On low-budge way to feed family...

I was quite touched by the report of a single mother whose blog chronicles her attempt to feed her family (herself and her young toddler son) with A$17 a week.  I was moved by the emotions that go with hunger, and working poor, all while trying to keep one's head up high and maintaining some sort of dignity.  I can only imagine how tough that must be, of the single mother's attempt to do the right thing, yet hamstrung by support and opportunities.

There's one thing I cannot agree with her more: Most people think that it's expensive to feed the family well, that it must be cheaper to feed the family with junk food, rather than cooking at home; this notion is quite far from truth.  This lady has proved how wrong that notion can be, and I can second that.

Although our situation is different from hers and I don't have to count pennies when it comes to grocery shopping, I'm always cognizant to grocery and food prices. And although I'm not a chef type of cook, my husband and I tag-team to do grocery shopping and to cook for the family. In general, I'd say, we only spend about $100 a week on grocery, and the most expensive item is actually fruits (not meat).

How do you keep grocery bill low, yet having fresh food on the table for every meal? I've come to realize that, one key thing is, to keep an open-mind.  I don't have a "shopping list" when I go grocery shopping. I only keep shopping list for things that I run out (eg. toilet papers, or seasoning, or cooking oil); those are the "essentials" that I must have. When it comes to food, fruit, and vegetables, I never have shopping list. (About the only food items that I really have on my shopping list, is milk and eggs.)

I do realize that we're lucky to live in metropolitan area of the city, yet not in inner city. Supermarkets and food stores have weekly markdowns. Since we live fairly close by the stores, we can take more frequent trips, rather than once a week, for example. Particularly when it comes to meat, it'll get marked down when it's closer to expiry date. Those are what I'd get. The trick? You freeze it down in freezer. Then you can have it whenever you need it (although you do have to cook it fairly fast after it's de-frozed). But, you can't do that with vegetables and fruits, although you can slow down their ripening process by putting them in fridge.

What that means is that, what I cook is dictated by what I can get on that day (when it's on sale) or what's in the freezer or fridge. If you plan ahead for a day or two, you would know what you can cook. But, if you go to the store, with some specific dish in mind, so that you're going in just to search for ingredients, then yes, you'll have to pay the price. I don't shop that way.

I've heard some other tricks from other cultures too.  Like the Indians would cook enough curry to last the family for a whole week, and just put it in the fridge for use (for lunch and dinner). That way, they can buy (and cook) in bulk.

Some food ingredients are so versatile, that you can literally make different dishes out of it. I like soups. So, I like to soak a whole chicken in boiling water for about 30 minutes, take the chicken out, and you can have juicy white chicken meat for anything (as a dish itself, or for salad, etc). The soup would become soup base for vegetables like carrots, potatoes, celery or onion. For a young family of four, that could last you for almost two days. This way, you can have a meat dish (chicken), veggie, and soup. It's perfect for us.

How much does that cost?  A bigger whole chicken, about $9, maybe. One pound bag of carrots, $2.50 (that can last 4 meals easily). Five pound bag of potatoes, $4.5 maybe (that can last a number of meals). Onion, $.69 per pound. So, for lunch and dinner for two days, it's something like $9 + $2.50 + $1.40 + $2 (if you can eat lots of potatoes). That's less than $15 for lunches and dinners for two days. Here, I'm not even talking about buying food that is close to used-by date. These are fresh stuffs. You get the idea.

(Yes, I learn that trick from my mom, of soaking the whole chicken in boiling water for 30 minutes, then take it out. Don't soak it too long though; otherwise, the meat of the chicken will get tough. The skin must be left on. The meat would retain the juiciness and flavor, the same way you would get in Chinese restaurant for the plain white chicken that comes with condiment of ginger, scallion, and oil. My kids love it. *yum*)

Oh, and if you worry about this chicken+soup+veggie repertoire would take a long time, you're wrong. You don't even have to be in the kitchen when all these are being cooked. Essentially, you get the water to boiling point, turn off the stove, then drop the chicken in, set the timer to 30-40 mins (you might need a bit longer if the chicken's meat is thicker), then walk away. When the timer beeps, you take the chicken out, then drop all the rinsed veggie and potatoes in, plus a bit of chicken stock, and get them in slow boil for a little bit. Again, you can set the timer, and walk away. How long it takes depends on how soft you like your veggie to be. For me, I bring the soup (with veggie in it) to a boil, then turn off the stove and let it sit. That way, the veggie is cooked but won't get too mushy, and the soup won't get too mushy and thick either. You can easily prepare this at night after the kids have gone to bed, and have them all ready for meals tomorrow. I like doing that kind of hassle-free, quiet type of cooking at night, with a bit of radio or music on. It's quite relaxing. That's my kind of kitchen therapy. This is also one of the most energy-efficient recipe, in which you hardly need to use much utility.

Another alternative is salmon and avocado sushi roll. All you need is a slap of salmon fillet (which can make a lot of sushi rolls), seaweed wrap, a couple of avocado, and Japanese sushi rice. Making the sushi roll is a no-brainer, and you can prepare it overnight, ready to eat the next day. It's fresh; it's healthy; it's filling too. To me, this is way better than making sandwiches. My kids love this too. (This is the only time in which my son would eat avocado.)

