Strawberries!

I got to go to a local orchard and pick strawberries today! They were $1.50 a pound and so yummy. In my area, that price is better than most grocery sales plus we got to make it a family day. The kids had so much fun picking berries and I love to do anything that reminds them of where their food comes from.

We picked 10lbs of berries and spent $15. I let the kids eat until they were stuffed, then I set to wrk on the rest.

I work on an assembly line when I do any bulk cooking or freezing. It is organized and efficient. I washed the berries, cut the tops off, then cut them up. The best berries went in a bowl in the fridge. The rest were put on cookie sheets and put in the freezer. Once frozen, they are transferred to a freezer bag. They make wonderful smoothies and are cheaper than store bought!

Don't toss the tops of those berries! Wash them really well, then put them on the stove with a 2 to 1 ratio of sugar and water. For this batch I put 4 cups of water and 2 cups of sugar.

Bring to a boil, then cook until the berries start to lose color. Strain the berries out and return the liquid to the stove. Reduce it as uch as desired.

Cool and store in the fridge.

Even though the "sauce": was thin, it made for an amazing ice cream topping. Add it to carbonated water for a fruity soda or add some to regular cola to make it strawberry.

It's got fruit, so this is healthfood, right?

How does your Garden Grow?

Look how pretty my tomatoes are! They are getting so big :) I can't wait for our garden to get outside and thrive. Last year I canned enough diced tomatoes to last until January of this year! I hope to have even more this year, though that means I'll need to get more jars!

If you are new to gardening, I really recommend getting a few plants and trying it out. You may not eat for months off of the produce, but it can still be a rewarding experience. Here are some of the reasons I love to garden:

1. It is locally grown! You can't get much more local than your backyard. You know where the food started, who handled it, and have seen it through from flower to fruit. You can have organic, locally grown produce for a fraction of the cost and eat well knowing where your food comes from.

2. It becomes a hobby. Getting out and working in the garden can become a daily ritual. I was even out picking tomatoes last year, while 9 months pregnant. It has become a family activity, and though I was the one who initially suggested gardening, my husband has been the one to be sure that our starts are planted on time and gets everything in motion.

3. It is a great life lesson. My kids are involved in the process from the day we plant seeds to the day we can jars and jars of tomatoes. They are the first to tell us when the seeds have sprouted and are sometimes a little too excited to pick the produce. Fried green tomatoes are a good way to prevent wasting them when that happens, just so you know. ;)

4. It just tastes better. Even if you didn't save some money, which when done right it will, the food you grow tastes so much better than the stuff your grocery store can offer.

5. It is simple. I feel like so much of the time we're swept up in so many activities that we don't appreciate the simple parts of life. Gardening is simple. You plant it, you water it, you weed it, you eat it. You don't have to be the best gardener ever to get something out of it.

Do you garden? What are you planting this year?

Use that Garden!

Since I posted an entry about how much gardening can save in the long run, I wanted to show one way that I am using that garden to the fullest.

Since I am only a few weeks away from having baby #3, preparing for his arrival is something that I am incorporating into my daily routines so that I don't feel overwhelmed by the process.

One dish that my family loves is Stuffed Bell Peppers. It can be expensive (bell peppers are around $1 each at the sale price) and time consuming so it isn't a meal that we make weekly.

Everyone makes theirs different, so if you have a tried and true recipe that you love follow that. I have strayed from my mother's recipe to help incorporate what we were growing and what we had available in the house.

For this recipe I used:
1 lb ground beef (though beans can be substituted)
14 bell peppers
6-7 ripe tomatoes
3/4 cup corn
1 cup of brown rice (precooked measurement)
2 cups of water (to cook the rice)
salt, pepper, and basil
1/2 a diced onion
2-3 cloves of garlic
Mozzarella cheese



First I got everything ready. I put a pan on the stove and started browning the ground beef. I put another pan on the stove with water to get it boiling. A lot of getting this done is multitasking, so do it in a way that works well for you. I also started cooking the rice in the microwave. I washed the many peppers we picked from the garden. Then I cut them in half, cleaned them out into a bowl (the ice cream one in the picture). I rinsed them again.

Since by then the water was boiling, I put the peppers in for a few minutes to blanch them. While they were blanching, I drained the ground beef and added the diced onion, garlic, corn, and seasonings to the pan. Next, I got the other set of bell peppers ready to go in the boiling water.



Then I put each pepper in a baking dish that was sprayed with Pam. They were able to sit and wait for me to finish the other steps at this point.



