Money Saving Tips? Maybe

Even Epicurious is getting in the frugal bandwagon. Their top-10 money saving ingredients is both obvious and limiting, largely indicative of the diet that already puts poor people at risk for obesity and diabetes.

Here's the list:

• Potatoes - Duh, everybody knows it's cheap.
• Rice - See potatoes
• Pasta - Okay, we get it - load up on raw carbs. Diabetes takes years to develop.
• Chicken - Sure it's cheap, as long as you don't buy white meat trimmed tenderloins. You might as well pay someone to chew it for you at that point.
• Beans - Duh, but with a better glycemic index. One note though - every time I get dried beans from the supermarket - usually Goya brand - they never get soft after hours of cooking, probably because they are too old. Perhaps I am just the only person who buys them. I have had much better luck with the ones from the discount produce store that appear to be packaged locally.
  
• Apples - They quote $1.50/lb for Red Delicious, but the recipes they list call for more expensive apples that are actually edible and might stand up to cooking something other than apple sauce. Red Delicious apples, bred for their unnaturally red skin rather than taste, represent everything that is wrong with the last 50 years of the American diet and food system. Supermarkets sell the better apples for $2.50/lb or more, but Trader Joe's has honeycrisps and other great varieties, $4 for a 3 lb bag.
  
• Canned Tuna - Canned tuna, like Spam, is convenient but it's not actually all that cheap, especially considering a can of tuna is half water. Obviously Starkist paid to be listed in this list. But it is tasty, and you know you don't get enough mercury in your diet. Cheaper, however, is canned salmon. It's half the price of tuna by weight, and much lesswater. Some bones though, which they say you are supposed to just eat. I can't bring myself to do it though.
  
• Eggs - Yup, eggs are cheap.
• Cheese - Cheese is not all that cheap these days. $5/lb for cheddar is optimistic.
• Flank Steak - Yum, flank steak, and also skirt steak, are delicious and one of the main reasons to visit Whole Paycheck (better if I ordered from a CSA, but I am lazy)

They are all fine ingredients, but they are mostly basic staples that can form the basis of expensive or cheap dishes. Better advice would be listing cheap nutritious vegetables that are a good value in winter, such as cabbage, broccoli, and squash in all its varieties.

One thing I did find interesting was that they got prices for these ingredients from the Bureau of Labor Statistics survey. The bureau seems to be finding good deals on dry beans, but $7.29/lb for flank steak is a little high - Whole Paycheck sells if for $6.

Rant: A Beef with Bittmann

I'm sure I'm not the only one who read "The Minimalist" Mark Bittman's relatively stupid column in the New York Times. It's bad enough this guy gets paid to show you how to stir fry a vegetable in oil and garlic. He also has to make you feel bad about not being able to spend the day finding that vegetable at your local farmer's market in season. I share some of his philosophy about simple food from scratch. After all, that's what this blog is all about. I even agree you should stock your pantry, but many of his recommendations are odd, particularly what he thinks you should throw out. The whole point of a pantry is to have stuff you need in a pinch.

He wants you to get rid of your packaged bread crumbs and make your own. Well, sure. If I happen to have a stale loaf of bread, I do in fact make bread crumbs. However, it's pretty likely I'll need bread crumbs more often than I have uneaten bread. Therefore, I always keep a can of unseasoned bread crumbs in the pantry.

Out with canned broth or bouillon cubes? Well, sure, those are worse than water but I've already discussed Better than Bouillon, which, while not better than a fast homemade broth, is in fact a lifesaver - and takes up very little space.

No more canned beans? Again, in principal I would like to use dried beans and save a big pile of money, and I often do. But really, in a pinch (such as the time I added one CAN of chipotle peppers instead of one canned pepper and had to quadruple the recipe), you should always have canned beans.

Bittman says "out with bottled lemon juice." Last time I checked, lemons were up to $1 each and go bad in a couple weeks in the crisper, while lemon juice is $3 for a quart and lasts for a year. Fresh lemons are nice, but when you suddenly want a light salad dressing, lemonade, or whatever, you need a jug of lemon juice in the fridge. Of course, that means I'm more or less with Bittmann on avoiding pre-made salad dressing, except sometimes I'm lazy so I have some of that too. It also keeps for a year.

Mr. Minimalist says dried basil and dried parsley are "worthless." He's absolutely right. But then he says dried dill is great. I've tried it... it's not. I keep some frozen dill in the freezer. It keeps pretty good, and imparts wonderful flavor. As for rosemary and thyme, they are indeed useful dry, but rosemary grows indoors in a pot (albeit in strange shapes) and my thyme is still going strong in the garden.

Out with imitation vanilla? Well sure, just the real vanilla extract for me. But no, Bittmann, I am not buying vanilla pods in bulk.

Out with tomato paste in a can so you can use it in a tube? I'm with the guy in principal - it's a pain opening a can when you only need a tablespoon. But in reality, a can of tomato paste can be had for about $0.33 while those tubes cost $4 for half of what's in a can. You're better off throwing away the rest of the can than using the tube. Better bet though is to freeze tablespoons of tomato paste on a piece of wax paper, then put them in a bag to save.

Okay, rant over. I agree with Bittmann that you should always have real maple syrup, bacon, whole chunks of Parmesan (although Regiano has been a bit steep lately), anchovies (to his "in olive oil, please" I will add, but the ones that are rolled up in the jar, since you can't close those weird cans), and winter squash.

Rant over, back to recipes. I'll have to come up with my own pantry list soon.