One Week’s Food: Our Version

Last November, Eric wrote about an interesting photo essay by Time magazine called “What the World Eats”. We were so inspired by those photos that Eric and I set out to create our own photo. If you haven’t seen this series of photos yet, make sure to check it out. It’s truly fascinating (and sometimes humbling) to see what families around the world eat in a week.

Here is my family’s photo:

United States: Family of two in Texas

If you mouse over the food items, you should get a popup that tells you what the item is. This food is what we are actually going to eat this week. We tried very hard to make it as accurate as possible; even including condiments and cooking oil. But, instead of showing the actual amounts and varieties of spices we used three bottles to represent all the spices. I also didn’t have a small enough bottle of canola oil so I substituted a bottle of almond oil in the photo.

So, what’s on the menu? This week, Eric is attending an intense class to prepare for his big certification. This means he will be gone until late in the evening every night. I wanted to make dishes that would reheat well for lunches and late dinners. I also wanted to make some of Eric’s favorites so he has something comforting to look forward to during the tough days ahead.

The menu:

Sunday	Roasted Chicken Legs w/ Veggie Medley
Monday	Chicken Tomatillo Enchiladas w/ Black Beans & Yellow Rice
Tuesday	Chicken Divan w/ Rice
Wednesday	King Ranch Chicken
Thursday	Pork Adobo w/ Baked Sweet Potatoes
Friday	Leftovers
Saturday	Leftovers or Turkey & Cheese Sandwiches

Breakfasts will be cereal for me and granola bars for Eric. For lunch, Eric gets leftovers from the night before (or a turkey & cheese sandwich) with a fresh salad and nuts and I’ll have soup, sandwich, or a Hot Pocket (they were on sale). Dessert will be peppermint ice cream. This is the only time of year they have this flavor and we both love it!

Actual cost of the items we bought from the store: $67.25
Estimated cost of additional ingredients from home: $9.15
Total expenditure for one week’s food: $76.40

That is right on target for getting my food budget back on track. Our monthly budget for groceries is $350 but I try to aim for $75 a week. It feels good to be budgeting again!

One of the USA’s families spent $350 a week for food! Granted, they had two teenage sons but wow! Judging by the brand name and fast foods I see in their photo I have to assume they weren’t eating on a tight budget.

I would love to see other frugal-minded people do the same sort of “what the world eats” photo. Lots of American families eat really well on a budget. What would your photo look like for a week’s worth of food? Consider doing your own version and sharing it with us!

If you create your own version please trackback, pingback or send me an email - I’d love to link to it.

Reducipe - Toscana Soup

Reducipe
Pronunciation: ri-doos-uh-pee
Function: noun
1 : a recipe that can help lower your food costs in a variety of ways
     a : by scaling back an expensive recipe to be less pricey but still just as tasty
     b : by turning an already inexpensive meal into something special
     c : by using leftovers in creative ways to stretch their use

Toscano Soup Toscana soup is one of my favorite cold weather soups and it’s so simple you won’t believe it. Eric really enjoys it and always wants me to make a big pot so he has plenty of leftovers. I particularly like to make this when I have some extra cream in the fridge I need to use up.

Whenever I go to the Olive Garden I always order a bowl of their Zuppa Toscana. It is the one dish I never pass up. I love the combination of creamy broth, tender potatoes, and zesty sausage. I decided to use those flavors as inspiration for this home-cooked version.

I like to think of this as a spicy and flavorful potato soup. The broth is amazing so don’t forget to get several loaves of crusty bread to soak it up with! You won’t be sorry!

Toscana Soup

6 cans (14.5 oz each) reduced sodium chicken broth
1/2-1 cup heavy cream
1/2 lb italian sausage (spicy preferred), casings removed
1 large yellow onion, diced
3-4 medium gold potatoes, peeled and sliced thinly
Garlic Powder, to taste
Crushed red pepper, to taste
Kosher salt, to taste
Freshly cracked black pepper, to taste

Combine the chicken broth and heavy cream in a large soup pot over medium heat. Bring to a simmer, stirring occasionally, then add the potatoes.

