I don't want anyone to read this and think that you have to have a bunch of fancy tools to cook real food. People have been doing it for thousands of years with little more than a fire and a pot. That being said, however, there are some tools that make the real food life much easier. Also, some that are just totally cool. So today's quick list is actually two lists: the most useful appliances that we have and use now, and the appliances we hope to own someday. The second list, in my mind, is kind of real foods dream team. Ain't nothing on there cheap, baby... but I think they'll all be worth it!
Useful Appliances in my Kitchen:
1. Chest Freezer- Ours is not huge by any means (although it was too big to fit in the trunk or backseat of our sedan- a fact we found out a little too late!). We keep it on the porch, and even with it running 24/7, our electric bill is around $60/month, so I don't think it has a major impact. It is SO USEFUL to have a freezer full of ingredients ready for a quick meal that didn't come from the take out place down the road, or ready to eat frozen meals, or stocking up when someone shoots a deer or butchers a hog, or a million other things. I could not do what I do in the kitchen with the dinky little freezer on top of our fridge.
2. VitaMix- I definitely expected to get more use out of this than I do. Don't get me wrong: this is the best blender I've ever owned. But from all the promo videos we watched online, I expected this thing to blend smoothies, make soup, make ice cream, dice vegetables, knead batter, juice fruits & veggies, and do my dishes. Maybe not that last one, I guess. So, as long as you're aware that this is just a blender- a loud, high powered, self cleaning, really awesome blender- it becomes a useful tool to have. We bought a factory reconditioned model from the manufacturer (which looks like new and comes with a great warranty), which saved us a hundred dollars or so: https://secure.vitamix.com/Reconditioned-Blender-64-Ounce-5yr.aspx
3. Food Processor- I'll be honest in saying that I expected to do away with this by buying a VitaMix. I was disappointed to find that I really prefer keeping both of them, since they serve different purposes. My food processor is a $30 department store model that my dad bought a decade or so ago, and I don't push it, but it's great for small amounts of chopping nuts, veggies, etc.
4. Cast iron cookware- not really an appliance, but definitely a lifesaver! Non-toxic, lifetime lasting, easy clean-up... how could I not love it? We use our cast iron skillet daily for eggs in the morning, but also love baking cornbread in it in the oven, and all the things you would regularly use a skillet for. We've recently ordered a cast iron dutch oven, and hope that these two staple items will replace most of the clutter of pots and pans in our kitchen. Lodge is a great, American made brand: http://www.amazon.com/Lodge-Logic-10-Inch-Chefs-Skillet/dp/B00008GKDJ/ref=sr_1_4?s=home-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1358443916&sr=1-4&keywords=cast+iron+skillet
5. Dehydrator- ours is of the cheap, cracked but still working, hand-me-down variety, but still gets a lot of use in the fall making apple chips. See the next list for my future dehydrating plans when the budget allows for an upgrade!
6. Stockpot- Again, not really an appliance, but absolutely invaluable in the kitchen. I've never gotten into the habit of using a crockpot regularly (although I know people who couldn't live without theirs!), but I do make a big batch of soup on my stockpot weekly for us to have as quick meals the rest of the week. We also use it, believe it or not, to make stock (as the name would imply). We make a ton, then freeze it. I also use it for canning and boiling large amounts of water and popping popcorn and anything else I can think of. We got ours for $8 at a thrift and I have no idea of the brand, but it basically looks like this (only less shiny): http://www.amazon.com/Excelsteel-Quart-Stainless-Stockpot-Encapsulated/dp/B0030T1KR0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1358443609&sr=8-1&keywords=stockpot
Now, for the fun part of the post!
The Dream Team:
1. Grain mill or VitaMix Dry Container- my goal is to grind our own grains. Actually, it is to sprout, dehydrate, and then grind our own grains, but I digress. I want to make my own flour that I can feel good about eating. A grain mill is ideal for this, of course, and I'd probably go with one that has good reviews, but isn't exorbitantly expensive (like this: http://www.amazon.com/WonderMill-Grain-Mill/dp/B000CPJKWC/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=home-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1358446483&sr=1-1-spell&keywords=nutri+mill ). However, my VitaMix blender has a dry blade container designed for grinding grains & mixing batter that I can buy to use with my existing machine for only $144. It can't grind as much flour at once as a grain mill could, but it takes up less space and costs less money. Sounds like a winner to me!
