Saving money when shopping

John Harrelson · 03-24-2008, 12:59 PM

Some of you have read my postings where I have showed how I can live on about $100 to $125 (+/-) a month.. by planning ahead and buying the larger size packages..

Well here is a classic example of how I do that ...

Last month while shopping at Wal-Mart, I spotted frozen chicken legs on a "Discontinued" sale... 4 pound package ... $2.99... regular price was $5.99 ..... I grabbed two packages.

First thing I did when I got home was dump them into the crock pot with 1 tsp each of salt and black pepper and let them cook for about 6 or 8 hours on high... until the meat fell off the bone..

When cooled, I picked the meat from the bones and gristle and divided the meat into quart size freezer baggies .. and then into the freezer.
(each baggie is about 1 pound of chicken)

Now this morning I placed the contents of one baggie into the crock pot along with ...

4..... red potatoes, 1/2" cubes ...each red potato is about 4" diameter
1/2... yellow onion, 1" pieces
15.... (+/-) baby carrots ... the little tiny ones
2...... Tbsp chicken bullion granules
1...... Tbsp celery seeds
1/2.... tsp pepper corns

and let the stew cook until the potatoes and carrots are tender...(high or Low temp is your choice)

and ... presto... I have enough chicken stew for 4 or 5 meals ... served with either home made corn bread or home made biscuits..

Important Note :

You will notice that I did not add any salt to the stew... the reason is because of the Bullion granules...

all flavors of bullion cubes and granules are basically nothing but salt with some yellow coloring and flavor added..

So until the stew is finished cooking, I won't know how much more salt or bullion to add to it..

I'll just taste the finished stew and add as much salt or chicken bullion, as my taste buds like... everybody's taste for salt is different..

Remember the 1st rule of cooking... "Salt is easily added but impossible to remove"

This is just one way to save money and serve up a good tasting as well as a filling meal.

Best Wishes,
John

C&C R · 03-25-2008, 10:13 AM

Good idea. Will try that. We usually go to BJ's and buy the big packages of meat. Then I break them down at home.

Do you have a second freezer?

They say if you add potato to something real salty, it draws it out. I don't know. I can't have salt so don't cook with it.

The Lavin's · 03-25-2008, 10:17 AM

Thanks for the recipe John. It really looks good and I am going to try it soon.
Keep them coming.
We all need to know how to conserve somewhere if we want to be able to keep traveling.

Linda

diandtom · 03-27-2008, 12:12 PM

John,IF you do over salt some of the salt will be aborbed if you put a slice or two of potato in whatever you are cooking.Just remember to remove the salty potato and don't eat it!

Dianne

John Harrelson · 03-27-2008, 01:23 PM

Actually folks, the "potato and Salt" story is more of an "Old Wives Tale" than anything else..

Lets say that you are preparing a beef stew that calls for ... ohhh ... say 4 or 5 potatoes cut into 1" cubes.

Then for whatever the reason, you accidentally dump in twice as much salt as the recipe calls for in the mixture..

To reduce the salt taste in the stew, you would have to dump out all of the liquid already in the pot and add several POUNDS of potatoes to even make a dent in lessening the salty taste..

and think about this....
once you have mixed in the extra cubed or chopped up potatoes to "Soak Up" the extra salt...
how do you tell which potatoes are the ones with the extra salt in them ??

That means that your "Beef Stew" has now become a "Potato" stew with a little bit of beef added to it..

Then there are dishes like......

casseroles,
breads,
hamburgers,
meatloaf,
stroganoff,
tuna fish salads,
macaroni salads,
salad dressings, ..... etc.. etc...

If you dump too much salt into the flour mixture when preparing the dough for making home made bread or dinner rolls...

how many potatoes do you use and how do the chopped up potatoes soak up the salt from the flour and shortening mixture ?

Or let's say you are making home made hamburger patties or maybe a meatloaf and accidentally add too much salt to the meat...

How do you go about removing the excess salt with chopped up potatoes ?

heh heh heh heh .... yeh, I know... I'm a smart*ss..

but trust me on this one folks... after almost thirty years in the restaurant business,, I have learned that if you put too much salt into almost any food .. it's not going to come back out...

About the only dish where the old "Potato and Salt" tale may have even a remote chance of working... is Potato soup ...

and if that happens , you better plan on making lots and lots and lots of soup, because it's going to take that many potatoes to do the trick..

Best Wishes,
John

amy5708 · 03-31-2008, 03:46 PM

Hi John,

I wrote an entry on my blog about this a couple weeks ago:
http://werv4fun.com/blog/2008/03/20/...our-groceries/

We used to live off $150-200 when I was a stay at home mom and could really pinch a penny until it screamed! I was a huge fan of chicken leg quarters; when on sale I would get 30 pounds or more for $.39 per pound and boil them all in the canner, then pick and freeze in meal-sized portions!

Now I use coupons, but I'm not nearly so frugal since I work full-time. Being cheap takes a lot of time and work!!

C&C R · 04-02-2008, 01:38 PM

I understand why the potato won't work in some cases.
Another thing I will start doing again is going to the day old bread and cookie store. That's not the name, but I can't think of it now. I buy bread, cookies, rolls, etc a day or two out of date and freeze them. Can't tell the difference. 1/2 the price.