I Spent Less than $3218.16 on Groceries Last Week and So Can You
I've Made Sourdough Four Times So I'm Qualified to Speak of These Things
Sorry for the snark, the truth is I needed to get your attention because I’d like your help. Maybe that’s what’s behind my snark most of the time. Nope, can’t explore that right now, let’s talk about food.
When Jonny and I started dating, I was on the Ch3 diet. That is, Chipotle, Chick-fil-A, and Charcuterie. Which is probably the most expensive diet one can be on, but it is very, very convenient. It requires almost zero prep time on the part of the eater. Life went on, we got married, and that whole system came crashing down. As little as I may have been suited for the role, it was time for me to take on the role of home cook. And part of being a home cook means working with the budget. I now feed seven people (some of them small) on the same dime that I used to throw at lunch, even though groceries are veeeery expensive.
Here’s the lemonade I can squeeze out of that particular lemon: having a budget heightens the quality of the food I’m putting on the table. Because when I have more constraints, I pay more attention to what I’m doing. If I was not sticking to a budget, I would never have attempted things like: roast chicken, fermented veggies, A-for-Effort Sourdough bread, instant pot yogurt, and homemade granola.
Here's a peek inside the cookbook of a recovering Out-to-Luncher. I’d love to hear about things you’re making instead of buying, too.
Roast Chicken
We are eating more food than we used to. I know this because I used to try to cut chickens in half to roast them, because we’d only eat half a chicken. I never got it to work, btw, but now I’m hypothesizing about the best way to roast two chickens at the same time.
Fun fact: you can buy a rotisserie chicken for less than a raw whole chicken. This seems like kind of a scam (more of a promotion—if you buy the rotisserie chicken, you are more likely to buy the sides that are stocked right beside the chicken heater thingy). I’ve kept roasting chickens at my house anyway because, at least so I am told, it tastes better, and now I can cut the back out of a chicken in less than 60 seconds. My Ch3 self would be impressed.
Fermented Veggies
Red cabbage sauerkraut and pickled asparagus are made possible by the pickling kit a kind brother-in-law got us for Christmas several years back. It’s very nice to have a vegetable ready to go with zero prep time (jk lol like 3 weeks of prep time, but you don’t have to do anything right before dinner, and that matters a lot).
Sourdough Bread
A friend recently taught me how to make this, which, if I can ever get it to work like I want to, will be the cheapest gift/ side dish on record.
So, a dollar! As long as water has no cost. Of course, a loaf of sourdough at King Soopers is $2.50, but it doesn’t come out of the oven fresh. And Jonny says he has no interest in King Soopers Sourdough bread. Still trying to get it to rise like I want it to.
Yogurt
You can make yogurt in a pressure cooker or a crock pot. If I can do it, you can do it. The bargain basement yogurt is going to run you something like $3 for a quart, and you can make an entire gallon of yogurt for the cost of a gallon of milk (and some starter yogurt—you can use the yogurt that you made!). The product is not the same as store yogurt. And it needs a sweetener. We just use plain old syrup. This is especially good for a snack for kids in that 2-5 year old range and as a stalling technique for weaning babies.
Granola
Both of my favorite cookbooks have granola recipes—and the recipes are virtually identical (this might be because there are only so many ways to make granola. Mix dry ingredients, mix wet and sticky ingredients, combine, bake a 250 for two hours). But this made me smile anyway because the books have distinct philosophies about food. The first is Mad Hungry by Lucinda Scala Quinn, one of Martha Stewart’s food experts, the second is More with Less, originally compiled by Doris Janzen Longacre but added to by many other Mennonites since. Quinn’s recipes are geared toward feeding her family at home (three teenage boys in a NYC apartment), Longacre’s recipes focus in on using a family’s—and the world’s—resources in the most responsible way.
The granola has been a good alternative to box cereal (we still buy box cereal), but sometimes we just need a change of pace.
In addition to granola, here are a few more points on which Lucinda and the Mennonites agree:
Eat your veggies (and then some more veggies).
