Category Archives: Finances

Articles concerning finances. This is the “budget” Epicurean after all.

Breads, Comfort food, Finances, Fish, Healthy, Informative, Main Dishes, Vegetarian

Clam & Garlic Pizza

January 14, 2016 BudgetEpicurean 1 Comment

One of my favorite parts about living in New England is the abundance of seafood. I wrote Tuesday about seafood linguini, and today is all about clam pizza (don’t worry, I actually made and ate them on separate weeks. Unless seafood every day is appealing to you, in which case rock on).

Seafood is pretty darn healthy for you on the whole, be it lobster, clams, shrimp, crab, or any other shelled ocean dweller. Clams are a good source of several nutrients and minerals, including magnesium and manganese, phosphorus, potassium, copper and selenium, and a very good source of Vitamin B12. Read More Here. They are also naturally low in fat and high in protein.

These clams were from a local farmers market (if you’re local to New Haven, check out the City Seed network of markets). I met the woman who captains the boat that harvested these guys, from the river and bay less than an hour from my house. She showed me photos of the boat, the other deck hands, and a typical day’s haul.

She also explained the difference between several different types of clams, mostly size and thus what types of recipes they are best for. Of course I don’t remember most of it, but the point is it was super cool to meet the actual person who obtained the food I was planning to eat. I got this baker’s dozen of clams for only $5 too.

Once I saw the clams, I knew I had to have them. And once I had them, I knew that clam pizza was gonna happen. If you’ve ever been to New Haven, or even if you haven’t, chances are you’ve heard about Pepe’s Pizzeria, and their famous White Clam pie. It was named the best in the country! I am not arrogant enough to claim that I can make it just like Pepe or better, but I wanted to at least give it a shot.

This woman also gave me some good advice on how to open and cook them, since this was my first time cooking with fresh clams. A nice trick is to freeze them for an hour or so, then thaw them in a pan over medium low heat. This makes them pop open really easily. Or you can thaw them on the counter, just make sure to use a container to catch all the flavorful juice they release! That’s good stuff.

The next step of this pizza was making the dough. I could have bought it pre-made at the store, but I wanted to be all Suzy Homemaker and do it all from scratch. Turns out, pizza dough isn’t even that hard to make! And you can make a double batch, and keep half in the refrigerator or freezer to use again later. This may become a regular weekend project now.

Ingredients for Pizza Dough:

2 tsp yeast
3 tbsp warm water
1 tbsp sugar
3 cups flour
1 cup warm water
2 tbsp olive oil
2-3 tsp sea salt

Step 1: Put the yeast, water, and sugar in a bowl and mix to dissolve. The water needs to be just warm, not too hot to kill the yeast. This is called “activating” the yeast. It wakes up and starts eating the sugar. Let it sit for 10-15 minutes at room temperature.

Step 2: In a large bowl, or stand mixer, mix the yeast with the flour, rest of the water, oil, and salt. Mix until the dough is sticky yet pulls away from the sides of the bowl. Let it sit at room temperature 1 hour, so go do laundry or watch a TV show or run errands.

Step 3: Punch the risen dough down, mix for a few minutes. Let it rest again for 1 hour. (This is kind of an all-day project, but with very little hands-on time. Plenty of breaks to get stuff done, and you don’t have to babysit the dough in between.) Either cut the dough in half for two smaller pizzas, or spread it out on a pizza pan (for round) or cookie sheet (for rectangle). Heat the oven to 400 F.

Step 4: Spread your dough, and poke a few holes in it with a fork to prevent big bubbles. Bake the dough for 5-7 minutes, until lightly browned. Then top with whatever you like, and bake another 5-7 minutes, until toppings are warm, browned, and/or gooey.

For my topping, I mixed clams, garlic, and olive oil for a pungent dose of flavor. While the oven was heating, I took an entire head of garlic and cut off the tops. I drizzled a tbsp or 2 of olive oil over it, wrapped it in tin foil, and baked it at 400 for about 15 minutes. This cooks the cloves, turning them soft and brown and mellowing the garlic flavor. Mix this with oil and chopped up clam, and you have heaven in the making.

Ingredients for White Clam Pizza Topping:

Dozen clams, chopped, with juice
1 head of garlic, baked, mushed with a fork
2 tbsp olive oil + 2 tbsp olive oil
2-3 tbsp lemon juice
Sprinkle of sea salt
Dash of Italian seasoning
Optional: 1/2 cup Parmesan or mozzarella

Step 1: Cut the top off the garlic, drizzle with oil, & wrap in tin foil. Bake at 400 for 10-15 minutes. Squeeze the cooked garlic into a bowl, and mash with a fork. Add clams, clam juice, oil, lemon, salt, and seasoning and mix well.

Step 2: Take your dough, and spread the toppings all over it. Sprinkle again with salt or seasonings, or a squirt of lemon if desired.

Step 3: Optionally, sprinkle on a handful of shredded parmesan or mozzarella cheese. Bake in a 400 oven for 7-10 minutes, until heated through and cheese is melted.