Place a large skillet over medium heat. Break the Italian sausage into small pieces and add it to the pan. Once the sausage has rendered some fat add the onions. Sauté this mixture until the sausage is cooked through and the onions are translucent. Add the sausage and onion mixture to the broth mixture in the soup pot. Add a pinch of garlic powder and crushed red pepper, if you like it spicy.

Allow the soup to simmer for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally, taking care not to break up the potato slices. Season with kosher salt and black pepper and serve hot with plenty of crusty French bread. Serves 8-10 generously (break out the big bowls!)

Tips and tricks: Be sure not to add too much red pepper during the cooking process. If you go too heavy at the beginning it will be scorchingly hot after simmering 30 minutes. Eric actually likes it super spicy but I’m sure most would prefer it medium.

This soup is super flexible. If you want it less brothy simply use less broth and cream. You can make it lower in fat by reducing the cream and draining the sausage well. If you like more meat, add more. I like using gold potatoes for this because I think they are less likely to fall apart in the soup but you can use whatever potatoes you have on hand. It’s very forgiving. If you want to add something green (you know, to make it a little healthier) you can always add kale. I tend to like mine without it though.

Ingredient	Cost	Ingredient	Cost
Chicken Broth	$3.00	Onion	$0.87
Cream	$0.90	Potatoes	$1.24
Italian Sausage	$1.78	Spices	N/A
		Total	$7.79 or $0.78 a serving

Keep in mind that when I bought these ingredients I didn’t use coupons or sales so this is what it cost at “full price” for me. Imagine how inexpensive it could get if you made your own broth and used leftover cream and potatoes. Enjoy!

Carnival Of The Recipes - Cooking On A Budget Edition

It’s time for the Carnival of the Recipes - Cooking on a Budget Edition! This carnival features the efforts and ideas of those who enjoy cooking and creating wonderful recipes. It’s like a great recipe swap every week!

If you are new to A Penny Closer, welcome! This is a blog about a couple who are working together to reach their goals through budgeting, saving, and learning about frugality. You can read more about our story here or view a single page of all of our posts in our archives.

I have a serious love affair with cooking so every week I feature a recipe called a “Reducipe“. They are recipes designed to reduce your grocery bills by making an expensive meal cheaper, or an already cheap meal better.

Saving money through cost cutting measures in the kitchen can greatly impact your bottom line. I feel it is one of the most flexible and dynamic areas of the budget. With the holidays right around the corner who couldn’t benefit from saving some cash on meals?

We had a lot of wonderful submissions this week and I’ve marked my personal favorites with a star (*). Please enjoy!

Holiday Related

*Christine presents Vin Chaud - Hot Wine for the Holidays! posted at Me, My Kid and Life: An American Single Mom Living in France. This is a simple and inexpensive holiday drink to serve at parties. I love that she tried this with expensive and cheap wine and the cheap wine was better! That is always a plus. She also shares with us a kid-friendly version in Hot Orange Juice and Honey for the Holidays!

*Karen Weideman presents Corn Casserole Recipe posted at Balance In Diet. This corn casserole sounds creamy and sweet. I like that it uses cheddar for that savory and salty kick. I’m definitely going to try this one very soon.

*Adam presents Green Bean Casserole Alternative posted at Men in Aprons. Even though I tend to like traditional-style green bean casserole (as long as it is doctored up) I can certainly see why MIA is against it. So many of those casseroles ARE nasty. I think his alternative sounds great - maybe it is time to ditch the condensed soup after all!

Suzanne presents Our Yummy Stuffing Dressing posted at :: adventures in daily living ::. This dressing features raisins, pecans, and tangy dried cranberries. Very festive!

Chef Andrew presents Black Eyed Pea Dip posted at The Recipe Bank. Although he says this is good for a tailgating party I bet this recipe would do fine at an office party or potluck as well. Black eyed peas are traditional around the holidays so this is something I’d love to try.

Diabetic Recipes presents Crunchy Banana-Colada Bread posted at Diabetic Recipes. It says this makes a healthy banana bread perfect for the holidays. Personally, I think anything using coconut is great with the holidays and using granola bars is very inventive.

Career Counselor presents Holiday Season: Simple Ways to Increase Morale and Happiness at Your Office posted at ask the CareerCounselor. Help drum up the holiday spirit around the office with some yummy treats! Here are 6 links to scrumptious looking snacks you can make for co-workers. The holiday bark sounds delicious!

