Our income isn’t getting any bigger but our food bill is, and it will especially continue to follow this economic trend after kid #1 is born. Speaking of whom, since we don’t know our kid’s gender and we’re at 6 months and counting, we’ve come up with our own nicknames for him/her/it. Trisha calls it “Baby Young. I have opted for “the kid,” but I am starting to like the ring of “Kid #1” more now that I’ve written it down.
Back to food. Since it’s expensive I’ve been doing more and more of our cooking. That and because home-cooked food is way better than stuff that can sit on a shelf for a year or years at a time (except for home-canned food—WAAAY different situation). Imagine comparing a cadaver preserved in formaldehyde with a living, human being. It’s an intentionally gross analogy to help show what I think of Banquet TV Dinners and the like.
In the past it’s been stove-top meals and baked desserts. The twist has been learning yet more recipes or versions of recipes to accommodate Trisha’s veganness as well as our push to eat healthier (not the same thing). Now that I’m pretty well caught up and can cook proficiently on both sides of the grazing fence I’ve decided to knock the snack part of our grocery budget down to size. I have been working through a few different granola recipes and ended up with a few shining success.
Now I’m working on roasted chickpeas (garbanzo beans). I just pulled two batches out of the oven: #1 is honey cinnamon and #2 is curried.
We’ve also just started baking potato chips. I don’t know if we have a real recipe, but it’s pretty simple to just plane some potatoes into chip thickness, lather them with olive oil and sometimes toss some rosemary onto them. One time we actually baked some buns, fried some veggie burgers with steak seasoning, added my home-canned garlic pickles with some Dijon, and the result was a pretty good home barbeque. Trisha will be so thrilled that I added the photo below from burger night.
Admittedly, the savings aren’t as substantial as if we were using more processed, cheaper ingredients—for instance, I’m cooking granola with real, dark amber maple syrup instead of imitation syrup or with mapleine—but even a marginal savings, coupled with amazing flavor has been worth it.
The next project is to get some herbs and tomatoes to grow. I haven’t had a garden in a couple years.
Here’s the list of most recent cooking attempts:
- Vegan Sausages with buns, relish, Dijon and sweet potato fries
- Vegan Mashed Potatoes and Gravy (the gravy is seasoned perfectly; better with leftover sausages)
- Granola (the best had more maple syrup)
- Chocolate cake (got the recipe in France some time ago—it used vinegar instead of eggs)
- Cinnamon & Honey Roasted Chickpeas
- Curried, Roasted Chickpeas
- Pizza (it’s amazing how good fresh rosemary tastes on this—just lay down some olive oil, “sun-dried” tomatoes, garlic, spinach and you’re set—I had a bag of mozzarella that I topped mine with)
- No-Mayo Egg Salad with fresh bread (still not vegan, I just don’t like store-bought Mayo; also, I wish I had fresh dill)
Next up is home-made mayonnaise, as soon as I get some fresh eggs.
