And I thought I was cheap/frugal
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Caslon
Executive Chef
Neighbor lady said she buys ground turkey for 40 cents a pound or whatever and adds a few beef bouillon cubes to it to make it "just like real ground beef".
Some neighborhood, uhuh?
Aunt Bea
Master Chef
I add a packet of Goya beef bouillon to ground turkey or beef when I make meatloaf or meatballs. A packet of beef or chicken bouillon added to canned tomato sauce or marinara helps to boost the flavor. Also try adding a packet of the ham flavored bouillon when you cook green beans.
This may not be a great idea for folks that are watching sodium intake but it does add a great deal of flavor.
This may not be a great idea for folks that are watching sodium intake but it does add a great deal of flavor.
ixamnis
Cook
My mother-in-law grew up in the '30s (as did my parents), and used to save bread wrappers to wrap food and other items in. She also saved butter containers and Cool Whip type containers because she would never spend money on Tupperware-type containers when she could get containers for "free."
When going on a trip, my wife tells me that they would make Kool-Aid and freeze part of the KoolAid to use as Ice cubes, because frozen water would water down the drinks too much. They were too frugal to buy sodas or any drinks along the way. They also packed all their meals on a trip so that they wouldn't have to eat at a restaurant. Too expensive.
My father-in-law had a huge garden and they would can everything: beans, pickles, fruit... you name it.
They were always bargain hunting and coupon clipping. They were the most frugal people I've ever met.
BTW, my father-in-law was the local family physician and money was never an issue for them. When he died, he had over a million dollars in his IRA account. It wasn't an issue of not being able to afford things. That's just the way they were raised.
When going on a trip, my wife tells me that they would make Kool-Aid and freeze part of the KoolAid to use as Ice cubes, because frozen water would water down the drinks too much. They were too frugal to buy sodas or any drinks along the way. They also packed all their meals on a trip so that they wouldn't have to eat at a restaurant. Too expensive.
My father-in-law had a huge garden and they would can everything: beans, pickles, fruit... you name it.
They were always bargain hunting and coupon clipping. They were the most frugal people I've ever met.
BTW, my father-in-law was the local family physician and money was never an issue for them. When he died, he had over a million dollars in his IRA account. It wasn't an issue of not being able to afford things. That's just the way they were raised.
We used to have fruit syrup frozen in syrup bottles ( yes ljus sirap bottles), just add water for our trips as kid, cheap and low sugared way of keeping us drinking water. In Sweden to eat cheap, you eat falukorv, it is useful sausages because you can add in to stews, bake it, fry it, grill it, boil it, I even seen Falukorv Wellington recipes from the 70,ties.
Andy M.
Certified Pretend Chef
As a kid growing up, I never saw Tupperware, Ziplock, etc. Mom used Wonder bread bags, and plastic tubs food was sold in. She also washed out and reused plastic wrap and aluminum foil.
Mad Cook
Master Chef
Oh dear!Neighbor lady said she buys ground turkey for 40 cents a pound or whatever and adds a few beef bouillon cubes to it to make it "just like real ground beef".
Anyway, what's wrong with turkey mince? Turkey isn't my first choice even at Christmas but it's not bad enough to disguise.
Mad Cook
Master Chef
And they think re-cycling is a new thing!
As a post-WW2 baby I was used to Mother, Aunts and Grandmothers saving useful packaging, etc., so have always done it myself. But I don't go as far as to wash aluminium foil.
My favourite aunt used to save the brown paper bags that the grocer put hand-cut cheese, loves of bread etc., in and take them with her to be re-used for her shopping next time. When they were no longer useable she tore them into strips and twisted them into spills for lighting gas rings or cigarettes. (Lighting them from the fire and crossing the kitchen to the stove to light the gas was quite hair-raising to a watching child who was taught not to play with fire!)
As a post-WW2 baby I was used to Mother, Aunts and Grandmothers saving useful packaging, etc., so have always done it myself. But I don't go as far as to wash aluminium foil.
My favourite aunt used to save the brown paper bags that the grocer put hand-cut cheese, loves of bread etc., in and take them with her to be re-used for her shopping next time. When they were no longer useable she tore them into strips and twisted them into spills for lighting gas rings or cigarettes. (Lighting them from the fire and crossing the kitchen to the stove to light the gas was quite hair-raising to a watching child who was taught not to play with fire!)