And how much would this be? Salmon fillet is normally $12.99 per pound, but oftentimes go on sale for $7.99 - $9.99 per pound. You buy two pounds of it, and it's more than enough for sushi rolls for more than two days. One pack of sushi seaweed sheets has loads - and I mean loads - of seaweed that it could last us for weeks. Same for a bag of sushi rice which I only cook enough for the sushi every time. Avocado, between $1 - $1.50 per. Some people like to do california-roll style, and substitute it with cucumber which is much cheaper and give it the crunchiness. What it comes down to is, it's really not that expensive either. Tuna is more or less the same price.  (I'm sure sushi aficionado is going to go bananas about calling this "sushi," but hey, food is food. Then again, salmon avocado sushi rolls are everywhere in Sydney, I'm sure it's going to drive them nuts; maybe those folks should avoid visiting Sydney altogether. To me, whatever works, works.)

There are other healthy, yummy, yet cheap recipes too. Get some salmon head, or some other big fish head and bones that are sold on the cheap. (Sometimes they can be as low as $0.99 per pound.) Boil them for a bit (30 minutes would do) to get the soup base which would make a very nice and light soup. If you like to nibble on the fish meat too, so much the better, although fish meat tends to get tough fairly quickly after boiling. When the soup base is ready, you can put in things like tofu and seaweed, or even watercress. It only takes maybe another 10 minutes of boiling after the tofu and seaweed are put in.

The cost? If you get them on the cheap, say, $0.99 per pound, you can get a few pounds for just a few dollars. (Regular price is something between $1.99 to $2.99 per pound.) Tofu in a pack of 4, maybe $2.50. Seaweed and watercress are not expensive either. This soup + ingredients is even cheaper than the chicken soup, but you'll get loads of protein and veggie.

And of course there are other ingredients that you can make soup base out of, including pork bones. (Oxtails are yummy but they are never cheap.) Some ingredients go particularly well with each other. Watercress goes well with oxtails or bones soup since it cuts the heaviness of the soup. Fish soup goes with ingredients that are "lighter" in flavor (eg. tofu and seaweed, even winter melon or papaya - yes). Chicken soup is fairly neutral, and it's perfect base for chinese herbal soup or western-style generic "chicken soup". (You can add different herbs in them, and it'll become a different soup, although you do need to be mindful of which herbs go well with which!) Soups are so versatile that you can do whatever you like with it, and they are so easy to make. In terms of veggie, carrots and onions go with almost any soup, though I don't normally add veggie to chinese herbal soups. Better yet, it's actually better to use bones for soup (as they are more flavorful), rather than the actual meat; it's better for the environment too to use every part of the animals that have gone on the chopping board to be our food, rather than throwing them away.

If you're super-energy conscious, then you should avoid ox bones or pork bones or oxtail soup, because they literally require you to boil it - bring it to hard boil, then slow boil - for at least three to four hours. But they are yummy in their own ways. You have to boil them until the meat falls off from the bones, and the soup turns semi-milky white.

So, to be honest, I never quite understand why people would always say it's expensive to feed the family with fresh food, or that junk food is cheaper. Sure, you won't always get what you want on my menu, but neither would you pay more for it than at MacDonald's, for example. I like the kind of unplanned surprises when I go grocery shopping when I see some cheap ingredients, I would go a-ha for yet another dish. It's quite fun.

That said, if you have to have your fix in finer things in life, like salmon or tuner or lobster or or scallop or porterhouse steak when they're not on sale, then your budget will surely be dictated by those prices which are not cheap. (Reminder: it's not a good idea to freeze down the salmon or tuna, then use it for sushi or sashimi because the texture won't be the ideal for it after the freezing process. Most everything else, you can freeze down for later use.)

In general, I don't restrict my grocery shopping to just one repertoire. If you spread it out over, say, the course of a whole month, you can quite easily incorporate other higher-priced food items too.

As to the very low-budge menu (with things like beans) that the abovementioned single mom has championed, I truly salute her. All it takes is ingenuity.

I like it that, with an open mind, every time when I go grocery shopping, I'll decide on-the-fly what dishes we'll have, sometimes even mixing ingredients up which can be quite fun. It literally forces me to make things up on the go. Unlike my husband who likes cookbooks, I'm more an intuitive person. Sometimes we would dine out, and when we try new dishes, and he would ask me how I think the dish is made; I would give him general steps (of how I think it's made), and he'll go try it out at home. And then he'll make adjustments to the steps to perfect the dishes at home. It's not unlike doing experiments in labs.


PS:  We miss the porterhouse steak in Sydney which is about half of the price in US. The meat is always so tender. My kids and I love it cooked very rare; they say the texture of rare steak is almost like fresh salmon, and they're right. :)

PPS:  One thing you should be mindful of is, you should scoop up the oil from the animal soup (chicken or pork bones, for example) since you don't want to have those fat in your body. Oil from the fish is good for you; so, leave it in the soup. If you cook veggie in the soup, a bit of oil in the soup is good.