You can serve with extra lemon wedges for sprinkling over the slices. This is garlic and seafood heaven! It smells amazing, and tastes even better.

Oh, and I had only used half the dough on the clam pizza, so I took what vegetables were hanging out in the refrigerator and also made an awesome Brussels sprouts, beet, mushroom, and onion pizza!

Pizza dough you make yourself is delicious, and far more healthy than a packaged box full of leaveners, preservatives, flavorants, and who knows what other chemicals. When you make things at home, you know exactly what goes into them, save yourself some cashola (because it is almost always cheaper to make things from base ingredients than pay the convenience fee of someone else making it) and can add a little love too. 😉 That’s what my grandma always said, and I think she’s right.

How about you? Ever made pizza dough at home? What’s your favorite pizza topping?

Administrative, Finances, Informative, Main Dishes, Review

Pantry eating challenge – week 1

January 10, 2016 BudgetEpicurean Leave a comment

So for the New Year, I decided to try a cook-from-the-pantry challenge. See this article for full details, but pretty much the plan is to cook mostly from what is already in my house (fridge, freezer, pantry) and $20 per week for fresh produce & dairy.

How’s it going so far?

Pretty darn well, actually. I’ll try to keep posting updates every Sunday on how the previous week went, and at the end summarize the whole month. But for the first week, things are going along as normal. Here’s the week’s menu:

Jan 1 – Pork roast & sauerkraut (leftover from day before, and it’s good luck on New Years Day!)
Jan 2 – Chicken & rice soup
Jan 3 – Chicken quarters & rice & broccoli
Jan 4 – BBQ spare ribs & baked potatoes
Jan 5 – Crock Pot Turkey Chili
Jan 6 – Seafood linguine (recipe coming Tuesday!)
Jan 7 – Pork chops w/apple chutney, mashed sweet potato, and cranberry sauce
Jan 8 – Spinach stuffed chicken rolls, rice, salad

You get one bonus day because Jan didn’t start on a Monday. 🙂

For breakfast, I have had smoothies using frozen fruit & fresh, wheat English muffins (from the freezer) with almond butter & jam, and cereal (cold and hot). Lunches are most often leftovers from one of the dinner meals, and one day this week I had a caprese sandwich for lunch out with some coworkers.

Oh, how am I doing with not shopping? That part is a little harder… as you may know, I’m a sucker for a good sale, and have no qualms snagging them and stocking up when I find it. Well, that’s a no-no this month, I have to make a strict list of only fresh veg and fruits we want or need, and stick to it. For me, this is the toughest part of the challenge so far. So, what did I buy this week?

Dairy		Fruit/Veg
Kefir (2)	5.92	Bananas (5)	0.96
Org. milk 1/2 gal	3.5	Spinach (12 oz)	1.49
Heavy cream	1.69	Kiwi (4)	1.49
		Asparagus (1 lb)	2.69
		Romaine (3)	1.99
		Avocado (2)	1.98
TOTAL	$23.30	Raspberries	1.59

Yup, I went over budget by a little more than 3 dollars… but honestly that’s still pretty good, given on average I spend $100 per week on groceries.

The cream was so I could make our own coffee creamer, (we are trying to get away from packaged, processed chemicals as much as possible) and organic, grass-fed milk is way more expensive than factory milk. But it is a choice we are making, to be healthier all around. The same goes for adding kefir to our diets, to get more gut-healthy probiotics.

The fruits will mostly be eaten as snacks and in lunches, and added to smoothies. The spinach & romaine will be salads to go with things from the freezer & pantry, and compliment any frozen veg. I already have. The fiancee eats a banana per day for breakfast, and both the asparagus & raspberries were on sale, how could I not buy them?!

Well, that’s it for this week, stay tuned for next week!

How about you guys, ever done a no-spend or low-spend challenge? Do you think you have more food in the house than you think you do? Could you go a month without grocery shopping as usual?

Administrative, Finances, Informative

How to Clean & Organize Your Freezer

January 5, 2016 BudgetEpicurean 2 Comments

Though at the time I did not time this clean-out purposely, it will be a huge help as I complete my January pantry-clean-out challenge! (Read the full details of the challenge here).

Anyone who has a large freezer knows that it can be hard to keep it organized. The freezer tends to accumulate random bits of meats and beans, half-cans of items, extras of meals we prepared previously, and somehow have forgotten it exists. Even if you already use a freezer to help prevent food waste, if you don’t know what is inside and it ends up freezer burned and in the trash 8 months later, that defeats your goal in the first place.

A regular freezer deep clean is a great way to keep in mind what you have, what you need, and how much space is still left. I have a bad habit of majorly stocking up on good sales, so that my freezer tends to always have very little space. This creates a jenga-effect, and also obscures my view of what is towards the back or the bottom. By cleaning it out & re-organizing at least every 6 months, I pull the things in the back towards the front, and remind myself of what needs cooked soon.

