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Real Food on a Real Budget blog series :: Episode 5, Fields and Fire

By Tricia on February 28, 2014 in Real Food on a Real Budget, real food/real budget

Tricia from FarmishMomma very kindly asked me to contribute a post about how to eat real food at home on a budget. I agreed . . . and then I realized I might be a terrible person to ask about this sort of thing. The truth is that budgets are real in our life – we run a small business and make poverty level income. We are strict about how we pend money in a lot of ways in our life – clothes come from the thrift store, our house is a cheap fixer-upper, we have one small old car, we don’t take fancy trips or own lots of gadgets and gizmos, our kids don’t go to costly schools or classes.

Food is, actually, what we don’t budget. My husband and I run a cafe & bakery, and a grain CSA, so it’s no surprise that food is very important to us. Food is what we are (all of us, whether we consciously think about it or not), and at the end of the day, two things are most important in our family: that we showed love to the people around us, and that the food we ate nourished us well. Yes, we occasionally eat crappy pizza or buy a bag of chips. But for the most part, food is our passion and what we love to share with others.

Even though we aren’t strict about how much we spend on food, that doesn’t mean our food expenses are outrageous.

We grow a lot of vegetables for ourselves, especially salad greens (which are very labor-intensive, and therefore expensive to buy). If we had a tiny yard and could only have a few plants, I would have berries or a fruit tree. Fruits are highly perishable, never taste as good when you by them (even from the farmer’s market), and fruit is very expensive to buy.

At the farmer’s market, I can easily get carried away and buy more than we can even use, so I bring a certain amount of cash with me, and that’s all I have to spend. At the grocery store, I don’t even walk down the aisles with packaged foods. Expensive, and mostly very unhealthy and hard for our bodies to digest – what a wicked bad combo! Usually my two small children are shopping with me, which is an extra incentive to stay far out of sight of cereal, chips, cookies, etc – much easier to just avoid that fight altogether.

Because of our cafe, I’m able to get a lot of our food in bulk, which is much more reasonable. If I didn’t own the cafe, I could do the same through our local coop – foods like grains, oil, sugar, salt, nuts, dried fruit, etc don’t spoil quickly, and if you have the space to store them, it’s much more economical to buy a 25 pound bag of them.

I’m a huge fan of meal plans (see my old post about that here), and also of leftovers. Food shouldn’t be wasted, and good home cooking is delicious re-heated. We have one night a week where we eat up all our leftovers, and that’s usually what we have for lunch, also.

I hope this was helpful! I’m happy to answer any questions, and I have lots of simple recipes available at Fields & Fire. Blessings on your weekend, everyone.

Adrie

http://www.localgrain.org/fieldsandfire

Thank you Adrie for taking time away from your super busy schedule to join me here. Love your post on Meal Planning!

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yellow split pea soup (a Real Food on a Real Budget recipe)

By Tricia on February 27, 2014 in Real Food on a Real Budget, real food/real budget, Recipes

In preparation for Friday’s post, I think I will share our ho hum, nothing exciting but very yummy and cheap meals with you.

Last week, I picked up some yellow split peas from the bulk bin. I hadn’t planned on adding it to this weeks meals but for $1.99 a pound, knowing I only need to add carrots, celery and a few things I always have, I quickly added it to the list. Split pea soup is very easy to make and unlike many other beans, you do not have to soak them so if you forgot to take out your dinner ingredients you can still pull this one together in no time and let it cook while you all get the house back together before dinner. It is one of the most inexpensive dinners I can think of and it fills tummies.

This recipe is very easy to turn into a vegetarian/vegan recipe by substituting the chicken broth for veggie broth and the bacon fat for olive oil but I might add some smoked paprika to give it that taste you would normally get from the bacon.

8 c chicken broth

2 – 3 c yellow split peas (or green)

3 carrots, diced

1 large onion, diced

2 celery stalks, diced

3 cloves garlic, minced

4 tbsp oil or fat (we use the fat saved from organic, sulfite free bacon)

2 tbsp red wine vinegar

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

1 bay leaf

In the oil/fat, sautee the onions and garlic until fragrant (don’t let them burn or brown), add the carrots and celery

add the broth and all other ingredients and let it boil for a minute or two then reduce to simmer, put the lid on and go do something. Check in on it every 10 minutes or so and give it a stir. When it is starting to look thickened (about 30 minutes), remove the bay leaf and use an immersion blender (stick blender) to puree it or add it in batches slowly in the blender. Don’t totally puree it, just enough to make it thicker.

Serve with bread, cracker, on top of rice or nothing if you have a bare pantry, I promise you will still feel full after a bowl.

I was out of onions this day so I went over to my kitchen garden pots and cut the tops off of about 8 green onions and it worked perfectly.

For the cost of this soup which feeds about 4-6 people:

the split peas were $1.99 a pound for the 2 cups

3 carrots would be about .50

2 celery stalks .50

1 onion (free from my kitchen garden) but about .50

the garlic and all other ingredients would probably add another whole .50 to $1 if that.

So, for $4, you have a very nutritious meal which is very easy to make.

I will see you back here tomorrow for this weeks guest blogger on Real Food on a Real Budget! See you then.