2. Excalibur Dehydrator- sigh. This is the king of all dehydrators. It's bigger, it's more efficient, it's SQUARE so it fits everywhere and everything fits in it, it's got the heat source in the back to ensure even dehydration, and... it's pretty. I dream of making my own fruit roll-ups, beef jerky, veggies chips, sprouted grains for flour, and a million other things. Some people drool over new cars... to each, his own. Check it out and drool with me: http://www.amazon.com/Excalibur-3926TW-Dehydrator-Timer-White/dp/B008OJZRIE/ref=sr_1_9?s=home-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1358446856&sr=1-9&keywords=excalibur+dehydrator.
3. Meat Grinder- this is more hubby's domain than mine, but I will gladly benefit from all the savings on ground beef & venison we can process ourselves. But mainly, I want one for the sausages. SAUSAGE. Mmm... If you have a good brand recommendation, feel free to share!
4. Ice Cream Maker- Not a necessity, and hubby thinks it will take up too much space. But it just sounds like so much fun to have in the summertime! Also, I think I'd get more ice cream in my diet if I knew I could have made from raw cream, local honey, and freshly ground vanilla beans whenever I wanted... that's a good goal, right? Right??
5. Berkey Water Filter- the only water filter I know that filters out heavy metals and toxic added chemicals, while still preserving the trace minerals in water that our bodies need. I'll take the big one, please: http://www.berkeyfilters.com/berkey-water-filters/systems/?gclid=CIa8uvqB8LQCFQWonQodXnIAxQ
What do you dream of in your kitchen? What tool can you not imagine living without? Share it with me, and who knows? Maybe I'll finally become a Kitchen Aid convert myself! ;)
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Thursday, January 10, 2013
How To: Prioritize a Grocery Budget
We all have them. Some more than others. Sometimes not as strongly defined as they should be. But the kind of priorites I'm talking about here are for one of the most basic, most woefully neglected categories of our life. I'm talking about food.
I've heard it said that the amounts of money Americans spend on food and health care have essentially reversed over the last century. We spend next to nothing on groceries compared to other expenses these days, but exorbitant amounts on health insurance and other health care costs. 100 years ago, most of an American family's budget went towards their food, but their hospital/doctor's bills were few and far between compared to ours. I do not believe this to be a coincidence. I prefer to put my money towards letting my food be my medicine, as Hippocrates put it, rather than eating cheaply and paying the piper down the road in the form of medications and hospitalization.
The Rules:
There are two main rules I follow when it comes to giving my "standard American diet" grocery budget a facelift. The first is that if the cost for a quality product is very comparable to the conventional product, or if I buy it so infrequently that it will not have long term effects on my wallet, then I buy the better item. A recent example that comes to mind is 79 cents/lb for conventionally grown (ie, pesticide covered) carrots at the grocery store, compared to $1.09/lb for organic. I was only buying one pound, so the extra thirty cents was definitely worth it for me. Conversely, when I ran out of baking powder earlier this week, I had a choice between paying a little over $1 for commercial baking powder versus paying $4.39 for aluminum free, organic (non genetically modified though it does contain some cornstarch!) baking powder. That's a huge price difference for just one small item on my grocery list. But, I only go through one to two containers of baking powder per year. Did I have an extra $3 this week to stock my pantry with one more quality ingredient for the year? Absolutely. So that's the basic principle of how my first rule works.
The second rule is where the following priorities list comes in. Simply put, I decide what foods I will not compromise on, put them in order of importance, and allocate my grocery money accordingly. You may not agree with the order of my personal list, but I urge you to get in the habit of knowing your priorities in this area of life. For us, this is how it goes:
1. Animal products. If you consume animal products in any form, they need to be high up on your list of foods to buy from good sources. You see, we are what we eat. And if we eat animal products, then we are most definitely what what we eat, eats. Read that again to make sure you've got it. If your hamburger roamed freely across green pastures in its past life, eating as much lovely grass as it desired, you are getting all the benefits of his healthy and happy lifestyle. If, however, your hamburger formerly lived in a tiny, confined stall with hundreds of other cows (whose stomachs are not actually built to digest grain at all!), being force fed genetically modified, pesticide covered, manure contaminated, antibiotic jam-packed corn and grain feed mixtures, then your stomach is not going to be any happier about it than his was. I believe the reason so many people fare better on a dairy-free or meat-free diet initially is because of the overwhelmingly poor quality of animal products in this country.
So how does this affect our budget? Mainly, we eat less meat. We learn to stretch a piece of meat across a couple meals, to supplement with beans and lentils and other protein sources, and to just make do with what we have. Specifically, we pay $8/gallon for local milk from happy, grass-fed cows, and limit ourselves to one gallon a week. We pay $6/lb for ground beef from the same farmers, and will occasionally splurge on some of their ground sausage for the same price. Unless they're having a sale, we buy 1 lb of meat a week from them. We also buy bones and other animal parts from their lovely pastured animals at a dirt cheap rate ($5 for a huge bag, usually) to make vats and vats of homemade stock, which makes meat free soups and stews a lot healthier and heartier. We also raise rabbits for meat, which we eat ourselves and also supply to friends from church, who in turn will surprise with a pastured chicken now and again. We will sometimes indulge in a 12 oz package of nitrate and antibiotic free bacon from Trader Joe's for $3.99 (about once a month or so, and it gets spread out across two meals).