Mad Cook
Master Chef
Tea out of a thermos flask is really disgusting so we always took a little camping stove with us on picnics so we could make fresh as required.
My MIL saves all plastic and tin containers (like cookie tins, not cans) to pack stuff up for all the kids after family meals. I don't see anything wrong with that and actually send a lot of mine over to her...that way I am assured of leftovers!
I add some of my homemade super concentrated stock (beef, chicken, ham, veggie, fish) to many dishes including ground meat. I have to use a mix of poultry and pork meat to have low fat but if I want a beef taste (i.e. for tacos) I will add beef stock. I make the stock into containers but I also freeze some as ice cubes so I have it for those "small jobs".
I don't do it because I am frugal, I do it because we need to have foods without allergens and I still want to be able to have flavour!
I add some of my homemade super concentrated stock (beef, chicken, ham, veggie, fish) to many dishes including ground meat. I have to use a mix of poultry and pork meat to have low fat but if I want a beef taste (i.e. for tacos) I will add beef stock. I make the stock into containers but I also freeze some as ice cubes so I have it for those "small jobs".
I don't do it because I am frugal, I do it because we need to have foods without allergens and I still want to be able to have flavour!
Aunt Bea
Master Chef
My grandmother used to do the same thing when lighting her old wood/gas combination range and then bang the teakettle down on the burning twist of paper to extinguish the flame, sparks and little bits of ash would fly and float around the kitchen. We were all terrified of that old stove!!!
King Oscar II of Sweden: “I would rather have people laugh at my economies than weep for my extravagances."
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Cooking Goddess
Chef Extraordinaire
Himself and I refer to cottage cheese and yogurt tubs as "Allentown Tupperware". If you open an upper cupboard door in any of his PA cousins kitchens , you learn quickly to first put your free hand up to deflect any possible falling tubs.
I have two small gift bags in the basement that store my entire stash. They do come in handy when sending food up the street to my SIL or my neighbor friend who loves my soups.
Yeah my grandmother who was born in 1909 saved all the plastic containers and also those little packs of plastic silverware from like Kentucky Fried Chicken. You know the ones with the napkins, fork, knife, packet of salt/pepper.
I myself save condiments from Taco Bell. They give you tons of those little sauce packets. They are great to put on microwave burritos.
Oh the same neighbor who puts bouillon in ground turkey also makes chili with the Taco Bell packets. So I guess she never buys salsa either. Ha. Everything requiring some heat gets the Taco Bell treatment.
I myself save condiments from Taco Bell. They give you tons of those little sauce packets. They are great to put on microwave burritos.
Oh the same neighbor who puts bouillon in ground turkey also makes chili with the Taco Bell packets. So I guess she never buys salsa either. Ha. Everything requiring some heat gets the Taco Bell treatment.
buckytom
Chef Extraordinaire
I'm not sure I understand the original thing about using ground turkey.
My wife makes a decent meatloaf, and extremely good meatballs with ground turkey.
She's had people ask for her meatball recipe because they were so good, and they were shocked to find out that they weren't beef, pork, or even veal , or some combination thereof.
But I don't understand why making turkey taste good is bad.
My wife makes a decent meatloaf, and extremely good meatballs with ground turkey.
She's had people ask for her meatball recipe because they were so good, and they were shocked to find out that they weren't beef, pork, or even veal , or some combination thereof.
But I don't understand why making turkey taste good is bad.
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Dawgluver
Chef Extraordinaire
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Have you posted your wife's ground turkey recipes, BT? They sound delicious.
I'm one who rinses and reuses aluminum foil. When it gets too many holes in it, it goes into the tin can bin for recycling. I'm also one who is a saver of cottage cheese containers. It got to be a bit much a few years ago, so I put most of them in the plastic recycling bin. Otherwise I had what my grandma called a Fibber McGee cupboard. Like CG's Allentown cupboard, you never know what might fall on your head when you opened it. It still tempts me to save the containers, but I just don't have the space.
I also have a nice collection of plasticware along with different restaurant sauce packets.
