Delicious foods and frugal recipes from some of our favorites!
We’re a big fan of delicious-tasting easy and cheap meals here at The Frugal Farmer. Keeping the grocery budget around $400 a month for our family of six takes some work, so we always take note when we find great meals that cost under $5. Here are some of our favorites: 
Beans and Rice Read more
Happy Friday, frugal friends! Today we welcome back contributing writer Anita with some terrific tips for planning a large vegetable garden. Thanks, Anita!
Years ago when I started gardening it wasn’t my intention to grow all the veggies that my husband and I would need for a whole year, I just wanted some fresh tasting tomatoes and a few other fresh veggies.
However, with the price of vegetables and fruits in grocery stores continually on the rise, I have made it my mission to grow and preserve as much of our food as possible, as a lot of other people across this nation are starting to do.
If the thought of a large vegetable garden appeals to you, here are some tips that can help your garden progress from hobby to serious food supply and planting a survival garden. Read more
Woohoo! 2013 is coming to a close, which means it’s time to celebrate!! We personally don’t care to drive on NYE, so we stay home most years, and either have a small group over here, or celebrate by ourselves. Along with celebrating and reflecting on the ending year, and sharing thoughts about the year to come, though, we make lots of awesome food. 🙂 Here are some New Year’s Eve recipes you might enjoy:
1. Cream cheese with green pepper jelly. I’ve really enjoyed sharing our fun canning experiences with my still-urban sis-in-law, whose garden bounty, in many ways, surpassed ours. She and Rick’s brother constructed some raised beds and pulled off an awesome bounty of lettuces, peppers and other goodies, from which she promptly canned a nice “crop” of green pepper jelly. For those of you who’ve never had green pepper jelly, know that it’s delicious, and goes great with nearly any type of basic cracker. To achieve this special look, sis-in-law took a bar of cream cheese, cut it diagonally, flipped the one piece to create a triangle shape, smothered with the jelly (any type of pepper jelly, or even a sweet salsa, like a peach salsa, will work here), and then cut out chunks of red pepper for the ornaments and star. The stem is a simple slice of celery stick. Delish as an appetizer, quick to make, and pretty too!
2. Puppy Chow. In our family, we’ve got certain desserts, appetizers or dishes that we make only on certain occasions, and Puppy Chow is saved for New Year’s Eve. This easy-peasy, tasty treat is a snap to make:
1/2 a stick of real butter
1/2 c. peanut butter
1 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 t. vanilla
1.5 c. powdered sugar
9 c. rice or corn Chex (a 12 oz. box of cereal will due here)
Pour Chex into large bowl. Melt butter in medium-sized saucepan over low heat. Add in peanut butter and chocolate chips, mixing until fully melted and combined. Remove from heat, add vanilla and mix well. Pour chocolate mixture over Chex, and mix gently and thoroughly with a spoon until all of the cereal is covered with chocolate. Then add the 1.5 c. powdered sugar, and mix well again, making sure to coat all pieces thoroughly. Spread on a cookie sheet to cool. Store in an airtight container in the fridge. This treat is easily 15 minutes from start to finish, and goes over well with everyone we serve it to.
3. Homemade potato chip/veggie dip. This recipe came about when we started working to eliminate additives such as MSG and high fructose corn syrup from our diet. The commercial dips were loaded with stuff we couldn’t pronounce and had never heard of, so we started experimenting with stuff at home. This particular dip is always a huge hit with guests. You can find the recipe by clicking here. It’s super easy, and you’ve likely already got all of the ingredients in your house.
4. Turkey roll-ups. Excuse the poor-quality pic here, my camera’s been acting funny and I have absolutely no idea how to fix it. These delightful appetizers are delicious and always a great way for me to get my kids to eat veggies. Simply:
Take a flour tortilla at room temperature. Spread cream cheese onto the half furthest away from you. On the half closest to you, place a thin slice or two of turkey, ham, or roast beef (or skip the meat and do veggies only), top that with thinly sliced cheese, tomato, red onion, cucumber or any other veggie that suites your tastes, keeping the veggies closest to your side of the tortilla. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, roll up tightly (the cream cheese on the furthest half of the tortilla will serve as “glue” to keep it from unrolling), and either serve sliced in half as a sandwich, or sliced thinly as I’ve done here for an appetizer. All party pleasers that are pretty easy to throw together.
What are your big plans/favorite treats for New Year’s Eve?
