Pampering my Inner Julia - Boeuf Bourguignon for 2

All good frugality intentions must sometimes go out the window. I saw Julie and Julia last week, and ever since, have been determined to make her Boeuf Bourguignon recipe from Mastering The Art Of French Cooking. As there's only two of us - me and El Duque - I figured that cutting her recipe down by 2/3 would do the trick. I also thought it would have the advantage of needing much less cooking time.

I was right, but man, it was complicated! I think it took nearly an hour to pull all the bits and pieces together - skinning the pearl onions, slicing the regular onion and carrot, drying the beef bits, double-browning the beef, etc. So many techniques I was totally unfamiliar with! But they all made sense. And even though El Duque professes not to like French food, he asked for seconds, so I figure it's a successful Sunday night dinner.

Here's how I did it:

Well, first, I basically followed the recipe.

1. Got a pound of beef, pre-cut.

2. Got a half pound of mushrooms, pre-sliced.

3. Bought fresh (not frozen) pearl onions, and peeled 8.

4. Bought a regular size bottle of Gallo Burgundy. (El Duque was NOT happy, as he's a wine snob, but fortunately, it worked fine.)

5. I didn't have beef broth, but I did have beef bouillon cubes, so I put one to work. Worked fine.

6. I followed the recipe pretty carefully - blanched the bacon, browned the beef in the bacon fat on the stove top, then tossed it in flour and browned it in the oven, etc. Although I made a few booboos - I put the bacon and the beef in the oven to brown with the flour (only should have put the beef), and didn't realize that I needed to put the browned sliced onion and carrot into the mix when the casserole went into the oven. The first didn't affect the ultimate taste of the stew, and the second was easy to fix - I got the veggies in only about 10 minutes after the stew went into the oven.

7. When I realized I had to cook the mushrooms and the pearl onions separately from the stew, I got inspired. I had blanched the bacon in a 10 inch frying pan, and decided to use the same frying pan, with the bits of bacon grease, to brown the mushrooms.

8. I also realized that I really had put too much liquid in the stew. And there was lots of nice flavor on the bottom of the frying pan when I was done browning the mushrooms. So instead of washing it off, I put the requisite oil and butter into the pan, browned the onions for the 10 minutes the recipe required. I then took a baster and pulled about half a cup of liquid from the stew and put it into the frying pan so that the onions could braise. As there were only 8 onions, I braised them for 35 minutes instead of 45, and it worked out great. They could have been braised even for 30 minutes, and it would have been OK. And the sauce that resulted was really lovely.

9. The stew was pretty much ready after only about an hour and 15 minutes to cook, rather than 3 hours! Some time I'll try cooking it longer, as I could see the flavor of the sauce could have infused the meat more, but I really didn't want us to eat at 9 pm.

10. When I strained the sauce from the stew, I realized that I could use the thick sauce from the braised onions and mix it with the stew's sauce and make a really thick and marvelous sauce. And it worked! I might use it as a base for the next time I make this dish, or some other beef stew ... or I might just use it as a sauce for noodles.

Next time I make this, I'm probably going to use a lot more pearl onions. Those babies were GOOD. I also might make the full recipe, so that we have leftovers. (Yep, El Duque requested.) And I'll definitely start it a few hours earlier, so that we can eat earlier!

Next challenge: Coq Au Vin. I'd love to try it during the week, but I think it's going to be next Sunday.

Peach Preserves On The Cheap

Figuring out how to maximize the food dollar is pretty important here in the Jumper homestead. Especially as El Duque (my husband) is a big man, with an appetite to match. My wish to economize tends to war with his wish to be well fed. 

So, I'm trying an experiment this month. I figured that we eat out twice a week, which means that I need vittles for dinners 22 of the month's 30 days ... give or take. So, I've taken to menu planning. After nearly four years of cooking dinners, I have a pretty good idea of what El Duque likes to eat, and what I like to eat, as well, which has made figuring out protein for a month not too hard. 

I figure I'll get fresh stuff once a week - veggies and fruit. I bought a bunch of fruit this past weekend, to see how long it lasts. Nectarines, peaches, apricots, pears. Pears are really not in season right now, so I'll probably not eat them until the yummy juicy fruits are et. Apricots are already gone, so I'll see how long the nectarines and peaches last. Hopefully, I can cut my monthly food bill down another $50 this month.

I miss my NYC farmer's markets a LOT, but Chicago has them, too. Back in NY, I used to wait until just before the market closed, when vendors wanted to get rid of stuff, and pick up shleppy fruit cheap. I'd get all these lovely overripe drippy peaches, take them home, and make peach preserves. Ahh. Summer in a jar. There's no real need to buy pectin - peaches have natural pectin, so it jams nicely. And it's super simple to make. 

Cheap Peach Preserves

Get as many shleppy overripe peaches as you can. 

Stone the peaches, then cut them up till you've hit the 2 c mark in a Pyrex pitcher. No need to peel them.

Dump em in a bowl.