Step 1: The first step in cleaning out a freezer, whether standing or chest, is to pull out everything. Just make a big pile on the floor. I promise, in the few minutes it is out of the freezer everything will not thaw.

Step 2: Take this pile of food, and begin to organize it. For example, I put all meats on one side of the freezer, and all frozen veggies and fruits on the other side. You could categorize by the shape of the package, by ready-to-cook meals versus ingredients, whatever makes sense for you.

Step 3: Now look at your nice, empty freezer. Are there random puddles of frozen icky stuff? Are there a few loose peas rolling around? Now is the time to bust out the cleaning solution and a few rags, and scrub it up nice and clean. Starting fresh always feels great!

Step 4: Return everything back to the freezer, nicely organized. You can, if you have the time, write down all the contents prior to putting them back. Whether on paper or in a note on your phone or an email to yourself, having a list of everything can be SO helpful when you are meal planning later. Whether you do or don’t write it down, the final step is to put all the food back into the freezer in a more organized way.

And now sit back, relax, and enjoy the feeling of accomplishment!

These same steps can be applied to the refrigerator and the pantry as well. It is so helpful to go through this process once or twice a year at least, to keep fresh in your mind what types of foods and how much you have on hand. This way you can take advantage of sales as they happen, and keep your savings by using up the items you buy.

Going forward, it is helpful to have a permanent organization system. This will be different for each person/household/family based on what you eat and how often. Maybe you can keep a written notebook, where you cross out items as you use them each week. Or you could try a dry-erase board, where you add or remove items as you use them and re-stock. Or if you’re the digital type, you could have an online document that keeps a running list. Use whatever works for your style.

Do you have any freezer organizing tips or tricks? Please feel free to share in the comments!

Finances, Holidays, Informative

Gift Idea: Altoids Survival Tin

December 20, 2015 BudgetEpicurean Leave a comment

With Christmas mere days away, the panic of gift-giving may be setting in. It is unfortunate that a holiday meant to be about love and family and reflection has instead become a race through the mall and price-comparing online… but I digress.

For anyone who has a friend or family member who is “that guy” (or girl), you know the one, super hard to buy for, they have everything they already want, or they don’t really want anything, I have a solution that will make both them and you happy!

The Altoids survival tin.

That’s right folks, a harmless little $1 or $2 tin of mints can be transformed into an actually useful, potentially even lifesaving gift with just a little time and creativity. Based on what you already have laying around your own house, it may even end up being a free gift!

And it will certainly be unique. (Unless your giftee is a hard-core preparedness and/or survival expert, then they probably have a few dozen kits like this, and much fancier. But it is still the thought that counts, and I’m sure they are never mad about extra prepper gear!). You can get kids involved too, they love to come up with fun ideas for tiny, useful items, and tetris things together until they fit. It becomes a game of how much can you stuff into this tiny box!

For these kits, all you need is a small Altoids tin (or any other small, sealable metal tin) and an assortment of survival related items. There are infinite sites around the internet with suggestions and recommendations on what to add to these kits, ranging from meds to tarps to fire starting equipment. Some even show youtube videos on how to turn the tin itself into a knife or saw, which you should only attempt if you are educated on how to use the tools to do so.

It is best to take into consideration the personality of the person you are creating this kit for, and the likely scenarios in which they could need this. It could be a beauty emergency kit for a female friend, in which case you would want to include things like hair bands, bobby pins, safety pins, oil blotting papers, Q tips, and maybe tiny samples of makeup or makeup remover pads. It could be a “Bad Day” emergency kit, and contain things like a mini bottle of wine, pieces of chocolate, and uplifting sayings on pretty paper.

For the preparedness/emergency kit, you want to include things like pain medications, matches and candles, ways to collect or purify water, and items that have multiple uses like string. Keep in mind that even things used to hold together other items, such as electrical or duct tape, string, or rubber bands, can themselves be useful too.

The kits shown above contain:

3 matches taped together with electrical tape
2 small birthday candles
3 feet of string tied with a twist-tie
A toothpick
A safety pin
1 antibacterial moist towelette
2 Band-Aids
200mg ibuprofen tablet
1 ml of bleach in a sealed plastic tube
1 small trash bag (to hold water to add the bleach to, or provide a tiny bit of coverage from rain or sun)
1 stick of gum
1 packet of lettuce seeds
A rubber band to hold it all together

The beauty of this kit is that it is tiny enough to fit into a pocket, so for something as simple as a road trip or a camping trip or going to work in the city, your recipient can know that they have a small advantage should the S hit the F. Happy gifting!

Have you made a survival tin like this before? Do you have other things you would add or take out? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Casseroles, Comfort food, Crock pot, Finances, Healthy, Main Dishes, Slow cooker

Ten Crock Pot Freezer Meals in 1 Hour

November 1, 2015 BudgetEpicurean 2 Comments

This post is about my newest addition to my Kindle offerings: “10 Crock Pot Freezer Meals”! You can see for yourself at my Budget Epicurean Kindle Author page. The eBook contains a complete grocery list, with the items categorized in order to easily breeze in and out of the store in minutes, as well as ten of my best & most loved slow cooker recipes, including Cranberry Spiced Chicken, Orange-Glazed Pork Chops, and White Bean Chicken Chili. I even added some handy, easy printables to label your bags, so you know what you have days or weeks later!

