What are your frugal and sustainable tips and tricks?

[gtaus]

I love dehydrating. Powdered veggies are a great way to get hated veggies into your diet without the taste or texture or whatever the issue is.

The only thing I have used my dehydrator for is making beef jerky. I'll have to look into dehydrating veggies as well.

fruit vinegars make the best salad dressings!

That sounds good.

Bake your own bread. My husband and the boys go through about a loaf a week, sometimes more. It is so much cheaper to make it myself.

I still have a working bread making machine that I bought ~25 years ago, maybe longer. It made great bread. But we stopped using it because the bread was so good tasting that we ate too much! I remember eating fresh, hot bread from the bread machine with nothing more than a pat of butter on it. It was better than a piece of cake to me!

I don't know about the cheaper part for homemade bread, though. Last time I checked, years ago, I was not saving any money making my own bread at home. Maybe cheaper compared to specialty breads baked in the store bakery, but not much savings compared to a regular loaf of store no-brand label 1 lb loaf of bread.

I bought a nice Dutch Oven to bake no knead breads. The breads came out great and I thought the hard crusts were like magic. Unfortunately, Dear Wife and I are at that age where it's harder to eat those thick crusts that I loved. So, I have not made that hard crust no knead Dutch Oven bread either for many years.

Thank you for all the great food use suggestions.

 

[Molpet]

I don't know about the cheaper part for homemade bread, though. Last time I checked, years ago, I was not saving any money making my own bread at home. Maybe cheaper compared to specialty breads baked in the store bakery, but not much savings compared to a regular loaf of store no-brand label 1 lb loaf of bread.

Home made breads and no name is like comparing home grown chickens and store CX

Homemade is more expensive but apple and orange in other ways.

 

[gtaus]

Home made breads and no name is like comparing home grown chickens and store CX

Homemade is more expensive but apple and orange in other ways.

Well, I stated that the homemade bread, IMHO, was better tasting than the store brought bread. But that's my opinion. In any case, I'm at an age and physical condition where I had to reduce eating breads. We just don't eat much bread anymore, but I sure do miss some of the rye bread with molasses recipe that grandma passed down to me.

I was interested in the comment that homemade bread was so much cheaper to make bread yourself. In my experience, that was never the case. But maybe I was making the wrong kind of bread.

 

[igorsMistress]

The only thing I have used my dehydrator for is making beef jerky. I'll have to look into dehydrating veggies as well.


That sounds good.



I still have a working bread making machine that I bought ~25 years ago, maybe longer. It made great bread. But we stopped using it because the bread was so good tasting that we ate too much! I remember eating fresh, hot bread from the bread machine with nothing more than a pat of butter on it. It was better than a piece of cake to me!

I don't know about the cheaper part for homemade bread, though. Last time I checked, years ago, I was not saving any money making my own bread at home. Maybe cheaper compared to specialty breads baked in the store bakery, but not much savings compared to a regular loaf of store no-brand label 1 lb loaf of bread.

I bought a nice Dutch Oven to bake no knead breads. The breads came out great and I thought the hard crusts were like magic. Unfortunately, Dear Wife and I are at that age where it's harder to eat those thick crusts that I loved. So, I have not made that hard crust no knead Dutch Oven bread either for many years.

Thank you for all the great food use suggestions.

I do love a warm piece of fresh bread with butter. After that I’m not a huge fan.

 

[saysfaa]

.. I sure do miss some of the rye bread with molasses recipe that grandma passed down to me.
...

Could you share your grandma's rye bread with molasses recipe, please?

 

[Sally PB]

homemade bread was so much cheaper to make

Homemade bread vs store brand white bread: The store brand would surely win on price. Homemade vs buying a loaf that has organic flour and no preservatives, I bet my homemade costs less.

I get organic flour at Costco for about $1/lb. A tiny, 2 pound bag of organic white flour at the grocery store is around $5, I think.

One last savings on homemade. Hubby makes his own bread now, and uses a "no knead" recipe. It's not made in a bread machine. Since he started making his own, he doesn't like to throw any out (into the compost bin, not trash). So less is wasted. He has gotten upset when a partial loaf got moldy. Store bought bread? Eh, just toss it.

 

[igorsMistress]

Homemade bread vs store brand white bread: The store brand would surely win on price. Homemade vs buying a loaf that has organic flour and no preservatives, I bet my homemade costs less.

I get organic flour at Costco for about $1/lb. A tiny, 2 pound bag of organic white flour at the grocery store is around $5, I think.

One last savings on homemade. Hubby makes his own bread now, and uses a "no knead" recipe. It's not made in a bread machine. Since he started making his own, he doesn't like to throw any out (into the compost bin, not trash). So less is wasted. He has gotten upset when a partial loaf got moldy. Store bought bread? Eh, just toss it.

All of this! I did some calculations and it only costs me about $0.50 more to make a loaf of bread than the cheapest store bought. Mine tastes way better and the kids and my husband all eat it in about five days time. The ends are usually left but I save those in the freezer for croutons, crumbs and bread pudding.

 

[gtaus]

One last savings on homemade. Hubby makes his own bread now, and uses a "no knead" recipe. It's not made in a bread machine. Since he started making his own, he doesn't like to throw any out (into the compost bin, not trash). So less is wasted.

My no knead bread was cooked in the Dutch Oven I bought. It was great bread. It never lasted long enough to go moldy. With commercial store-bought bread, we cut it up into little pieces and put it into the chicken bucket, a little bit each day as a treat depending on how much old bread there is.

The [bread loaf] ends are usually left but I save those in the freezer for croutons, crumbs and bread pudding.

When I was little kid, grandma used to make it a special thing to see who would get the "special" end crust. You felt lucky if you "won" the end crust. To this day, I still eat those end pieces and consider myself lucky!

Grandma was good about getting us to eat all kinds of food. Whenever we got something new on the table that we did not recognize, we would ask grandma if we liked it. "Oh yes, you liked it a lot last time we had this," she would say. Of course, that was the standard line even if it was the first time we had that food.

I tried to make croutons with left over bread and it did not turn out very good. I should probably give that another try. That bread pudding sounds tasty. We don't really use breadcrumbs for anything in our house. I would certainly like to explore other options first, rather than giving left over bread to the chickens. But almost none of our leftover food or scraps gets wasted now that we have backyard chickens.

 

[gtaus]

Could you share your grandma's rye bread with molasses recipe, please?

It's been over 10 years since I made that bread. If I can find the recipe, I will post it. But I honestly don't know if I still have it.

Grandma made her bread in loaf pans in the oven, but I used a bread machine. I cannot remember if I had to adjust anything in the recipe for the bread machine or not. It was good in the bread machine when I did make it. I just don't know if I still have that info. If I find it, I will post it.

 

[gtaus]

Hubby makes his own bread now, and uses a "no knead" recipe. It's not made in a bread machine.

Thinking about my no knead recipe, it had a very thick, hard crust which is what I liked best about it. I have lived in Europe a number of times and I really liked the thick crusted breads. When I lived there, there was no plastic, or even paper wrap, needed for their breads. You just bought a fresh loaf of bread and carried it home without any wrapping.

I don't know why we here in the USA have to have everything wrapped up in plastic? That's a lot of plastic waste going to the landfill after one use. I prefer the European hard crusted breads where the crust itself was the packaging. Maybe @BDutch can tell us how they buy bread in the Netherlands and if they have a more sustainable packaging for food other than wrapping everything in plastic. I bet they do.