Mix in 1 1/2 c sugar (you can use less if the peaches are very sweet - you'll figure out what you like). 

Mix in 1 T lemon juice (can use RealLemon).

Let this mixture stand at room temp for about 2 hours. (Cover with plastic wrap)

Pour into a saucepan, bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a slow boil and cook, uncovered, 1 to 1 1/2 hours, until the fruit is translucent.

Pour into a clean jar.

Makes about 2 cups.

And it is ambrosial. 

I'll be heading out to a local farmer's market this Saturday. Hopefully, I'll find some nice shleppy peaches!

Budgeting

OK, I meant it when I said I'd teach you how to budget. It's not hard, but you do need a few tools, and about an hour. Definitely set up the timer, so that you'll know when you can quit. And really, this is a simple one - no huge spreadsheets. 

To start: 

1. Get a blank notebook, with pages of a reasonable size. I like pages that are at least 5 x 8.

2. Grab your checkbook. What you really need are the registers, so that you can go back about 6 months and get a sense of what you spend. 

3. Pens & pencils. 

Step one: Know what your basic "nut" is. That is, how much you must spend on your basic bills. In your notebook, set up three columns. In the first, make a list of the various fixed (or relatively fixed) categories.:

Rent

Land line

Cable TV

Internet

Cell phone 1

Cell phone 2

Electric bill 

Car/home insurance payments

Health insurance

Credit cards (list each one separately)

Most of these amounts tend to be the same every month, except credit cards. Check back over the last six months, and enter the average in the second column. THose are your estimated payments for each month. 

The rest of the list consists of more discretionary items - they may be necessities, but the spending fluctuates more. Here are some of those items:

Daily money (use your monthly cash withdrawals to get a sense of this amount)

Groceries

Dinners out

Medications and vitamins

Miscellaneous

If you're not sure how much you spend on groceries, use your cash card to buy groceries for one month, and add up the expenditures. Same for eating out, and little miscellaneous purchases, like stuff from the drug store. Also, if you're not sure how much cash you spend on this n that, add up how much cash you take out from your account, and use that as a figure. 

In the third column, you'll be entering the actual expenses for each month, as you pay your bills and at the end, when you add up your discretionary expenses.

Draw a line under the three columns. Below that line, make several small columns. At the top of each, write in the name of a discretionary category. I use the five above, but you might want to add a few more, such as vanity or movies. Each time I spend or withdraw money in one of those categories, whether cash or debit card, I enter it in one of those columns, so that I know how much is flowing through those categories from month to month when I add them up.

The idea, really, is to know how much your necessities cost, and how much you tend to spend when you're not conscious of it. I don't recommend recording every single penny spent in a little notebook, as that can get tedious. But be aware that it's really easy to fritter away pocket cash, and not even notice you're doing so. Little things, like candy bars, coffee at Starbucks, newspapers and magazines, can really add up.

My general rule of thumb is that $10 a day of pocket money should hold one. Some days you'll spend less, and some days, more. This money should really be just for little things, like lunch (when you don't take it with you), the occasional bottle of water or snack, or silly magazine to read on the way home from work. If you're spending more than $10 a day on fritter stuff, do what you can to reduce your day to day spending. My way is to take out only what I need for a week. No more.  It's gotta last, Monday to Monday. Monday's also a good day to take out the money, as you don't have the temptation of a wallet full of money on a Friday.

A few other tips:

1. If you haven't checked the latest plan for your land line in more than a year, call your phone company and see if you can lower your bill. Land line companies are always looking for ways to keep their customers, and so have been lowering the cost of their services like crazy. I did this a year ago, and wound up cutting my phone bill by more than half. 

2. The more capability cell phones have, the more they can cost, unless you have the right plan and the right add-ons. If your cell bill is fluctuating a lot, call your cell phone company and complain! They probably have an add-on that will reduce your cell bill back to manageable levels. 

3. Know your per-meal limit on eating-out spending, and stick to it. Don't think "Oh, it's OK if I go over this time." It's human nature to forget, and you'll find you're going over more and more. Example: My husband and I eat out twice a week, and will not eat in places where the bill will come, with tax and tip, to more than $50 per meal. 

4. If you get a coupon for a restaurant, why not use it? Some are pretty good - my hub and I had a nice meal earlier this evening with a $25 coupon, that let us not only stay within budget, but we also were able to take leftovers home! (Side note: Leftovers ... if you've got em, use em. DOn't let them sit in your fridge and become science projects. )

5. There's tons of articles about controlling spending in supermarkets, so I won't bore you with that. However ... watch out for drug stores! They're really set up for impulse purchases. I've lost track of the number of times I've gone into my local Walgreen's to pick up a prescription and have walked out with more than $50 of this and that. Having to wait for a prescription is a sure prescription for overspending, for what are you going to do while you wait? Phone in your renewal, and when you go to the drug store, just pick up your drugs, pay, and go home! 

6. We use credit cards for certain fixed and variable monthly expenses, such as ISP's, transit cards, my membership in a journalism society (deductible from income at tax time), and going to the movies. For most, that's OK. I recently started weaning myself from charging movies on credit cards. 