To watch the short video on how easy it is to shop for and assemble everything, check it out here! Of course ALDI was the store I went to (I just love them for their focus on providing the best prices over flashy ads or in store perks). I had my list in hand, and the total for everything that was going into these ten meals (minus just a few pantry staples) was $87. Given that each meal is made to serve 4, that is only $2.18 per meal!!

Of course, you can substitute as needed, such as if you have a hatred of a specific type of bean, swap it for a different kind, or if you do not eat pork, use chicken or beef instead. Definitely the highlight of the trip was finding this little bonus deal: $0.35 for canned, organic, reduced sodium black beans!!! Oh yeah, I bought 2 cases. That doesn’t count towards the meal totals…

The entire shopping trip took me probably about a half hour. And that is with writing down prices of things, and forcing my significant other, who was such a trooper, to take pictures and help me double check that I hadn’t forgotten anything. 🙂

http://www.amazon.com/Budget-Epicurean/e/B00KM8JR4U

Garlicky Sweet Lemon Chicken
Chicken Tortilla Soup
Orange-Ginger Glazed Pork Chops
Creamy Italian Chicken
Cranberry Spiced Chicken
BBQ Pulled Pork
Chicken Cacciatore
Classic Salsa Chicken
White Bean Chicken Chili
5 Bean Vegetarian Chili

As a reminder, you can purchase the nice printable ebook HERE.

First things first, I got everything organized. This means putting all the ingredients for each recipe into a pile. Some ingredients were used in multiple recipes, so I put those piles next to each other. Then I cut out the labels, and taped them onto a bag.

Next, take a cutting board, and for each recipe that requires dicing, chop up the peppers, or onions, or whatever, and place the raw veggies in the corresponding bag. It is best to get all that out of the way first. I actually ended up wearing goggles, because the onions were so strong and stung my eyes so that I couldn’t see for all the watering they were doing!

Next, take a can opener, and open up all your cans. Drain things like beans if you like, I didn’t even bother, just dumped the whole thing in there. Pour the canned goods into the bags. Any seasonings like chili powder or honey, pour those in next. Finally, open the meats (if using) and add those to the bags last. Be sure to keep meats separate otherwise so as to not cross-contaminate, and wash your hands after touching them.

Orange-Ginger Glazed Pork Chops

BBQ Pulled Pork

Crock Pot 5 Bean Vegetarian Chili

Salsa Chicken

Creamy Italian Chicken

Tortilla Soup

Spiced Cranberry Chicken

White Bean Chicken Chili

Garlicky Sweet Lemon Chicken

Chicken Cacciatore

Once you have your bags filled, you can take them to your freezer. Ideally, freeze them laying flat so that you save freezer space. You can also put any of these recipes straight into the crock pot, as I did with the garlicky sweet lemon chicken.

The day before you plan to eat one of these meals, just take the bag from the freezer and put it into your refrigerator. Preferably put the bag onto a plate or in a bowl, just in case it leaks or drips water as it thaws. The next morning, pour the whole contents of the bag into your slow cooker and cook as instructed. You can use each recipe’s suggestions, or serve with whatever you have handy. And there you have it! Ten meals that serve 4, from cans to freezer to cooked!

Freezer meals assembled and ready to go!

You can purchase this list of ten slow cooker, freezer-approved recipes, plus a complete one-page shopping list, serving suggestions, and printable freezer bag labels on Amazon!

Just search “Budget Epicurean”. Or visit this link: http://goo.gl/VtfKOq

I’m hoping to expand these meal plan offerings soon to include a vegetarian option, diabetic meal plans, gluten-free meal plans, and more! Please let me know if you have any feedback, questions, or something else you want to see in the future in the comments below or by email at budgetepicurean (at) gmail (dot) com!

You can view the video of how easy the shopping & assembly is here:

Many many food bloggers and regular people alike love this method of cooking! It is hard to overstate how much time, energy, and cash you can save by cooking this way. If you’re already experienced with meal planning based on grocery store sales, or want to try coming up with your own recipes, here’s a great article from one of my favorite frugal sites, the Simple Dollar, fully explaining the process!

Administrative, Comfort food, Finances, Informative

How to Build a Pantry Immediately Under $50

October 22, 2015 BudgetEpicurean Leave a comment

This is an article on how to start building a pantry immediately, with very little up-front cost. If you already have ten years’ worth of canned beans in the basement, that is awesome, but this article is not for you. I am writing this article to the people who:

Are tired of looking at bare cupboards.
Can’t sleep at night because they just used up their last box of <insert boxed food here>.
Just like to be prepared for stuff.
Would really love to have the makings for a meal readily available without having to go to the store.
Want to eat real food, without spending a lot.
Know winter is coming.
Like to save money!
Want to have some kind of food around no matter what.
Don’t have much money to spend building a pantry.

