Loss of Income Creates Changes in How We Eat

We all enjoy watching the cooking shows where only the finest and freshest ingredients are used. Cost is no object for their belief of eating what is considered to be the best. For the rest of us, convenience comes at a price that will easily be justified by marketing that it is healthy and quick. As long as we can afford to fund our beliefs nothing really changes.

But something did change. The economy slowed and many families were not able to keep having a dual income family. For single income families they lost all their income and had to resort to using savings or government assistance.

Change for these groups came fast and hard. These people realized very quickly, wasting food is the equivalent of throwing away good money. Forget about dining out as a form of entertainment or as a way to feed a family. With very little extra income dining out is usually the first expense that suddenly becomes expendable.

The transition to cutting back on food expenses usually takes some time. Non essential packaged foods are still purchased but not as much as in the past. For many people the cost of food is just now being realized as before it was a simple get what we want swipe a piece of plastic and sign on the computer screen.

The reality of food costs really hit home when you find the few snacks and packaged foods you can barely afford to purchase only half eaten. Expensive low nutritional valued being thrown away. When times are financially tough you can realize what many low income families already know.

The limited food budget has to achieve maximum value and quantity. Nutrition must be reasonably balanced and waste must be kept to a minimum.

The Scratch is our newest book about feeding a family on a budget. we have made this free book available to help familes like ours get started with three simple dinner meals. These three meals will help you save big dollars when you are ready to start budgeting.

If you would like a copy all you have to do is email me. I understand privacy is a concern for everybody and I promise that I will not share your email with anyone. Everything we do is done manually. I will check my email  a couple times a day and send you a pdf file.

The Book is free and you can share it with anybody you like as long as you do not try to sell it.

Simply put "The Scratch" in your subject line and sent to: rickjhenderson@hotmail.com

$30 to feed a family of four for 3 days (36 meals)

The plan is to survive on $30 for three days worth of meals. The cupboards are almost bare with very little food mostly condiments such as yeast cornstarch and one chicken breast. Many people have great ideas about how they will feed their family on a weekly budget. Most budgets today are based on having enough money to purchase everything a family could need. The more money you have to spend the more outlandish your beliefs can be to justify a budget.

The Scratch is our newest book about feeding a family on a budget. we have made this free book available to help familes like ours get started with three simple dinner meals. These three meals will help you save big dollars when you are ready to start budgeting.

If you would like a copy all you have to do is email me. I understand privacy is a concern for everybody and I promise that I will not share your email with anyone. Everything we do is done manually. I will check my email  a couple times a day and send you a pdf file.

The Book is free and you can share it with anybody you like as long as you do not try to sell it.

Simply put "The Scratch" in your subject line and sent to: rickjhenderson@hotmail.com

Filet Mignon

We can all imagine a juicy, pefectly cooked filet mignon being served at a fancy restaurant that none of us can afford. In our home we occassionaly eat filet mignon.

The difference is we have to do a tiny bit of preparation to make it perfect. First we purchase inexpensive sirloin steaks, we do this when our grocery store is having a sale. The steaks usually come in a package of 5 or 6 individual steaks. We also purchase a small 1/2 package of bacon.

As described in earlier posts we will age the sirloin in the fridge for 4 -6 days by wrapping it with paper towel and changing the paper towel each time it becomes moist.

Each piece of sirloin is wrapped in bacon, held in place with tooth picks. All that is left to do is grill your meat.

I find that we can occassionally eat like we are at a fancy steak house by doing it this way and adding a couple veggies on the side.

Inexpensive Breakfast

If you are like me you have probably noticed the "gentle" increase in the price of cereal lately. Some cereals have gone up by 50% or more.

We have changed the cereal we eat and now we eat Quick Oats as the basis of our hot cereal breakfast. The best part is Quick Oats are low in sodium but high is quality. The cost is 1/4 the cost of regular cereal. In my city I can purchase bulk quick oats for $0.99 a pound.

4 pounds of cereal can feed a family a lot of meals for very little. The problem is quick oats can be a little bland or become boring after awhile. To help make brfeakfast more appealing we change a few things such as;
Cooking with milk instead of water
Adding raising to the milk while it heats up
Sweetening with 1 Tbsp of brown sugar per serving
Adding 1 Tbsp of Maple Syrup (sugar free) to each serving
Topping with fruit (we like banana)

You can even add small pieces of chocolate

For us a  $4 purchase of Quick Oats from a bulk store will feed our family for more than 1 month.

"The Scratch" Free E-Book

Here is a quote from one of my readers,
This is a great little book! Thanks! It is amazing how many people don't know how to make homemade pasta or homemade bread. It doesn't take much time and it saves a bundle. I recently bought a book from Amazon on how to make Artisan bread. It really only takes about 2-1/2 hours from start to finish and hardly any kneading and the bread is amazing. I bought an electric pasta maker at a secondhand store and you are right ...nothing beats the taste of homemade pasta and it costs pennies.

Keep up the great work!

The Scratch is our newest book about feeding a family on a budget. we have made this free book available to help familes like ours get started with three simple dinner meals. These three meals will help you save big dollars when you are ready to start budgeting.

If you would like a copy all you have to do is email me. I understand privacy is a concern for everybody and I promise that I will not share your email with anyone. Everything we do is done manually. I will check my email  a couple times a day and send you a pdf file.

The Book is free and you can share it with anybody you like as long as you do not try to sell it.

Simply put "The Scratch" in your subject line and sent to: rickjhenderson@hotmail.com

How To Make Pancakes Healthier - 8 Tips

We all love big tall stacks of fluffy white pancakes with crispy golden edges.
Not everyone can eat this kind of pancakes.
Here are a couple easy tips to make your next batch healthier while still keeping the flavor and texture.

1) Make them yourself instead of purchasing pancake mix.
2) Use olive oil instead of vegetable oil in your batter.
3) Use butter flavored non-stick spray instead of oil on your griddle.
4) Whole wheat flour instead of enriched, bleached white flour.
5) Add Wheat germ 1/4cup to a batch of batter.
6) Include Quick Oats to your batter, this should be added to wet ingredients.
7) Make your own syrup by boiling fruit (apples, bananas, pears, vanilla) in water then add sugar to sweeten.
8) Use artificial sweetner to make syrup.

Aging A Steak - Make It Taste Like It Was Expensive

You can get your free copy of my mini book "The Scratch" It is three great  meals you can make your family.
Simply send me an email and I will reply back with a PDF. I am doing this manually and I promise not to share your email adddress.
rickjhenderson@hotmail.com

We all enjoy going out to a steak house for a really good steak. The age the steak to give it a nice meaty flavor and cook it just the way you like it every time. The problem is if you are on a budget like we are, yo can not afford to eat at steak houses.
Rather than do without our family will eat at"Chez Henderson's" Steak House. Really it is fancy for eating good steak at home for a fraction of the cost.

Beside meat you do not need all of items to age a steak other than time. Wire rack, plate, paper towel are all you need.

We purchase some low costing sirloin for this one on Monday, wrapped each piece in paper towel, placed on the wire rack stuck it in the fridge for 24 hours.

After 24 hours we removed the paper towel and wrapped with new paper towel and place back in the fridge. If your meat continues to dampen the paper towel you must keep changing it.

Friday we had the day off work and headed down to the BBQ for a nice steak lunch. Asparagus was on sale and the baked potato rounded out the whole meal.