Use it up, wear it out, make it work or do without

Such was the philosophy of our predecessors who lived through the years of the Great Depression.

In light of the increases in basic cost of living expenses, Ba'al and I have made some radical changes to the way we shop for food.  We buy nearly all of our fresh vegetables at farmer's markets.  I freeze about half of what we buy for future use and present the rest as creatively as possible for as many days as possible.  Most of our cans and dry goods, we buy at a local "scratch and dent" grocery.  You can't be the sort of cook who makes the same seven meals every week if you want to shop successfully at a discount grocery but if you're somewhat flexible and creative in your cooking, you can save a ton of money at these stores.  For specialty ingredients, we go to Whole Foods or a local natural food store called Mountain Mama.  I do buy some bulk items at Wal Mart or Sam's Club but there are only a few select items I buy there now.

Notice I haven't said anything about meat yet.  That's because we have reduced our consumption of animal protein to twice a week.  Yup, just two meals a week include poultry or red meat.  This is a HUGE change for my red meat loving husband but we've committed ourselves to eating smaller amounts of higher quality meat instead of animal protein nearly every night of the week.  In addition to eating less, we've also committed to buying kosher meat.  It's more expensive but more in line with our religious beliefs.  As a result, we're eating more creatively.  We had Doro Wat for our Shabbat dinner last night and leftovers of that tonight with a tomato flower salad.  Tomorrow, we're having eggplant parmesan with eggplants I bought fresh off the farm on Thursday.

Lunch the past three days has been soup.  It started as a pasta and bouillon soup on Wednesday.  Thursday, I added farm fresh veggies.  We had the same thing yesterday.  After dinner last night, I added our cucumber and tomato salad leftovers to the soup and served that for lunch today.  By the time Ba'al had his mid-afternoon snack, the pot was, at last, empty.  I love never ending soup pots!  They make lunch so much easier.

The challah (egg bread) made for dinner last night has been snacks all day today and will be breakfast tomorrow, served with cream gravy.

I have become VERY conscious of using everything I make and not letting anything go to waste.  With food rapidly becoming more expensive every time we shop, it's important to use every useable scrap.

**********

In that vein, I've started a braided rag rug.  It's material is old sheets and things I have lying around.  My sister is also sending me some similar weight materials she bought but has no use for.  I could donate the sheets or Freecycle them but I desperately need area rugs and making my own is better than buying them.