Whether you are preparing for a hurricane, tough economic times, flexibility in meal planning, or just because you know you’d sleep better at night, you can start building a pantry right now, and for less than $50 per person.

A pantry by definition is a room or place in which food is stored as an ‘extra’ or backup to the kitchen. There is a wide variety of ways people build pantries, from an extra can of soup on the top shelf to a maximum-prepper-root-cellar type pantry with hundreds of freeze dried meals, and everything in between. If you have a few boxes of ramen under the bed, that’s a pantry. If you have a stash of your favorite cookies hidden somewhere you don’t have to share, that’s a pantry.

This article will give you an exact idea of how to build a pantry in one shopping trip, for less than $50 (per person) which could provide enough calories to survive for 1 month. But, keep in mind this is “survive”, not eat like you’re on a cruise ship vacation. It is, however, way better than ramen noodles, and is real, healthy, good food. (Heck you could even just use this as your personal “less than $50 monthly grocery shopping list & meal plan” any time).

Prices are based on stores in the New Haven, CT area. Prices may vary based on where you are located, sales and/or coupons, and time of the year. Feel free to make certain substitutions tailored to your situation. If you have access to free or cheaper foods, stock up on those as well (for example, a garden, barter system, foraging, etc).

Always be on the lookout for opportunities for urban foraging like an overhanging apple tree, rogue tomato plant, whatever. Also, many plants we consider weeds are edible. Just be sure to read/watch enough to know what you are doing before eating anything wild you pick.

This plan is meant to provide enough food for one person for three meals for thirty days. Most meals will be very simple, but will be enough to survive. And this is real food, not freeze dried astronaut ice cream. You could eat any of these suggested meals at any time. If you have more room in your budget, you can add more “comfort” foods like sauces, spices, dried fruits, desserts, snacks, or other items you desire.

I’d recommend ALDI if you have one near you. (Go here to see their locations). They have the most consistently low prices overall for packaged and even fresh foods that I’ve seen. Otherwise, find the store nearest you that has good deals. Follow general grocery rules, like shopping produce that is in season, making a list, buying in bulk when the prices are low, etc. to save even more.

Purchase per person:

3 cans chicken — 2.97
5 cans tuna or salmon — 5
15 lbs beans (any type) — 8.50

5 lbs rice — 2.99
5 lbs potatoes — 1.99
1 large canister oats — 2.29
Tortillas (12 pack) — 0.99

10 bags frozen vegetables — 10
2 cans any type fruit — 2
1 jar pasta sauce — 1
1 pound pasta — 0.88
Dozen bananas — 2.22
1 jar peanut butter — 1.49
1 jar jelly — 1
5 cans diced tomatoes — 4.40
2 loaves bread — 1.70

Grand Total: $49.42

These items can sit wherever you have extra room, and you know they will be there in a pinch. You can also add any items that your family specifically goes through a lot of, such as chickpeas, eggs, or a certain spice mix.

Be sure that you use these items prior to their expiration dates by incorporating them into what you already cook. There is no sense in spending even a small amount of money on food that you end up not eating. A list of many suggested meals using these items is below.

Suggested meals:

Peanut butter & jelly sandwich
Bean & rice veggie burgers
Peanut butter & banana wrap
Tortilla Soup
3 bean chili
Red beans & Rice
Oats with fruit
Toast + PB or jelly
Veggie fried rice
Tuna noodle salad
Tuna wraps/sandwich
Creamy tuna potato salad
Rice pudding + canned fruit
Pasta (w chicken &/or beans)
Baked potato + chili
Baked potato + frozen broccoli
Baked potato soup

And if you happen to have a pantry already, hopefully this list can help jump-start your creativity. Just a few simple ingredients can quickly come together to create a satisfying meal for far less than you would spend outside the home. Having a well-stocked pantry means you can have a snack or meal ready to go in minutes, and without having to wait in line or drive 30 minutes.

To continue to build your stockpile, simply pick up one extra item each time you go to the grocery store. Add two jars of pasta sauce to your cart when you only need one, and now you have a spare. When there is a great sale on peaches and you can afford to, stock up. That way you keep your overall cost lower, by purchasing frequently eaten items in bulk when the price is low. Just don’t get too crazy, you don’t want to buy way more than you will ever eat or buy things you end up hating and throwing away.

Also keep an eye out for mark-downs on products that are about to expire (like meats & fresh vegetables, but use or freeze ASAP), slightly dented (I’m lookin’ at you, 10 cent dented cans of soup), or out of season (sprinkles in the shape of a leaf are still sprinkles in the summertime). One extra can or bag at a time can make a big impact on your yearly grocery tally. And you will get the satisfaction of knowing that you have a buffer of food for whenever, whatever, happens.

