We grew up calling everything a "COKE". (Yes, it is a TEXAS thing!) Now, having realized that the world does not end at the state line, I have "graduated" to referring to carbonated beverages as "soda" or by the specific brand or flavor.
Other than buying generics, which I have always done, my best suggestion is to cut out soda & other pre-made drinks ("juice boxes", etc.). These drinks bring a lot of extra packaging (read: "cost & waste") & usually have no nutritional value. If your children are soda drinkers, this could be a difficult process, but it could also save you a small fortune over a year, as even 2-liter soda bottles are $1.50+/each.
I have oodles of fall table decor & love any excuse to decorate for a party. However, the average age at our Thanksgiving feast will be under 20, with the grade schoolers outnumbering the adults. Therefore, paper & plastic are the order of the day, as at least one paper plate will be dropped on the floor - full, & one will be used to make a mask involving olives & toothpicks. My china & glasses will stay in their cabinet next week, & I shall admonish the little cherubs' mommies (again!) to teach them some table manners.
I'm a Southern girl, raised Baptist. It is a running joke that Southern Baptists do nothing without food present, including mourn. When someone dies, we usually feed their entire family for several days, including a meal after the funeral. Virtually everyone has their "funeral specialty" - casserole, ham, spaghetti, various "salads" (anything w/3+ ingredients, served cold). My granny is prone to bringing tubs of KFC. We are also prone to cooking for people who are ill or on bedrest during pregnancy or recently had a baby. We can pretty much expect a "sign-up" sheet to be passed at Bible study most weeks for these things. Funerals, being more sudden, tend to be very much "pot-luck"... as in, you hope you are lucky enough that there is enough food & it is not all watered-down spaghetti!
Ditto for the RevereWare. My granny has had hers for 40+yrs. I've had mine for about 15yrs (since I 'went off to college'). It is durable, but cheap enough that you don't have to go ballistic when your son leaves it on the stove until all the water boils out, starts a fire & ruins the pan. (I went ballistic, anyway, but, hopefully, you have more self control than I do. : |)
I read: nonfiction (social science, economics, etc.), classics &, of course, cookbooks.
I take care of my pets -- 12 cats, 2 dogs, 400gal. of fish tanks -- a job in itself.
I'm pretty politically active & do some things to support a charity that works with orphans internationally.
Even bad jambalaya is pretty good. I'm thinking of the box-mix-n-smoked-sausage variety. I can go for that when I am not in the mood to make the "secret family recipe". I had never even heard of paella, but I am drooling over a couple of recipes I just found after seeing this question. (I love the internet.) Shrimp, saffron, garlic, tomato! I'm in!
i miss the taco bell chicken burritos that had just chicken, taco sauce, onion (& cheese, i think). i subsisted on those & 2% milk for most of high school. when i went to college, college station (tx) had only 1 taco bell (across town), so i quit eating there. when i found out they discontinued those, i was crushed.
i desperately missed jello pops, too. i didn't know they were 'back'. i try to avoid THAT aisle of the market. i may have to venture there now, though!
cooking classes would be AWESOME, but i live in the sticks. if i could find cooking classes around here, they would likely involve stewed 'possum :o! i concur that "gadgets" are not on the list. i use the same pans, utensils, appliances all the time. i should probably even toss 1/2 the stuff i have. also, i could use a couple more sets of glass bowls for my sunbeam mixers. lately, i have seen only plastic ones (blek!), so i have taken to hunting them at yard sales. no other bowls will do! this has been a therapeutic little exercise, now i am in the mood to start making a freezing all that dough, batter, chopped whatever that i will need in the next couple of months. thanks for helping me get 'psyched up!
My comment this:
I love my Falk Culinair -http://www.copperpans.com/
They have a brushed copper exterior which is easy to maintain as it doesn't scratch when you scrub it. I've found I can use much lower heat as they are so conductive. Also practicly stick free. I don't put them in the dishwasher as they clean up so easily I haven't seen the point. Only drawback is they are heavy. I doubt I'll ever have to replace them unless someone steals them!
I have six pans and I love them. Barkeepers Helper keeps them looking new. The only gripe I have is the covers are not copper, I repeat, not copper. They're copper plated steel. after many cleanings the steel starts to show through. So the covers are a big rip off. I've tryed to get the company to do something about it, but they haven't responded.
Matriarchy, you have got to jump on the no-knead bread bandwagon. No special equipment required, just a lidded pot that can take high heat in the oven.
Also, the great thing about using the turkey legs in soups/stews is that the long simmering times makes the meat just slide off the bones and tendons behind.
Thanks for the smoked turkey idea - I will need to find a good local source. I have had "straight" smoked turkey legs and I love it right off the bone - I feel like a Henry the 8th skit when I eat them. They are a bit of work, to remove the meat from the connective tissue in a leg, but they could be a nice ham alternative.
