Day #9: Level Up Your Cooking Skills
Here’s today’s installment:
After tweaking your budget in Day #2 of this series, you’ve probably noticed this: food is one of your largest expenditures, if not the largest. This is especially true if you have a family or if you usually eat in restaurants or order takeout.
So to minimize your largest expense, it’s time to learn more effective and affordable cooking.
Today’s Task: Level Up Your Cooking Skills
Note the keywords “level up”. This means that whatever cooking skills you have, take this as an opportunity to improve them. I’ve listed some resources below to help some of you get started.
Note that these are only suggestions. You’re the only one who can decide what you mean by “leveling up”.
For those who are inexperienced with cooking:
- Beginner cooking techniques from ReluctantGourmet.com, and don’t forget to try their basic recipes
- Random cooking tips at Lifetips.com
- Some helpful videos:
- Tips to crush, chop, and mince garlic cloves
- How to chop an onion the right way
- How to measure rice proportions with your finger (which is why it’s funny to me to see foreign cooking shows talking about cups of water and cups of rice) and How to cook rice
- How to debone a fish from InYourKitchen
- How to portion a chicken from InYourKitchen
If you’re already an advanced cook, why not try to learn the following skills?
- Batch cooking
- Batch cooking and freezing guide from Netmums.com
- The Five-day Freeze: Batch cooking for the rest of us from Wisebread
- A handy freezer storage chart that tells you how long food stays good in a freezer
- Canning and preserving produce – here’s a detailed guide
- Or, simply learn to cook 3 new dishes.
Also, check out The Insider’s Guide to Frugal Food and Fitness at Squawkfox.com. Many of the mentioned ingredients are expensive here, so I’m kind of tempted to write a similar free resource for Filipinos.
Why does this lead to healthier finances? If you’re the type who often resorts to dining out, by learning how to cook more efficiently, you’ll save a lot of money without much hassle. If you’re already experienced with cooking, new skills such as batch cooking and learning how to preserve food can also decrease your expense. Who knows, if you enjoy cooking enough, you might just end up with a small side business.
Read MoreAffordable Solar Power: Looking Beyond Panels
Lately I’ve been thinking about what I can do to lower our energy consumption at home. We don’t have many appliances, but if there’s a way I can lower my bill and lessen my home’s negative impact on the environment, I’d love to try it. This made me consider using solar energy.
When people think about harnessing solar energy, the first thing that comes to mind are photovoltaic panels — but this is hardly the best choice.
Here’s the problem: First of all, most solar panels are not that environment-friendly. Some use a very rare metal called indium, and if we continue to use indium at our current rate, we’ll only have a 10-year supply of it left.
Using solar panels to power your home can also be impractical. You’ll need several modules or panels to produce a workable amount of electricity, not to mention the space to hold them. Plus, they are just too expensive for the average Filipino consumer.
We have to look at solar energy from a different angle, then.
Solar Ovens
One way to utilize solar energy for your home is to build a solar oven. Basically, these ovens run on nothing but the light and heat of the sun. Here are the advantages of doing this:
Read More4 Must-Visit Websites for the Frugal Cook
I’ve always loved cooking my own meals at home. Not only is it cheaper, but it’s a great way to bond with your family, experiment with different ingredients, and personalize dishes according to your taste.
If you love cooking just as much as I do, you’ll benefit from checking out the following websites listed below. They prove to be good references whenever I need answers to my storage, preparation, and other cooking questions.
Still Tasty is a website that tells you the shelf life of food items in your house. Apart from telling you the shelf life, you also get some tips on how to store these items properly so you can keep them fresh.
I’ve mentioned Super Cook in the past, but I’m including it on this list because it’s one of the most useful cooking sites out there. Basically, you input the ingredients you have and the site tells you what you can cook with it. It comes in handy during those late night snacks or rainy days where you can’t go out to the grocery.
Want to cook your main meals just once a month? The Freezer Cooking Guide contains the basic things you need to do to plan once a month batch cooking. This site is especially helpful for busy professionals. The guide doesn’t contain recipes though. For those recipes, you can visit the batch cooking section of BigOven.com.
