeas that I sprouted and had frozen to make a gluten free chocolate cake/brownie type thing, also for myself, and for a neighbor newly off gluten, dairy, sugar, eggs, etc... who was at a loss what to serve for desserts.
I took some leftover beef from my freezer, cooked it up with some eggplant from my freezer and random scraps of broth from my freezer, and made a really tasty dish.
I used cooked kasha from my freezer together with onions fried in homemade rendered chicken fat and gluten free pasta to make kasha with noodles, aka kasha varnishkas.
Made homemade ice cream from frozen fruit I'd had in the freezer, which I stuck there when it was super sweet and on its last legs, some of which I even got free, the rest reduced rack- banana, mango, persimmon, apples, and oranges- just blended them up, no sugar, no additional ingredients, and we all enjoyed it.
Combined leftover soup with leftover peas and corn, and morel mushrooms that I picked, and leftover buckwheat and noodles, to make a thicker soup.
What did you do to save money this past week?
Are you concerned at all about estrogen in plants? I was reading that chickpeas/garbanzo beans have higher levels of plant estrogens... I am not sure what to think of this, I've been making a lot of hummus lately... It seems like soybeans are even higher in estrogens...
ReplyDeleteIt amazes me how fast I go through cocoa powder doing most of my baking from scratch. That's a good deal!
ReplyDeletei think doing your own cleaning counts as frugal too. I'm going to try the ice cream...it's 95 here and the fruit would be really nice.
ReplyDeleteHey Penny! I love reading your weekly frugal accomplishments but it is a little difficult to read a whole block of text - is it possible to write your accomplishments as bullet points?
ReplyDelete