We’re down to canned goods and a few odd-ball items.  I should make a grocery list, huh?

I remembered seeing a recipe for homemade tomato soup in one of the Tightwad Gazette books.  Turns out it’s in the second one.  And I had most of the ingredients to make it.  No milk, but I still had almost a quart of half and half.  Turns out it’s very delicious made with the light cream.

I also tweaked the seasonings a bit.  Made a better tomato soup than I have ever had!  And who knew it could be so easy!  It even looks like Campb*ll’s!

The Tightwad Gazette II: Promoting Thrift as a Viable Alternative Lifestyle

‘Mater Soup

You’ll need:

• 1 (6 oz) can tomato paste
• 24 oz milk, ½ & ½, or heavy cream (use the tomato paste can and fill it 4x)
• 1 tsp salt
• ½ tsp celery salt
• ¼ tsp (or so) garlic powder

Just mix it all together in a medium sized sauce pan, and cook over medium heat just till it begins to bubble.   Maybe a bit sooner if you are using the heavy cream.

This makes enough for a lunch size serving for 4 or 5 kids.  We had this for lunch today, along with some crackers and canned chicken salad.

I gotta run!  Time to make that grocery list!

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Remember when I made applesauce and canned it last January?  Ooooooh!  That was some mighty delicious applesauce.  And pretty easy to make.  Of course I complicated things by canning the results. (We ate all that applesauce up way before it would have spoiled w/o canning.)  But still, it’s an easy and cheap way to get some wholesome, homemade applesauce.

Well, It’s going around the blogs.  If you read very many mom blogs then likely you have read about someone making applesauce in the crockpot.

I had to try it.

My grocery had red delicious on sale in the 5# bag for $1.99.  I had to make applesauce!  Had to!

All I did was peel the whole bagful and use my handy slicer/corer on ‘em and toss ‘em into the crockpot.  I added a bit of water, maybe a cup and a half and about a capful of lemon juice..  Turned the smarty-pants-pot on high and forgot about it for a few hours.  After about 3 hours, I checked it and gave it a stir, then left it alone for a couple more hours.  Way too easy!

When the apples were nice and mushy I used my potato masher and mashed ‘em right in the pot.  Then I put the sauce into quart jars and put ‘em in the fridge.

Th-th-th-that’s all, folks!

The bottom line is that I paid $1.99 for the apples, got 2 quarts of homemade applesauce out of it!  Lovely!

Linked to:

• Tightwad Tuesday
• Tackle it Tuesday
• Tasty Tuesday
• Toot Your Horn Tuesday
• Tempt my Tummy Tuesday
• Crockpot Wednesday
• Ultimate Recipe Swap

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Have I mentioned that teen aged Cowboys eat like vultures?  I have?  Well, I’m sayin’ it again!

My only tricks for keepin’ ‘em fed without breakin’ the bank are as follows.

• Feed ‘em beans.
• Homemade food is cheaper than store bought junk.
• Home baked bread is FAR cheaper and FAR more wholesome than any other bread you can buy.

I thought I would try to break down the cost of my home baked bread and compare it to the (at least) $3/loaf that I would otherwise have to shell out.

I’m not gonna factor in the equipment I use, because, #1.  I expect it to last my whole life and I don’t yet know how long I’m gonna live, and #2. You could use a different kind of mill than I have and you could use a different kind of mixer or just your hands and still make bread.  Too many variables for this time of night.

But, we can have a good look at the ingredients.  (Oh yeah, not gonna work out how much it costs to run my oven either.  Sorry.)  So, just the ingredients.

I make a 5 loaf batch.  The costs are for a whole batch.

• Wheat berries – $1.32
• Olive Oil – $0.75
• Honey – $0.93
• Yeast – $0.32
• Sea Salt – $0.08

Ready for this?  Total cost of ingredients to make 5 loaves of the healthiest bread I know how to make is $3.40.  For FIVE LOAVES of bread!  That’s $0.68 per loaf!

Shocked myself just there!  Wow!  I knew it was saving us a bundle, I just never ran the numbers before.

If I were to serve only store bought bread we would use about 10 loaves a week.  $30 minimum.  The home baked bread gets made an average of 2.5 times per week.  $8.50 + electricity to run my mill, mixer and oven.

No contest, folks!

You may be wondering, why we would eat more loaves of home baked bread than of store bought bread.  Well, I guess you might wonder that if you’ve never eaten home baked bread.  It’s delicious!  And it’s so wholesome that I just don’t hesitate when the kids ask for another piece of bread.

Here’s a site with lots of wholesome bread recipes. And here is a thorough tutorial on how to make bread by hand. And one for those of you who want to try the soaked method.

And if you don’t mind getting your toes stepped on a little bit, check out this marvelous article called The Bread of Idleness by Sue Becker.  Read that and then go have a productive day!  :D

Linked to:

• Gratituesday
• Tightwad Tuesday
• Toot Your Horn Tuesday
• Tempt My Tummy Tuesday
• Tightwad Tuesday ( Canada Girl)

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