(Title picture is of pantry items used to make Salsa Chicken Soup)

Finances, Healthy, Informative

5 Ways to Preserve Tomatoes

October 13, 2015 BudgetEpicurean Leave a comment

As summer winds down into the gorgeous chill days of fall, gardens are finally running out of steam on producing tomatoes. If you’ve read earlier articles you know how much fun I’ve had with gardening in my neighborhood this summer! Baskets upon baskets of these lovely red jewels. And now, sadly, my final harvest is coming to fruit on the vine, and soon I’ll pull up the plants before Jack Frost takes them away.

For those who still have one last bumper crop, or have a huge pile on the counter starting to soften, here are 5 ways to easily preserve tomatoes for all year round. From as simple as cut & freeze to the process of canning (made simple with my one easy trick!) there are lots of ways to put up what you have now for when it is no longer available fresh, and preserve the lovely nutrients inside.

Option 1: Cut & Freeze

The simplest of all: just cut up your tomatoes into halves or quarters, and toss into a freezer bag. Label and put in the freezer. Later, you can use these tomatoes in sauces, soups, stews, and chilies with no problem. If you want to remove the skins, simply defrost and the skins will fall right off! Or you can leave whole, or puree them with the skins on.

Option 2: Oven Drying

It is oh-so-easy to dry your own tomatoes! All you really need is a wire rack, a knife, oodles of tomatoes (preferably roma), and some time. See my article How to Make Oven Dried Tomatoes.

Option 3: Canning diced tomatoes

Canning your own diced tomatoes is a snap! As long as you have the time to invest, canning your own will create a much healthier, flavorful option than store-bought cans. Simply dice up your tomatoes, place in a canning jar, and process. Be sure to always follow the rules of safe canning whether using a water bath or pressure canning method.

Option 4: Canning pasta sauce

Canning pasta sauce is only slightly more involved than diced tomatoes in that you add spices to the jars. I added fresh basil, garlic salt, and dried onion. Read the full article HERE.

Option 5: Turn them into tomato products

If plain tomatoes aren’t your favorite, there are still SO MANY tomato-based products we use daily that you can make in your own kitchen. Give some or all of them a try:

Don’t Waste the Crumbs has a great DIY Ketchup Recipe
BBQ Sauce
Tomato juice for drinking (like V8 but with fewer preservatives!)
Salsa &/or relish
Tomato paste
Tomato Powder
Tomato Soup (can also be frozen/canned)

And there you have it, easy ways to preserve tomato bounty! Any home gardener who has weathered at least one tomato season has had more chopped fresh tomatoes than they could handle, and these are all tried-and-true preservation methods. Using these techniques you can enjoy the flavor of summer all year long.

Appetizers, Finances, Healthy, Informative, Less than 5, Side dishes, Vegan, Vegetarian

How to Make Oven-Dried Tomatoes

October 1, 2015 BudgetEpicurean 2 Comments

Since between my own backyard garden and my generous neighbor who has a football-field-sized garden I still had a bumper crop of tomatoes, even after canning oodles of quarts and pints of sauce and tomato broth and salsa, I decided to try my hand at oven-dried tomatoes packed in olive oil.

Dried tomatoes in olive oil are delicious little flavor bombs to add to garlic bread for a simple bruschetta, toss into salads or pasta, or top a pizza. The oil itself can also be used in salad dressings or anywhere tomato-flavored infused oil would be tasty. Very popular in the Mediterranean region such as Greece and Italy, this preservation method has been around for a very long time, and I had bags of romas just begging to be bathed in high quality oil that was on sale.

But a jar can be quite pricey, up to $10 in the supermarket. It is far cheaper to can your own! You must invest in the jars and good-quality oil, but it is worth it for the superior taste and nutrition of using local tomatoes, and you can re-use jars forever.

All you need is some wire racks, an oven, and some time. If you have the oven on anyways, to make a roast or cookies, or perhaps to heat the house in the chill of autumn, this is the perfect project. This oven heat is conducive to drying many things, so you could also make a platter of dried apples or sweet potato chips at the same time.

There is some debate over the safety of dried tomatoes and botulism risk. It is possible that small droplets of water may stay inside the tomato and provide a medium for botulism or bacterium to grow. Obviously read up on facts and use your own best judgment when deciding whether to refrigerate, process, freeze, or store at room temperature. This article is not advice, just what I chose to do in my own kitchen with my own produce.

Ingredients:

40-50 tomatoes, Roma are the best for drying
2 wire racks (cookie sheets work too, you’ll just have to flip them halfway to make sure they dry on all sides)
2-3 cups extra virgin olive oil
1-3 canning jars, lids, & rings

Step 1: Cut the tops & cores out of the tomatoes, slice them in half, and push out as many seeds as you can with your fingers or a knife. Save the seeds for planting, drink them, use in a soup, or compost.

Step 2: Place the tomato halves on a wire rack or baking sheet, cut side up, and put into the oven at 200 degrees. Crack the door open if you don’t mind the heat to allow more air circulation. Let them dry for 1 hour, then flip them if using baking sheets and check the dryness levels.

