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Ontario, Canada
I am a wife, mother and grandma who enjoys the many aspects of homemaking. A variety of interests and hobbies combined with travel keep me active. They reflect the importance of family, friends, home and good food.
Cook ingredients that you are used to cooking by other techniques, such as fish, chicken, or hamburgers. In other words be comfortable with the ingredients you are using.
--Bobby Flay

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  • [March 19, 2020] - Effective Mar 17, this blog will no longer accept advertising. The reason is very simple. If I like a product, I will promote it without compensation. If I don't like a product, I will have no problem saying so.
  • [March 17, 2020] - A return to blogging! Stay tuned for new tips, resources and all things food related.
  • [February 1, 2016] - An interesting report on why you should always choose organic tea verses non-organic: Toxic Tea (pdf format)
  • Sticky Post - Warning: 4ever Recap reusable canning lids. The reports are growing daily of these lids losing their seal during storage. Some have lost their entire season's worth of canning to these seal failures! [Update: 4ever Recap appears to be out of business.]

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Monday, March 16, 2009

Frugal Kitchens 101 - Think Green (Meatless Meals)

Frugal Kitchens 101
Continuing with this month's Frugal Kitchens 101 theme of thinking green this week's topic is meatless meals. Meat is an expensive source of protein accounting for a good portion of any food budget. Meat is also expensive in terms of the environment. One very cost effective way of saving money on your grocery bill is to reduce the amount of meat you consume. Simply reducing the size of the meat serving is enough to see a difference on your food bill but you can do better than than. Each week plan on at least one meatless meal!

Meatless meals need not be boring! One of our favourite meatless meals is spaghetti served with roasted tomato sauce, homemade bread and a garden salad. It's simple to prepare and inexpensive to make but does not taste anything like a budget stretching, meatless meal. Unless you are aiming for a vegetarian dish, meatless meals can take advantage of homemade meat stocks. These stocks are extremely inexpensive to make (about $0.00052 per ml) and can be home canned or frozen. They give the flavour of meat without the actual meat so use them to enhance the flavour of vegetable dishes and soups without adding much in the way of cost. Cook your pasta or rice directly in the stock for a real flavour boost without the price of additional meat! A lot of great soups can be made without the addition of meat. I home can dozens of jars of tomato soup each year that does not contain any meat products. A hearty meatless meal can easily be made by adding cooked long grain or wild rice to the soup then serve with salad and homemade bread or simple grilled cheese sandwiches. This is a real comfort meal during the winter months. Another fabulous winter comfort ,no meat meal is baking an extra large baked potato then topping with home canned old fashioned chili sauce. Oh and you just can't beat toasted tomato sandwiches in the summer months especially when made with sun kissed tomatoes fresh picked from your garden. There are so many possibilities!

As soon as you remove meat from the meal you are bound to save money. I aim for one meatless dinner per week but that's not written in stone. We often have more than one meatless dinner per week including with most breakfasts and lunches also being meatless. So give it a try and see what you think. Hopefully you will be pleasantly surprised!

next week: Think Green (Food Storage)


2 food lovers commented:

Storm, The Psychotic Housewife said...

I love using chicken stock to cook with! It really does add a lot of flavor.

Anonymous said...

Great tips! Visiting here today. :d