Jane, thank you for being practical! Especially about busy people needing easy to make or semi convenience foods. I do a lot of canned soup. It’s still cheaper than getting take out or hitting the drive thru! Too many frugal bloggers/channels make like it’s a sin if you don’t make everything from scratch. Busy people may not have the time or energy for that!
Hellu Jane 👋 I adore these types of videos when you do them *and when i finally see them! They are very appreciated. My mother couldn't cook too save her life, but my dad's mum was a good cook as long as she had a recipe in front of her and followed it to a T. I am an avid home cook, and have cooked some in restaurants, but it is just so fun to come up with things without having to shop. Thank you again 🧡
My mum is an expert at what she calls 'making a sixpence do the work of a shilling' and I have inherited her ways. I can do all the basics and I can read a recipe and decide which of the expensive ingredients can be replaced with cheaper alternatives. Also, as a dear friend once put it 'what goes into the soup is nobody's business but the cook's'. Turning those veggies that are getting a bit sad in the bottom of the fridge into a tasty, hearty soup is a speciality of mine, and it always feels like a victory.
I make what I call bottom of the fridge soup. It comes out a different colour every time. Thankfully it always tastes yummy with a small whole meal bread bun a good filling meal.
Suet pastry. Absolutely wonderful stuff. Sweet or savoury it's a godsend. Almost any leftovers can go in a savoury pudding, then a couple of minute in the microwave and you have filling meal. One of my favourite dinners from my wartime childhood was steamed bacon and onion roll. Three slices of back bacon would feed a family. I still treat myself to the updated ( microwaved ) version now. Love your show. Thank you.
My mother was an excellent cook and baker. I was born with many more than one sweet tooth. My suspicions were aroused one day when I arrived home after school, and my mother offered me some chocolate cake. Normally, things like that were put under lock and key to protect and preserve them from me. I happily ate the offered piece of cake, but noticed a rather sly smile on my mother’s face once I had finished it. It took a bit of doing, but she finally explained that I had just eaten chocolate zucchini cake. ZUCCHINI??? She had put a green vegetable in my chocolate cake??? I was horrified! Regardless, it was still delicious. Chalk that up as a win for my mother, learning a new (at the time) technique to get me to eat vegetables. Man, I miss that woman.
My Grandmothers were both very thrifty. They passed down the skills of a well-stocked pantry, simple, wholesome meals, and gardening to the generations behind them. Seed savi ng and tapping trees for maple syrup were also common practices for them. They had so many beautiful skills and I aspire to learn each one.
My grandmom encouraged me to cook with her during summer visits. My favorite was gnocchi. This summer we plan to visit family and teach the grandkids how to make gnocchi.
I learnt to cook from my Mum, but she is a food snob and will only buy the best brands and the best cuts etc. I had to learn to be a frugal cook myself. Before TH-cam I hounded the library shelves and borrowed recipe books. I wrote down useful recipes and learnt to substitute. My mum is an amazing cook, albeit and expensive one 😍
I've forgotten to tell you about my grandma who was a house wife during WW2 and lived through rationing. For all of her life she said it was "criminal" to waste food. The last crust of bread was used to make sage and onion stuffing to go with Sunday dinner. Yesterday's leftovers were reheated over a pan of boiling water for dinner the following day as I do now, only we have microwaves for that. She would have loved that! She had a sideboard in the front room and I never realised until I was grown up why she stored bags of sugar, tinned fruit, evaporated milk and other tinned goods in there, but it was because they were rationed during the war and this was the mid 50s and they were off ration. We used to have tinned fruit and evap for Sunday tea with a slice of brown bread and butter and it was always in lovely fruit dishes and used a fancy spoon from her well looked after canteen of cutlery. I can still remember the smell from opening that sideboard door to get a precious bag of sugar or tin of fruit from it. Right, enough reminiscing. I'll clear off now 😂
I remember my grandma doing the very same thing. I grew up in the 1960's and she used to give us fruit and carnation milk with bread and butter ❤️ I still love this. We also had mashed banana with bread and butter too..
When I was teaching WW2 we went to a farm shop to learn about rationing. The farm shop gave us sausages, potatoes and apples. The next day we made a WW2 meal - used an apple corer to make a hole in the potatoes and stuffed the hole with sausage meat and baked them. Then used the leftover potato to make potato pastry and made apple pie. The children ate the lot and loved it. I had so many sausages left over so I froze them. On the last day of term I made sausage meatballs in tomato sauce and spaghetti. The sauce had blended carrots, courgettes, onion, celery and parsnips - not a scrap of food was left. I had comments, “This is better than my mum’s” “Can I have the recipe?” Xx
Thank you so much Jane for distinguishing picky eating from food allergies/intolerances ❤ as an autistic person with food allergies I really appreciated that. I was called a “picky eater as a child.” My grandma (& her dog Dixie) was my favorite person in the whole wide world. She could always get me to try a new food simply by plating herself a “snack” & saying stuff like “oh this is so good. this is my favorite food. I’m so lucky to have this” etc..really playing it up as she ate a small bite 😂 since there was never any pressure to try the food & the fact that she loved it made me want it every time 🤣 I’d say “grandma can I please try a bite of your snack?” & she’d say “sure” and slyly slide it over to me to try. Grandmas are so clever. She even use to use the dog too & say “Oh no worries if you don’t want your carrots. Dixie loves carrots! We’ll just give your carrots to her.” (But then I would want them & gobbled them all up, because Dixie was cool & I wanted to be like her 😂 autistic people bond more to animals than people sometimes). She easily got me to eat 30+ new meals/foods this way. She really helped me in a big way & changed my life for the better. I was a healthier kid thanks to her
@@karenpiete6970 right? Now as an adult I’m so impressed by how she never once yelled or got frustrated or cross with me. She had the patience of a saint 🤣👍I was so lucky to have her
My autistic daughter became allergic to potatoes when she was 22 years old. She was 28 years old when we finally figured out what was causing all her intestinal problems (similar to celiac) She is nonverbal. could not communicate symptoms.
@@TPayne-fm8ie I’m so sorry to hear that dear 😢 that must have been so frustrating and challenging (not to mention scary). Great job figuring it out. You had to be a super sleuth! Sherlock Holmes. We are lucky to have parents who go the extra mile for us ❤️ (especially when we can’t communicate in traditional ways)
My aunt was visiting to meet our newborn around lunchtime. I had 1 box of frozen spinach, about 1 cup leftover chicken meat, & the bones for stock. I made a white sauce . I added 1/4 of sauce individually to chicken & cooked spinach . The rest was used as a covering sauce. I made a mountain of crepes that fit the size of a casserole dish. I layered in order crepe, chicken mixture, crepe, spinach mixture, crepe , chicken, & so on till all used. The remaining white sauce poured over top & baked till hot. Elegant but frugal
Hi Jane. I've recently found your youtube channel and I'm very much enjoying it, so thankyou. I realised that for many years when the 4 children were growing up and money was tight that I was always thinking of ways to feed them and the priority was on filling them. I made stews with a large yorkshire pudding, pies from a tin of corned beef or a bit of mince and potatoes and veg, dumplings with a meatball in the middle and veg, home made soup and chips, fishcakes made with 2 slices of potato and a bit of fish in the middle and then battered or sausage with lots of mash and baked beans, porridge and toast for breakfast. I baked twice a week making cakes in a roasting tin and flavoured with orange, lemon or coconut or cocoa, biscuits from oats and golden syrup or jam tarts made from leftover pastry. I could go on but you get my drift ! I'm now widowed and the kids are independent and I now bake when my grandchildren are coming and it's a treat for them to have home baking, they love what I make, yet it's still fairly plain stuff. My youngest daughter brought her partner's 7 year old last week and on the way he asked her if Granny Vee would have made some buns (I live in England and still call them buns) . Plain buns with icing and a Smartie on the top and kids still love them over anything shop bought. I realise I'm content with my life and my sewing and painting and gardening in the warmer weather, walking through the local park and visiting the East Coast of Yorkshire a couple of times a year and you can't put a price on that. I've rambled on a bit there so apologies for that ....onwards and upwards with frugal living and loving it.
My Nonna cooked everything from scratch. She taught me how to cook: pasta sauce, ravioli, almond Anise biscotti, roasts cut deep with stabs from a knife to insert garlic and rosemary. Nonno made his own wine and vinegar. They had a huge vegetable garden with lots of fruit trees, figs were my favorite. A Cheerio box was next to the sink to save paper towels and kitchen scraps for the compost. The garage was full with home canned fruits and vegetables. We used to sneak the whiskey cherries.