Cook meat with the bones in it for more flavor and more total meat per dollar spent.
Sprinkle some cheese on the top (of everything—Lucinda’s teenage sons do this because it tastes good, but as Longacre explains, consuming dairy-grains-protein-and-veggies in proportion actually makes you feel less hungry).
Cooking is a “tidbits along the day” exercise, not a 45 minute rush before dinner (I have never mastered this).
I am not a fantastic home cook, but maybe I will be someday. I’m certainly getting enough practice. There are days when I wish I could go back to a Ch3 way of life, and we do order food out occasionally. But I recently had this epiphany in a Wendy’s drive-thru. We were parked outside of the line and waiting for our food to come out of the kitchen, which is what happens when you order six junior bacon cheeseburgers at once. I had three kids in the back seat who were cycling between patience and annoyance about as quickly as I was.
This is what crossed my mind: Maybe eating from my own kitchen is the luxury.
Having a kitchen and space to store a bunch of equipment and time to make our food is something that I’ve never really appreciated in its fullness. I’m not saying that the life of a home cook is rainbows and butterflies. But I am saying I would rather have been in my own kitchen browning ground beef than sitting in my car reminding certain individuals that, no, we do not need to open the sunroof right now. It made me a little more grateful for the opportunity I get to cook at home.
So here’s what I’d like to know: what are you making instead of buying? Have you become more grateful for the process or the product than you were at the outset? I’m decidedly not “crunchy,” but I’m very open to crunchy ideas.
On the Calendar: Second Week of Advent
You are exactly where you are meant to be, and you are already doing more than you think.
We continue in this season of Advent (which I’ve been hearing is a favorite of many, not just me) with an absolutely packed out week as far as the liturgical calendar goes.
🐂The Gospel for Sunday: Luke 3:1-6. I remember a priest giving a homily which must have been about this passage in which he lamented that St. John the Baptist never gets to be on Christmas cards, so, take that as you will.
December 9—The Immaculate Conception, Holy Day of Obligation. In which we will all go to church again on Monday, even though we just went on Sunday, because the Immaculate Conception (the conception of Mary) is a big deal. Jonny has some OCIA sponsees this year, so he wrote an essay to get his own thoughts together about Mary. I’m just going to quote from the end:
“In conclusion, I would say that the most important thing about Mary is Jesus. In everything she points toward Him. Her immaculate conception was about His holiness, His extravagant grace, and His promise of salvation to all the faithful.”
December 12—Our Lady of Guadalupe, Feast. In which Jonny will point at part of our wall and say, “We need an Our Lady of Guadalupe tapestry right there.”
December 13—Saint Lucy, Feast. We’ll do Santa Lucia day by having the girls dress in white and carry around cinnamon rolls (out of cans, fried in an air fryer). I’ve never had them take the rolls back into people’s rooms—everyone’s awake around here by 6 a.m. anyway.
December 14—Saint John of the Cross, Obligatory Memorial. This domestic church recalls the great mystic by… having the brother in the household get to give everyone cinnamon rolls, because “IT’S NOT FAIR THAT THE GIRLS GET TO DO IT.” I like to call it “Saint John of the Hot Cross Buns Day.”
Don't have too many suggestions about cooking, except that my wife makes broth from the leavings after a meat meal. You might not think this is important, but noodles or pasta cooked in broth is the best.
My main point: this may not be a big deal when the kids are little, but once they are old enough to start helping the teaching/learning dynamic is a great way to bond. And believe me, nothing makes life easier than a child who can whip up the occasional dinner when you get older. Also, you give your husband something to compliment you on, if he's that kind of person.
(Hi, somehow I found your Substack and I love it!)
A couple of years ago I read a suggestion to measure your oven shelves and then google sheet pans that size. Boom, now you can maximize your roasting capacity! Changed my life.
The instant pot is also perfect for chicken stock.
The big problem with making bread is that now my children are bread snobs!