The Milkman Saves Us (more than just money)

In my pursuit of frugal utopia, I’ve started to realize that the price I pay for an item at the register doesn’t always reflect its true cost. Take milk for example. If someone had asked me a few weeks ago how much a gallon of milk costs, I might have said, “about $4.” But now that I’ve given it some thought, I see that $4 is the wrong answer. A host of other factors have to be considered when determining the real cost of a gallon of grocery store milk.

First, there’s the opportunity cost. To get the milk, I have to drive my car to the grocery store, find a parking spot, navigate the metal cart through the crowded aisles, wait in line at the register, tell my son “no” to the half dozen items he will beg me to buy, push the cart across the parking lot to my car while trying to keep my son from running off, load up the groceries, drive home, unload. This is one of my most hated chores and it takes an hour or two of prime weekend time. If I didn’t have to go to the store for the milk, I could be using that time to do something I enjoy. So, for me, there is a big opportunity cost attached to that gallon of grocery store milk.

Second, are the costs to the environment that don’t show up in the dollars I pay at the cash register: the pollution wrought by commercial dairy practices; the diesel fuel burned to move the milk across the country to my grocery store; the noxious chemicals used to create the molded plastic container that my milk is shipped in; the energy spent to deal with my discarded milk carton which will be picked up by a garbage truck, carted to a transfer station, put on a barge, taken out to the middle of the ocean, and dumped. When you consider those costs, it makes my glass of grocery store milk a lot more expensive.

Third, are the costs to my family’s health. Many commercial dairy farms think of animals as machines that can be turbo-charged to produce more. The pixie dust they use to shift their cow-machines into overdrive is called Bovine Growth Hormone (BGH). It’s a synthetic hormone that forces the cows’ bodies to produce more milk than is healthy for them. This puts enormous physical strain on the cow, which leads to infection which is then treated with antibiotics. The hormones and antibiotics get in the milk and end up in our bodies. Consumption of milk laced with hormones has been linked to cancer. Canada and the EU have banned BGH because of the significant health risks, but the FDA has not. So chances are good that it’s in my gallon of grocery store milk, and there is also a chance that consuming it could contribute to a life-threatening illness like cancer. If you factor in the health costs, the milk becomes prohibitively expensive. Can you even put a price on health?

Finally, there is the quality of the product itself. The milk in the plastic, or waxy cardboard container isn’t very fresh; wasn’t produced by well-tended cows; and is bland, and vaguely plastic tasting. So for all the effort, cost to the environment, and risk to my health, I’m not even getting a very delicious glass of milk.

But there is a solution – the milkman. I met Tom during a Saturday visit to the farmer’s market. His booth featured local milk in beautiful glass bottles. As I stood there wanting to buy the milk, but thinking about how heavy the glass bottles must be, and if I bought them, I’d have to bring them back the next week, and so buying the milk would mean that every Saturday morning I would have to get in my car and drive to the farmer’s market to exchange my empties for full bottles of milk. As I was wrestling with this in my mind – thinking about the hassle, but still wanting to buy the milk – Tom said, “We deliver you know.”

It took a moment for me to process the implications.

“We also deliver eggs, cheese, butter, and other local farm products,” Tom added. It was one of those moments where the clouds open up and a beam of sunshine emerges.

“You deliver,” I said, not fully believing it. “To my doorstep?”

“Every Wednesday morning,” Tom said, and he gave me the website address for his company, The Hudson Milk Co.. I went home and promptly signed up for my first delivery.

Now every Tuesday night I put a cooler on my front porch with empty glass milk bottles and on Wednesday morning it’s magically filled (Tom delivers at 4:00 in the morning) with farm-fresh milk, cream, eggs, and cheese. The milk has no BGH so it’s healthier for my family. It comes from a local farm, so it hasn’t been shipped thousands of miles creating a monstrous carbon footprint. The pretty glass bottles get reused, unlike their plastic counterparts that end up floating (forever polluting) the oceans. I don’t have to go to the grocery store as often, and when I do, it’s just to pick up a few things. It’s no longer an epic chore. And best of all – the milk is fresh and it tastes great! It costs a few dollars more, but if you factor in the other costs–opportunity costs, health costs, environmental costs–it ends up being the cheapest milk you can buy — and the most delicious!