Making my own bread and pasta are the next frontiers for us. I have carpel tunnel and can't knead, but I am looking for a decent used bread machine and a pasta machine at this summer's yard sales - someone must have gotten one for Christmas a few years ago, and has now accepted that they are not going give it a try. I want to get rid of the high fructose corn syrup we get in most commercial bread (even whole grain), and artisan bread can be a budget killer.
Growing up in New York, we called it "soder." Moving to Boston (OK, Somerville) in 1988 to be with my girlfriend, I had to get used to "tonic" or "pop."
In 1990, I moved with my sweetie Andi from Somerville to Seattle. Here, it seems to be "pop," "soda" or "soda pop."
I'll have the house fizzy water, as I usually say.
Wow matriarchy, it sounds like you are doing a phenomenal job of feeding your family with scarce resources. I am truly impressed. The difficulties you described finding fresh, high quality produce make me realize how very lucky I have it in Austin.
Can you get smoked turkey legs where you are? I started to like them for the flavor they bring, but also because they seem to have a lot more meat on them vs the ham. They are 1.69/lb. in my local Mexican market. Simmered with some collards a la Alton Brown and served over rice, it's very good stuff.
On a frivolous note, you should keep an eye out for Dave Lieberman on the Food Network, if you want some more accessible food porn. Maybe you're already familiar with him, but he always has an eye to the budget, and in a sincere way (vs., eg. Michael Chiarello's budget dinner that featured boneless chicken cutlets).
We have always been a family of limited means, 2 adults and 2 kids. We have always had a limited budget for food, usually $40-80/week. It's insulting and glib to imply that the rise in food prices will force low-income families to stop wasting their food stamps on junk food. In many urban neighborhoods, there is very little fresh food available. It takes hard work and planning to eat better, and many families don't have the skills or transportation. Fortunately, we do have a car, although it is not a late-model high-mileage vehicle. The price of gas hurts. We plan our trips carefully - we can't just drive out into the boondocks to visit the cute lil' organic boutique farm every weekend.
Our two "farmer's" markets are mostly not producer-markets - so often the supermarket has cheaper produce sales. "Eat local" is hard when most of your area's produce is shipped to a larger regional Northeastern city to be sold in trendy urban neighborhoods at a premium we local schmucks can't match. But I do score organic chicken backs at $5 for a 2-lb bag, to make stock for soup, sauces, grits, rice, beans, etc. Smoked ham shanks are one of my favorite budget-stretchers.
The Food Network is fun food-porn, but what I have really been studying is peasant food from various cultures. Notice, there is no cooking show aimed at poor people. You have any idea what that meat costs for those trendy grilling shows?
We do buy bulk - the Hispanic stores have the best bean and rice prices. I make my own stock, sauces, soup, etc. We buy almost nothing name-brand. We braise and slow cook a lot - I am planning to build a solar oven to try slow-cooking in it. We don't drink soda or coffee; we brew our own herbal tea. We have as large a vegetable/herb garden as we can in a small city yard. We bake our own snacks and desserts. We buy day-old bread to make bread pudding. I've tried to justify paying $7.99/gal for raw milk, but I cannot when commercial milk is half the price. I barter for pastured eggs, and go to pick-your-own orchards - fruit is harder to find and more expensive than veggies.
There is no slack in our budget. I admit to stockpiling rice, cornmeal, dried beans, spices, sugar, honey, and flour - I buy an extra bag as often as I can. I watch yard sales for working manual old-timey tools - meat grinder, grain mill, apple peeler, etc. I have not been able to stand canning in an airless city kitchen with no air-conditioning in the middle of summer - which is when the food wants canning - but I will try again this summer.
The global food news is scaring me - my family does not have the means to adapt as fast as the world can crush us.
I will be taking advantage of my large freezer in the garage more now, to buy "big packs" of meat. Luckily I already have a Food Saver vacuum thing which really makes a big difference in the quality of frozen stuff.
I saw my first case of $4/gallon gasoline today! YIKES
We do Costco as much as possible. We actually eat the leftovers now. And last, but not least, my mom started a garden for me...I am seriously thinking about how NOT to kill it.
I have noticed the prices starting to spike for quite awhile now. Recently it has become depressing the amount of food that I walk away from the supermarket with.
There are only 2 of us, but we are red meat eaters, at least twice a week normally. Now I am buying more chicken, buying bone in meats and removing bones and skin myself to save even a few cents. Shopping sales helps, but we live in an apartment and stocking up isn't always an option. Now I look for recipes with few ingredients, try to utilize the things that I have on hand on any given day instead of going out to buy more food.
I will be making weekly trips to the farmers market in the summer and changing our diets to more veggies, grains and pasta in the summer so that we can at least save on food in the summer. It is scary to think about where this is all heading, and if you watch the news it's in your face every day that this all wont get better any time soon.
It's depressing how much the rising cost of food is affecting the way I eat. As if I wasn't struggling enough with the price of produce in Los Angeles, now EVERYTHING is more expensive. The other day I spent a hundred dollars at the grocery store and came home with barely six bags of groceries. I'm going to be hitting the farmer's markets and the sales hard for the next couple of months.
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