How about you, do you have any frugal cooking sites to share? Please post them in the comments section 
Recipe: Spicy Kani Linguine
My partner and I celebrated our 29th monthsary the other day, which called for a romantic dinner for two. She was craving a cream-based pasta with crab sticks, so she “invented” the Spicy Kani Linguine, which ended up being really, really good. I’m posting the recipe here as it’s a relatively cheap dish that is easy to prepare.
This recipe serves 2 to 3 people.
Preparation time: 30 minutes
Ingredients:
- half a pack of kani/crab sticks – Cost: P42.50 (a whole pack costs P7o to P85)
- 100 grams Mushrooms – Cost: P30
- 200 grams of linguine – Cost: P28 (P60 to P70 for a 500 gram pack)
- 250 ml cream – Cost: P37
- 2 tablespoons of butter
- 3 to 4 pieces of red chili peppers – Cost: Free from garden
- garlic
- salt and pepper
- parsley – I got this free from my garden as well.
Remember that you can change the quantities of the mushrooms, pasta, and crab sticks based on your preference.
Estimated total cost of meal: P140 to P260. Not bad, considering that pasta dishes for 2-3 people can cost more in restaurants.
Directions:
- Boil the pasta in water with oil and salt.
- Mince the garlic and slice the kani sticks crosswise.
- Saute the garlic, butter, and chopped kani in 1 tablespoon of butter. Set aside.
- Finely chop the red chili peppers.
- Heat the cream in a sauce pan and gradually mix the remaining butter in. Throw in the chopped chili peppers. Salt and pepper the sauce according to your taste.
- When the pasta is done, mix it in with the cream sauce and the sauteed mushrooms and kani. Top the dish with chopped parsley.
Notes:
- The mushrooms and kani are sauteed separately and then thrown in with the pasta in the end to avoid the dish from tasting too monotonous. If you throw in the kani too early into the sauce, the seafood taste will dominate the sauce, making the dish predictable and flat.
- If the cream sauce tastes too sweet, add a bit more butter until it has the “saltiness” you need.
Frugal alternatives to more expensive ingredients
If you enjoy cooking as much as I do, then there are always those recipes that you’re dying to try. The downside is that you might not have the ingredients on hand, or the recipe might include expensive ingredients. If you only need a tablespoon of red wine vinegar, for example, it doesn’t make sense to buy an entire bottle if you don’t think you’ll use it in everyday cooking anyway.
This is where substitution comes in. Sometimes, expensive ingredients can be replaced with cheaper, easy-to-find alternatives. Here are some examples:
Sour cream. This costs around P75 if you buy it from a store. If you just get the regular cream (P35) and gradually add vinegar or lemon juice as you stir it, you’ll get the same effect. Just use your taste buds to judge the quantity, but 2 to 3 tablespoons of vinegar to one cup of cream should do the trick. Sometimes I add a bit of mayonnaise if I’ll be using the sour cream in a dip.
If you don’t want to do all this mixing, you can also use yogurt in the same amount as the sour cream.
Cream cheese. It’s P115 a block, so if you’re only going to use small quantities, you can use these suggestions from AllRecipes: the same amount of yogurt, strained with a cheesecloth overnight. I haven’t tried this yet, though.
According to the article I mentioned earlier, you can puree some cottage cheese (same as the needed amount of cream cheese), but the price difference would be smaller, because the last time I checked, cottage cheese was P95/cup. I generally just buy cream cheese rather than do substitutions, since it goes well with almost anything. If for some reason you can’t find it (they don’t have it in the grocery nearest my house), then by all means try these substitutes.
Parmesan cheese. If you have some leftover queso de bola from the holidays, you can grate that and use it instead of buying parmesan.
White/red wine vinegar. The substitution depends on what you need the wine vinegar for. If it’s the acidity that’s needed, then you can simply use any vinegar you have – just add it gradually and judge it with your tastebuds until it has the level of acidity or sourness you need. Since red wine vinegar is generally milder, you can halve the quantity required in the recipe.
