Few & Cheap

When I look through recipes, I look for two things:

1. Few Ingredients
2. Cheap Ingredients

I have tried so many recipes over the years. Some recipes are fantastic but laborious. The ones that stick with me--the ones that become a part of our lives--are the ones that I can remember and that I can afford. So in an effort to keep our lives and meals simple, we collect and adjust recipes to fit our tastes, patience, and budgets.

Here is my favorite recipe, adapted from the back of a flour bag. I make this once or twice a week and it is unbelievably good.

Honey-Wheat Bread

Ingredients
2 packages regular active dry yeast
1/4 Cup Warm Water
3/4 Cup Honey
2 T Butter
2 teaspoons Salt
1 Cup Oats
3/4 Cup Flaxseed Meal
2 1/2 Cup Warm Water
4 Cup Whole Wheat Flour
2 to 3 Cup All-Purpose Flour
1 T Cooking Oil

Directions
1. Dissolve yeast in 1/4 Cup Warm Water.
2. Mix honey, butter & salt together in a large mixing bowl. Add 2 1/2 Cups warm water.
3. Beat in wheat flour, oats & flaxseed until moistened. Add in dissolved yeast, and stir with spoon.
4. Add all-purpose flour until dough pulls away from the side of the bowl and your dough is no longer sticking to your fingers. Knead dough 5 to 10 minutes on a lightly floured surface.
5. Cover dough with a towel and place in a lightly oiled bowl. Set in a warm spot *see tip below* to rise for about an hour.
6. After the dough has doubled in size, cut it in half. Grease two loaf pans and place dough in bread pans.
7. Cover dough with a towel and set in a warm spot for about 30-45 minutes.
8. Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees. Bake for 30 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees and bake for another 10 to 15 minutes or until loaves sound hollow when you tap on them. Let cool and enjoy.

Makes 2 beautiful loaves.

Tip *Heat 1 Cup of Water in Microwave for 60 seconds. Then place dough in microwave alongside your warm water. It's a perfect warm, moist place for your dough to rise and no little hands will come back and poke at it.*

Food Budget

Everyone talks about ways to save money on your grocery bill... I'm not going to try to re-invent the wheel. But... I will tell you what we do.

We buy most of our food in bulk. We purchase our meat once a month.We have a local meat market that is pretty great. Dumas is a short drive for us and well worth it. They offer large bundles but we haven't committed that much to are our carnivorous ways just yet so we usually buy 1 pound of bacon,  5 lbs ground beef and 10 pounds of chicken breast.

Every two weeks we hit Sam's club. I stock up on the huge bags of shredded cheddar and mozzarella and a very large block of colby cheese. Cheese freezes well so it gets divided up and pulled from the freezer as we need it. The cheese usually lasts close to a month. I usually get a large bag of tilapia and salmon for the month as well. We also buy most of our produce in bulk. Strawberries, blueberries, bananas, apples, salad, and oranges. We usually will munch right through this in about a week to a week an half but I try to freeze some to stretch us out to two weeks. We buy the large bags of garden rotini pasta and brown rice and that lasts us a long while... maybe 3 to 4 weeks.

After I divide out all my meat, I count how many dinners I have. This month is 11 chicken dinners and 6 to 7 beef dinners. We eat tilapia or salmon twice a week.   The rest of the month we will eat pasta, pizza, egg, beans and vegetable dishes for dinner. If there is a special occasion I will stop back at Dumas and pick up steaks or lamb.  I make meal plans, but rarely stick to them. We stop at the grocery once a week and spend $40-$50 in little things like milk, condiments, butter, etc. We are a family of 4 and we spend roughly $350 a month in groceries. I have gotten this much lower in the past but everyone complains about being hungry and hating what I make. This is what works for us for now.