Chef Andrew presents The Recipe Bank: Appetizer posted at The Recipe Bank. Chef Andrew shares a collection of appetizer recipes perfect for casual parties. The layered barbeque bean dip looks like an interesting variation on the popular 7 layer dip. Anything with bacon makes it a hit for me!

Soup’s On!

*mom & dad presents Making Chili With Leftover Thanksgiving Turkey posted at raising4boys.com. Making chili is a wonderful way to use leftover turkey and this recipe looks really good and family-friendly. The spices would help change the flavor enough to help you keep on using up those leftovers even after you get sick of turkey (usually by the third day for me). Nice photos, too!

*Betsy Teutsch presents High-Quality-of-Life Double Mushroom Barley Soup posted at Money Changes Things. This hearty recipe just begs to be eaten on a frosty winter night. The fact that it is vegetarian is a bonus because I can make a big pot and share it with all of my friends.

Bill presents Crockpot Beef Stew posted at Slow Cooker Recipes. This looks like classic comfort food to me. It’s funny how some of the most soothing food is so simple and inexpensive to make.

Tim Abbott for David Churbuck presents On Chowder posted at Churbuck.com. I don’t see much chowder where I’m from so I wouldn’t be able to identify a proper version if I wanted to. I loved this well-written story about a man and his memories of making chowder. The story made me hungry even though I had just eaten!

Maximizing Meals

*DeputyHeadmistress presents Autumn Sausage posted at The Common Room. Autumn Sausage - A great inexpensive entree with sweet potatoes (one of Eric’s favorites), sausage, and apples. Sounds hearty and the sweet potato and veggies are healthier than what you would normally eat with sausage.

Kathee presents Chicken Style Sloppy Joes posted at Chicken Recipes. This is a nice sloppy joe recipe that uses chicken instead of ground beef. Who needs canned sloppy joe mix when you can make it from scratch so easily?

Chef Andrew presents The Recipe Bank: International posted at The Recipe Bank. This first recipe on this page is a Chimichurri Burger (there are lots of great recipes at this link). Eric and I enjoy a burger night every once in a while. To save money, we usually buy a large amount of ground beef and separate it into portions of a little over 3/4 a pound each. We can then freeze these and we split on portion of hamburger for meals that require it. This burger sounds very interesting with lots of unusual ingredients (cabbage, carrots, and cilantro among others). Eric always loves an exotic burger so I can’t wait to try these out.

Thelly presents Chicken Lasagna posted at Chicken Recipes. This reminds me of a local favorite called King Ranch Chicken. I bet this would be great with chili powder and cumin. Reinventing shredded chicken is an art form and variety like this is key to keeping it interesting.

Elisson presents PIZZA OF THE WEIRD posted at Blog d’Elisson. I think pairing apple with cheddar is a good combination. I love that he used these flavors to create a pizza. The picture looks great!

Pancake Recipes presents Lemon Pancake Recipe posted at Pancake Recipe. I wasn’t sure where to place this one. Eric says that when he lived in the Netherlands that they used to eat pancakes as a main course. This recipe sounds great, and the addition of cottage cheese or yogurt makes me believe these pancakes will be extra yummy. I’d probably use yogurt since Eric absolutely loves it.

Healthy Eating

World Famous Recipes presents Healthy Turkey Loaf - Turkey Meatloaf posted at World Famous Recipes. This meatloaf looks simple and spicy. It uses salsa and peppers to add flavor rather than fat. I bet it would be good with more salsa poured on top of each slice just before serving.

Turkey Recipes presents Turkey Burgers posted at Turkey Recipes. This turkey burger uses a dried tomato sauce made from minced dried tomatoes and yogurt instead of ketchup as a condiment. It sounds light and tasty and the onion bun is a nice touch!

Joel Fuhrman, MD presents Green, Green, Food, Food! posted at Disease Proof. Wow - just reading this trio of green veggie recipes made me feel healthier. I’m always looking for ways to incorporate the good stuff into our diet.

Deb Bixler presents Cheap Family Meals posted at Increase Metabolism & Live Healthy. Deb gives us tips and tricks on how to eat healthy when on a budget. You know, it’s funny but I find the weeks that I buy mostly fresh food are more expensive than other weeks. I guess that is because fresh foods usually don’t have coupons.

