Just before Christmas one of the community Facebook groups that I’m a part of had a post from a family asking for assistance to help replenish their bare cupboards. There were several posts from people indicating that certain churches in the area had pantry assistance programs. One post really stuck out to me: “Churches are no …
It’s fall in Wyoming and I have apples on the brain! Each fall we like to stock up on apples. I often order these by the case from Azure Standard or pick locally from friends. I love to dehydrate apples to have for snacking and baking through the winter but we also enjoy eating them …
You may know that I have a slight obsession with beans. Beans are a wonderfully frugal whole food, they have an excellent nutritional profile, and are extremely versatile. There are hundreds of varieties of beans/legumes available which really helps keep things interesting. Beans also make an excellent addition to your food storage. For ease of …
“Then the phone call came. One cold February afternoon, Jeff called to tell me his company did a 20% pay cut across the board. Two months later, it was a 20% reduction in hours on top of that pay cut. Just one month later, I got another afternoon phone call. They had laid almost …
We recently made a decision to bump up our food storage from keeping three months on hand to twelve months. Something that we started even when having three months of storage was a Heat and Eat Bin. In my Introduction to Food Storage: Why? post I told you about our real life experience of being without …
I like making lists. I make a ‘to do’ list almost every morning of the things I need to accomplish that day. I make a menu plan nearly every week. When we have a trip or vacation coming up my planning time usually starts several months in advance (yes, I’m already planning for next summer’s …
What would you do if you could not go to the grocery store? If you were not able to go to the farm and pick up your eggs, meat and milk? And your weekly produce CSA delivery was no longer running? What if all of the restaurants in town were closed? I’ve read that the …
Last month I did a few posts on some of the methods we use for tightening our financial belt as far as food costs are concerned. We are smack in the middle of several months of belt tightening. The reason for this is we have a new debt that we are paying. And that debt …
This is an exciting season for my husband. It is hunting season. One of the reasons we moved to Wyoming 3 years ago was for the hunting opportunities. My husband, with the help of our 17 year old (Kiki), makes it his goal each year to fill our chest freezer with antelope and venison. This year we are …
When I went into town the other day, gas was 14 cents a gallon more than it had been the previous week. 14 cents! That is a huge jump in a short amount of time. I was reviewing some of my grocery receipts and in just a few months time, many of the regular items we …
Recently, I wrote an article on food storage. I mentioned in that article that we use our freezer as part of our food storage plan. We have a large chest freezer and the side-by-side freezer that is part of the refrigerator/freezer combination. This past year to maximize our freezer space we decided to not just …
Last year, my friend Andi shared this post on sprouting. I was totally intrigued by the sprouted peas. Especially the cost of those peas. $8.05 for 25 pounds seemed like a steal! I had to try them. Like everything, the price of these peas has increased. I got mine through Azure Standard. Today’s cost is …
Okay, so maybe it is not a big event but I do find it quite fun that someone designated January as National Oatmeal Month. I really oatmeal so in honor of National Oatmeal Month I thought I’d share some of our favorite oatmeal recipes and uses. At less than 55 cents a pound, oatmeal is …
> When I first began this blog, one thing that I did was share our monthly food budget and the results of achieving (or not) that budget. Toward the end of 2010 I stopped that sharing for reasons I can’t even remember. Even though I haven’t been sharing our budget, we still have one and …
This is a delicious way to finish off a pot of beans. Usually by the end of my bean pot there are still some beans in it with quite a bit of the cooking liquid. Since I cook the beans in broth this is still a very nutrient dense liquid. We’ve talked about the wonderful …