Step 3: Take the completely dry tomatoes and begin packing them into sterile mason jars. The tomatoes are ready if they are rubbery with absolutely no water when squeezed, but you don’t want them so dry they are crunchy with no give. If you choose to use a vinegar dip, use tongs to dip each tomato prior to placing in a sterilized jar.

Step 4: Pour in olive oil to cover the tomatoes. Make sure they are completely covered. If you feel okay with it, you can now store your tomatoes this way in a dark cabinet, or in the refrigerator.

You may also choose to water-bath or pressure can your jars at this point. Totally up to you.

These little jars will store for about 2 weeks in the refrigerator, and potentially up to a year in the cupboard if processed. They make lovely presents, if you can bring yourself to part with them. I recommend putting them somewhere easily accessible as you are likely to want to use them all up within days.

For ideas on how to use these, start here:

Check it out on Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/350506783478334749/

Dips and Sauces, Finances, Healthy, Informative, Main Dishes, Pasta, Vegan, Vegetarian

How to Can Homemade Pasta Sauce

September 29, 2015 BudgetEpicurean Leave a comment

Since moving to Connecticut, we have slowly made friends with the neighbors. We are lucky enough to live in a pretty safe and quiet area, where the people are very kind and welcoming. My good fortune is knowing a guy named Tony, a few houses down the street, who gardens for his health.

Now, there are lots of well-known reasons why gardening is good for the body and soul. Being out in nature brings a sense of peace and calm, helps relieve stress and lower blood pressure, and may boost your immune system. Having home-grown fruits and vegetables enables healthier food choices and better nutrition, while keeping you active and exercising. All those hours of digging, planting, weeding, tending, picking, and preserving burns serious calories and keeps you toned and limber.

Not to mention the fact that gardening can save you serious cash! Just buy the seeds and materials once (better yet, swap seeds with other local gardeners for better-adapted produce, and save your own seeds for next year!) and you can garden for free almost forever. It is easy to find local, free sources of soil amendments like fertilizer and mulches if you ask around and get creative.

Tony takes this to a new level! His garden is literally the size of a football field, all out in his large 2-acre New England backyard. He and his wife single-handedly till, plant, weed, and tend this garden every year. His wife tells me that he has even shrunk the garden a little this year, due to time constraints and health issues, so the garden used to be even larger before I knew about it. Amazing.

Tony says his favorite thing about the garden is the sense of community. Everyone on the block knows Tony, and knows they can come by anytime to pick a bag full of produce to take home. His garden produces far more than he and his family alone could enjoy, so he gives freely to everyone around him.

This is the beauty of gardening. You make friends, share food, recipes, and stories, and build a true community.

Needless to say, I was hooked.

By mid-August, I had my kitchen table and counter literally covered in tomatoes, and needed to finally take the time to do something with them all. A large batch I simply cut into quarters and put in gallon freezer bags. They will sit in the freezer until I need to make a soup or chili; then I will thaw them, and the skins will fall right off, and I can use them in whatever recipe is on my mind.

Another large portion goes into cans as sauce to rest in the pantry until it’s pasta night. Tony shared his “lazy Italian” way of making sauce, which saved me tons of work and hours in the kitchen!

The typical way of making sauce is to boil the tomatoes briefly, then submerge in ice water. This makes the skins easy to remove. You then separate the seeds and skin from the inner flesh, and cook down for hours until it thickens into a sauce.

This cooking down process makes the house smell amazing, and warms it up on a chilly day. But this also takes a lot of time, and energy from the stove. I’m a fan of the new “lazy” way, and the sauce tastes just as good! So pull out your blender, and lets get started!

This recipe will make about 5 quarts of sauce.

Don’t add the spices if you want a plain tomato sauce, or change up the spices to whatever you want in the end product. This does use the water-bath canning method, read up on all possible dangers of canning or use a pressure canner if you are unsure.

Ingredients:

8-10 pounds assorted tomatoes
5-6 canning jars, lids, & rings
Per jar:
- 1 tbsp dried onion
- 1/2 tbsp dried garlic
- 2 tbsp basil
- 2 tbsp parsley
- pinch of salt
- 1 tbsp vinegar
Blender
Strainer
Cheesecloth or coffee filters

Step 1: Sterilize your jars by boiling for 5 minute,s or run them through the dishwasher. To each jar add the spices for the sauce. I also chose to add one whole tomato just diced to each jar, because I like a little texture in my sauce. You can skip that step and just add the pureed tomatoes.

Step 2: Wash all your tomatoes, and cut out the middle hard part & stem. Remove any brown or black spots or mushy areas. If you want to and have time, you can remove the seeds (and save them for next year!). Cut the tomatoes into quarters.

Step 3: Put the tomatoes into a blender, and blend in batches. My blender can handle about a dozen large tomatoes at a time. You may need to squish some juice out of them to get the blender going at first.

Step 4: Line a strainer over a large pot with coffee filters or cheesecloth. Pour the tomato puree into the strainer and let it sit. You can wait a few hours, or leave it over night if you have a lid. This lets most of the watery juice drip out, leaving the thicker sauce on top. Saves you the hours of boiling down, and now you can keep the tomato water too!