I lived with my grandmother for years. She was a teenager in the Great Depression and a young mom on her own while her husband fought in WWII. I lived with her while I was in college, just the two of us. She naturally did so many things that are trendy and “minimalist” now, but just made sense to her. She was putting small amounts of money aside in envelopes for certain things before Dave Ramsey was born, haha. But what I remember is she always had a plan for everything she brought into the house. She could make one cucumber stretch for 3 meals. She’d put some on a salad for us one day, then slice some thin to make us cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches the next day, then slice the rest to have as a side dish for her lunch on the third day. I suppose she had a capsule meal plan, but she never called it that. She would just stick to the same familiar ingredients and use them in different ways. For example, now I buy many kinds of nuts, but maybe I don’t need to. I only remember her having walnuts, never any other kind of nut. But they might go on oatmeal, be a snack, top a salad, and be a dessert topping soaked in some maple syrup, etc. She would have found it very silly and wasteful to spend money buying a different type of nut when she already had walnuts in the house and she could do so much with the one kind she already had.
I chuckled about the cucumber because my great-grandma would do the same with a tomato. She picked it from the garden and it lasted 3 meals. It was sliced for a sandwich, sliced for a salad and topped eggs. I do the same.
My Mum became a wife and mother when my Dad came home from the war (I was an afterthought baby in 1960 😂). She often talked about those frugal days, living in two rented rooms, and her tip was that you could make most meals stretch further if they went in pastry 😉 Sausage plait was a big favourite. Thank you for your inspirational videos 😊 p.s. I could look at your kitchen tiles all day ❤
My parents were young children during the Great Depression. My grandparents immigrated to the USA in the early 1900’s from Poland. They came from small farming villages and they didn’t waste anything edible. I watched my grandmother and my mom cook and feed a large family on very little during the 1970’s energy crisis. We had a lot of soups, stews, casseroles. Potato pancakes were something my dad made often when he cooked. We ate them with sour cream, apple sauce or maple syrup. My mom would make a version of a “poor man’s meal” using chopped up hotdogs and diced potatoes and onions coated with a bit of oil that was baked in the oven. What kid doesn’t like hot dogs and fried potatoes? Another family favorite was chicken pieces dredged in seasoned flour, fried to golden brown and crispy but not fully cooked. Once browned the chicken was removed from the pan and set aside. The fat from frying the chicken was used to cook chopped mushrooms and onions. Once tender the fat , mushrooms and onions were stirred through a pot of boiled and drained egg noodles. That mixture was transferred into a Dutch oven or baking dish. The chicken pieces were nestled (skin side up) into the noodles, the lid or aluminum foil was put over the pan to trap the steam and it put into the oven to bake. It was cooked just long enough to finish cooking the chicken thoroughly. The chicken released its juices into the noodles and everything was delicious and comforting when it was done. Bone in pieces of chicken are preferred because they have more flavor than boneless pieces. My mom and grandma water bath canned fruit and vegetables. I taught myself to water bath can while I saved up for a pressure canner. I now can using both methods to help keep my pantry full. I buy tough cuts of meat, cut them up and pressure can them for making quick cooking meals.
As a mother of 2 boys with autism i agree with all your food hiding techniques and have used them all. My youngest would easily of just eaten nuggests, chips and ketchup if i had let him but now ages 6 he eats a very varied diet some hidden and some not.
My mom was always talking about 'residual heat' - don't just heat the oven to make one dish. I put another dish in the oven when the first one comes out to save the cost of reheating the oven. Also make double/triple quantities
We are grateful for your videos. TY. We make 10 lbs. of mashed idaho potatoes. We add in: carrots, butter, cream cheese. We freeze 6 family size individual portions. We make potato cheese pancakes, potato salad with the remainder.
Joel's mom used to mince up the celery, onions, and bell pepper for her cornbread dressing, because Joel didn't like onions. My parents had a different method. "You either eat what I cooked or you don't eat!" Needless to say that when I got hungry enough, I would eat whatever my mom made. lol
When my children were small I had a problem getting them to eat their vegetables. When I made lasagna I would put broccoli, mushrooms and peppers in a food processor and blend them very small. Then I added it to the meat sauce. The kids never saw the vegetables in the lasagna, and enjoyed eating it. I didn’t tell them about it until they were adults, well into their 20’s. They realized they had a very sneaky mom.
Hi Jane. This was a great video. I was taught many of the things you have mentioned by my Mother when I was younger. I always add a good handful of porridge oats into mince when cooking it as it adds another portion at a much lower cost, it absorbs the cooking flavours and my husband and girls were oblivious to this trick for years. Another tip was to serve bread and butter with meals to fill those tummies. Mum would also give us peas as snacks at home as they were cheap to buy and we all loved peas, a real treat was peas in the pod. 2 of my sisters never ate crusts from bread, instead of stressing, Mum would freeze these in a bread bag (before the days of buying zip lock ones) when she had a bagful she would make a bread pudding, my family love a good bread pudding :)
Raising a child as a single mother taught me some skills such as emptying the veggies drawer every Friday and making a huge stir-fry with noodles. I also made a hearty fish head cookup with lots of onions and tomato seasoned with cayyene pepper salt. That is still a treat in snoek season I make. You can boil those snoek head till it comes off the bone. Delicious.Stews can be bulked up with red lentils or sago. That sweet and sour curry is another favorite where you mix up a spoon of curry powder turmeric vinegar and sugar and taste till its right and cook up some chicken mutton or beef pieces. Whole portions of chicken are only for the big family dinner and not for during the week. Making a large pizza with the overripe tomatoes and leftover cheese also helps to lift the mood. In fact I ask the shopkeeper to sell me those overripe tomatoes and make a tomato sauce with herbs and freeze small containers full to use as a base for other meals such as pasta. I never bought the bottled tomato sauces but made my own. You can always use your oven to make muffins and bake your veggies such as onions butternut sweet potatoes at the same time. Spices keeps you warm and is added to a lot of stews to add flavor.
I learned how to cook cheaper cuts of meat, sometimes buying larger portions to get better prices from my mother. She also taught me zero waste and using what you have, how to use up left overs, baking bread. She taught me how to bulk out meals. And how to shop and how to find bargains. I stretch my money as far as I can. Thanks to my mum. I make soups and stews withe whatever I have left in the fridge. Make bone broth with bones and the ends of carrots and onions. Taste great, very healthy and doesn’t cost extra as I do it when something else is cooing.I just stick a bag in the freezer with bits and pieces and leftover bones til I have enough. Thank you Jane for your cooking videos.
My mother was a good family cook when I was young and I still use many of her baking recipes. She gave me her 1960s budget cookbook 500 Budget Recipes, that she had when a young mother - it's a great resource and I still use it often.
My parents both worked, so what was on the table was quite regulated. Mondays was ground beef, Tuesdays was pork chops, etc... It was always served with boiled potatoes and an orange or green veggie except for Sunday roast-- then the potatoes were mashed. This way of meal planning was boring for us kids, but when I became a mother, I understood the reasoning behind it. What was spent weekly could reliably be predicted based on this system. I stayed home with my kids, so was able to expand. My most extravagant memory from my mother was home made pizza, and fruit salad with home made bread. Or she'd take hot dog buns and fill them with celery, carrot, cold cuts, cheese and mustard/mayo. Today, balance seems to be what I concentrate on. And portion sizes!
Hi Jane, your videos take me back many years when I was growing up in Ireland. Im 85 and your videos are inspiring me not just in being frugal but im having a housing challenge here in California where rents are outrageously high. So have to move and its scary but because of your videos I remember how hard life was for us then but we made it thank God. So I tell myself I can make it again even though Im old now. Thank you for the support.❤
Hi Jane, thank you for another great video. This is the way I've always cooked having spent a year deal of time with my grandparents who lived through the WW2 occupation of the Channel Islands. One extra trick I learned was that potatoes will "boil" in residual heat, as soon as the water is boiling pop a lid on and turn off the heat, they only take a few minutes longger to cook but it saves energy.
Always a joy to watch your videos and at 65 I still learn a trick or two. One thing I learned from Grandmother was you can put anything in a pie crust and it becomes special! I remember as a child when she made pie crust she would bake the scraps of dough for me as a treat and they were delicious! Thank you for taking your time and sharing with us. 🇺🇸
My mom baked the pie crust scraps for us, too! She would sprinkle them with sugar, and we would eat them like cookies with home canned or frozen fruit for a special treat!
