As promised, I’m declaring the entire month of January a “Fridge and Pantry Cleanout” month whereby every meal will be formulated from stuff I have on hand in the fridge, freezer, other freezer, storage shed, or pantry.  I just finished my proposed menu plan for the week, and I’ve gotta say, I think I’m going to be able to easily make it through the month of January (possibly February too) easily without buying much of anything.

My rules for No-Spend January are:

1) Use everything I have on hand to create all of our meal plans.

2) No going out to eat (unless we have a gift card, or it’s our anniversary—January 13th).

3) There is a $10 spending allowance per week for fresh produce, household items, and eggs. Oh, and maybe organic cream. The husband can’t live without that!  But since we have a winter CSA and a good stockpile of household items (I make lots of cleaners and stuff) we should really only be spending our weekly money on eggs & cream.  Alas, I do not yet have a hen or a cow :( 

4) Post a “before and after” picture of the meal I created, the recipe, and approximate cost breakdown (if appropriate) and how the family liked it.

5) All meals contain real food and are grain-free and have a macro-nutrient ratio of 30/30/40 (protein/fat/unrefined carbs).

So today, I started out by building a meal around something that’s been hanging around the depths of my fridge for about a year and a half. Back in fall 2008, a friend and I went to a local orchard to pick plums for $.80/lb.  I picked a lot of plums.  I dehydrated many of them, ate a lot fresh, and experimented with lacto-fermentation for about 2-3 quarts of them.  Well, I have to be honest that after lacto-fermenting them, they lost all appeal for me. I just wasn’t interested in trying them! But they’ve been on my conscience for several months now, and it was finally time to use them.

I also had a nice pack of organic, free-range Trader Joe’s drumsticks in the freezer (the dear daughter’s absolute favorite) and I thought I would build on the “Asian plum chicken theme”.  It turned out that my trusty Better Homes & Gardens cookbook had a recipe that was easily adaptable.

Plum Chicken with Cabbage
serves 8

1 package of 6 organic, free-range chicken drumsticks ($4.35)
1 onion, sliced into rings ($0.25)
2 cups of pitted, lacto-fermented (or canned) plums ($0.20)
1/8 cup of unpasteurized nama shoyu (aka soy sauce) ($0.25)
4 garlic cloves ($0.10)
1 ” piece of fresh ginger ($0.05)
1-2 Tablespoons of raw honey ($0.25)
1/2 tsp five spice powder ($0.05)
2 cups of shredded savoy cabbage ($0.50)
1 cup chopped celery ($0.25)
lacto-fermented ginger carrots, for garnish ($0.25)

Total : ~$6.50

For this meal only: $3.25

In a 6 quart crock pot, place the sliced onions.  Top with the drumsticks (mine were frozen). Meanwhile, in blender, blend the plums, soy sauce, ginger, garlic, and five spice powder.  Pour over the chicken.  Cook for about 6 hours on low (or at least that’s what I did).  Add shredded cabbage and celery and cook for 30 minutes until veggies are slightly tender but not completely limp.  Serve with lacto-fermented ginger carrots and pass the hoisin sauce (we happened to have a little left from a long time ago that was still good).

The Outcome:

Very good! My 4 year old gobbled up the chicken but ignored the cabbage. We had a friend who cleaned his plate and enjoyed it, and I thought it was a very tasty, refreshing meal (as did my husband). And, I have two large pyrex bowls leftover, which will provide for two more meals for us this next week. So overall, I would say $6.50 for 3 meals makes this meal officially a “$5.00 dinner”, even with using organic, free-range chicken. This would have tasted great sprinkled with toasted sesame seeds and scallions (which I didn’t have).  The chicken is really flavorful and falls right off the bone, which makes it easy to “stretch” the chicken further.  My daughter was the only one who insisted on having her own drumstick.

Leftover suggestions: Wrap with a lettuce leaf for Asian-inspired lettuce wraps, add to chicken broth for an Asian-inspired chicken soup.

Some thoughts: For a family of 4 plus 1 male guest, this meal made plenty with leftovers.  I think it’s so nice and satisfying to know that you can use high quality, organic ingredients and eat a filling, grain-free, low carb meal!  The dark meat of the drumsticks has more fat (which is a good thing; it will fill you up!) and also contains more minerals. It’s also the thriftiest part of an organic, free-range chicken to buy. This meal would obviously be way cheaper with conventional chicken, but knowing what I know about how these chickens are raised, I prefer organic. I figure that the extra money I pay is providing more nutrients (organic, free-range meat has more omega-3s than conventional and more nutrients as well) which means that ultimately I’m eating less calories to consume the nutrients I need. 