7. Speaking of movies ... go earlier! Sometimes you can save money. Also, when you go earlier, you're surer of getting a decent seat, and you don't have to order on Fandango, so you save the surcharge. Finally, going early means that by the time you're getting out of the movie, most other folks are just going, so you won't have to wait so long to eat! 

8. Well, all right, I'll mention one supermarket-based moneysaver. Chicken parts. Sometimes you can pick up chicken hindquarters (legs and thighs) for less than $1.00 a pound. When I lived in NYC, I could get a 10 pound bag of chicken quarters for about 39 cents a pound (occasionally the price would go down to 19 cents a pound). I'd take the bag home and process the meat myself: take off the skin, cut the drumsticks off and throw them in plastic bags, and put them in the freezer, cut all the thigh meat off and freeze in 1 lb tubs for stirfries. Then I'd throw the bones, with whatever meat was still on them, into a stockpot with peppercorns, bay leaves, dried dill, carrots, celery, and the like. I'd leave it on the stove on the lowest flame possible all night, and by morning, I'd have chicken stock! Strain out the solids, and discard everything but the meaty bones and the carrots. Pick the meat off the bones, run the stock through a Melitta filter, and pour strained stock into 1 quart plastic containers (save those Chinese restaurant soup containers!). Basically, you can get about 5-6 meals for less than $5.

9. Finally: keep your notebook going! It's healthy to know how much you spend every month, especially when you've got to economize. If you see, especially, the miscellaneous category getting huge, then you know you have to keep on eye on spending you're not aware of. 

Next blog, I'll deal with maximizing your grooming dollar.

Also, please feel free to ask questions!

Have fun, and happy frugaling!

Frugality

Frugality has definitely become cool. You can't turn around without bumping into articles and blogs and video news stories and what have you about how to be more frugal. In the last few days, two friends have let me know they've started blogs based on frugality - one on the food side, and the other on the fashion side. 

I've been a frugality bug for more years than I care to count. My husband calls me "the shopping commando," as I get such a kick out of finding bargains and stretching our consumer dollar. Over the years, I've acquired several books on frugality, including Amy Daczycyn's two volumes of Tightwad Gazettes, Living Lean off the Fat of the Land, and the like. 

With this economy hitting hard, I've been focusing more strongly on stretching dollars for food and miscellany. Here's some of my favorite tips. 

1. If you like to cook, buy spices in bulk. You'll use them, and generally they last longer than the folks who want you to toss them after six months would have you believe. I've been grabbing bay leaves from the same huge bottle for 15 years, and they're still fine & dandy.

2. When you roast a whole chicken, put an apple and/or an onion in the cavity. The drippings and produce flavor one another, and what's in the pan is quite tasty.

3. If you're not a gravy person (I'm not), save the pan drippings in a jar in the fridge when you roast a whole chicken or bake chicken parts. Use them when sauteing vegetable mixes. It adds a lot of flavor, and saves money on buying oil.

4. If you like broccoli, but don't really like the stems, buy broccoli crowns. Stems, however, are a great green veggie. Peel off the tough outer skin with a veggie peeler, cut off the woody bottom, and julienne or dice. Julienned broccoli stems are great steamed with julienned carrots, and the diced stems are wonderful in sautes or stir-fries.

5. Experiment with spices and herbs! They can really spark up the flavor of anything you make.

6. When milk goes sour, don't throw it out. Bake a loaf of bread! Sour milk's tangy flavor can perk up a loaf, and the sourness never shows.

7. Plastic grocery bags make great packing material when you're shipping something. 

8. If you can't join a buying club, do get those savings cards from grocery stores. Sometimes the buys are phenomenal. At one store, I saved a full 25% just by using their card. 

9. Land's End runs some great sales on their overstocks. Know what you need, know your sizes, and keep track of their sales and free shipping specials. 

10. Finally, time is money. Use a timer for chores you hate, instead of procrastinating. I like Flylady.net's idea that you can do anything in 15 minutes. and so keep timers in each bathroom and in the kitchen. I can wash a sinkful of dishes in 10 to 15 minutes. 

11. Use a timer to cook, as well. I do. Makes for better food, and less waste. 

12. The library! Take out books, movies and CD's. Most libraries will even let you reserve the materials online. Also, go to your local branch and read your favorite magazines. Saves on subscriptions.

13. If you live in an apartment building with a book exchange, use it. Get rid of paperbacks cluttering up your house, and bless your neighbors. If you see a book you like, read it and then put it back in the exchange place. 

14. Give reference books to charity. All that stuff's available on line, anyway, and you'll get a nice tax deduction. The only reference book I keep around is a thesaurus, because I like the process of actually looking up the words. It sparks a certain type of creativity that wouldn't emerge if I were using an online thesaurus.

15. Finally, know what you spend, use it to create a budget, and keep an eye on that budget! If you've never done a budget, don't worry - I'll hold your hand and tell you how to do it ... in my next post.