If you live in Westchester, NY you can ask Tom to bring fresh milk to your doorstep too. Tell him I sent you.

La Cucina Povera – An Autumn Pasta with Acorn Squash and Anchovy Sauce

In Italy, la cucina povera is a term that embraces the idea of cooking with basic farm-fresh ingredients, but the original concept more or less assumed that you had your own farm, or at least a vegetable garden, a few fruit trees, and maybe some chickens or goats. These days, la cucina povera is often associated with cooking on the cheap or working with whatever ingredients you happen to have lying around your kitchen – at least this is what the idea conjures up for American foodies.

I was thinking about the Americanized notion of la cucina povera one night a few weeks ago when the only fresh produce I had left in the house was an acorn squash and an onion (I live in a neighborhood with a dearth of decent supermarkets).

I would soon be setting off on a trip to the Piemonte region of Italy, and Piemontese cuisine was on my mind. In this mountainous region, which lies on the French and Swiss borders not too far from the Ligurian Sea, anchovies are a signature flavoring. I happened to also have a jar of anchovies.

After looking through a few of the books I’d been using to research my trip, this is the Piemontese-inspired pasta I concocted for dinner:

Rigatoni with Acorn Squash and Anchovy Sauce
Rigatoni colla Zucca e Salsa d’Acciughe

Makes 4 modest servings.

1 large onion
1 medium to large acorn squash
4 to 6 salted anchovies, sott’olio (preserved in oil)
1 cup of frozen spinach (or fresh, or broccoli or cauliflower, depending on your taste and what you have available)
2 to 3 Tbsps extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp chili pepper flakes
Rigatoni pasta
Parmesan cheese, freshly grated

Preheat oven to 350˚F

Put the pasta water on boil.

Cut the squash in half, and clean out the stringy, seedy middle part.* Stick the squash halves in a baking or roasting dish with the green rind side facing down (and the orange fleshy part facing up), and bake until the fleshy part is tender when poked with a fork. Remove from oven to cool.

When squash is no longer piping hot, peel the flesh away from the rind and cut the squash into bite-size chunks. Set aside.

Salt the boiling pasta water, and add rigatoni. Cook for the recommended amount of time (usually 8 to 10 minutes).

Next, chop the onion, and begin sautéing it in a medium-sized frying pan with the extra virgin olive oil. Avoid the urge to add salt.

Rinse the anchovies under cold water to remove some of their overwhelming saltiness (don’t worry, they’ll still be salty). Finely chop the anchovies, and then mash them with a fork until you create a paste. When the onions begin to appear translucent, add the anchovy paste to the sauté. Stir and cook the mixture for about 5 minutes on low heat (be careful not to burn it).

Add the squash chunks to the sauté, stirring and tossing.

Sprinkle the chili flakes over the squash, and continue to toss.

Add the spinach to the sauté; stir to mix it in. Turn the heat up to medium and cover for a few minutes so the spinach can cook.

Remove sauté from heat.

When pasta is ready, drain rigatoni and toss in a bowl with the squash and anchovy sauce. When the pasta and sauce are thoroughly combined, sprinkle with freshly grated Parmesan cheese.

Mangia!

Regional wine pairings to consider: Arneis (white) or Barbera (red)
Non-Piemontese pairings: Sauvignon Blanc (white) or Sangiovese (red)

* Seeds can be salted and toasted for a snack, or sprinkled on top of the pasta.

My Loss, My Gain

Free Lose it! iPhone Application

After years of working on health and fitness websites, I knew the basic rules: eat lots of fruits and vegetables; more protein, less carbs; and nothing fried. I had already started cooking more, but I needed more help than that. I decided to use the extremely popular and free application, Lose It!, which I could download onto my iPhone as a guide. The Lose It! application simply enables you to track your calories eaten and expended through exercise. You enter your weight, how much you want to lose over a specific time period, and it gives you your daily calorie allowance.

