The odds were stacked against yesterday’s breakfast experiment. MFK Fisher’s tomato soup cake sounded so unappealing that even I wasn’t looking forward to eating it so much as probing it. The recipe comes from her 1942 book “How to Cook a Wolf,” about cooking and living in times of extreme deprivation. One chapter’s called “How to Be Cheerful Though Starving.” This recipe comes from a chapter called “How to Comfort Sorrow.”
I like to run these financial fire drills from time to time, to explore what we might do if things got really tough and we weren’t just frugal but financially fragile. I’d actually been wondering if I could convince everybody to spend a couple of days eating nothing but Fisher’s so-called “sludge” -- from the chapter called “How To Keep Alive” -- but figured the oddball tomato soup cake was a better place to begin.
It didn’t help that Ben began inquiring about breakfast the night before, having noticed that our weekly allotment of cereal was running low. When I told him I was making a cake, he said, “Oh, great. It will probably have sauerkraut in it. Or pieces of ground-up broccoli or spinach leaves.”
He had cause to be suspicious. Though I’ve never hidden broccoli or spinach in cake, I have put sauerkraut in a chocolate cake before -- but only because the recipe called for it. “Besides,“ I noted, “you liked that one.”
I couldn’t help thinking he would’ve enjoyed making this cake, too. When you add the baking soda to the can of tomato soup, it starts fizzing up out of the can, kind of like those baking soda-vinegar volcanoes he likes to make. But there was no way I was going to blow this cake’s cover until they tried it. Stirring the brownish-pink batter, I thought it was probably a lost cause. If nothing else, we could always hide Buddy‘s pills in it once we ran out of leftover rigatoni.
But it looked a lot better when I pulled it out of the oven. The pink tint was gone, leaving what appeared to be an ordinary brown loaf of something or other. It tasted vaguely like gingerbread -- probably from the ginger and nutmeg -- and so that‘s what I called it: “Poor Man‘s Gingerbread.” The earliest breakfasters -- Bob, Rowan and Cassie -- had no objections. Ben and Colleen initially resisted a taste test. But when Cassie and I got back from her speech therapy, Colleen greeted us in the driveway, saying, “Hey Mom, you‘ve got to make some more of that gingerbread!” Ben admitted it wasn’t bad, even after I revealed the secret ingredient. We’ll probably make it again, if for no other reason than I want to let the kids do the foaming tomato soup experiment.
Tomato Soup Cake
3 tablespoons butter or shortening
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon of a mixture of nutmeg, ginger and cloves
1 can tomato soup
2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups raisins, nuts, or dried fruit.*
Cream butter and sugar. Add the soda to the soup and the spices to the flour, then alternate adding these mixtures to the butter and sugar. Stir well and bake in two loaf pans at 325 degrees.
*We made one loaf plain and one with cut-up dried plums. The plain one was fine, so you don‘t have to add this stuff if you don‘t want to.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Making lunch when the pantry is bare
Well, we never really get to that point here in America, do we? Even those of us who hover in the reduced-price school lunch socioeconomic segment of the population usually have a little something hanging around the fringe of the fridge. Even some of the people who stand in line at the food bank aren’t so hungry that they’ll accept a free loaf of wheat bread when they prefer white. (And those who do take it sometimes wind up tossing the wheat loaves in the parking lot on the way to the cars that they can still apparently afford to drive. This information comes secondhand but off-the-record from a food bank employee.)
So yeah, while my first thought yesterday was “we don’t have anything for lunch,” what that really meant was we don’t have any of the usual lunch stuff, like boxed macaroni and cheese. Or bread. (Ironically, one of the reasons we remain breadless this morning is that the K-Mart where we bought milk and Little Caesar‘s pizza last night after the kids‘ taiko drum class was out of wheat bread. All they had was white, and we decided we‘d rather go without than eat white bread.)
But we did have oranges, really juicy Honey Bells Grandma and Grandpa brought back from Florida last week. And a few low-fat oatmeal cookies I’d made the day before. That could be a lunch right there, especially if you had a glass of milk with your cookies, but we were out of milk, too. And growing up as an American, I kept trying to envision some kind of sandwich to fill out the plate. Finally, poking in a couple of Tupperware containers, I discovered one chicken patty and the remains of some biscuit dough. I cut the chicken patty in three equal peace-sign segments and dropped each piece on a spoonful of biscuit dough, then topped each of those with a chunk of store brand cheese loaf I’d previously cut into half-ounce chunks, followed by another spoonful of biscuit dough. (Actually, I was using a rubber scraper by the last one, it really took every smidgeon of dough to make these chicken-cheese biscuits.)
So naturally, the kids thought this was the greatest lunch we‘d had in weeks. Normally they practically spear each other with forks to get their fair share of a package of chicken patties, but because the biscuits obscured their vision, I don‘t think they even realized they only had a third of a patty, so they didn‘t feel deprived.