I am so thankful for pasta, it's not something I had growing up, other than occasional spaghetti. I remember my mum hiding cabbage in mashed potato as my brother didn't like greens, only for him to spend ages picking it out. She tried it again another week, adding in some tomato ketchup, which he also loved, and the whole lot got eaten! We ate lots of potatoes and root veg and my mum used to cook dumplings, mainly in the colder weather. My grandad used to insist on a steamed suet roll with almost every meal. My poor nan, but luckily she was a very good cook and taught me so much about how to squeeze pennies out of the food budget; she knew that the suet roll he insisted on would mean less need for meat.
Dear Jane, thank you for the giggle with a side of good sense. The young ones haven't been through this before, but every thirty years keeps us from losing the knowledge. Hope you and Mike have a restful weekend.
My son was a fussy eater when he was growing up. But when he became an adult he was willing to try everything. Now he eats everything ! My daughter has always eaten everything. Well thought out and presented video. Have a lovely day 🥰🌷❄☃💗✝
As a child, my mother and father were given Yorkshire puddings and gravy BEFORE the meal was served- that partially filled their tummies so less meat was needed! Lots of vegetables and some meat were the norm!
Another way of hiding nutritious foods is in smoothies. 😊 I love the idea of plain cooking, too. It is my preferred way of making meals. Thank you for your videos!
I’ve always been a plain cook. Here in US once cheaper cuts are now priced beyond practicality! This has slowly been happening over many years now. Shin bones etc for soup if available at all ridiculously expensive. Any bones saved after initial cooking still make excellent broths. Cooking meats bone in gives much better flavor. Thank you for sharing. Susan
@@stephenbertus5671 I keep a bag in freezer and save all bones from chicken etc til there is enough to make a kettle of stock. Most meats now in our supermarkets come in all precut and wrapped. We do have a small butchers corner in the store but even they have little to offer for us old fashioned folks! 👵🏻 Susan
@@debbieframpton3857 We don’t have Kroegers here in my corner of the northeast...and the stores available have little to none marked down meats, but I do grab them when I can. Thanks. Susan
Thank you for sharing. Four children growing up I witnessed your tips many times. My family, many meals were in the slow cooker, always loaded my spaghetti sauce and meatloaf with veggies.
We lived far from my grandmothers and only saw them every few years so I didn't learn any cooking tips or tricks from them. I do remember my maternal grandmother used to make creamed mushrooms on toast. Toasted day old bread, liberally slathered with butter, with these lucious creamed mushrooms on top ..... It was SO delicious. And my paternal grandmother -- it was peaches. She lived in the Niagara region in Canada which is known for it's fruit. If we were visiting in peach season, she would get me scalding and peeling a bazillion peaches to make into pies, to can, to freeze, to make jam, cobblers. Everything peach. I loved it! Thanks for bringing back those fond memories.
Jan, our mothers learned well from our grandmothers. One of the best "treats" she made for us was 'special' potatoes. Because she hated carrots my grandmother came up with a solution called special potatoes. She would cook the potatoes with the carrots and then mash them together with butter and milk and salt. she didn’t hide the fact that carrots were on her least favorite list, but she made these and ate them with us. In my late teens I asked her why, if she hated carrots she ate this blend with us. She told me that she didn’t want to pass on her aversion to us kids, so she passed on this 'special' blend as a treat for us while being able to actually enjoy the carrots herself. Except for this one orange veg, she was not a picky eater. I caused her to sigh a lot because I certainly was!🙄. Patricia from New Hampshire 👵🏻
I was the fussy eater in my family (still am if I'm honest). My Mum would use the "mashing other vegetables in with the potatoes " trick on me - she called it her Magic Vegetable which, if I ate it all, would magically produce extra pudding for me. It worked for years until I understood what was happening and refused to eat it any more!
Jane, loved this episode. Reminded me of cooking as a child with my mum & great grandmother (born in 1878). There were lots of skills & recipes which I still use. Unfortunately some of the ingredients I've struggled to buy for quite a few years - bacon ribs for example (but i might have found a source 60 miles away). Simmered till tender removed from the pot so finely shredded cabbage (white if you're 'posh) added for a short, rapid boil served together with nice bread & the liquore from the pan - a meal fit for the gods. Or Steak (shin beef) & 'cowheel' it makes the richestst, thickest, tastiest casserole or pie filling ever. I still make her chicken broth (tho with mote of a range of veg than she had) using the carcass (already well picked over for other dishes) from a chichen plus sweated root veg, celery, onion & pearl barley, adding in fresh greens/peas etc for the last few minutes once the bones have been removed. I'm sneaky/ frugal now using a 3 tier steamer with the root veg in the bottom, slightly overfilled so the water bubbles up to the, carcase in the 1st steamer tray, making bone removal much easier. I often steam other veg, maybe for another meal like cauliflower cheese, in the top. GG Anna, said if you can't get at least 3 different meals out of a chicken you weren't trying! Tricia
My dads mom taught me how to read a recipe, set up ingredients, clean as you go. My moms mom showed me how to make frugal foods for a crowd. She showed me how to make homemade egg noodles and Donkey Dough. Donkey Dough was the leftover pie crust pieces that you baked off and got to munch on while the rest of the pie cooled off.
When we were kids the excess pie crust dough got rolled out and then buttered and sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar and baked. We called them elephant tracks!
@@mrssomuchmore7193 that sounds good. I think she may have used a little butter, and possibly a little sugar. She (mom's mom, aka Grammy) grew up around the middle of 13 kids, her mom died in childbirth with the youngest. So her job as part of the middle was making meals, as the older kid shad to work the farm. I don't think they had much extra sugar, so even as an adult she didn't use a lot of sugar in things. She told me many times when they went to school all they had was biscuits with butter on them for their lunch. But all the other kids were poor too, so no one ever acted like they were better than anyone else. My dad's mom was an only child. Actually both my grandmas grew to be great friends, even after my parent's split up.
My culture we ate rice & beans, a small piece of meat, maybe a few Tostones fried plantains, and a slice of avocado is an amazing low-budget meal. Or we make a rice that has ham or pieces of beef (you use less and stretch your budget).
Wow! you really hit the high points but one thing you left out is the one thing my Grandmother taught and that was to always serve a first course 15- 20 minutes before the main course. Things like salad and bread, soup and bread, other appetizers. This took the edge off of the red-raving hungries so that when the main meal arrived, smaller servings were satisfying. We would have a sweet at the end of the meal, but not always. Flour and sugar are relatively affordable, so the dessert course might be what's necessary for an otherwise small dinner. In my house, meat for meat's sake - like a steak, or slice of roast or piece of poultry don't see the table as often and more vegetarian meals are showing up here. Overall, I have been able to hold the line on the grocery bill, but I don't know for how much longer.
Muchas gracias! Como madre divorciada y seguidora de la filosofía ZeroWaste, necesito recordar habitualmente estas herramienttas ya que en ocasiones, por falta de planificación, tiermino comprando bandejas de carne o pescado en el supermercado en lugar de tomarme el tiempo de procesar un polllo entero o hacer un guiso. Me encanta su canal. Cada dos años voy a Francia. me sentiría muy afortunada de aprender de usted y darle un gran abrazo.
OMG you forgot the most important reason for keeping beef drippings--the best meal extender--Yorkshire puds, lol. Loved this vid. Thank You from Alberta, Canada.
My mother taught me to hot water bath can when I was young. Later she had to start working, so I took over the shopping and a lot of the cooking when I was 12 or so. It was very good experience for me. My son took cooking classes in high school so he can cook quite well. My daughter was only interested in the baking side while she was growing up, but when she moved out, I hand wrote her a cookbook of all her favorite dishes from when she was growing up, even the ones that were " a pinch of this and some of that" since there are very few things I use a written recipe for. Now she is a very good cook, but she still asks "how do I do this"? I enjoy being able to share that with her.
Raised by a depression era mom that was a teen as WWII rationing hit. I learned to cook, bake, sew, knit, crochet, and embroidery from her and her mom. Most of my kids are good cooks too. Lots of old fashion skills passed down through the generations.
My grandmother was a young woman in the depression. My mom always said that she could make a penny squeal. My favorite meals that she cooked were fried potatoes and cabbage, sometimes with sausages. My mom learned a lot from her. My dad and his 8 brothers took a potato to school for their lunch and ate them raw. When I was a child, we had a large garden and chickens, berry bushes, and the neighbors had an apple tree. My mom would trade them some homemade strawberry jam for apples. My mom canned everything. My dad made sauerkraut. We had many meals without meat, but we always had plenty of eggs. I learned a lot from my mom and her mom.
