Creativity in the Kitchen

So, I posted on my Facebook page once that I feed my family of 6 for $250 a month. I got quite a few responses from people who said how could I do that living in Fairbanks, Alaska. So, I am going to try and daily or at least every few days tell you what we eat so you can see how we eat cheaply. I will try to take pictures too, but I am not a photographer and really don't have a huge desire to become a great one. I am happy being a mediocre photographer :)

Today is just one way how I save money...

BREAKFAST
...my kids love those little packets of oatmeal with all the different flavors. I love them too but not how much they cost. So, I make up batches of Instant Oatmeal in gallon jars, old ice cream tubs, etc.. How I do it is.. I buy a 50# bag of rolled oats (organic or chemical free) and a #10 can of freeze dried strawberries (or blueberries) or use raisins, dried apricots, cranberries, etc.. (you get the idea), some powdered vanilla and organic evaporated sugar.

I mix up about 10 cups of oats with 2 cups of ground oats (just grind in coffee mill, blender, etc) and then add a few handfuls of pulverized strawberries (or chopped other fruits). I then add about 1/4 cup vanilla powder (this is not exact maybe a little less) and about 1 cup of sugar. Stir all together and your ready to dish out to your kids with some hot water. I figure this costs me about $5 For everything and it will last at least a week or more of breakfasts.

LUNCH
I make once a week usually Monday a batch of 7 loaves of bread so I use the 1 loaf and freeze the rest. Today I made peanut butter and apple butter sandwiches (homemade organic apple butter and organic peanut butter). Cost the loaf of bread is about $1.50 as I use all organic ingredients and grind my own flour. Peanut butter I buy in bulk (22 lbs) and apple butter was made with organic apples I paid $1.50 a pound. So I imagine this was about $3.00 for our family of 6 for lunch. I did serve sweet tea and water and a few slices of apples along with their sandwich.

DINNER
Thanksgiving was last week and my sister made a ham and didn't want the bones so I made a pot of beans this weekend with them. Today I stuck about 5 cups of those beans,some brown rice from this weekend and some cumin/chili pepper in the crock pot before we took the kids to swimming to heat up. When we got home, I heated up some oil (I do reuse my frying oil a few times) in our little fry daddy. I put a small cut slice of cheddar cheese on a soft taco wrap along with a heap of beans/rice and used a little flour/water mix to glue it so it would explode in the fry daddy. Then fried them up so we could have Chimichangas (Fried Burrito) for dinner along with some sour cream. I had some extra wonton wrappers from a week or so go and cut up some apples, added a bit of flour, sugar and cinnamon and rolled those up in the wrappers for Apple Pie Eggrolls. Cost: $6 for all the ingredients as the wonton wrappers were $1.50 and soft taco wraps were $2.50. The other ingredients with very cheap as they were dried beans, maybe 2oz. of cheese, a couple apples and some sour cream.

Today's total:
Breakfast .75c ($5 divided by 7 meals-approx. .75c)
Lunch: $3.00
Dinner: $6.00
Total: $9.75 for 3 meals for a family of 6
Not too bad :)

Sorry I didn't take any pictures but I do have leftovers of sandwiches for my husband's lunch tomorrow and extra oatmeal for breakfast and I have enough beans from the weekend that I froze two meals worth of filling for chimichangas later this winter..