Keeping track of your calories is very eye-opening! I always figured olive oil was healthy so I would generously use it for cooking and salads. One tablespoon of olive oil has 126 calories. I started to measure it out, and realized I really didn’t need more than one tablespoon. I began making trade-offs. I ordered egg-white breakfast burritos at my local café, got ridiculed for it, but later was able to have a chocolate chip cookie guilt-free. I still went out and went over my daily calorie allowance often, but going all out sometimes made the other days of the week that much easier. I exercised more, but then was able to eat more, too. And now, a couple of months later, it’s all unbelievably become habit and my new wardrobe is complete.

Blackberry Lavender Gelato with Bittersweet Chocolate Chips

This is my most recent experimental collaboration with my ice cream maker. The recipe makes about 2 pints of gelato.

Blackberry Lavender Gelato with Bittersweet Chocolate Chips

Start by making the blackberry lavender simple syrup to flavor the gelato.

Boil:
1 cup water
1 cup brown sugar
1 box of blackberries

Reduce the liquid to a syrup, and mash the blackberries. Turn the heat off and stir 1 teaspoon of edible lavender into the syrup. Let sit for 15 minutes, and then strain out the solids. Refrigerate.

In a medium pot, warm:
2 cups of milk
1 cup of heavy cream

Remove from heat when foam starts forming around the edges.

In a large bowl, beat:
4 egg yolks
1/2 cup of sugar

Beat them until they’re frothy, and then gradually pour the warm milk/cream mixture into the egg yolks, while whisking constantly.

Return the mixture to the pot and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens slightly and coats the spoon. Remove it from heat. (Remove it immediately if you notice lumps starting to form.)

Strain the mixture into a bowl, cover it, and chill for several hours. When it’s cold, pour it into an ice cream maker with the blackberry lavender syrup and churn for approximately 30 minutes total. After about 15 minutes, add 1 cup of bittersweet chocolate chips and continue to churn another 15 minutes, or until thickened to gelato consistency.

Transfer the gelato to a container, seal and freeze it until firm.

And then, of course, eat it!

Victory Garden

“To forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves.” – Mohandas K. Gandhi

For mother’s day, my husband and son built a small garden for me. I’d seen videos like this one, about depression-era victory gardens and I wanted one of my own.

So Mike and Aidan built a small garden bed and I planted rosemary, thyme, basil, parsley, broccoli, swiss chard, lettuce, yellow squash, zuccinni, cucumbers, eggplant, and pumpkin. Yep, all that in a 5′ x 6′ plot. And yep, I don’t know what I’m doing.

In spite of my lack of skills, the garden grew beautifully.

Kim's Victory Garden

Pumpkin seeds

I’ve got three good reasons to be proud of my garden. First, the garden is economical. A packet of seeds costs about $2.50 and and I get about $10.00 worth of produce out of each packet.

Second, the garden is good for the planet. No fossil fuels were used to harvest, ship, or sell this produce. I simply walk out my back door with my kitchen scissors and “snip,” I’ve got veggies for dinner.

But the biggest bonus is the sheer pleasure of growing my own food. I had no idea it would be so much fun. The feeling of accomplishment when I harvested the garden’s first yellow squash defies description. I stir-fried it with garlic, butter, basil, and thyme and served it with angel hair pasta. Yum.

So, if you’ve got a backyard, plant a veggie garden. If you live in an apartment, put a pot of basil on your sunniest windowsill. It will be worth it. Trust me.

Basil

Yellow Squash

Red Leaf Lettuce (left), Basil (lower left), Broccoli (right), Eggplant (upper middle)

Cucumber

5 Free Newsletters That Help Me Stay in the Know and On A Budget

You can Google “frugal,” but that won’t necessarily lead you to these newsletters (or their companion sites). Here’s to finding frugality in some unexpected places!

Tasting Table – The writers of Tasting Table keep me filled in on all sorts of NYC foodie fodder. Their mission is “to deliver the best of food and drink culture to adventurous eaters,” and while that usually inspires worth-the-splurge editorial (in this city, anyway), Tasting Table also offers a fair amount of frugally-minded suggestions for everything from recession-friendly dining deals and cheap $2 tacos to drinks at Depression-era prices and recipes for culturing your own curds.