Step 5: Pour your separated sauce and tomato juice into prepared jars. Wipe the rims and put on the lid and ring. Process in the water bath for 35 minutes (adjust for altitude). Remove the jars to a cloth and let them cool 8-10 hours.

The jars are ready if you hear the “pop” of the lids seal, or if when you press down in the middle the lid does not spring back. Any jars that do not seal, put in the refrigerator and use within a week, or process them again.

The tomato broth that filters out is like liquid gold, and will be great as a base for soups and stews, or you can freeze it in ice cube trays to cook veggies in instead of using oil. The sauce will bring back the taste of summer later on in the dead of winter.

And this is how I processed and preserved about 50 pounds of tomatoes in two days time!

And it is so easy. As long as you use vinegar or lemon to acidify the tomatoes and broth, they are perfectly safe to water bath can at home. Enjoy preserving your bounty. Do you have more tomatoes than you know what to do with?

More things you can do with tomatoes:

Do you can or preserve? Have any other ways to save tomatoes? Tell us about it in the comments below.

Finances, Healthy, Informative

How to Save Tomato Seeds

September 15, 2015 BudgetEpicurean 1 Comment

As the world settles into the summer-fall change of pace, kids going back to school, traffic patterns adjusting, temperatures cooling off, birds are migrating, stores change their displays to autumn holidays, and gardeners are busy preserving the tapering bounty of produce.

In season now are fresh juicy peaches, heavy enough to break limbs as they nearly fall off the tree, pears of all shapes, sizes and colors, summer squashes like butternut, delicata, and sweet dumpling, the tail end of watermelon and cantaloupes, and the heat lovers like peppers and tomatoes are ramping down production.

Tomato_Seeds.1 — Although, this doesn’t look very ramped-down to me!

Meanwhile, the cold weather lovers like spinach, bok choi, brussels sprouts, pumpkins, and winter squash are coming alive and some may be planted now for a second fall/early winter harvest.

One of my absolute favorite things about gardening is the seeds. And the miracle that one tiny seed is capable of producing pounds upon pounds of produce. And that one single fruit from that plant, if you keep one single seed and plant it again, you can again get pounds and pounds of produce!

I honestly sit and wonder sometimes how many growing seasons it would take for one tomato seed to reproduce enough to cover the planet.

Say one tomato makes 200 seeds, and each seed is planted the next year to create 200 plants. Then each plant creates twenty fruits, each with 200 seeds. Now you have 40,000 seeds, each capable of being planted again the next year.

And so on.

Tomatoes could inherit the Earth in about 10 years, I think.

Tomato_Seeds.12 — Seeds from heirloom Italian tomato varieties

There are so many good reasons to save seeds:

It promotes heirloom varieties – non-GMO and non-altered versions of a plant that will create new, similar plants the following growing season; each unique
You produce plants that are best-adapted to your individual climate, elevation, and soil. No store-bought seeds can be ideally suited to every location, but a few growing seasons of choosing the best fruit and saving the seeds will breed the traits that are best for you & your plants
It is essentially free food! If you save seeds, you only have to buy them one time, but can plant indefinitely
It promotes self-reliance. If you can grow your own food year after year, it doesn’t matter if the store runs out or doesn’t have any nice-looking produce, you know you can harvest your own right out of your back yard
You can create ‘designer produce’. Seed saving is a little bit like genetic modification, only much slower and done as nature does. You can choose fruits based on how quickly they mature, how many leaves the plant grows, or color, and by choosing the trait(s) you want you can enhance the chance that more of the next generation will have those traits. Eventually you can create an entirely new, true-breeding species!

With that said, here’s how to save seeds from tomatoes easily. It is much simpler than you may think!

Ingredients:

1 large tomato of a variety you want to save
Cup of water
Time

Step 1: Cut the top off the tomato & discard or compost it.

Step 2: Cut the tomato into wedges, and squeeze out the pulp and seeds into a cup. It’s okay to get juice and goo in with the seeds, you will get rid of it soon.

Step 3: Cover with a paper towel or cloth and let it sit at room temperature for a day or two. The water may get frothy, and some seeds may sink while a few float. The goo will slowly degrade, leaving the seeds uncovered.

Step 4: Strain through a fine mesh strainer or cheesecloth, or simple pour off the cloudy water and re-cover until there is nothing left but seeds. Spread onto a plate and let air dry for 24 hours.

Step 5: Put the dry seeds into an envelope or other container, and store it in a cool, dry area where it is not likely to get wet or be invaded by insects.

Tomato_Seeds.4 — Canned tomato sauce from my garden tomatoes

Step 6: The next planting season, plant your seeds and watch them grow! Soon your seeds may have stories attached to them, you can create your own fun names for the new species, and pass them down to your friends and family for their enjoyment too.

More things you can do with tomatoes:

Do you can or preserve? Have any other ways to save tomatoes? Tell us about it in the comments below.

The fusion of food, fun, frugality, and curiosity.