Thank you for these reminders. One thing that has been passed down from grandma, to my mom, to me, was a large garden and canning. We have always had a large garden, canned or froze as necessary. I distinctly remember my grandmother’s garden, both grandmothers actually. Two of my children have taken to gardening as well, and are teaching their young the fun of growing their own food. And my grandchildren love coming to grandma’s garden, since it’s so much bigger, with more things in it that theirs.
I'm a good plain cook and I am unapologetic about feeding home cooking to my guests. I found people love just having simple comfort food and are hungry for it when there is too much restaurant food. I also don't like to over feed my guests--enough with a treat for dessert but not so much that people feel stuffed. That is just a waste
I am also a good plain cook. No one has ever complained about being served meatloaf and mashed potatoes, spaghetti and meatballs, chicken and biscuits, sausage and lentil soup, or chili and a baked potato. My kids love homemade mac n' cheese served with steamed broccoli. When given a choice, my kids rarely opt for restaurant food. Mom's dinner is best.
Had to stop the video and relate the story of the stealth veggies 😂 My grandson had an aversion to veggies of colour (he would only eat the white ones…potato and cauliflower with white sauce….putting little bits of onion, carrot and mushroom on the edge of his plate, just like his dad) My daughter was beside herself, thinking that he wasn’t getting all the nutrients he needed. We invented the ‘Stealth Spaghetti Sauce’ It had onion, garlic, grated carrots, mushrooms, zucchini, pumpkin, capsicum etc., all blended with the tomato sauce base. ‘Ah!’ my grandson would say ‘I really like Grandma’s Spaghetti Sauce best’ Sharon from Australia 🇦🇺 🦘
When I first got married over 40 yrs ago I always cooked a good meal but never could be faffing with a pudding (had a busy job always late home ) my husband went on and on about his mums home made rice pudding so I bought a tin of rice pudding put some cream in it and nutmeg on top said it was just as good as mum's doesn't know to this day !!!😂
My parents didn't start their family until they were in their forties. So in a sense, I was raised by parents old enough to be my grandparents. During the depression, my mom had to drop out of school in eighth grade to work and help support the family. She was frugal due to necessity and her frugality carried over into their marriage. My mom was an excellent cook and knew how to make food stretch. Nothing was ever thrown out. I don't remember her experimenting with new recipes. We had the same rotation of meals every week or two. I liked what you said about not trying something new during these economic times. That really makes sense. You don't want to waste your money on food that isn't going to be eaten. My husband and I starting canning again this past year. It is something both our moms taught us to do. I love making my own jams, jellies and pickles. We just bought a freezer and we plan on growing and freezing vegetables this summer. It also comes in hand when we can get meat at a really good price. Thanks for sharing your life with us. We enjoy your show.
Absolutely love pilchards in tomato sauce on toast, and another of my favourite meals is liver and bacon casserole, so good for you. We are having beef stew and dumplings tonight, good old fashioned plain cooking, filling and nutritious and made in the slow cooker so it was effortless to make, popped it in this morning before work. Thanks for another great video Jane.
Growing up my frugal mother could feed a family of six, three meals with one chicken. We would have baked chicken for Sunday dinner, along with potatoes, gravy & , a vegetable. The next day she would make a potpie with the leftovers. Then she would cook the chicken bones & skin in water to make broth, & get the last bit of meat off the bones. Then she would make it into a delicious soup.
Fussy eater here! There are some things that I don't like in their own mustard and onions for example) but I can tolerate mustard and onion in potato salad because neither are the primary flavor. I agree that blending vegetables into dishes is a great way to hide them in soups and casseroles. And "decanting" generic and store brands are wonderful for hiding the plain label brand! My parents were raised in the 1920's-1930's and my grandmothers' raised 5 and 8 children. Times were tight and my mom and aunts could pinch a penny and stretch a dollar. They taught me well. Being a one-person household, I am not as likely to make big meals very often. But when I do I save extra portions for later meals either over the next day or two or I will freeze portions for later so I don't get too tired of eating the same thing. I frequently will just have toast and coffee in the morning and then maybe a sandwich later in the day. I've learned I need to eat less now that I no longer work. My dad loved liver and onions! Maybe he ate it growing up in the 1920's? I grew up eating canned tuna and salmon. Salmon is my favorite fish to this day. I live in the Midwest United States so we are very landlocked. Fresh fish has to be imported and therefore is very expensive. I don't get it very often but I will buy a large piece of salmon at a good price at our area Club stores. I cut it into individual portions and then freeze them to use at later times. It's very easy to bake up a piece of salmon with a little bit of dill sauce on top of it and it makes a wonderful meal. I am around your age I believe and I grew up in the 70s and actually had home economics classes in junior high school as well as in girl scouts so I not only had some educational training on cooking I also helped my mom in the kitchen a lot. I was more of a baker than a cook but I've evolved into doing more cooking than baking now. I'm certainly no expert but I can certainly put together a decent, tasty and nutritious meal. It is a little more challenging now since my stroke and I only have the use of one arm so I've had to rely on things like my stand mixer and food processor more to do the shopping and mixing for me but fortunately I had many of those items prior to my stroke so I have just put them to use. Thank you for such a wonderful video with all of your encouraging tips and opportunities to show us how you do stretch a dollar in the kitchen. We had a pretty tight food budget when I was growing up and I used to get so upset with my mom when she would buy the store brand of most items at the grocery store. Now that it's my money paying for the groceries and I think that store in generic brands have gotten much better over the last 20 years, I primarily only by generics. I can count on one hand I don't even need all five fingers to do it to tell you the number of store brands that I didn't care for over the name brand. There are a few things that I do by the name brand of either because there isn't a generic of it or I didn't care for the generic but most of the time I'm buying the store brand unless the name brand is on sale and it's a better price. If you do this, you're going to save here in the US I would say 15 to 30% over always buying the name brand. Most store brands in the US offer you a money back guarantee if you don't like it so you really aren't out anyting. If you buy the cereal and your kids find out it's a store brand and they say they can't stand it you can always return it and get your money back. But if you put it in a Tupperware type canister I bet they won't know the difference! As long as they don't see that it's the store brand they probably won't taste a difference. Hello to Mike and also to the adorable Mary & Dolly!
I always soaked the liver in milk to tenderize it, and then after cooking the liver in bacon drippings, then remove liver and use the milk in the roux made from flour in the bacon drippings to make a gravy for over the potatoes and liver, no waste. 😊
This is one of my most favorite videos you've made and I love all your content. I too grew up in hard and frugal times and am so grateful for those slkills now. I appreciate all you and your husband do :)
Dear Jane, last weekend I invented a meal that is a variation on a vegetable stew that I eat daily because I love it so much. I have a 20m x 10m garden and an allotment of about the same size. I grow enough veg, tobacco, fruit and duck / duck eggs to see me in food, smokes and wine all year around. My meal invention is a veg stew with a hard boiled egg as animal protein substitute. mmm, I've solved my main meal of the day for life. P.S. I also generate my own electric and heat with wood / coal, toasty warm.
❤ love this. I was raised frugal and am doing all these things. It is so encouraging to be encouraged to cook plain meals without expensive ingredients. Just wish I could hide tinned fish..... my husband can find it no matter what and refuses to eat it. 😅 He is not fussy, though. Just really hates tinned fish. Eats everything else. Also, I was forced to eat liver as a child due to being anaemic, and I can't stomach it now. We all have one food that we just can't do!
Thank you for addressing food sensitivities. They are real. I completely agree about plain cooking! That is how I cook, and my husband likes it every meal. Slow cookers and bread machines truly are a blessing! Thank you for a lovely video. 💐
Lovely video! About the skills and culinairy historie; I just made a little booklet with old family and friends recipes and photo’s. Now also the younger generation knows my culinairy history and can always look up the recipes of my grandmothers, mother, me and my friends. Loved to do it and they are delighted with it ❤️
Great tips here, I hope the younger generation are tuning in and learning them. I remember having beef stew with dumplings, liver in onion gravy served with potch. (Potatoes and swede boiled & mashed) , Blue Peter special, ( a corned beef recipe that we saw on the show but couldn’t remember the name of) with crusty bread, bread & butter puddings with the stale bread, rice puddings, roast dinner on a Sunday then bubble and squeak on Monday. Although my mum didn’t cook hearts, my boyfriends mum did and it was so special! I loved it. Money was very tight in our house, but mum was great at feeding us with nutritious foods and keeping us healthy and happy. ❤
@Frugal Queen in France I wish I was mobile so i could go to a farmers market/stall to get heart as we don't see it in the supermarket's in the U.K. Once I'm mobile again, it will definitely be in my menu. 😋😋
One thing I've learned from my grandma is canning, gardening, and freezing. I started a garden this spring again since I haven't had one in 4 years. I look forward to putting it in jars and on the shelf and in our freezers. Gardening is almost free now days. Just seeds or plants and manual labor.
