How do you save money at the supermarket?

[MissB]

37. what kind of meals do you like to eat?

Way back in the earlier times of the inter webs, there was a post on a frugal living board that really stuck with me. The poster called it something like "stepping down to savings". The basically idea was to consider an ingredient in a meal and think about how to obtain that ingredient cheaper.

An example would be chicken. Let's say I was making a salad and wanted some flavorful chicken on top. The most expensive (but easiest) way to get some flavorful chicken would be to buy a rotisserie chicken and shred some of the meat. Or you could pay a bit less and buy some chicken breasts and season and cook them. Slightly cheaper might be some canned chicken, much cheaper would be to roast a whole chicken that was purchased on sale (using the bones and some veggie scraps to make chicken stock and pressure can it), and maybe somewhere along the same lines of cheapness would be to buy some chicken pieces on sale (bone in) and cook them. Even cheaper may be to raise and slaughter your own chickens, but let's face it, not many of us are doing that unless we're living on a farm. I raise hens for eggs not meat and the old ladies live out their lives without worrying about me going all Lizzie Borden on them.

But that idea of stripping down the cost of ingredients has worked its way into how I keep a pantry. Tonight I'm making meatloaf, mashed potatoes, corn and biscuits - a rare Sunday meal. I have time today and a pound of lean ground turkey meat. Some of the ingredients are store bought - the turkey, parmesan cheese, sour cream, gravy mix, butter, flour, baking powder, buttermilk and honey for the biscuits. Breadcrumbs? Those are mine, created from bits and piece of bread that I've made but we've burned out on eating, dried up and ground up. I'll add some dehydrated parsley (from the garden) and some grated parmesan to the bread crumbs to make them "Italian". The eggs in the meatloaf come from my hens, and I make my own marinara from tomatoes, basil, garlic and onions grown in my garden. The chopped onions in the meatloaf come from my cabinet - dehydrated onions from my garden. The potatoes are fresh from my garden. I'll probably crack open a jar of plum cardamon jam to go with the biscuits in addition to the honey. I can't say that the plums grew on my plum tree this year (we had to remove it and just replanted a new one) but the plums were a generous gift from a neighbor. The corn was from a farm stand, bought fairly cheaply and the cobs processed for kernels and the kernels frozen.

Saving time means spending more money. I love Trader Joe's marinara sauce, but it's also, what, $3.49/jar? I start my tomatoes from seed in the spring, and I've been processing tons of tomatoes since early August. My dehydrator is perfectly silent right now, but it's been drying loads of thinly slice tomatoes. I don't really need to buy the jar of marinara.

Your comfort level and time may vary.

This year, by the way, I'm growing some micro tomatoes and patio cucumbers inside in my large south facing window. I grew some last winter and they did fabulous. I will be growing greens through the winter - I haven't set up my hoops yet on two of my raised garden beds, but that'll happen next weekend when I'm done clearing the rest of the peppers and beans out of those beds. I'm kinda over the whole recall of food items, particularly greens. I'd rather grow my own salad. Next year I'll have my greenhouse installed and will be able to grow things much easier year round.

But if there is a certain type of food you like to eat, let us know! I'm sure lots of us have some recipes. One of my favs is red lentil dal with some rice and homemade naan. Relatively easy to make and tastes even better the next day.