2. Oils/healthy fats. This is an extremely close second on the list. You will not see a bottle of canola or vegetable oil in my cabinets. When we started the switch to real foods, this was the first thing I threw out. Once or twice a year, I make a bulk order of organic, extra virgin, cold pressed olive oil and coconut oil. Yes, it costs more upfront. We budget for it, cringe at the total, try to keep hubby from hyperventilating, vow to use it sparingly, and then move on. After reading up on the smoke points of various oils, I tend to use coconut oil or butter for baking or frying, and save the olive oil for drizzling on top of any and everything we eat. We do buy Kerrygold grass-fed butter from Trader Joe's, which is $2.99 for an 8 oz package. I included that under animal products, but it does double duty as a healthy (yes, I said healthy) fat. Also, as my husband pronounces in plaintive tones, "it just makes everything taste so good." Smart guy, that husband of mine.
3. Supplements (homemade and otherwise). To be honest, I think that 99% of the time, supplements are overrated. We should be getting most of our nutrition from what we eat. There is one glaring exception for most of us real foodies on a budget. If you had a good old fashioned grandmother recommending home remedies for illness as a child, I'm sure you can guess what I'm going to say. Cod liver oil, my friends. Yum. Specifically, we invest a good amount of money in buying fermented cod liver oil. In the end, it's just cheaper and more realistic than consuming extreme amounts of wild caught seafood. And even if you can afford to get wild caught salmon shipped to you every day of the week (in which case, we should totally be friends, by the way), I still think you should take your cod liver oil.
4. Sweeteners. The first and always most important step here is just to use less. I mean it. Sugar is poison, and I don't think I'm exaggerating in the slightest to say that. Do I eat sugar sometimes? Yes. Do I love chewy brownies or vanilla ice cream over top hot apple pie as much as the next person? YES. Do I respond gratefully when someone blesses me with food they've cooked, even if it contains my entire week's worth of added sugar? Absolutely. But on average, I consume about 10g of added sugar a day. Pause to check the label on something in your fridge or pantry. That's not a lot. In fact, if I ate nearly any kind of processed food regularly, I could not stick to that number. The average American consumes 88 grams of added sugar per DAY, adding up to 150 lbs a year. Yikes! So, knock that number down however you can to start with. Then, let's talk more natural options. Honey, molasses (or sorghum syrup), maple syrup, coconut, palm, or date sugars, sucanat (or rapadura), and stevia are all valid options.
5. Organic Produce
6. Grains
7. Other
I've heard it said that the amounts of money Americans spend on food and health care have essentially reversed over the last century. We spend next to nothing on groceries compared to other expenses these days, but exorbitant amounts on health insurance and other health care costs. 100 years ago, most of an American family's budget went towards their food, but their hospital/doctor's bills were few and far between compared to ours. I do not believe this to be a coincidence. I prefer to put my money towards letting my food be my medicine, as Hippocrates put it, rather than eating cheaply and paying the piper down the road in the form of medications and hospitalization.
That being said, I'm married to a college student. I'll soon be quitting my job to stay home full-time with a brand new baby. We do not exactly have extra money pouring out of our every orifice (um... sorry for the unpleasant mental picture there). That's where prioritizing comes in. First, we make groceries a priority in our overall budget (at the expense of things like entertainment and new clothing), and then we set priorities within our grocery budget. That's what I'm sharing about today, and hopefully, it will inspire you to accomplish things with your grocery budget you never thought possible :).
The Rules:
There are two main rules I follow when it comes to giving my "standard American diet" grocery budget a facelift. The first is that if the cost for a quality product is very comparable to the conventional product, or if I buy it so infrequently that it will not have long term effects on my wallet, then I buy the better item. A recent example that comes to mind is 79 cents/lb for conventionally grown (ie, pesticide covered) carrots at the grocery store, compared to $1.09/lb for organic. I was only buying one pound, so the extra thirty cents was definitely worth it for me. Conversely, when I ran out of baking powder earlier this week, I had a choice between paying a little over $1 for commercial baking powder versus paying $4.39 for aluminum free, organic (non genetically modified though it does contain some cornstarch!) baking powder. That's a huge price difference for just one small item on my grocery list. But, I only go through one to two containers of baking powder per year. Did I have an extra $3 this week to stock my pantry with one more quality ingredient for the year? Absolutely. So that's the basic principle of how my first rule works.
