Frugal foods
I know everyone is feeling the pinch, so here’s few things that I like that are really cheap but also tasty:
Fruit iced milk
A nice healthy treat is blueberry iced milk.
Put some frozen blueberries in some milk and let the frozen blueberries freeze the milk. Voila. Tasty inexpensive treat.
I use 2% milk with a teaspoon of brown sugar added. I mix them together and use enough in each serving to completely cover the blueberries. I have these nice sized ramekins that are great for like pudding and cut fruit and whatever, and they’re perfectly sized for a serving of fruit iced milk added to a dinner plate as part of the meal.
I make the milk a little sweet because blueberries are self-contained. They freeze the milk and turn it that purple color, but the whole berries remain whole berries. They’re good to fish out and eat because while they’re still cold they will have defrosted back into being juicy.
If you want a more milder flavor, you can use frozen grapes. You still get a serving of tasty fruit, but your iced milk remains as whatever flavor you made it.
- milk + brown sugar
- milk + honey
- milk + maple syrup
- milk + sweetener + vanilla extract
- milk + hot cocoa powder + frozen whole grapes
- milk + strawberry syrup + frozen strawberries
- milk + the juice from a can of peaches + the drained and frozen canned peaches
Iced milk doesn’t really freeze as solid as ice cream. And when it melts it returns to being milk you can drink rather than the slurry that is melted ice cream. But it’s a nice and refreshing treat if you don’t have ice cream, you want to eat something healthy, or if you have a child that wants dessert but who you don’t want to give a bunch of sugar to.
It’s an easy way to get a serving of milk and a serving of fruit. And you don’t have to have a blender or dirty up a bunch of dishes.
I like frozen fruit because it’s flash-frozen at the peak of freshness. You don’t have to pick through a package that might have bad berries at the bottom. And it lasts longer in the freezer than fresh fruit lasts in the fridge.
You can add some chia to your milk mix and let it sit for a minute or two for the chia to do their thing, then stir in your frozen fruit and let it sit for a few minutes to let the fruit defrost and the milk frost. The chia adds a nice texture–if it’s added right in without a chance to absorb milk, it remains seeds you can crack between your teeth. If it’s allowed to congeal, it gets a nice chewiness to it, and it help the milk remain thicker when it starts melting. It has like no flavor, but it give you some omega-3s, fiber, and nutrients.
"Is this pilaf?"-Wild Rice Pilaf
I sauté a pound of lean ground meat until the pink is gone then add some chopped onions and cook until they’re starting to go translucent. Then I add orzo pasta and a quick cook blend of wild rice and long grained white rice and sauté until the orzo gets a golden brown color. I use a small amount of canola oil, but you could use a different oil and/or some butter
There are some brands of wild rice that take like an hour to cook. Those are not the ones you want to use in any kind of one-pan recipe. Plus a pre-processed quick cook wild rice is good because you can use it right out of the container rather than having to sort it and wash it.
You could add some diced garlic, carrot, celery, bell pepper, jalapenos, some ginger, even some diced potato if you want more filler. You sauté everything until the orzo and rice grains are golden-brown, then you add your liquid–water or broth or canned tomatoes–and your seasonings, and you heat it to a simmer, then you cover it and turn it to low. You let it cook for 15 minutes, then stir it and check if your orzo and rice are cooked. If they’re still hard, add some water and let it cook an extra few minutes. Then you shut it off and let the pan stand covered for 5 minutes before serving.
For flavoring my homebrew Rice-a-Roni, it depends on the type of meat I use or the taste I’m craving at the minute.
- bouillon
- broth
- garlic powder
- onion powder
- soy sauce
- ginger powder
- paprika
- oregano
- chopped green onion
- mushrooms
Ground chicken or pork–For a potsticker flavor, you could add soy sauce, oyster sauce, ginger, cooking wine, garlic, onion, white pepper. Add some minced onion, minced carrot, minced celery, and minced green cabbage while cooking to really get that potsticker flavor. And if you wanted, when you’re giving it a stir and checking if it’s done, you can top it with shredded cabbage, then cover the pan and turn off the heat and let stand for 5 minutes. Then when you open it and stir the rice, the shredded cabbage is mixed through, but you don’t get that boiled cabbage effect. (Some good last minute additions are spinach, baby bok choy, broccoli florets, bean sprouts.)
Ground beef–Beef bouillon, paprika, salt, pepper, ground garlic, ground onion, oregano. You can add some frozen vegetables like frozen corn or frozen carrots or frozen green beans about five minutes into the rice cooking. Stir the frozen vegetables in then recover; you may have to cook the rice a few minutes longer than 15 minutes as it has to come back up to cooking temperature.
Using a can of tomatoes adds a tang to the flavor. And if you add peppers, you can get a Spanish rice flavor happening that pairs well with some lime juice, diced olives, and chopped green onions. Eat it with some cooked beans and maybe a garden salad with shredded cheese and salsa instead of salad dressing.
You could choose sausage or diced ham or whatever leftover meat. With Cajun seasoning you can make a jambalaya flavor. With taco seasoning you can get a Hamburger Helper flavor. Powdered milk and sour cream can make a Swedish meatball flavor.
And like most any savory food, adding some nutritional yeast after you’ve turned off the heat can add some extra nutrition. Though if you’ve never had nutritional yeast, it has kind of a yeasty smell to it–like bready almost. A few tablespoons added to soups, mac and cheese, gravy, spaghetti sauce, whatever strong flavored food, nobody will even notice it’s there, but you’ll know that you added at least one healthy ingredient.
Self-rising flour and Greek yogurt
If you’ve got self-rising flour, mix it with plain Greek yogurt and stir it together. Now you’ve got a base for making flat bread or donuts or a bunch of other things.
If you don’t have self-rising flour, you can make your own by mixing together 1 cup all-purpose flour, 1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder, and 1/4 teaspoon salt.
Mixing equal amounts self-rising flour and plain Greek yogurt, form a dough. Roll it into balls or shape rings that you can either bake in the oven, fry in oil, or you can air fry them in a single layer for 7 minutes at 350-degrees Fahrenheit.
You can add some sugar to your dough when you make it, or once you’ve cooked the donuts, roll them in powdered sugar or dip them in a glaze.
You can use different combinations of self-rising flour and plain Greek yogurt as the base to make bread rolls, pizza dough, bread sticks, brownies, a loaf of bread, pancakes, waffles, cinnamon rolls, fried chicken batter, cinnamon twists, muffins. All kinds of things.
~Harper Kingsley
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