Saving On Sweets

*Stephanie presents Rice - The Perfect Frugal Food posted at Stop the Ride!. Incredibly simple, very flavorful and inexpensive dessert. You can’t get much more frugal than this! We almost always make too much rice when we cook it so this sounds like a great way to use that leftover rice.

*Lucynda Riley presents Apple Biscotti posted at Quietly into the Night. What a cool idea! She says this is like an apple pie in biscotti form. With all the apple pie spices it seems perfect for the season.

cookingfor5 presents Puppy Chow, Chex Chocolate Snack Mix posted at Simply Cooking. I remember this oddly named snack from years back as well. It was very addictive!

Famous Recipes presents Fudgy Pecan Pie Recipe posted at Famous Recipes. I have had plenty of pecan pie but never fudge pecan pie. Sounds delicious!

Smarter Dollar presents Peach Pound Cake posted at Famous Recipes. Oh man, pound cake! Pound cake is a favorite of mine and this recipe looks great with the fresh peaches. Yum!

Lucynda Riley presents Roasted figs with honey and Rosemary posted at Quietly Into the Night. There is something so elegant and sophisticated about figs. If you have a fig tree you are in for some really good, cheap desserts.

Cooking Know-How

*Melanie Rimmer presents How to Make Greek Yogurt posted at Bean-Sprouts. Melanie shows us how to make our own Greek yogurt. She walks through the entire process with detailed instructions and pictures. Now I don’t have an excuse for not trying to make yogurt from scratch. We’ve made Greek yogurt before using store-bought yogurt and straining it with cheesecloth for Raita to go with some of our Indian dishes. It’s delicious! You can also eat it on it’s own (Melanie suggests adding honey too) as a dessert.

*Rebecca presents Design a Brine posted at The Experimental Kitchen. Brining is a wonderful way to add a lot of flavor to your meat before cooking it. We eat a lot of roast chicken and to save money we usually buy whole chickens. We’ll brine the chicken overnight (sometimes longer) and it adds a wonderful flavor. We’ll roast all the chicken at once but our first meal is always just the roasted chicken with some vegetables. Then we take the rest and remove it from the bones for meals for the entire week. In this post, Rebecca walks us through designing our brine to add the flavors we want, as well as the proper proportions depending on how much meat we are flavoring. Great instructions to follow!

Karen Weideman presents Easy Homemade Brown Sugar posted at Thrifty Mommy. I didn’t realize just how easy it was to make your own brown sugar! Karen shows us how to save some money by making it on your own.

Maria Fernandez presents The Silver Spoon - Il cucchiaio d’argento posted at Learn a foreign language - blog. Maria shares with us a very popular cookbook in Italy. I bet you can get a lot of fabulous recipes from that!

–ooOOoo–
So many great recipes this time! Everyone’s got a lot of cooking to do now. Thanks everyone for submitting these wonderful recipes to the carnival!

Most images on this page are from posts for submitted recipes. Turkey burger image by jetalone.

One Week’s Food

I came across this photo essay on the time.com website a while back. It shows a picture of a family and the food they eat in a week, along with the price and a few of their favorite foods. You can find the link here. It’s well worth a look.

A few things surprised me when I looked at this. I actually read through it a few times.

Is this how much people typically spend on food? I’ll have to admit that for a very long time I never paid attention to the food bills. I just bought what I wanted at the grocery store, usually going without a list, and then paid at the end and never tracked what I spent. As Melissa and I chose to live fully aware of our spending, we started tracking our food bills very closely. On an average week, we live on about $75 worth of food. When the month is tight, we can pull that weekly total down to $50 (and have managed to get it down to less than $40 when we had to). Some families (granted, there is going to be some difference based on currency exchange) spent nearly $500!

The American family from North Carolina had virtually no fresh food. I see some meat up front, a few tomatoes, and some grapes. The rest of it was processed food and fast food. Their expenditure for a family of 4 was nearly $350! In the US, to eat cheaply is seems that you have to buy processed food (you know, the kind that’s always on sale and has really good coupons). In our case, our most expensive weeks are when we have the most fresh food. There are never coupons for the fresh food. One thing I did notice was that there was a lot of fast food and that isn’t cheap. Their food bill is $1400 a month!