And with the free oranges, 58 cents worth of ingredients for the chicken biscuits, and 7 cents for each homemade cookie, the total cost for all three home-schooled kids lunches came to 65 cents. Less than 22 cents each. Nearly half the cost of Rowan’s theoretical 40-cent reduced-price school lunch, if we were ever get around to filling out the paperwork.
So yeah, while my first thought yesterday was “we don’t have anything for lunch,” what that really meant was we don’t have any of the usual lunch stuff, like boxed macaroni and cheese. Or bread. (Ironically, one of the reasons we remain breadless this morning is that the K-Mart where we bought milk and Little Caesar‘s pizza last night after the kids‘ taiko drum class was out of wheat bread. All they had was white, and we decided we‘d rather go without than eat white bread.)
But we did have oranges, really juicy Honey Bells Grandma and Grandpa brought back from Florida last week. And a few low-fat oatmeal cookies I’d made the day before. That could be a lunch right there, especially if you had a glass of milk with your cookies, but we were out of milk, too. And growing up as an American, I kept trying to envision some kind of sandwich to fill out the plate. Finally, poking in a couple of Tupperware containers, I discovered one chicken patty and the remains of some biscuit dough. I cut the chicken patty in three equal peace-sign segments and dropped each piece on a spoonful of biscuit dough, then topped each of those with a chunk of store brand cheese loaf I’d previously cut into half-ounce chunks, followed by another spoonful of biscuit dough. (Actually, I was using a rubber scraper by the last one, it really took every smidgeon of dough to make these chicken-cheese biscuits.)
So naturally, the kids thought this was the greatest lunch we‘d had in weeks. Normally they practically spear each other with forks to get their fair share of a package of chicken patties, but because the biscuits obscured their vision, I don‘t think they even realized they only had a third of a patty, so they didn‘t feel deprived.
And with the free oranges, 58 cents worth of ingredients for the chicken biscuits, and 7 cents for each homemade cookie, the total cost for all three home-schooled kids lunches came to 65 cents. Less than 22 cents each. Nearly half the cost of Rowan’s theoretical 40-cent reduced-price school lunch, if we were ever get around to filling out the paperwork.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
The perfect pill hider for pets
Buddy gobbles up his fish oil capsules like they were dog treats, but getting him to take his glucosamine has always been a problem. Up til now, our most effective method has been hiding them in a peanut butter sandwich, which isn’t all that great for a guy with a weight problem.
Now he’s developed a double infection (both ears, plus the nearby skin where he’s been frantically scratching) which means he‘s got to take another 10 pills a day. And there’s just no way to stuff them all inside a couple of peanut butter sandwiches without a few winding up on the floor.
Gazing in the fridge, looking for inspiration, I noticed the leftover tuna noodle casserole. Except I was out of noodles the other day, so I made it with rigatoni instead. Those pasta tubes are the perfect size to hide Buddy’s pills in, and they’re a heck of a lot cheaper than those pill pockets you can buy at the vet’s office. (Just make sure you cook them first, so they’re both tastier and stickier for pill-retaining purposes.) I suppose smaller pills might fall out of rigatoni, but there are plenty of smaller kinds of pasta you can buy.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
When universes collide
I definitely feel like a frugal infiltrator at these Weight Watchers meetings I’ve been going to. First off, I’m guessing that anyone else who’s just crossed the 20-pound barrier would’ve shown up last night in brand new duds. Whereas I pull on a pair of previously too-tight capri-style jeans, relishing the fact that they’ll probably register a few ounces lighter than the jeans I was wearing when I stepped onto the scale last week. Problem is, they’re fraying in areas that wouldn’t even look cool on a fashion model -- one spot near my left front pocket nearly worn through from carrying my cell phone, and another larger section on the inside of one thigh. I don‘t think it will show, unless the frail threads burst and my flab pops out. I top that off with a comfy 20th century turtleneck that retains some of its once-vibrant mauve, then add a navy down vest that matches my secondhand crocs. It works, just barely. I don’t think anyone will notice, which is a good thing because when I arrive, my mom -- the small-town bank president’s wife -- is motioning for me to come join her next to a couple of vaguely familiar relatives.
While they compare notes on their favorite Florida condos, I make a mental note to inquire about babysitting so Bob and I can get away for an anniversary weekend, wondering if the $200 I’ve diverted from our grocery fund will cover our expenses. Finally the meeting starts up, and our perky, stylishly attired leader announces that boxes of Weight Watchers treats are on sale tonight -- just $5 a box!