Hi Jane. thank you for a great video. I used to hide the veggies in soups and gravies by blending them so that my children would not suspect it. I would also make "meat balls" from chicken livers for the soup and they loved it, without knowing what was in them. Chicken livers are much cheaper than the meat so I learned to cook these from my mother/grandmother. We always had a very tight budget so I would find ways to make frugal meals to keep the family happy. Left overs were/are re-used to make another meal.
Cooking skills are important, and we have so many options and ways to learn how to cook anything. Be adventurous and find a new recipe that is frugal and tasty.
My aunt taught me how to make liver and onions I make it the way she taught me to this day and my mom taught me creative ways to use leftovers like re-frying leftover potatoes in a little bacon grease yummy
A substitute for expensive flavored packs of instant oatmeal. Soak 1/4 cup of oatmeal flakes or barley flakes overnight in 1 cup of water. Add a few raisins if desired and flax seed. Microwave for 5 minutes in large bowl and put into small bowl with a little milk and eat. No need for the stove, if you have peeled apples put the peels and cores in a pot and cover with water and simmer for 30 minutes, strain and use that to soak your porridge each night with a dash of cinnamon.
One of my favorite frugal dishes is Polish sausage and cabbage. Cut up a kielbasa or similar smoked sausage, a large onion, a head of cabbage and a few cloves of garlic. In a little oil or bacon fat, brown the sausage well, then add the onion and garlic and cook until the onion starts to soften. (You can add a sprinkle of caraway seed if you like it, but it isn't essential.) Then toss in the cabbage and a bit of water to help the cooking process. It will look like a lot of cabbage, but don't worry, cabbage wilts down as it cooks. Once everything is fried up and the flavors have had a chance to get to know each other, give it a good salting and peppering, and optionally give it a little stone ground mustard or serve some on the side.
My grandmothers and mother taught me to grow a garden, pressure can and freeze the harvest, raise and butcher chickens, and turn simple ingredients into nutritious meals. Living through the depression and rationing gave them skills and knowledge that was passed on to me. I was taught that if food is good enough to be on the table, it is good enough to eat without turning up my nose. I am forever grateful for them.
Jane: thank you for today’s video. You reminded me of two things when you mentioned sardines and liver. 1) one of my dad’s favorite snacks was sardines with Ritz crackers. It was a special treat for him and luckily (for him) a treat that we kids didn’t clamor for! 2) my mom would sauté chicken liver and minced onions in butter and then finish with Harvey’s Bristol Cream sherry! It was simply delicious served over white rice with a vegetable on the side. Thanks for the memories. 🙂
Enjoyed your presentation, Jane. Bit of memory lane. As planting time is near, your chat reminded me too of how the older generation made a lot of their own preserves from berries, rhubarb and apples in their own gardens and given as gifts from family and neighbours. We lived in a rural place and part of our childhood was to pick blackberries from hedgerows for pies and jam. Even in her late sixties my mum watched for crab apples in the area, picked them herself and made jelly. A real treat was to be allowed to pick those large mushrooms in a neighbours field and cook these gently in butter. Hazelnuts were commonly available too. They made the most of everything and they shared.
I love my slow cooker for cheaper cuts of meat, as they come out very tender. There's a difference between your area and ours in that chicken here is much cheaper than what your chicken sells for, but oxtail here is as high as a premium steak, per pound. 😥 homemade cookies ARE so much cheaper than store bought and so much better. Basic cooking skills are so very helpful😊 I didn't have a mother or grandmother to learn cooking from,and could literally burn water😖 but when I was older, I learned the basics from my Dad and then, got a few used cookbooks from the thrift shops and just tried new recipes. From there, it grew. I went to Culinary school when I was 54 and learned so much. But, I'm still learning. Currently, I am learning how to cook Korean dishes. You are never too old to learn something new.
I learned some new things today. Thanks so very much.
I'm so glad!
Jane, thank you for being practical! Especially about busy people needing easy to make or semi convenience foods. I do a lot of canned soup. It’s still cheaper than getting take out or hitting the drive thru! Too many frugal bloggers/channels make like it’s a sin if you don’t make everything from scratch. Busy people may not have the time or energy for that!
Exactly, nothing is wrong if it's what needed
Hellu Jane 👋
I adore these types of videos when you do them *and when i finally see them!
They are very appreciated. My mother couldn't cook too save her life, but my dad's mum was a good cook as long as she had a recipe in front of her and followed it to a T.
I am an avid home cook, and have cooked some in restaurants, but it is just so fun to come up with things without having to shop.
Thank you again 🧡
Wonderful!
Wow there are so many gems here. I’ve added this to my favourites to make copious notes. Loving the comments section too.
Yay, thank you!
Pearl barley, dried peas and lentils to expand a stew, yummy
Sounds great!
Yep I do the same plus oats in mince to stretch and bulk it out
My mum is an expert at what she calls 'making a sixpence do the work of a shilling' and I have inherited her ways. I can do all the basics and I can read a recipe and decide which of the expensive ingredients can be replaced with cheaper alternatives. Also, as a dear friend once put it 'what goes into the soup is nobody's business but the cook's'. Turning those veggies that are getting a bit sad in the bottom of the fridge into a tasty, hearty soup is a speciality of mine, and it always feels like a victory.
Absolutely right there Gretal.
That is victory indeed! Works magic doesn't it✌️☺️
That could be kind of scary, " What goes into the soup is nobody's business but the cook's"! 😆 Better keep an eye on the cook!
I make what I call bottom of the fridge soup. It comes out a different colour every time. Thankfully it always tastes yummy with a small whole meal bread bun a good filling meal.
Gretel, your soup sounds like mine, we call it fridge soup. 😅😅😅 xx
Suet pastry. Absolutely wonderful stuff. Sweet or savoury it's a godsend. Almost any leftovers can go in a savoury pudding, then a couple of minute in the microwave and you have filling meal. One of my favourite dinners from my wartime childhood was steamed bacon and onion roll. Three slices of back bacon would feed a family. I still treat myself to the updated ( microwaved ) version now. Love your show. Thank you.
Thanks very much
My mother was an excellent cook and baker. I was born with many more than one sweet tooth.
My suspicions were aroused one day when I arrived home after school, and my mother offered me some chocolate cake. Normally, things like that were put under lock and key to protect and preserve them from me.
I happily ate the offered piece of cake, but noticed a rather sly smile on my mother’s face once I had finished it. It took a bit of doing, but she finally explained that I had just eaten chocolate zucchini cake. ZUCCHINI??? She had put a green vegetable in my chocolate cake??? I was horrified! Regardless, it was still delicious. Chalk that up as a win for my mother, learning a new (at the time) technique to get me to eat vegetables. Man, I miss that woman.
My Grandmothers were both very thrifty. They passed down the skills of a well-stocked pantry, simple, wholesome meals, and gardening to the generations behind them. Seed savi ng and tapping trees for maple syrup were also common practices for them. They had so many beautiful skills and I aspire to learn each one.
My grandmom encouraged me to cook with her during summer visits. My favorite was gnocchi. This summer we plan to visit family and teach the grandkids how to make gnocchi.
I learnt to cook from my Mum, but she is a food snob and will only buy the best brands and the best cuts etc. I had to learn to be a frugal cook myself. Before TH-cam I hounded the library shelves and borrowed recipe books. I wrote down useful recipes and learnt to substitute. My mum is an amazing cook, albeit and expensive one 😍
Thanks for sharing!
I've forgotten to tell you about my grandma who was a house wife during WW2 and lived through rationing. For all of her life she said it was "criminal" to waste food. The last crust of bread was used to make sage and onion stuffing to go with Sunday dinner. Yesterday's leftovers were reheated over a pan of boiling water for dinner the following day as I do now, only we have microwaves for that. She would have loved that! She had a sideboard in the front room and I never realised until I was grown up why she stored bags of sugar, tinned fruit, evaporated milk and other tinned goods in there, but it was because they were rationed during the war and this was the mid 50s and they were off ration. We used to have tinned fruit and evap for Sunday tea with a slice of brown bread and butter and it was always in lovely fruit dishes and used a fancy spoon from her well looked after canteen of cutlery. I can still remember the smell from opening that sideboard door to get a precious bag of sugar or tin of fruit from it. Right, enough reminiscing. I'll clear off now 😂
Thanks for watching
I remember my grandma doing the very same thing. I grew up in the 1960's and she used to give us fruit and carnation milk with bread and butter ❤️ I still love this. We also had mashed banana with bread and butter too..