Thus concludes Day One of the Fridge and Pantry Cleanout. Join me tomorrow as I piece together another meal from the “fragments”…I press on until I can reach all the way into the back of my fridge, freezer, pantry, and storage shed!

If you’d like to “subscribe” to this blog, I have a ghetto way of doing it: You e-mail me: carrie [at] organicthrifty [dot] com and ask me to add you to my subscription list. You’ll get an e-mail whenever a new post is up. Or you can follow on twitter! 

Also: Do you have any delicious, filling ways of cooking Butternut Squash or Pumpkin that are Grain-Free? I have enough in storage to last me till kingdom come and need some inspiration!  E-mail me (see above) if you have any ideas!

Honestly, this year has been a bit tougher financially as I’ve cut back many of my tutoring hours since I’m going back to school, and that loss of income, though small, can be felt.  On the bright side, I’ve started up a little cottage industry selling Fermented Vegetables in my local co-op, and surprisingly that’s taken off to a good start. Hopefully that can bring in a bit of extra income.

I started to realize that I have complete control over what I spend. Thankfully, we are not in debt (except for our mortgage) and so therefore I really have the power to choose wisely when it comes to spending my husband’s hard-earned cash. 

We’ve stripped our life down to the bare essentials (in my opinon). We own a small, affordable condo.  We own one car. My husband has a great job, closeby, that provides for our needs and has amazing insurance coverage (thank God!).  We homeschool and utilize the local community center for a few affordable classes for the kids, we keep our driving down to a minimum, I stay the heck away from the mall.  We clothe our children with hand-me-downs or cheap finds at second hand stores.  I make most all of our meals. I try to make my husband’s lunch.  We don’t buy expensive conveniece foods.  We don’ have cable, home phones (only cells), dish network, magazine subscriptions, etc.  Our insurance is low and affordable.

So what is the problem?  Well, for some reason we’re still not able to save much money every month, and that really bothers me.  I know I go a little lavish on my food budget because I’m a food snob. I have a problem restraining myself from exotic ingredients.  Well, this year I’m challenging myself to do what this blog is all about: be truly Organic and Thrifty!

Here is my resolution for 2010:

Work to get our costs down to below my husband’s net income so we don’t have to rely on my odd jobs or pull from savings to balance the budget.

…. and ultimately save for my dream home: a yurt on 1/4 acre with southern exposure so I can have my suburban homestead! That might not be my husband’s exact dream…..we’ll see.

Action Steps:

• Grow my hair long again. Save $40 every six weeks on a designer haircut and don’t worry about vanity so much!
• Starting in January,  I’m giving myself a personal “fridge and pantry cleanout” challenge to use every last item in the fridge, freezer(s), pantry, and storage shed until I can see the back of them.  I’m going to blog regularly (hopefully daily) about what I’ve made with what I had on hand.  I am excited to see how long I can make the food last, and also will be eager to see how much we save in the process!
• I’m declaring January a “No Spend Month” (as originally inspired by Shannon of Nourishing Days) other than absolute essentials (toilet paper, etc.). 
• Learn the art of rationing: use bacon sparingly, make almond flour treats once a week only, plan a use for everything, but when it’s gone it’s gone. Learn to live in feast or famine. (No worries, I won’t let my kids starve).
• Simplify menu planning further by creating a month-long menu plan all at once.  Or, just repeat the same theme week after week for a month, and then rotate. I think I’m going to try both ideas and see which one works best.
• To optimize nutrition while saving on ingredients, I’m going to be making lots of soups with bone broth, veggies, and a small amount of meat.  These are real budget-savers, and a couple of soups a week can really make the budget stretch without sacrificing nutrition.
• My new goal is to create as many nourishing, grain-free $5 meals as possible each night. I will post the meals that are worth sharing!
• I’m going to begin making my own coconut milk using dried coconut and hot water. I mostly use coconut milk for soups anyway, so I’m hoping that this process will save a bit of money.
• Ask every dollar “Who are you, and where do you think you’re going?” before spending it (thanks, Dave Ramsey!).

 I’m really excited about sharing my journey and getting back to blogging more about food budgeting while eating real food.  Like I said before, my major motivation right now is to really try to get into a saving pattern so that within the next year or two we really can upgrade and afford to significantly increase our mortgage and purchase a house on 1/4 -1/2 an acre so that I can really work towards more self-sustainability.  This has been a desire of my heart for a while now, but I know that God is teaching me some great lessons here on my little condo “farm”.  I’m excited to graduate to chickens and goats in the near future, and to possibly have more space in my kitchen for culturing more kombucha and such in order to expand my tiny little fermented veggie business.

As always, dear readers, thank you for reading this blog and for your continued support! 

Happy New Year!