Budget stretcher

I guess my blog is going to be a bit about recipes for awhile. That's okay. :) I love to cook. :)
I just had to take a break from the potato thought, and have something different for you today...
Yesterday I made soup. I made a whole STOCK POT of soup. It was a lot of fun. Actually, it took me two days. Wednesday, I rummaged through my freezer for the big Ziplocs full of bones. This soup very definitely was a kitchen sink variety. Into the stock pot went a ham bone, some T-bones, and a turkey carcass. I covered it all with water, nearly to the top of the pot (not too high or it will boil over), and boiled the living daylights out of them, for a couple of hours. Then I turned off the heat, let it sit for a little bit until it wasn't going to burn a hole in everything it touched, put a piece of foam (thick padding) in the deep freeze, and put the pot on top (so it wouldn't thaw things underneath), and left it in there overnight. Yesterday morning, I took it out, scooped out the frozen fat, brought the remainder to a boil (yes there was some fat left in it), and added spices, 3 onions, some leftover green onions, garlic, 6 carrots, a big sweet potato, a medium turnip (rutabaga?), and 8 breakfast sausages, cooked and chopped up. We had some for supper last night, and it was AMAZING...and if you think about it, really, really cheap...
The bones were free because they would have been garbage otherwise, the spices were maybe $0.10 worth, if that, onions...say $0.50, based on what a small net of them costs, green onions...$0.25, garlic...$0.10, carrots...$1.00, Sweet potato...$2.50, turnip..$2.25, sausages...$1.50.
I may be off a little on these, but not by much, so....for $8.20, I made about 9 meals worth..as in 36 servings. Not bad! About $0.91 a meal. About $0.23/person per meal.
Okay, here's my potato plug....if you need a soup to be even more filling and hearty, add potato and MASH it, or add mashed potatoes! It will thicken your soup and fill you up and make you all nice and warm inside, and happily thinking of all the money you've saved...make your own bread and serve that, and for the whopping total of MAYBE $0.30/person, you've made a filling meal! Need dessert? Apple crisp! That should cost about $2.50 to make. A drink, you say? Make your own hot cocoa...$2.00 for 4 servings. Okay, so now you have soup, bread, hot cocoa, and apple crisp. You have fed a family of 4 for $5.70. You can't even get a meal for ONE for that price at a restaurant!
Now do you know why I don't eat at restaurants much anymore? Seriously. Over the past two months, we have taken our favourite dishes from restaurants, and figured out how to make them at home. I'll give you some examples:
Red Lobster shrimp linguini...made it for about $10, or $2.50/person
The Keg T-bone steak,mushrooms,loaded baked potatoes-made it for about $25, or $6.25/ea
Chilis Nachos Grande...made it for about $12, or $4 each
Lee's :Pork and broccoli,fried rice, and chow mein for about $10 or $2.50/person
Tony Roma's Ribs: made that for about $20, or $5 each
Amazing, isn't it???? You just don't realize how much you spend in a restaurant, over and above what it would cost to make it at home!
Traveling?
I will be away next month for 4 days, and was told that restaurant food was very expensive where I am going? So? I am staying in a hotel with no promise of a fridge. So?
I am taking a cooler. I have planned out what I will eat (while away, I will have 3 breakfasts, 4 morning snacks, 4 lunches, 3 afternoon snacks, and 3 suppers), and you know what? Based on taking a cooler, which I can refill with ice from the hotel ice machines anytime I need to, I can eat VERY well....and it's going to cost me about $60 to do it. That's total...as in $15 a DAY....and I'll likely have leftovers.
So there you go. If you are driving, this works really well, because if you get hungry, you just stop and pull something out of the cooler or bag of dry stuff. If you are flying, see if you can get one of those styrofoam ones at your destination, maybe, and go to a grocery store THERE. It's amazing how easy it is to cut corners, when you need to and want to.
I also like to can things...so far, just jams, jellies, juices, pickles, and fruit....but that's another day's story. :)