When I was teaching WW2 we went to a farm shop to learn about rationing. The farm shop gave us sausages, potatoes and apples. The next day we made a WW2 meal - used an apple corer to make a hole in the potatoes and stuffed the hole with sausage meat and baked them. Then used the leftover potato to make potato pastry and made apple pie. The children ate the lot and loved it. I had so many sausages left over so I froze them. On the last day of term I made sausage meatballs in tomato sauce and spaghetti. The sauce had blended carrots, courgettes, onion, celery and parsnips - not a scrap of food was left. I had comments, “This is better than my mum’s” “Can I have the recipe?” Xx
Secret sauce
Thank you so much Jane for distinguishing picky eating from food allergies/intolerances ❤ as an autistic person with food allergies I really appreciated that. I was called a “picky eater as a child.” My grandma (& her dog Dixie) was my favorite person in the whole wide world. She could always get me to try a new food simply by plating herself a “snack” & saying stuff like “oh this is so good. this is my favorite food. I’m so lucky to have this” etc..really playing it up as she ate a small bite 😂 since there was never any pressure to try the food & the fact that she loved it made me want it every time 🤣 I’d say “grandma can I please try a bite of your snack?” & she’d say “sure” and slyly slide it over to me to try. Grandmas are so clever. She even use to use the dog too & say “Oh no worries if you don’t want your carrots. Dixie loves carrots! We’ll just give your carrots to her.” (But then I would want them & gobbled them all up, because Dixie was cool & I wanted to be like her 😂 autistic people bond more to animals than people sometimes). She easily got me to eat 30+ new meals/foods this way. She really helped me in a big way & changed my life for the better. I was a healthier kid thanks to her
Thanks for watching
Smart grandma and such a sweet way to get a kid to try something new!!!!
@@karenpiete6970 right? Now as an adult I’m so impressed by how she never once yelled or got frustrated or cross with me. She had the patience of a saint 🤣👍I was so lucky to have her
My autistic daughter became allergic to potatoes when she was 22 years old. She was 28 years old when we finally figured out what was causing all her intestinal problems (similar to celiac) She is nonverbal. could not communicate symptoms.
@@TPayne-fm8ie I’m so sorry to hear that dear 😢 that must have been so frustrating and challenging (not to mention scary). Great job figuring it out. You had to be a super sleuth! Sherlock Holmes. We are lucky to have parents who go the extra mile for us ❤️ (especially when we can’t communicate in traditional ways)
My aunt was visiting to meet our newborn around lunchtime. I had 1 box of frozen spinach, about 1 cup leftover chicken meat, & the bones for stock. I made a white sauce . I added 1/4 of sauce individually to chicken & cooked spinach . The rest was used as a covering sauce. I made a mountain of crepes that fit the size of a casserole dish. I layered in order crepe, chicken mixture, crepe, spinach mixture, crepe , chicken, & so on till all used. The remaining white sauce poured over top & baked till hot. Elegant but frugal
Love your experiences and that you share
Hi Jane. I've recently found your youtube channel and I'm very much enjoying it, so thankyou. I realised that for many years when the 4 children were growing up and money was tight that I was always thinking of ways to feed them and the priority was on filling them. I made stews with a large yorkshire pudding, pies from a tin of corned beef or a bit of mince and potatoes and veg, dumplings with a meatball in the middle and veg, home made soup and chips, fishcakes made with 2 slices of potato and a bit of fish in the middle and then battered or sausage with lots of mash and baked beans, porridge and toast for breakfast. I baked twice a week making cakes in a roasting tin and flavoured with orange, lemon or coconut or cocoa, biscuits from oats and golden syrup or jam tarts made from leftover pastry. I could go on but you get my drift ! I'm now widowed and the kids are independent and I now bake when my grandchildren are coming and it's a treat for them to have home baking, they love what I make, yet it's still fairly plain stuff. My youngest daughter brought her partner's 7 year old last week and on the way he asked her if Granny Vee would have made some buns (I live in England and still call them buns) . Plain buns with icing and a Smartie on the top and kids still love them over anything shop bought. I realise I'm content with my life and my sewing and painting and gardening in the warmer weather, walking through the local park and visiting the East Coast of Yorkshire a couple of times a year and you can't put a price on that. I've rambled on a bit there so apologies for that ....onwards and upwards with frugal living and loving it.
All good food therr
I enjoyed your rambling!😂
My Nonna cooked everything from scratch. She taught me how to cook: pasta sauce, ravioli, almond Anise biscotti, roasts cut deep with stabs from a knife to insert garlic and rosemary. Nonno made his own wine and vinegar. They had a huge vegetable garden with lots of fruit trees, figs were my favorite. A Cheerio box was next to the sink to save paper towels and kitchen scraps for the compost. The garage was full with home canned fruits and vegetables. We used to sneak the whiskey cherries.
Thanks
I lived with my grandmother for years. She was a teenager in the Great Depression and a young mom on her own while her husband fought in WWII. I lived with her while I was in college, just the two of us. She naturally did so many things that are trendy and “minimalist” now, but just made sense to her. She was putting small amounts of money aside in envelopes for certain things before Dave Ramsey was born, haha. But what I remember is she always had a plan for everything she brought into the house. She could make one cucumber stretch for 3 meals. She’d put some on a salad for us one day, then slice some thin to make us cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches the next day, then slice the rest to have as a side dish for her lunch on the third day. I suppose she had a capsule meal plan, but she never called it that. She would just stick to the same familiar ingredients and use them in different ways. For example, now I buy many kinds of nuts, but maybe I don’t need to. I only remember her having walnuts, never any other kind of nut. But they might go on oatmeal, be a snack, top a salad, and be a dessert topping soaked in some maple syrup, etc. She would have found it very silly and wasteful to spend money buying a different type of nut when she already had walnuts in the house and she could do so much with the one kind she already had.
Thanks very much
I chuckled about the cucumber because my great-grandma would do the same with a tomato. She picked it from the garden and it lasted 3 meals. It was sliced for a sandwich, sliced for a salad and topped eggs. I do the same.
I dehydrate kale, beet greens, turnip greens, etc and powder them to sprinkle in everything. I even put some in brownies.
Good idea
My Mum became a wife and mother when my Dad came home from the war (I was an afterthought baby in 1960 😂). She often talked about those frugal days, living in two rented rooms, and her tip was that you could make most meals stretch further if they went in pastry 😉 Sausage plait was a big favourite. Thank you for your inspirational videos 😊 p.s. I could look at your kitchen tiles all day ❤
Thanks Kate
My parents were young children during the Great Depression. My grandparents immigrated to the USA in the early 1900’s from Poland. They came from small farming villages and they didn’t waste anything edible.
I watched my grandmother and my mom cook and feed a large family on very little during the 1970’s energy crisis.
We had a lot of soups, stews, casseroles.
Potato pancakes were something my dad made often when he cooked. We ate them with sour cream, apple sauce or maple syrup.
My mom would make a version of a “poor man’s meal” using chopped up hotdogs and diced potatoes and onions coated with a bit of oil that was baked in the oven. What kid doesn’t like hot dogs and fried potatoes?
Another family favorite was chicken pieces dredged in seasoned flour, fried to golden brown and crispy but not fully cooked. Once browned the chicken was removed from the pan and set aside.
The fat from frying the chicken was used to cook chopped mushrooms and onions. Once tender the fat , mushrooms and onions were stirred through a pot of boiled and drained egg noodles. That mixture was transferred into a Dutch oven or baking dish. The chicken pieces were nestled (skin side up) into the noodles, the lid or aluminum foil was put over the pan to trap the steam and it put into the oven to bake. It was cooked just long enough to finish cooking the chicken thoroughly. The chicken released its juices into the noodles and everything was delicious and comforting when it was done.
Bone in pieces of chicken are preferred because they have more flavor than boneless pieces.
My mom and grandma water bath canned fruit and vegetables. I taught myself to water bath can while I saved up for a pressure canner.
I now can using both methods to help keep my pantry full. I buy tough cuts of meat, cut them up and pressure can them for making quick cooking meals.
We had an expression growing up. Poverty is a very exacting teacher and we were well taught.