The second rule is where the following priorities list comes in. Simply put, I decide what foods I will not compromise on, put them in order of importance, and allocate my grocery money accordingly. You may not agree with the order of my personal list, but I urge you to get in the habit of knowing your priorities in this area of life. For us, this is how it goes:
1. Animal products. If you consume animal products in any form, they need to be high up on your list of foods to buy from good sources. You see, we are what we eat. And if we eat animal products, then we are most definitely what what we eat, eats. Read that again to make sure you've got it. If your hamburger roamed freely across green pastures in its past life, eating as much lovely grass as it desired, you are getting all the benefits of his healthy and happy lifestyle. If, however, your hamburger formerly lived in a tiny, confined stall with hundreds of other cows (whose stomachs are not actually built to digest grain at all!), being force fed genetically modified, pesticide covered, manure contaminated, antibiotic jam-packed corn and grain feed mixtures, then your stomach is not going to be any happier about it than his was. I believe the reason so many people fare better on a dairy-free or meat-free diet initially is because of the overwhelmingly poor quality of animal products in this country.
So how does this affect our budget? Mainly, we eat less meat. We learn to stretch a piece of meat across a couple meals, to supplement with beans and lentils and other protein sources, and to just make do with what we have. Specifically, we pay $8/gallon for local milk from happy, grass-fed cows, and limit ourselves to one gallon a week. We pay $6/lb for ground beef from the same farmers, and will occasionally splurge on some of their ground sausage for the same price. Unless they're having a sale, we buy 1 lb of meat a week from them. We also buy bones and other animal parts from their lovely pastured animals at a dirt cheap rate ($5 for a huge bag, usually) to make vats and vats of homemade stock, which makes meat free soups and stews a lot healthier and heartier. We also raise rabbits for meat, which we eat ourselves and also supply to friends from church, who in turn will surprise with a pastured chicken now and again. We will sometimes indulge in a 12 oz package of nitrate and antibiotic free bacon from Trader Joe's for $3.99 (about once a month or so, and it gets spread out across two meals).
2. Oils/healthy fats. This is an extremely close second on the list. You will not see a bottle of canola or vegetable oil in my cabinets. When we started the switch to real foods, this was the first thing I threw out. Once or twice a year, I make a bulk order of organic, extra virgin, cold pressed olive oil and coconut oil. Yes, it costs more upfront. We budget for it, cringe at the total, try to keep hubby from hyperventilating, vow to use it sparingly, and then move on. After reading up on the smoke points of various oils, I tend to use coconut oil or butter for baking or frying, and save the olive oil for drizzling on top of any and everything we eat. We do buy Kerrygold grass-fed butter from Trader Joe's, which is $2.99 for an 8 oz package. I included that under animal products, but it does double duty as a healthy (yes, I said healthy) fat. Also, as my husband pronounces in plaintive tones, "it just makes everything taste so good." Smart guy, that husband of mine.
3. Supplements (homemade and otherwise). To be honest, I think that 99% of the time, supplements are overrated. We should be getting most of our nutrition from what we eat. There is one glaring exception for most of us real foodies on a budget. If you had a good old fashioned grandmother recommending home remedies for illness as a child, I'm sure you can guess what I'm going to say. Cod liver oil, my friends. Yum. Specifically, we invest a good amount of money in buying fermented cod liver oil. In the end, it's just cheaper and more realistic than consuming extreme amounts of wild caught seafood. And even if you can afford to get wild caught salmon shipped to you every day of the week (in which case, we should totally be friends, by the way), I still think you should take your cod liver oil.
4. Sweeteners. The first and always most important step here is just to use less. I mean it. Sugar is poison, and I don't think I'm exaggerating in the slightest to say that. Do I eat sugar sometimes? Yes. Do I love chewy brownies or vanilla ice cream over top hot apple pie as much as the next person? YES. Do I respond gratefully when someone blesses me with food they've cooked, even if it contains my entire week's worth of added sugar? Absolutely. But on average, I consume about 10g of added sugar a day. Pause to check the label on something in your fridge or pantry. That's not a lot. In fact, if I ate nearly any kind of processed food regularly, I could not stick to that number. The average American consumes 88 grams of added sugar per DAY, adding up to 150 lbs a year. Yikes! So, knock that number down however you can to start with. Then, let's talk more natural options. Honey, molasses (or sorghum syrup), maple syrup, coconut, palm, or date sugars, sucanat (or rapadura), and stevia are all valid options.
5. Organic Produce
6. Grains
7. Other
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