Next I grabbed these tomatoes and washed them. I put them into the boiling water that I used for the peppers and filled one side of the sink with cold water. This is to help get their skins loosened so I could easily peel the skin off the tomatoes.



After they were peeled I diced them and added them to the ground beef mixture. I also added the cooked rice to the mixture at this time.



At this point I preheated the oven to 375*. Then I set up an assembly line at the table to put all of the peppers together. I put a bit of the mixture into each pepper. I added more to any that seemed like they could hold more than the scoop I put in. When they were all filled I topped with cheese.




Bake for 30 minutes (or longer if you like the cheese more crispy on the top) and then enjoy!



My husband and I each had 3 peppers and the kids each had 1.



I took the leftovers and put them into freezer bags. I laid the bags flat so that they wouldn't fall apart before freezing. We had enough for 3 more meals out of this- 6 in two of them and 8 in the third.

This meal cost next to nothing even if it was for one meal. We had to spend nothing on the peppers or the tomatoes because they came from the garden. The corn was not even half a bag that was on sale for 88 cents. The onion was not a whole onion, but instead was part of one we cut up and froze in an individual serving. The garlic was from a bulk jar that is kept in the fridge. The rice was only 1 cup out of a 16 oz package that was a little over a $1. The ground beef was the most expensive part at about $2 for the pound, and that can be substituted for beans to save money or to make it a vegetarian dish. The seasonings were minimal.

Estimated cost, figuring high:
Peppers $0
Tomatoes $0
Corn $0.44
Onion $0.50
Garlic $0.50
Rice $0.25
Ground beef $2
Seasonings $0.10

Total $3.79

Even if I round it up to being $4, since I was able to make 4 meals out of it my family was able to eat for $1 per meal total. This beats any $1 menu and I can be happy with what my family is eating too.

Frugal Tip- Grow a Garden.

I can't tell you just how much having a garden has saved us. It does have an initial investment, but as long as you keep reusing the materials you purchase that will go down each year that you garden. Starting from seed can become especially cheap if you reuse the containers you use.

In previous years we have been able to use our garden to can pickles (something my children can inhale), supplement our grocery budget, and give gifts to our families (like the delicious zucchini bread we made one year). This year I plan to use a lot of the garden to can (diced tomatoes and other things like sauces), and freeze (diced bell pepper ready to use). It takes some effort and space, but even having a container garden can provide some good food and save a few pennies here and there.

For our garden we started indoors. We wanted to grow from seeds, but since the growing period in our area doesn't start until mid-May, we needed to figure out a way to start the seeds sooner than that so we could transfer them in the spring.

We ended up using an indoor green house to help our garden. It was $60 (which is not usually in our budget) but has been used for 3 years now and is used in the garage for storage in between seasons so we are happy with it. With it we were able to start our plants in February. This meant we spent months with a greenhouse in our living room, since the windows in our garage were not good enough to let in enough sun, but we were able to work around it knowing that in the end it would be worthwhile.



Then the plants got a bit too big to keep the cover on pretty quickly. We planted seeds in the trays that are sold at most stores because it helped us be able to keep track of what we were growing and they were able to fit well on the shelves.



The next step was to transfer the bigger tomatoes into their own pots. This was one benefit to starting so early, because we knew that the plants would become more mature by the time we were able to plant them outside. We hoped to have a faster yielding garden by doing it this way. We opted for these plastic containers because at our local garden shop they were inexpensive and we knew we could reuse them in years to come. Our other option were the pots that could be planted but the bigger ones were expensive and they are one time use so the convenience of being able to plant the entire pot was not enough for us to go that route.



The end result was a pretty, jungle of a garden that is really starting to produce:



So far we have picked over 18 tomatoes, over 36 cherry tomatoes (as big or bigger than ping pong balls), and over 16 bell peppers. Only 4 green beans because we have a rabbit that seems to be favoring those, but I plan on trying some natural remedies to help solve that problem :)

I plan to use this garden the best way possible. We have been using fresh veggies in our meals, even having snack trays with the cherry tomatoes, bell pepper and few green beans rather than buying a salad for a side. I have many tomatoes ready to use and plan to can them so that we will have food longer than this summer since we are finally starting to produce more than we can keep up with.



So whether your garden is large or small, find out what can be grown in our area and use it to help you save money. Be sure to plant things that you will use, or else it will feel like a waste. Also build connections in your area to trade food if you aren't up to preserving it. Having a garden can be more than food, it can become a hobby that you enjoy as well.