Sitting in this meeting room of a nearly vacant ex-hospital in the small town where I grew up, I find myself thinking, as I do every single week, what am I doing here? I can’t afford this. We qualify for the reduced school lunch program now, remember? Our daughter could eat 12 reduced-price school lunches for less than the cost of that one box of treats!
But I say nothing. Besides, technically, we can afford this program, because I’ve made room in the budget, provided I stick to the basic attendance fee. I wince to think I’ve paid nearly $80 to lose 21 pounds. But I’ve definitely got more energy. And my mom managed to come back after missing two meetings while she was in Florida and actually lose a pound or two instead of gaining. I have a feeling she wouldn’t have come back if I wasn’t doing this with her, just like I don’t think she’d be walking a few times a week if my sister and I weren’t making time to do that with her as well.
This is what I tell myself, anyway. I’m going to stick this out.
While they compare notes on their favorite Florida condos, I make a mental note to inquire about babysitting so Bob and I can get away for an anniversary weekend, wondering if the $200 I’ve diverted from our grocery fund will cover our expenses. Finally the meeting starts up, and our perky, stylishly attired leader announces that boxes of Weight Watchers treats are on sale tonight -- just $5 a box!
Sitting in this meeting room of a nearly vacant ex-hospital in the small town where I grew up, I find myself thinking, as I do every single week, what am I doing here? I can’t afford this. We qualify for the reduced school lunch program now, remember? Our daughter could eat 12 reduced-price school lunches for less than the cost of that one box of treats!
But I say nothing. Besides, technically, we can afford this program, because I’ve made room in the budget, provided I stick to the basic attendance fee. I wince to think I’ve paid nearly $80 to lose 21 pounds. But I’ve definitely got more energy. And my mom managed to come back after missing two meetings while she was in Florida and actually lose a pound or two instead of gaining. I have a feeling she wouldn’t have come back if I wasn’t doing this with her, just like I don’t think she’d be walking a few times a week if my sister and I weren’t making time to do that with her as well.
This is what I tell myself, anyway. I’m going to stick this out.
Monday, March 8, 2010
We’ve been reduced
Because we live in a big house out in the country with an addition that once housed a swimming pool, people who don’t know us often assume we’re higher up the income ladder than we really are. Sometimes, just to shock people, I’ve joked about how we live “just above the cut-off line for reduced-price school lunches.”
Well, guess what? Between Bob’s pay cut last year and my recently shorn part-time hours, we’ve now crossed that socioeconomic barrier. All we have to do is fill out the paperwork, and our kids could be eating lunch for 40 cents a day.
That’s not likely to happen anytime soon, because our three youngest kids are still home-schooled and Rowan, who’s in high school, prefers to pack a vegetarian lunch unless it’s potato-bar day at the cafeteria.
But it’s a weird feeling to wrap your head around. Should you tap a government program if it helps you save money? Is it cool to shock people with how low your family income is if your income is no longer a matter of choice but of circumstance? Should we go into emergency financial crisis mode because of our change in status, even though we don‘t rely on my income for day-to-day living expenses? Should I get another part-time job?
We’re still sorting out the answers to these questions. But in the meantime, it’s a handy way to say no to things I’m not interested in doing anyway: Sorry, can’t. Didn’t you hear? We’ve been demoted to reduced-price lunch.
Well, guess what? Between Bob’s pay cut last year and my recently shorn part-time hours, we’ve now crossed that socioeconomic barrier. All we have to do is fill out the paperwork, and our kids could be eating lunch for 40 cents a day.
That’s not likely to happen anytime soon, because our three youngest kids are still home-schooled and Rowan, who’s in high school, prefers to pack a vegetarian lunch unless it’s potato-bar day at the cafeteria.
But it’s a weird feeling to wrap your head around. Should you tap a government program if it helps you save money? Is it cool to shock people with how low your family income is if your income is no longer a matter of choice but of circumstance? Should we go into emergency financial crisis mode because of our change in status, even though we don‘t rely on my income for day-to-day living expenses? Should I get another part-time job?
We’re still sorting out the answers to these questions. But in the meantime, it’s a handy way to say no to things I’m not interested in doing anyway: Sorry, can’t. Didn’t you hear? We’ve been demoted to reduced-price lunch.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
The rainbow on Gilligan's Island
Today we’re going to play the marooned-on-a-desert island game, only instead of deciding which movies or books or members of the opposite sex we wish to be stuck with for the rest of our lives, we’re going to pick one fruit or vegetable from each stripe of the "nutrition rainbow."
This isn't as hard as it sounds, because the latest iterations of this concept -- popularized by David Heber in his 2002 book, "What Color is Your Diet?" -- break the rainbow down into so many prism gradations that you don't have to do all that much excluding. You could take both broccoli and spinach, for instance, because spinach is a green-stripe veggie, whereas broccoli falls under the "green-white" stripe, whatever that means. Nor do you have to pick between tomatoes and strawberries, since tomato is a "red" and strawberry falls under "red-purple." (I think these gradations have something to do with what you're trying to promote -- whether you're pushing cancer prevention or memory enhancement, for instance.)