I'm one who rinses and reuses aluminum foil. When it gets too many holes in it, it goes into the tin can bin for recycling. I'm also one who is a saver of cottage cheese containers. It got to be a bit much a few years ago, so I put most of them in the plastic recycling bin. Otherwise I had what my grandma called a Fibber McGee cupboard. Like CG's Allentown cupboard, you never know what might fall on your head when you opened it. It still tempts me to save the containers, but I just don't have the space.
I also have a nice collection of plasticware along with different restaurant sauce packets.
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Aunt Bea
Master Chef
I keep a couple of those little packs of plastic silverware, you know the ones, in my glove compartment.
I remember wearing those Wonder bread bags over our socks to keep our feet warm and dry in our old boots when we went out to play in the winter.
My mother always carried a wet washcloth in a little sandwich bag, tucked in her purse. She was always on the lookout for a little kid that needed wiping off!
No matter how much I have I will never let go of the little money saving habits that I grew up with.
I remember wearing those Wonder bread bags over our socks to keep our feet warm and dry in our old boots when we went out to play in the winter.
My mother always carried a wet washcloth in a little sandwich bag, tucked in her purse. She was always on the lookout for a little kid that needed wiping off!
No matter how much I have I will never let go of the little money saving habits that I grew up with.
Dawgluver
Chef Extraordinaire
- Joined
- Apr 12, 2011
- Messages
- 25,033
My mom used spit on a used kleenex when we were little. I don't think she tried it on other people's kids, but who knows.
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Addie
Chef Extraordinaire
We always went to school with our sandwiches wrapped in Wonder Bread wrappers. If your mother had none, then it was wax paper. We folded it when we were through eating and brought it back home to be reused the next day for our sandwiches.
My sister always would take any paper towel she used to wipe her hands or even a wet one to wipe off the table, and hang them around the kitchen to dry and be used again. Me? I have a collection of chicken and beef, pork bones in the freezer along with little pieces of meat. I had intended to make a mixed broth this past winter, just kept forgetting I had them in there. Oh well, they will keep. On year I tossed them all together in one pot and it turned out to be the best beef barley stew. I couldn't stop eating it. Neither could Pirate.
My sister always would take any paper towel she used to wipe her hands or even a wet one to wipe off the table, and hang them around the kitchen to dry and be used again. Me? I have a collection of chicken and beef, pork bones in the freezer along with little pieces of meat. I had intended to make a mixed broth this past winter, just kept forgetting I had them in there. Oh well, they will keep. On year I tossed them all together in one pot and it turned out to be the best beef barley stew. I couldn't stop eating it. Neither could Pirate.
rodentraiser
Head Chef
Wow. I really can't think of anything I'm that frugal with when it comes to food, except I hate to throw anything out. Last month I bought a pint of cream and when I saw I wouldn't use it by the expiration date, I made it into butter and froze that.
Mad Cook
Master Chef
Waste not, want not as they used to say.My MIL saves all plastic and tin containers (like cookie tins, not cans) to pack stuff up for all the kids after family meals. I don't see anything wrong with that and actually send a lot of mine over to her...that way I am assured of leftovers!
I add some of my homemade super concentrated stock (beef, chicken, ham, veggie, fish) to many dishes including ground meat. I have to use a mix of poultry and pork meat to have low fat but if I want a beef taste (i.e. for tacos) I will add beef stock. I make the stock into containers but I also freeze some as ice cubes so I have it for those "small jobs".
I don't do it because I am frugal, I do it because we need to have foods without allergens and I still want to be able to have flavour!
There's so much packaging used by manufacturers these days. It can't all be essential for food safety puposes or even keeping times. I bought a bar of chocolate the other day to ice a cake. It came wrapped in foil inside a cardboard box inside a plastic wrapper. On which planet do the climate/or storage facilities require that?
As far as possible I re-use packaging, glass, plastic containers, I buy loose fruit and veg and avoid buying meat in polystyrene trays and I buy my milk in glass bottles. I live alone and I have three recycling bins which I have to empty 3 times a week and most of what goes in the bins shouldn't have entered the house in the first place. Heaven help a family with a couple of children!
I think I'll start a campaign for everyone to dump the rubbish (er excess packaging) on the checkout table before they leave after shopping. It might make the supermarkets think about it.