I grew up in a Polish/ Italian area and love the food and make it a lot.
As a mother of 2 boys with autism i agree with all your food hiding techniques and have used them all. My youngest would easily of just eaten nuggests, chips and ketchup if i had let him but now ages 6 he eats a very varied diet some hidden and some not.
My mom was always talking about 'residual heat' - don't just heat the oven to make one dish. I put another dish in the oven when the first one comes out to save the cost of reheating the oven. Also make double/triple quantities
Thanks Sue
Yes always room for sweet potatoes, potatoes in the oven
We are grateful for your videos. TY. We make 10 lbs. of mashed idaho potatoes. We add in: carrots,
butter, cream cheese. We freeze 6 family size individual portions. We make potato cheese pancakes,
potato salad with the remainder.
Sounds great!
I add grated carrot to spagetti bolagnaise also mushrooms and peas to jazz it all up ...tasty and healthy and filling!!
Delicious
Joel's mom used to mince up the celery, onions, and bell pepper for her cornbread dressing, because Joel didn't like onions. My parents had a different method. "You either eat what I cooked or you don't eat!" Needless to say that when I got hungry enough, I would eat whatever my mom made. lol
I’ll eat anything too.
When my children were small I had a problem getting them to eat their vegetables. When I made lasagna I would put broccoli, mushrooms and peppers in a food processor and blend them very small. Then I added it to the meat sauce. The kids never saw the vegetables in the lasagna, and enjoyed eating it. I didn’t tell them about it until they were adults, well into their 20’s. They realized they had a very sneaky mom.
Hi Jane. This was a great video. I was taught many of the things you have mentioned by my Mother when I was younger. I always add a good handful of porridge oats into mince when cooking it as it adds another portion at a much lower cost, it absorbs the cooking flavours and my husband and girls were oblivious to this trick for years. Another tip was to serve bread and butter with meals to fill those tummies. Mum would also give us peas as snacks at home as they were cheap to buy and we all loved peas, a real treat was peas in the pod. 2 of my sisters never ate crusts from bread, instead of stressing, Mum would freeze these in a bread bag (before the days of buying zip lock ones) when she had a bagful she would make a bread pudding, my family love a good bread pudding :)
Well played mummy
Raising a child as a single mother taught me some skills such as emptying the veggies drawer every Friday and making a huge stir-fry with noodles. I also made a hearty fish head cookup with lots of onions and tomato seasoned with cayyene pepper salt. That is still a treat in snoek season I make. You can boil those snoek head till it comes off the bone. Delicious.Stews can be bulked up with red lentils or sago. That sweet and sour curry is another favorite where you mix up a spoon of curry powder turmeric vinegar and sugar and taste till its right and cook up some chicken mutton or beef pieces. Whole portions of chicken are only for the big family dinner and not for during the week. Making a large pizza with the overripe tomatoes and leftover cheese also helps to lift the mood. In fact I ask the shopkeeper to sell me those overripe tomatoes and make a tomato sauce with herbs and freeze small containers full to use as a base for other meals such as pasta. I never bought the bottled tomato sauces but made my own. You can always use your oven to make muffins and bake your veggies such as onions butternut sweet potatoes at the same time. Spices keeps you warm and is added to a lot of stews to add flavor.
I learned how to cook cheaper cuts of meat, sometimes buying larger portions to get better prices from my mother. She also taught me zero waste and using what you have, how to use up left overs, baking bread. She taught me how to bulk out meals. And how to shop and how to find bargains. I stretch my money as far as I can. Thanks to my mum. I make soups and stews withe whatever I have left in the fridge. Make bone broth with bones and the ends of carrots and onions. Taste great, very healthy and doesn’t cost extra as I do it when something else is cooing.I just stick a bag in the freezer with bits and pieces and leftover bones til I have enough. Thank you Jane for your cooking videos.
Thanks for watching
My mother was a good family cook when I was young and I still use many of her baking recipes. She gave me her 1960s budget cookbook 500 Budget Recipes, that she had when a young mother - it's a great resource and I still use it often.
That is awesome!
My parents both worked, so what was on the table was quite regulated. Mondays was ground beef, Tuesdays was pork chops, etc... It was always served with boiled potatoes and an orange or green veggie except for Sunday roast-- then the potatoes were mashed. This way of meal planning was boring for us kids, but when I became a mother, I understood the reasoning behind it. What was spent weekly could reliably be predicted based on this system. I stayed home with my kids, so was able to expand. My most extravagant memory from my mother was home made pizza, and fruit salad with home made bread. Or she'd take hot dog buns and fill them with celery, carrot, cold cuts, cheese and mustard/mayo. Today, balance seems to be what I concentrate on. And portion sizes!
Thanks Gail
I remember my grandmother serving huge yorkshire puddings and gravy before the meat and veg to fill up hungry tummies. M x
Absolutely delicious
Hi Jane, your videos take me back many years when I was growing up in Ireland. Im 85 and your videos are inspiring me not just in being frugal but im having a housing challenge here in California where rents are outrageously high. So have to move and its scary but because of your videos I remember how hard life was for us then but we made it thank God. So I tell myself I can make it again even though Im old now. Thank you for the support.❤
You are so welcome!
Hi Jane, thank you for another great video. This is the way I've always cooked having spent a year deal of time with my grandparents who lived through the WW2 occupation of the Channel Islands. One extra trick I learned was that potatoes will "boil" in residual heat, as soon as the water is boiling pop a lid on and turn off the heat, they only take a few minutes longger to cook but it saves energy.
Thanks Nettie
Always a joy to watch your videos and at 65 I still learn a trick or two. One thing I learned from Grandmother was you can put anything in a pie crust and it becomes special! I remember as a child when she made pie crust she would bake the scraps of dough for me as a treat and they were delicious! Thank you for taking your time and sharing with us. 🇺🇸
Thanks for watching
My mom baked the pie crust scraps for us, too! She would sprinkle them with sugar, and we would eat them like cookies with home canned or frozen fruit for a special treat!
I am so thankful for pasta, it's not something I had growing up, other than occasional spaghetti. I remember my mum hiding cabbage in mashed potato as my brother didn't like greens, only for him to spend ages picking it out. She tried it again another week, adding in some tomato ketchup, which he also loved, and the whole lot got eaten! We ate lots of potatoes and root veg and my mum used to cook dumplings, mainly in the colder weather. My grandad used to insist on a steamed suet roll with almost every meal. My poor nan, but luckily she was a very good cook and taught me so much about how to squeeze pennies out of the food budget; she knew that the suet roll he insisted on would mean less need for meat.
Thanks for watching
He'd eat the suet? Wow!
As one of the ingredients in a bread roll. Yes.
Thank you both😀
Our pleasure!
I used leftover sauce from brisket to make a very rich lentil & farro soup.
Delicious
Dear Jane, thank you for the giggle with a side of good sense. The young ones haven't been through this before, but every thirty years keeps us from losing the knowledge. Hope you and Mike have a restful weekend.
You are so welcome!
My son was a fussy eater when he was growing up. But when he became an adult he was willing to try everything. Now he eats everything ! My daughter has always eaten everything. Well thought out and presented video. Have a lovely day 🥰🌷❄☃💗✝
Thanks very much
My dad used to make liver with onions 🧅 and it was delicious we made a sandwich 🥪 ohh delicious 😋
Sounds great!
As a child, my mother and father were given Yorkshire puddings and gravy BEFORE the meal was served- that partially filled their tummies so less meat was needed! Lots of vegetables and some meat were the norm!
We had yorkies with most meals.
Another way of hiding nutritious foods is in smoothies. 😊
I love the idea of plain cooking, too. It is my preferred way of making meals. Thank you for your videos!
So true!
I’ve always been a plain cook. Here in US once cheaper cuts are now priced beyond practicality! This has slowly been happening over many years now. Shin bones etc for soup if available at all ridiculously expensive. Any bones saved after initial cooking still make excellent broths. Cooking meats bone in gives much better flavor. Thank you for sharing. Susan
Thanks Susan
I enjoy making stock / broth, but it is so hard to get animal bones from the butcher in The UK these days.
@@stephenbertus5671 I keep a bag in freezer and save all bones from chicken etc til there is enough to make a kettle of stock. Most meats now in our supermarkets come in all precut and wrapped. We do have a small butchers corner in the store but even they have little to offer for us old fashioned folks! 👵🏻 Susan
@@debbieframpton3857 We don’t have Kroegers here in my corner of the northeast...and the stores available have little to none marked down meats, but I do grab them when I can. Thanks. Susan
Thank you for sharing. Four children growing up I witnessed your tips many times. My family, many meals were in the slow cooker, always loaded my spaghetti sauce and meatloaf with veggies.