In our family, we’ve got certain desserts, appetizers or dishes that we make only on certain occasions, and Puppy Chow is saved for New Year’s Eve. Read more
Hey, friends! Welcome back our contributing writer, Anita, today, as she shares some great tips on saving money on dairy costs.
Unless you have a cow or goat that you can milk every day, then you are like me, at the mercy of the rising costs of dairy products. Every time I go to the store I remember the days when a gallon of milk was $1.00. Even though my husband and I only go through about 1-2 gallons per week, at $3.00+ a gallon, it adds up. I feel for those with kids: when I was growing up we went through several gallons per weeks, as I loved milk and drank a lot, plus all the cooking and baking my mother did. Read more
It’s no secret in my family that I just LOVE Thanksgiving! It’s one of my very favorite holidays. On what other day do you have permission to stuff yourself full of yummy food without the pressure of getting that perfect gift for Aunt Bertha? 🙂
We always have my family’s Thanksgiving celebration at our house, mostly because I love to cook and entertain. So I thought I’d share our 2013 Thanksgiving dinner menu with ya’ll, complete with my secrets for making everything extra yummy, along with some links to great recipes we have. And if you want to learn how we serve this delicious dinner on the cheap, you can do so by clicking here: Read more
No, this is not our yard with a random, runaway cucumber plant that just popped up, this is a pic of our sorely neglected 2013 garden.
We finally harvested the last of our garden veggies and fruits last week, and I can’t say I’m sad that the tedious task is done. If there’s one thing we’ve learned this year, is that gardening for survival purposes is a heck of a lot of work. There were days this summer, after dealing with storms, chopping wood, repairing our 125 year old house and all the other “fun” stuff we did as first-year homesteaders, where I couldn’t even bring myself to look at the garden. Alas, in spite of our neglect, we did manage to harvest a fair amount of veggies. Read more
Greetings, friends! Don’t you just love fall? There’s nothing that compares to the mild temps, the beautiful colors, and the heart-warming sounds of leaves crunching under you feet when fall comes around.
I thought that, it being fall and all, that I’d share today a different version of Good Reads. We’ll still run our Saturday PF version this week, but today I wanted to share some of the amazing fall recipes I’ve been finding out there! You’ve just got to try them!
1. Mr. CBB at Canadian Budget Binder shared a recipe for Pumpkin Spice Pound Cake with Brown Butter Buttercream. This is a sweet treat that’ll make your mouth water just looking at it. Great for Thanksgiving dinner!
2. Tanya from over at Eat Laugh Purr shared a yummy sounding recipe on Tackling Our Debt called Great Pumpkin Chili. I dare you to try this rich, different and super tasty version of chili.
3. Mario from Debt Blag shared an easy and frugal recipe for Pumpkin Pancakes. It’s a true “guy” recipe – even those boys (and girls 🙂 )who don’t care much for cooking can whip this one up easy enough.
4. Jim from Critical Financial had a rockin’ recipe for Wicked Good Pumpkin Seeds at his site, Critical Financial. We don’t usually roast our own pumpkin seeds, but we will this year!
5. Mr. CBB gets more link love today with his Roasted Pumpkin and Red Lentil Soup. There’s nothing like a warm soup to take the chill off of those cold winter days.
6. Tanya from over at Eat Laugh Purr gets double the love too, with this fun and easy recipe for Apple Monkey Bread with Maple Cream Cheese Glaze. You use pre-packaged biscuits with this one – super easy, and delicious!
7. And last but not least, here at The Frugal Farmer I shared a great recipe for Easy and Delicious Apple Crisp. Super simple, extra good!
Whether for Thanksgiving, Halloween, or just an extra special fall dinner at home, you can easily find reasons to try all of these great recipes. Have fun!
By far my most pressing and concerning questions from readers have to do with getting their grocery bill down. I’ve written on 7 Ways to Save Money on Groceries, and The Frugal Farmer’s Guide to Feeding Your Family for Less. Read more
Thanksgiving is just around the corner, my friends; a mere 5 weeks or so away! You may or may not entertain on Thanksgiving, but if you don’t, you can just forward this post to whoever’s house you go to on turkey day. 🙂
We entertain every year on Thanksgiving. It runs on my father’s side that we love to feed people, and we love to eat. Add that to my love of cooking, and you’re set up for one pretty darn yummy Thanksgiving dinner, but one that can get out of hand real quickly, cost-wise.
Here’s a sample menu from The Frugal Farmer on Thanksgiving Day and what we’d pay out of pocket full price: Read more
