young popcorn plants – we will add some golden zucchini to this bed now that what corn has come up is up.
Moskvich tomatoes, grown from organic seed.
these two stalks of corn are in the memorial bed – we’re not sure what kind of corn it is as we didn’t plant it, but it came up as “volunteer”, perhaps sprouting from some seed in a basket of manure or perhaps a dropped popcorn seed.
green type of zucchini – this bed holds some green and some black beauty.
Continuing on a recent post about saving money – many don’t think of breakfast or look at drive through windows for cheap solutions. Here are ten breakfasts for under $3 – one for each day of the week for over a week!
1. Scramble up 2 eggs, slice up and add a sausage link. Top with a little salsa and a sprinkle of cheese. Cost – about $1.50; time about 5 minutes (less than many drive through lines!)
2. Oatmeal – large container of it, generic brand under $3. You can eat a double serving for less than a quarter. Add to it a little fruit, milk, maple syrup, brown sugar or other taste treat. Cheaper and easier to alter than the little flavor packets. Cost – $1-2 depending on flavoring; time – boil water!
3. Breakfast rice – like oatmeal, you can add what you want. Set your rice cooker before you head to the shower and get dressed – it’ll be ready for you to add goodies to when you’re done. Connor likes sugar cinnamon on his.
4. Questionable in ‘healthy’ but fast for on the go – fruit pastries.
5. Muffins – make them a variety of breakfast ways from banana to raisin to bacon cheese, peanut butter, etc. Like the rice – mix the batter the night before, put the pan in the oven before hopping in the shower. Hot fresh muffins! Cost under $3 per serving for almost any!
6. Shred potatoes and crumble in some onion, bulk sausage and seasoning. Top with a little cheese and/or salsa…breakfast bowl in under 10 minutes.
Shredded potato (for less than a quarter!), sausage patties (under a quarter each) is the basis of a hearty breakfast for 50 cents! Add 2 of our fresh eggs (33 cents each to buy them) and a sprinkle of cheese and/or salsa and that’s $1.50 for two people! A little onion – diced into the potatoes – adds extra nutrition and flavor.
7. Mix up batter the night before for waffles. Top with fruit, syrup or choice of flavorings.
8. Toast an English muffin, top with fried egg, slice of bacon and slice of cheese. Hashbrowns on the side – under 10 minutes.
Eggs locally can be found for just over a dollar – a dime each. Our farm fresh outdoor eggs are just over a quarter each for food choices – but either option is available.
9. Whip up an egg, add a little milk and cinnamon. Dip a couple pieces of bread and slip into a hot pan. Under a dollar for French toast.
10. Literally hundreds of possibilities with smoothies in the morning to drink breakfast on the go.
The idea that it’s expensive to eat well doesn’t have to be true. We all have choices…food choices and life choices. If you want something to happen badly enough, you will find a way to make it happen. If you don’t you’ll find an excuse. Add a serving of orange juice, and it’s still under $3. Enjoy!
A recent article reflects much of what we’ve said for some time. Despite the long repeated comment of a candy bar is cheaper than healthy food it’s just not true!
“They placed the foods into the five food groups — grains, dairy, protein, fruits and vegetables. They added a category for unhealthy foods, which included items that did not fit the other categories or were high in sugar, sodium and/or saturated fat such as cookies, candy, desserts, granola bars and many ready-to-eat cereals.
When using weight and portion size as the guide, many healthy foods were not any more costly than unhealthy ones, Carlson says. You can always find healthy foods that are cheap and healthy foods that are expensive. The same is true of less healthy foods, she says.”
Per portion is key! Per portion! Most people don’t eat proper portions. Many eat much more – and occasionally our portions are more than needed.
The critics are long in the comment section. It would seem like this would be great news, but people look for a way to make it not work. “Twentfour Seven” hit the nail on the head for many: “Junk food is ready to eat. People are just too lazy (or “too busy”) to take fresh healthy unprocessed foods to cook and prepare.”
Matt Andes issued a challenge. “My wife and I made the switch to healthier, more fresh, almost no pre-prepared foods, and our grocery bill went up about $320 a month (for a family of three). I challenge this writer to try the same, and not come up with a different result than the conclusions in this article.” Now “healthy” is often perspective. But there are ways. We grow some of our own food, it’s true, but this seemed a challenge to find a balance of food that didn’t cost a lot. And, truly, $320 is almost our house payment…on a good month our budget is half of that. We stock up on things when we can. And when there is an issue, such as the tornadoes last year, we had food despite not having power.
The other thing to consider is our farm does custom grow – so figuring in that cost is still cheaper than $320/month. After all our freezer filler is $3,000 – vs. $3840 “at the store”. There are, especially this time of year, many places with CSA opportunities like ours at under $70 per month. Yea…I’ve heard people say they can’t afford that $17 per week, but they can afford cigarettes and beer! Can’t afford or don’t want it badly enough?
So the challenge is on…we’ll share what we do, and I’m sure it will bring critics. There’s over 300million people out there – not all will agree. But many have forgotten much about their food, or never knew. It’s time to relearn.
Did you know that roughly 3/4 of the farm bill budget goes to food programs? That’s things like food stamps, WIC, school lunch programs, etc. Not to *farms* but for *food*?
Eggs, fried with a little pepper and salt – basic, but part of a good breakfast, and lasts longer than sugar cereal.
