Crooked Kitchen

One way to save money on food is to shop at local, independent markets, especially ethnic markets. When I was living in Santa Barbara, I did some exploring of the local markets, and found that prices on most real food were cheaper than prices at the chain supermarkets. Here in the LA area, I have a large ethnically-biased produce market that I do a lot of my shopping at.

Sunland Produce is a supermarket-sized business on the corner of a major intersection. I believe it’s owned by an Armenian family, and they seem to cater mostly to the local population of Eastern European, Middle Eastern, and Hispanic customers. Aside from the namesake produce section, there are aisles of ethnic pantry items.

Olive Oils

Some of the interesting things are the varieties of olive oils and vinegars. exotic pickles and peppers, cans of hummus and baba ghanoush, and all kinds of spices. There’s also a great bread aisle with all varieties of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern breads and pitas, and lots of interesting little cookies and desserts.

Continue reading to see the deli, meat counter, and huge produce section »

When I was young, I used to eat a quick breakfast of cold cereal, instant oatmeal, or a toaster item like frozen waffles or a Pop-Tart as soon as I got up, before rushing off to school. I was never especially hungry, but I knew I needed to eat something, because I wouldn’t have another opportunity for a meal for several hours. My first year of college, I had morning classes, and managed to get up early enough to get to the dining commons and have breakfast. Sometimes it was cereal and coffee, but often it was a larger breakfast of hot foods – eggs and pancakes, or a big bowl of oatmeal, or whatever else they had that day. After that, I started sleeping in more often, and eventually stopped really eating breakfast. When I did get up before lunch hours, I’d just have some coffee or tea.

More recently, I’ve gotten back to eating shortly after waking up. Many days, I find myself actually hungry in the morning. I think it has to do with my appetite being much better now that I’m getting adequate dialysis.

Several studies have shown that eating breakfast can help you eat fewer total calories during the day. Not only does that help a diet, but it means you probably also spend less on food. Not only that, but breakfast can often be made much cheaper than lunch or dinner. If you split your calories between three meals instead of two, and one is significantly less expensive, you save money.

I’ve worked out an example to illustrate my point. Let’s say you eat 2000 calories in one day. Let’s split that between lunch and dinner. For the sake of argument, we’ll say that lunch is constant, and you eat enough dinner to make up calories to reach a total of 2000.

• Lunch: cheeseburger and potato salad – 876 calories, $3.46
• Dinner: pot roast, vegetables, and a green salad – 1124 calories, $8.61
• Total: 2000 calories, $12.07

Now let’s add a typical hot breakfast, and adjust the amount of dinner eaten to stay at 2000 calories total:

• Breakfast: fried eggs, toast, and bacon – 417 calories, $1.06
• Lunch: cheeseburger and potato salad – 876 calories, $3.46
• Dinner: pot roast, vegetables, and a green salad – 707 calories, $5.41
• Total: 2000 calories, $9.93

You can see that, even though you consumed the same number of calories, there’s a 17.7% savings when you eat breakfast. Now, that’s not considering that you’ll tend to eat fewer calories. You might still be sated enough from lunch that you won’t eat that whole cheeseburger for lunch, or maybe you’ll snack less through the day (I haven’t accounted for snacking here, but if you snack, you could potentially save even more, as snacks tend to be more expensive per calorie than full meals).

Simple breakfasts are pretty cheap. Two eggs and toast comes out to a few cents (okay, maybe 50 cents). If you utilize leftovers, it gets even cheaper. An omelette using leftovers in half-free. Oatmeal is very thrifty too, as long as you don’t pile on the butter and out-of-season berries.

A great way to save money on food is to cook with cuts of meat you wouldn’t usually cook with. Some of the bony, fatty, ugly pieces of meat can be had very cheaply, and surprisingly, they have great potential in the kitchen if you know how to use them. Generally, the cheap meats have a lot of connective tissue, and are tough or hard to eat if you cook them the same way you’d cook an expensive cut.

The trick is braising. To braise a piece of meat is to cook it low and slow for a long time in a covered pot in a relatively small amount of flavorful liquid. The long slow cooking causes all the connective tissue to break down and turn into gelatin, which gives you that fall-off-the-bone consistency and nice savory flavor. Stewing is also an option – just the same method, but with much more liquid. Bony cuts contribute a lot of flavor to a stew’s broth.

Continue reading for examples, methods, and a recipe for pozole »