Another thing I noticed was that in many of the photos the families had large amounts of soda. Soda is an expense that is completely unnecessary in my book and it holds zero nutritional value. I wish I could convince Melissa of this but she just won’t give up her soda.

Some of the poorest locations had the most fresh food. The people from Chad had nearly nothing. The people from Ecuador had almost exclusively fresh food. The most healthy way to eat, lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, was enjoyed more by the poorest countries, and less by the wealthiest. Why is that?

The discrepancy in costs was also amazing. The people in Germany spent $500 a week on food, while the people in Chad spent $1.23! That’s an enormous difference. I know there are reasons for the differences, but it still shocked me. Honestly, if I were spending $500 a week on food, I don’t think we’d be able to afford it! That’s $2000 a month (roughly). That’s double the house payment!

I also found it fascinating to see what people in different countries eat. I had no idea that frozen pizza was so popular around the world. Or that people drank quite so much soda. Just seeing the volume differences was interesting too.

Overall I just found the photos amazing and really appreciate that Time did this photo essay. Once we move I think I might try to put together a photo of what our family eats in a week and the total amount of money spent. I think that would be pretty interesting.

Reducipe - The “Weeknight” Taco

Now I’m hungry! I call these tacos “weeknight” tacos because they are easy to make and can please the whole family. They remind me of the ground beef and spice mix tacos I used to get as a child except now I make them a little more “grown up” with pico de gallo (instead of tomatoes) and hot sauce.

I remember it was always fun to get tacos because I could add my own toppings and make it how I wanted it. I actually look forward to taco nights now as much as I did back then. This recipe is just that good!

Beef and Bean Tacos are a great way to stretch your grocery dollars. By adding inexpensive canned refried beans you only need a half pound of ground beef. You won’t even miss the extra beef in this dish. Using beans to cut down on the beef is good for your budget and your waistline.

Beef and Bean Tacos

1-2 teaspoons olive oil
1/2 lb ground beef
1 onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 package taco seasoning mix (hot or mild)
1/3 cup water
1 can refried beans
10-12 crunchy taco shells

Toppings:
Shredded Cheddar Cheese
Hot sauce (we prefer mild green Tabasco for this recipe)
Pico de gallo (recipe follows)
Cilantro, chopped
Shredded lettuce

Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the oil then add the beef, onion, garlic, and seasoning mix. Cook, breaking up the beef with wooden spoon, until browned. Stir in the water. Cook, until the liquid has evaporated, about 3-5 minutes. Stir in the beans and heat through.

Spoon the beef mixture into each taco. Top each with cheddar cheese, a few dashes of hot sauce, pico de gallo, cilantro, and lettuce. Serve with additional hot sauce. Makes 10-12 tacos.

We prefer the mild green Tabasco sauce with this meal because it adds vinegar which helps cut through the rich and heavily spiced beef mixture. I feel a simple vinegar-based hot sauce really makes this dish sing.

Tips: Heat up the taco shells in the oven for a few minutes while you finish cooking the beef mixture. It improves the flavor of the prepackaged shells and helps keep them from breaking.

Also - I highly recommend that when you build your tacos that you put the cheese directly on top of the beef so it can melt from the heat. I build the tacos in this order: beef, cheese, hot sauce, pico de gallo, cilantro, and lettuce. I find that gives the best results over all.

The beef mixture reheats beautifully. Just keep all the other toppings separate when packing for lunch. A wonderful way to use up the rest of the lettuce and any broken taco shells is to make a taco salad. Use the juice from the pico de gallo as a light dressing.

Here is a quick and easy pico de gallo recipe that we like. We tend to use yellow onions but feel free to use whatever onion you have leftover. Adjust the jalapeno to the heat level you can handle.

Pico de Gallo

1/2 cup Roma tomatoes, seeded and diced
1/4 cup onion, diced
1 tablespoon jalapeno, minced
1 tablespoon garlic, minced
2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro leaves
2 limes
Kosher Salt, to taste

Mix the tomato, onion, jalapeno, garlic, and cilantro in a bowl. Squeeze the limes over the mixture and add salt, to taste. Mix thoroughly and let stand for at least 30 minutes for the flavors to marry.