While it would be interesting to see what would happen to Morgan Spurlock (of "SuperSize Me" fame) if he ate nothing but rainbow foods for a month, our purpose here is frugality. Choosing one food from each stripe and then educating yourself about that food -- both in terms of pricing and all the different things you can do with it -- could be an interesting way to economically enhance your family's nutrition.
Take the orange stripe. Carrots, sweet potatoes and pumpkins all contain decent amounts of vitamin C and beta carotene. But carrots are cheaper, and unlike the other two, can be eaten raw as well as cooked. Not only that, but the carrot can also do a decent impersonation of its orange buddies in baked goods like pie, bread, cake and even cookies.
So, much as I love pumpkin bread, I'd pack carrots on my trip to Gilligan's Island. And that's what I keep in the fridge. I'll buy sweet potatoes or pumpkin, but only when the price is right.
This isn't as hard as it sounds, because the latest iterations of this concept -- popularized by David Heber in his 2002 book, "What Color is Your Diet?" -- break the rainbow down into so many prism gradations that you don't have to do all that much excluding. You could take both broccoli and spinach, for instance, because spinach is a green-stripe veggie, whereas broccoli falls under the "green-white" stripe, whatever that means. Nor do you have to pick between tomatoes and strawberries, since tomato is a "red" and strawberry falls under "red-purple." (I think these gradations have something to do with what you're trying to promote -- whether you're pushing cancer prevention or memory enhancement, for instance.)
While it would be interesting to see what would happen to Morgan Spurlock (of "SuperSize Me" fame) if he ate nothing but rainbow foods for a month, our purpose here is frugality. Choosing one food from each stripe and then educating yourself about that food -- both in terms of pricing and all the different things you can do with it -- could be an interesting way to economically enhance your family's nutrition.
Take the orange stripe. Carrots, sweet potatoes and pumpkins all contain decent amounts of vitamin C and beta carotene. But carrots are cheaper, and unlike the other two, can be eaten raw as well as cooked. Not only that, but the carrot can also do a decent impersonation of its orange buddies in baked goods like pie, bread, cake and even cookies.
So, much as I love pumpkin bread, I'd pack carrots on my trip to Gilligan's Island. And that's what I keep in the fridge. I'll buy sweet potatoes or pumpkin, but only when the price is right.
Friday, March 5, 2010
The capitalist and the miser strike a bargain
We don’t watch much TV, so when the HD converter we got with our government-issued coupon failed to work, we just set it aside and went on with our lives. But yesterday I caught Ben fiddling with the converter again. I knew what he was thinking: I said I‘d probably buy a replacement converter before the NCAA Tournament begins -- but then that’s what I said about the Olympics. He had to settle for watching highlights of Shaun White's snowboarding run on Youtube.
“Hey Mom,” he said, “what would you give me if I fixed this thing so you don’t have to buy a new one?”
Hasn’t happened, as of this writing, but we did negotiate a fee: four bucks. Ten percent of the replacement cost, about what I‘d be willing to pay if I found one at a garage sale. (I suppose the average 12-year-old would scoff at such a pittance, but then the average 12-year-old probably has had cable TV since birth.)
We’re working on a similar deal with his mattress, which listed to one side. I was planning to buy a new one -- really, I was! -- when he carried his box spring down the stairs the other day and announced he’d solved the problem. Turns out the box spring was deformed, not the mattress. So he‘s been sleeping on that in supreme comfort the last few days, at least compared with his previous discomfort. And it doesn’t sit so low on his bed frame as to be either too inconvenient or too odd-looking. He thinks he can live with it -- especially if he earns a fee for saving me the cost of a new (or even another used) mattress.
“Hey Mom,” he said, “what would you give me if I fixed this thing so you don’t have to buy a new one?”
Hasn’t happened, as of this writing, but we did negotiate a fee: four bucks. Ten percent of the replacement cost, about what I‘d be willing to pay if I found one at a garage sale. (I suppose the average 12-year-old would scoff at such a pittance, but then the average 12-year-old probably has had cable TV since birth.)
We’re working on a similar deal with his mattress, which listed to one side. I was planning to buy a new one -- really, I was! -- when he carried his box spring down the stairs the other day and announced he’d solved the problem. Turns out the box spring was deformed, not the mattress. So he‘s been sleeping on that in supreme comfort the last few days, at least compared with his previous discomfort. And it doesn’t sit so low on his bed frame as to be either too inconvenient or too odd-looking. He thinks he can live with it -- especially if he earns a fee for saving me the cost of a new (or even another used) mattress.
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