Epicurious – Because I like making food and assembling meals and I like pairing them with wine or cocktails (and I even like to do all of this on the cheap, whenever possible)…

…because it’s often cheaper to prepare my own food than to pay someone else to do it…

…and because Epicurious sends me recipes from Bon Appétit and Gourmet (which I no longer buy)…

I am a longtime subscriber to the Epicurious newsletters. They currently offer 2 versions. The first, Recipe Flash, is more food and recipe oriented, while the other, Tasting Notes, focuses on wine reviews and pairing recommendations.

Fodor’s Travel – While Fodor’s may still be suffering from its reputation as, well, your parents’ travel guide, I urge you to look at Fodor’s with a fresh eye. Their editorial and design has really changed for the better over the last few years. And I’m not just saying that because I sometimes write for them (though not for their newsletters). I recommend checking out Fodor’s because their editorial focus has shifted to include more sophisticated drinking and dining coverage, a better range of offerings (in general), more compelling features, full-color guidebooks, and a vibrant community. Fodor’s isn’t as interested in traveling on the cheap as they are in getting you the most for your money, but with that being said, their newsletters often offer value-conscious features that are beneficial for both the tourist and the local, alike. Here are a few recent ones for our fellow New Yorkers:

• New York City Deals: Fine Dining for Less
• New York’s 12 Best Free Summer Events
• Cheap NYC Lunches: Fodor’s Top 5 Favorite Food Carts & Truck

Read the rest of this entry »

Do-It-Yourself Aperitivo

3 Prosecco Cocktails (+ a cordial glass of strawberry mint syrup)

It’s easy to be a frugal foodie in Italy. Food, for the most part, is pretty cheap. And wine, I noticed when I was living in Rome, was sometimes even cheaper than bottled water (though it should be noted that free drinking water is available from water fountains all over the city, so there’s no need to ever even buy water). When I moved back to NYC from Rome a couple of years ago, I realized that the Italian way of thinking about gastronomy had gotten to me. Simple, seasonal, fresh, and delicious food is both a basic principle and something to be celebrated there. Italians are passionate about eating and drinking; meals are rituals; and the way things are done matters. A mere 2 ounces of carelessly prepared espresso is sure to cause a fight at the bar; pasta cooked a moment past al dente is unforgivable.

One of my favorite, celebratory Italian foodie/drinky rituals is the aperitivo. It’s sort of the Italian equivalent to our American “happy hour” or the French aperitif, but rather than getting a little bowl of salted nuts or pretzels with your drink, you’re presented with a veritable buffet of Italian delights – for no extra charge. Read the rest of this entry »

How in the Hell Do You Cook a Chicken?

My greatest expense is food, and in the past, the money I spent on food was predominantly spent in restaurants. In an effort to reduce this expense, as well as my waistline, I’ve started making the majority of my meals at home. I say “make” as most of my meals require little to no cooking: Vegetarian Cobb Salad; Tomato, Avocado, and Mozzarella Salad; Eggplant Parmesan; Sautéed Chicken with Peppers; and Meatloaf. However, last week I decided to expand my blue-plate special repertoire, so I took a cooking class with Rebecca Goldfarb, the owner of The Social Table.

Each class at The Social Table has a specific theme, hosts eight people, and costs $65 per person for appetizers and a 3-course meal. Wine is BYOB, giving you the option of grabbing a bottle from home, picking up a bottle or two of Trader Joe’s Two-Buck Chuck, or stopping by your local wine store for one of Frugaltopia’s recommended Vino Cheapos. It may be a cooking class, but the wine is important, as you spend much of the class eating, drinking, and chatting with your classmates and Rebecca. Although not inexpensive, this cooking class is a great way to celebrate a birthday with friends, learn some new cooking tips and tricks (I can now expertly crack eggs and separate the yolks and whites), and meet some new people who appreciate food as much as you (or I) do. Read the rest of this entry »

Sit Out City Brunch and Bake Scones Instead

Molasses, Brown Sugar & Cinnamon Scones

In spring and summer, brunch is practically a team sport for many New Yorkers – one requiring endurance, stamina, and the competitive ability to meet up with friends on a Sunday morning and wait, on average, for 20 to 40 minutes for a table while sleep- and caffeine-deprived. The prize? A bottomless cup of coffee, Bloody Marys and Mimosas, Eggs Bene, and hours of sundry brunchy deliciousness. Admittedly, not a bad payoff.

