02171 Seven Steps to Kitchen Frugality and Tasty Food!

I have three precious things which I hold fast and prize. The first is gentleness; the second is frugality; the third is humility, which keeps me from putting myself before others. Be gentle and you can be bold; be frugal and you can be liberal; avoid putting yourself before others and you can become a leader among men. — Lao Tzu

1. Food is not just fuel, food is the way we maintain life. It speaks of our families and our cultures, our identities as persons, families, communities, "You are what you eat,” as they say. Eating is an agricultural act and eating is a moral act. Our food choices have impacts far beyond our own kitchens. The nice thing about that is what's best for us in the kitchen is best for the planet. This is why the way forward abandons manufactured fast foods in favor of slow food, true food, good food, loving and healing food, nutritious food, tasty food.

2. Develop an appropriate level of organization in your kitchen. Plan your meals and organize your shopping. In the beginning, plan more, not less. In the beginning it is best to write everything down and make lists and schedules. As you gain more experience you can improvise more. The busier you are, the more necessary it is that you do this. Many people waste a tremendous amount of money in grocery stores because we buy on impulse or because we think we might need something sometime in the future for some unknown recipe. We waste time as we wander around aimlessly, not sure of what we want to buy. We miss something first time around and have to backtrack all the way across the store to get it. We get home and find we forgot something we actually needed so we go back to the store and end up with more junk that we didn't really need because we went in to get "just one thing."

3. Cook your meals from basic ingredients. Stop buying mixes and prepared foods. Shop smart, and shop wisely. Practice does make for perfect food! Tasty too!

4. Start a garden. If you have no land, find a community garden or start a container garden. Get some food processing equipment and skills. Learn weekly, monthly, and seasonal food processing. Grow as much food as you can, and preserve food you grow in the summer for eating in the winter. If you don't have a freezer, get one. Or, share a freezer with a neighbor. Neighborhoods could establish a service center, with washers, freezer space, meeting rooms, a commercial size kitchen, food processing equipment, and other neighborhood amenities. Work with your neighbors!

5. Keep some of your household savings in the form of food. Store what you eat and eat what you store. Stock up on basic staples and increase the amount of food you keep in your pantry so that you are not vulnerable to weekly or monthly mood swings in supermarket prices. Note that this is the equivalent of having your own in-home convenience store. The more times you go to the store, the more money you will spend. Shop less and you will spend this. To do this successfully, you must keep more food on hand in your pantry. Be clever in your storage solutions if you live in a small space.

6. Set aside one or two afternoons at a regular interval and "cook ahead.” Look at your meal plan, and do what you can ahead of time on these "cook days.” Use your freezer to help you prepare quick meals of "slow food" later in the week or month. You can make bread dough for a week in 20 minutes. If you will need 4 pounds of fried ground beef for 3 meals, fry all 4 pounds on Cook Day and freeze it until you need it. Make soup stocks and freeze them for use later. Keep a bag of cooked, frozen meatballs, and a bag of cooked, frozen hamburger patties in your freezer, and there are the basic ingredients for spaghetti and meatballs, Oklahoma meatballs, hamburgers, or Redneck Salisbury Steak. Do one or two projects at a time, don't attempt too much at first. Don't be afraid to start small. That’s the best way.

7. Buy some food from local farmers. As you get more experience with this easy and convenient approach to slow food, you will save money on your food bills because you change your shopping and cooking habits. Now you can look for better quality ingredients from local sources like farmers’ markets and food coops, even if they cost a bit more. You will find that you can spend a little more for quality local ingredients (depending of course on your access to them) — such as locally grown organic produce, free-ranging and grass fed meats, olive oil instead of shortening, butter instead of margarine — while at the same time spending less overall on your groceries.