Now last winter we hit a bad patch. Swallowed pride and went to apply for food assistance in November. We were told we didn’t qualify for emergency help because, despite little food and $30 cash we had our home/rent covered. If we were behind they’d help. *sigh* It would be a month before we could get an appointment because we weren’t behind and were honest that we *might* (or might not) have a little money coming in (which we needed to pay utilities with). We listed the expectations and were turned down because of (again being honest) an average $30 in residual monthly writing that I couldn’t prove in the time frame they wanted – because getting an individual at Yahoo *right now* isn’t likely.
So we took the $30 and got a couple bags of potatoes, then looked at the discount meat section. We went down to the food drive, and swallowed pride to ask for help. We put a few chickens and rabbits in the freezer. This provided meat and reduced the feed bill.
We made do. It wasn’t fancy but we ate. We found new things to do with rice, potatoes, peppers and onions. “Scoutman” made an awesome curry with diced rabbit, rice, seasonings, onions and peppers…yum! We stretched less than a half pound of ground meat for three people with skillet dinners.
We’ll be sharing some of these things…just the thing needed to give the blog a kick! Hope you’ll join us – and spread the word!
Recently I was browsing on YouTube and came across a historical video from the 1930s. Many of those in it were born 100 years ago, so it’s likely few are still around today. But something struck me in watching the video.
Looking through minutes of scenes and thinking of what makes the news now – the obese people are where? There are scenes of citizens working and playing together, of what looks like high school aged teens – full of life, hopes and dreams.
Today the media disparages the south for being obese, unhealthy, cooking “fat” and other negativity. Yet people cook, often, with traditional food and recipes that date back to here or longer. People used lard, but were active growing their own food. There weren’t video games to keep kids inside, nor the lawsuits if someone got hurt taking a risk.
While many people today do need to lose weight, and many are attempting to, there are also issues beyond just food. Portions, activity and availability of food make a huge difference. Do we want a Depression and food shortages as a means to control obesity?
Were there health issues then? Was it as easy as it looks? I’m quite sure there were and that it wasn’t. But we can – each of us! – control what goes into our kitchens and is served on our plates.
I’m thankful for the availability of safe food and food choices. May we long have them.
Many people today buy chicken wings, chicken legs and quarters, chicken breasts and boneless chicken. You can create it all with a farm raised chicken right in your home. Here’s an expert chef’s way of making pieces from a whole chicken.
Truffles at Arrington Vineyard
This may be a bit too basic for some, but if you’re thinking of buying whole chickens from us or elsewhere, you’ll need to cut them up. Deboning commercially is seen as a bad thing – but you can debone your small farm raised chicken right in your own kitchen.
We’ll have a blog about making stock coming up!
Sometimes a recipe will call for diced onions (or other food). For our beginning cooks out there – here’s a video we’re sharing to dice an onion safely.
A couple of generations ago chicken was something for Sunday dinner. If someone commented they had chicken every Sunday they were rather well off.
The type of chicken you’d have would vary – broilers and fryers (those excess roosters) would be spring or summer fare. In summer those fryers would be heavier and by fall there’s roasting hens or stew chickens. Much like other farming enterprises, there was a seasonal eating.
Modern farming has changed how farmers can grow birds, expanding the season to a controlled climate, year round production. Today you can have fried chicken at a host of fast food places, many that specialize just in chicken. The “specialness” of chicken dinner on Sundays has been lost, and many today take it for granted chicken is a standard choice.
Today you can get fryers cut up, precooked, frozen and fresh. You can get deboned chicken meat canned or fresh, getting just boneless skinless chicken breasts that many say is the ‘best’ (and most expensive) cut. There are fewer capons for sale, and people think Cornish hens are artificially altered, but it’s likely most wouldn’t know what to do with a stewing hen anymore.
Stewing hens are the older birds, leaner and too ‘dry’ to fry. If you buy direct, either from us or from a small farmer in your area, or perhaps you have a bird that was injured and was killed to prevent suffering, you may be faced with having that stewing hen. Here’s one way to fix it.
Chicken Tetrazzini
4-6 pound stewing chicken
1/2 cup diced celery
1/2 cup diced onion
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons all purpose flour
dash of cayenne pepper
1 cup sliced mushroom stems and pieces
1 egg, beaten until lemon yellow
1/4 cup half and half cream
8 ounce package fine egg noodles
3/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese.
Cut the chicken into serving sized pieces and put in a kettle with celery, adding just enough water to barely cover. Cook, covered, for 1 hour or until a fork easily pierces the thickest part of the bird. Drain off and strain the broth, putting it in the refrigerator to solidify the fat (which is then removed).
Cut the skin and bones from the meat and cut the meat into bite sized pieces. Skim from the broth two tablespoons of chicken fat and put in the top of a double boiler, stirring in flour then adding the cayenne. Add a cup of broth and cook until thickened. Saute mushrooms in 2 tablespoons of the chicken fat until just brown. Mix egg and cream together, then stir two tablespoons of the thickened sauce into the mixture. Add egg and cream to the thickened sauce, stirring well and cook for 5 minutes more. Add mushrooms and chicken meat to the thickened sauce, reduce heat to low to keep it warm.
Cook egg noodles in remaining chicken broth, adding water if necessary to get as much liquid as needed. Place cooked drained noodles in shallow buttered baking dish, then pour chicken and mushroom mix over the noodles. Sprinkle with cheese, put in broiler to just brown the cheese.
Heavenly and all from scratch.
We have eggs, so love making this. We do a slight variation, adding a little milk and seasoning with some cinnamon.
Enjoy!