Surely, there are many tempting brunch deals to be had in the boundless food Mecca of New York City, especially these days, but that’s another post. I’ve been spending these early spring Sundays brunching in. Well, not “in” exactly. I take brunch on my deck, surrounded by my recently planted flower, herb, and vegetable garden, and a wild grapevine that has aggressively wrapped itself around the perimeter and is threatening to take over my entire outdoor space with its many shoots and tendrils and flowering buds.

No matter how simple or elaborate a brunch I prepare, the one thing I always include is some kind of fresh-baked scone. I love scones! And I know there are many crumbly, delicious scones – both sweet and savory – to be had in New York City. I especially like the ones at Once Upon a Tart, Tea & Sympathy (which I lovingly refer to as “Tea & Hostility”), and The City Bakery, to name a few. But the Frugaltopian in me suspects that for the same amount of money I’d spend on a single scone, I could bake several – if not a whole batch – in my own kitchen. And you know what? It’s totally easy and it takes only about 20 minutes from start to finish, thus making it a frugal use of my time, too.

Here’s a new riff on a basic scone recipe that I baked this weekend:
Molasses, Brown Sugar & Cinnamon Scones
Makes 8 scones

Scones:
2 ½ C unbleached flour
1/4 C brown (or cane) sugar
1 T baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 t salt
5 T butter, cold & sliced
1 egg
1/2 C buttermilk, milk, or soymilk
2 T molasses

Topping:
1 T unbleached flour
3 T brown (or cane) sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
2 T butter, cold, sliced

Preheat oven to 425˚

Combine the dry ingredients for the scones, and then cut the butter into the flour mixture with a pastry cutter until it gets crumby (or better yet, use a food processor – much quicker). Don’t overwork the dough; it’s important for the butter to stay cold until it gets into the oven. Add the egg and liquids. Mix together. Gather dough. Plop 8 scones down on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 8 to 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, combine the dry ingredients for the topping and cut the butter in (or pulse all ingredients together in the food processor). After the scones have baked for 8 to 10 minutes, slide the baking sheet out of the oven, gently press down the top of each scone with a tablespoon, and then sprinkle the topping mixture over each scone. (Use good aim and try to keep the topping on the scones because otherwise the sugar/butter mixture will burn quickly on the baking sheet.) Slide the scones back into the oven and bake for another 2 to 5 minutes, until you can stick a toothpick into a scone’s center and it comes out clean.

Enjoy!

Note: If you can’t finish a whole batch yourself, you can freeze your leftover baked scones and heat them up for breakfast or teatime later.
Summer Dessert Tip: You can also use these scones (with or without the topping) in place of biscuits in a simple strawberry shortcake. Mmm!

Cabbage Love (and 3 recipes)

Cabbage is a vegetable for hard times.

Think of bubble and squeak, the quick Welsh dish of fried cabbage and potato; Cabbage Patch Kids with their patched up clothes; or famous famines and their winters of boiled cabbages.

But there’s no need to be ashamed: ancient Greeks and Romans ate cabbage. Why shouldn’t we?

Cabbage is a glamorously international vegetable, grown prodigiously in China, India, Russia, and Indonesia (as well as Poland and the Ukraine, as you would expect).

For frugal types — or those new to frugal living — cabbage is a gold mine: good for you and cheap. Red cabbage is 69 cents a pound (99 for organic) versus radicchio (its cousin in looks) at $3.99 a pound, and vitamin-packed kale at a minimum of $2.99 a pound.

Cabbage has a lot of vitamin C and glutamine, making it a great anti-inflammatory. It also has some folate and a little bit of protein.