White/red wine. For white wine, you can substitute chicken or fish broth (depending on what you’re cooking). According to an article I found at About.com, you can also use ginger ale, or canned mushroom liquid. If you’ll use it as a marinade, you can mix 1/4 cup vinegar with 1 tbsp sugar and 1/4 cup water.
For red wine, you can substitute grape juice. If you’re using tetrapack or powdered juices, they might be too sweet, so diluting them with broth or water might help.
Here are some additional ingredient substitute lists I found online:
- from E-cookbooks.net
- That’s My Home substitution list
- FoodSubs.com (this one is the most comprehensive, as it even lists substitutes for kitchen tools)
Do you use substitutes for expensive ingredients? Are there any tips you’d like to share with us?
Image by Steve Woods from Sxc.hu
Read MoreIs it cheaper to be a vegetarian?
With most meat and fish costing more than P100/kilo, I can’t help but ask myself if it’s cheaper to be a vegetarian. Check out the prices from various markets/stores below:
Balintawak Market in Quezon City:
Tomatoes (1 kilo) – P25
Kalamansi (1 kilo, big size) – P20
Carrots (1 kilo) – P30
Potatoes (1 kilo) – P28
String beans (per super fat bunch) – P10
Lettuce (1 big head) – P15
Saba (biggest size) – P1.80 per piece
Coconut (biggest size) – P15
Squash (medium size) – P20 per piece
Pechay (1 kilo) – P20
Broccoli (per kilo) – P40
Pineapple (medium size) – P15
Source: MoneySmarts
At the Marikina market:
Eggplant – P50/kilo
Red onions – P82/kilo
Ampalaya – P80/kilo
Squash – P10/ large slice
Okra – P32/kilo
Broccoli (one large stem with leaves) – P 48
Potatoes – P 28/kilo
String Beans – P 20/kilo
Lettuce – P20-P28 per head or P60 per kilo
At Makro:
Eggplant – P49/kilo (for a 2 kg pack)
Cucumber – P39/kilo (for a 2kg pack)
Ampalaya – P72/kilo (for a 2kg pack)
Squash – P17/kilo (for 3kg and above)
What would make vegetarianism exponentially cheaper is that if you buy in bulk and store most of your purchases in a chest freezer. But not all vegetables freeze well – especially those delicate veggies that have a lot of water. For example, you shouldn’t freeze lettuce, cabbages, and other leafy veggies, tomatoes, and cucumbers. I’ve found a very helpful page with instructions on how to freeze specific vegetables. Here’s an excerpt on how to freeze eggplant:
Cut into slices, sprinkle with salt and allow to stand 30 minutes. Drain off excess liquid and fry gently in butter or margarine until just tender. Cool and pack into plastic containers. Seal and label. Keeps up to 3 months.
(Source: Freezing Vegetables from Garden Guides)
Vegetable prices may be cheaper than meat, but there are some ways in which vegetarianism might actually cost more. It especially depends on the types of vegetables you buy, among other things.
When is it more expensive to be a vegetarian?
- When you’re shopping for a household that can’t live without meat. For example, a family of 5 where only 1 or 2 members will be vegetarian. In this case, buying vegetables for the vegetarians and mostly meat for the omnivores will just add to the overall household expenses (and overall cooking hassle!).
- When you’re dining out. Generally, vegetarian restaurants tend to be more expensive than their non-vegetarian counterparts (not always, but usually). This is probably because they are seen as “specialty” restaurants. However, if you eat a vegetarian dish in a regular restaurant, the veggie dish might be cheaper compared to the other meat-based meals they offer.
So, the answer to my question is: it depends. If you’re simply feeding yourself or an entire household that is willing to make the switch, then it’s definitely cheaper, especially if you’re buying in bulk and freezing the vegetables. In my case, I have yet to convince my entire household of 4 to switch completely, but I am making more vegetable purchases than usual.
Do you think it’s cheaper to be a vegetarian? How much of your diet is made up of veggies?
Read MoreHelp Iligan and CDO
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