I decided to spend some weeks cooking with cabbage and see how I liked it. I ate the green raw, cooked the red, sampled it pickled and in soup. The following recipes are the result of my experiments. One word of caution: raw cabbage can be very challenging on the digestion. Not recommended for sensitive guts.

One last word about the humble cabbage: while a slow-witted person might be a cabbagehead, a special someone could be a petit chou.

 
Green Cabbage Salad with Blue Cheese and Olives (serves 4)
Crunchy and lively with the salty blue cheese and the piquant lime, this is an easy-to-make salad, appetizer, or dinner accompaniment. Serve with trout and white wine for a larger meal. Vegan variation: omit the cheese add salt and pecans (apple optional).

4 cups raw green cabbage (about 1/2 a med head)
8 Tblsp black olives, sliced
4 oz blue cheese, cubed
French dressing
pepper

French Dressing. Put all ingredients in a glass bottle and shake well.
4 oz fresh lime juice (about 4 limes)
2 oz olive oil
salt & pepper

How to assemble:
Slice cabbage into fine ribbons and place in a colander in the sink. Pour a kettle of boiling water over it to make it easier to digest. (Alternately, you could sautee the cabbage for 4 minutes to break it down further.) In 4 soup plates, place 1 cup of the cabbage, top with cheese, olives, and dress. Toss with pepper. Voila!
 

Sweet & Sour Red Cabbage (serves 6 –
Hearty, tangy, pungent, a good accompaniment for eggs, fish, or meat, this is a classic braised cabbage. It is simple, but has a long cooking time. Adapted from an English cookbook I found in California years ago, The Home Book of Vegetarian Cookery by N.B. and R.B. Highton, 1964.

1 red cabbage (about 1 lb)
1 oz butter
1 small chopped white onion
1 Tblsp brown sugar
1 cooking apple
2 Tblsp apple vinegar
1 grated raw potato
1/4 – 1/2 pint stock
1/2 tsp cayenne (or to taste)
1/2 tsp ground clove (or to taste)
Salt

How to assemble
Shred cabbage finely and wash. In a large saucepan, heat the butter. Add the onion and brown sugar and until brown. Add the cabbage, apple, potato, salt and spices. Stir well. Add the stock. Simmer until tender, about 2 hours. Check periodically and add more liquid if necessary to prevent burning. Taste–it should be sweet and sour. Adjust the seasonings (try adding a little more vinegar to make it sweeter). Serve hot.

 
Kim Chee or Kimchi (lasts almost a lifetime, feeds everyone)
Delicious, potent, great for digestive health, kim chee is Korea’s national treasure. Said to cure lab animals infected with avian flu virus, this stuff will keep your mouth and belly breathing fire. Perfect for surviving any recession! Enjoy at work but expect to clear the room. To the uninitiated, it can smell as putrid as garbage rotting in the summer sun. To the initiated it is heaven in a pickled form. Yum! Recipe adapated from Fabulous Foods.com.

3 Tblsp plus 1 tsp pickling salt 6 cups water
2 pounds Napa cabbage, cut into 2-inch squares
6 scallions, cut into 2-inch lengths, then slivered
1 1/2 Tblsp minced fresh ginger
2 Tblsp Korean ground dried hot pepper (or other mildly hot ground red pepper)
1 tsp sugar

How to assemble
1. Create a brine by dissolving 3 tablespoons salt in water. Put the cabbage into a large bowl (not plastic or other reactive material) and pour the brine over it. Weight the cabbage down with a plate. Let stand 12 hours.

2. Drain the cabbage and reserve the brine. Mix the cabbage with the remaining ingredients, including the 1 tsp salt. Pack the mixture into a 2-quart jar. Pour enough of the reserved brine over the cabbage to cover it. Push a freezer bag into the mouth of the jar, and pour the remaining brine into the bag. Seal the jar. Let the kimchi ferment in a cool place, at a temperature no higher than 68° F, for 3 to 6 days, until the kimchi is as sour as you like.

3. Remove the brine bag, and cap the jar tightly. Store the kimchi in the refrigerator, where it will keep for months.