All good home cooking
Tip for your rendered beef fat; cooked your Yorkshire pudding in it- heaven!
We lived far from my grandmothers and only saw them every few years so I didn't learn any cooking tips or tricks from them. I do remember my maternal grandmother used to make creamed mushrooms on toast. Toasted day old bread, liberally slathered with butter, with these lucious creamed mushrooms on top ..... It was SO delicious. And my paternal grandmother -- it was peaches. She lived in the Niagara region in Canada which is known for it's fruit. If we were visiting in peach season, she would get me scalding and peeling a bazillion peaches to make into pies, to can, to freeze, to make jam, cobblers. Everything peach. I loved it! Thanks for bringing back those fond memories.
I only saw my grandparents once a year, thankfully granny taught my mum, she taught her kids and I taught mine
Jan, our mothers learned well from our grandmothers. One of the best "treats" she made for us was 'special' potatoes. Because she hated carrots my grandmother came up with a solution called special potatoes. She would cook the potatoes with the carrots and then mash them together with butter and milk and salt. she didn’t hide the fact that carrots were on her least favorite list, but she made these and ate them with us. In my late teens I asked her why, if she hated carrots she ate this blend with us. She told me that she didn’t want to pass on her aversion to us kids, so she passed on this 'special' blend as a treat for us while being able to actually enjoy the carrots herself. Except for this one orange veg, she was not a picky eater. I caused her to sigh a lot because I certainly was!🙄. Patricia from New Hampshire 👵🏻
Thanks very much
I was the fussy eater in my family (still am if I'm honest). My Mum would use the "mashing other vegetables in with the potatoes " trick on me - she called it her Magic Vegetable which, if I ate it all, would magically produce extra pudding for me. It worked for years until I understood what was happening and refused to eat it any more!
Jane, loved this episode. Reminded me of cooking as a child with my mum & great grandmother (born in 1878). There were lots of skills & recipes which I still use. Unfortunately some of the ingredients I've struggled to buy for quite a few years - bacon ribs for example (but i might have found a source 60 miles away). Simmered till tender removed from the pot so finely shredded cabbage (white if you're 'posh) added for a short, rapid boil served together with nice bread & the liquore from the pan - a meal fit for the gods. Or Steak (shin beef) & 'cowheel' it makes the richestst, thickest, tastiest casserole or pie filling ever. I still make her chicken broth (tho with mote of a range of veg than she had) using the carcass (already well picked over for other dishes) from a chichen plus sweated root veg, celery, onion & pearl barley, adding in fresh greens/peas etc for the last few minutes once the bones have been removed. I'm sneaky/ frugal now using a 3 tier steamer with the root veg in the bottom, slightly overfilled so the water bubbles up to the, carcase in the 1st steamer tray, making bone removal much easier. I often steam other veg, maybe for another meal like cauliflower cheese, in the top. GG Anna, said if you can't get at least 3 different meals out of a chicken you weren't trying!
Tricia
Thanks Tricia
Hi ya Jane! You’ve nourished my soul today. I can tenderly remember my mom
( she was a depression era orphan) sharing some of the same wisdom
Thanks Trish.
An absolute great subject! And I repeat seriously: why do you not write a book about all the things you are talking about?
Thanks for watching
My dads mom taught me how to read a recipe, set up ingredients, clean as you go. My moms mom showed me how to make frugal foods for a crowd. She showed me how to make homemade egg noodles and Donkey Dough. Donkey Dough was the leftover pie crust pieces that you baked off and got to munch on while the rest of the pie cooled off.
Love that!
When we were kids the excess pie crust dough got rolled out and then buttered and sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar and baked. We called them elephant tracks!
@@mrssomuchmore7193 that sounds good. I think she may have used a little butter, and possibly a little sugar. She (mom's mom, aka Grammy) grew up around the middle of 13 kids, her mom died in childbirth with the youngest. So her job as part of the middle was making meals, as the older kid shad to work the farm. I don't think they had much extra sugar, so even as an adult she didn't use a lot of sugar in things. She told me many times when they went to school all they had was biscuits with butter on them for their lunch. But all the other kids were poor too, so no one ever acted like they were better than anyone else. My dad's mom was an only child. Actually both my grandmas grew to be great friends, even after my parent's split up.
My culture we ate rice & beans, a small piece of meat, maybe a few Tostones fried plantains, and a slice of avocado is an amazing low-budget meal. Or we make a rice that has ham or pieces of beef (you use less and stretch your budget).
Sounds great!
Where are you from Gladys ?
Wow! you really hit the high points but one thing you left out is the one thing my Grandmother taught and that was to always serve a first course 15- 20 minutes before the main course. Things like salad and bread, soup and bread, other appetizers. This took the edge off of the red-raving hungries so that when the main meal arrived, smaller servings were satisfying. We would have a sweet at the end of the meal, but not always. Flour and sugar are relatively affordable, so the dessert course might be what's necessary for an otherwise small dinner.
In my house, meat for meat's sake - like a steak, or slice of roast or piece of poultry don't see the table as often and more vegetarian meals are showing up here. Overall, I have been able to hold the line on the grocery bill, but I don't know for how much longer.
Thanks for sharing
Thank you for helping stay on the road to eating well and saving money.
You are so welcome
Muchas gracias! Como madre divorciada y seguidora de la filosofía ZeroWaste, necesito recordar habitualmente estas herramienttas ya que en ocasiones, por falta de planificación, tiermino comprando bandejas de carne o pescado en el supermercado en lugar de tomarme el tiempo de procesar un polllo entero o hacer un guiso.
Me encanta su canal. Cada dos años voy a Francia. me sentiría muy afortunada de aprender de usted y darle un gran abrazo.
Thank you
Thanks for watching, please hit the like button 🎉
OMG you forgot the most important reason for keeping beef drippings--the best meal extender--Yorkshire puds, lol. Loved this vid. Thank You from Alberta, Canada.
So delicious
My mother taught me to hot water bath can when I was young. Later she had to start working, so I took over the shopping and a lot of the cooking when I was 12 or so. It was very good experience for me. My son took cooking classes in high school so he can cook quite well. My daughter was only interested in the baking side while she was growing up, but when she moved out, I hand wrote her a cookbook of all her favorite dishes from when she was growing up, even the ones that were " a pinch of this and some of that" since there are very few things I use a written recipe for. Now she is a very good cook, but she still asks "how do I do this"? I enjoy being able to share that with her.
Thanks for watching
Thank you, Jane. I learned how to cook watching my mom at 12. From home economics class, I learned how to bake and would make it at home for us.
Wonderful!
Raised by a depression era mom that was a teen as WWII rationing hit. I learned to cook, bake, sew, knit, crochet, and embroidery from her and her mom. Most of my kids are good cooks too. Lots of old fashion skills passed down through the generations.
Good stuff
Same here!
My grandmother was a young woman in the depression. My mom always said that she could make a penny squeal. My favorite meals that she cooked were fried potatoes and cabbage, sometimes with sausages. My mom learned a lot from her. My dad and his 8 brothers took a potato to school for their lunch and ate them raw. When I was a child, we had a large garden and chickens, berry bushes, and the neighbors had an apple tree. My mom would trade them some homemade strawberry jam for apples. My mom canned everything. My dad made sauerkraut. We had many meals without meat, but we always had plenty of eggs. I learned a lot from my mom and her mom.
Great lessons
Thank you for these reminders. One thing that has been passed down from grandma, to my mom, to me, was a large garden and canning. We have always had a large garden, canned or froze as necessary. I distinctly remember my grandmother’s garden, both grandmothers actually. Two of my children have taken to gardening as well, and are teaching their young the fun of growing their own food. And my grandchildren love coming to grandma’s garden, since it’s so much bigger, with more things in it that theirs.
My mom taught us girls how to cook. Also was in 4-H cooking & took home economics classes. I know the basics.
Good to hear that
I'm a good plain cook and I am unapologetic about feeding home cooking to my guests. I found people love just having simple comfort food and are hungry for it when there is too much restaurant food. I also don't like to over feed my guests--enough with a treat for dessert but not so much that people feel stuffed. That is just a waste
Love that! Healthy too.
I am also a good plain cook. No one has ever complained about being served meatloaf and mashed potatoes, spaghetti and meatballs, chicken and biscuits, sausage and lentil soup, or chili and a baked potato. My kids love homemade mac n' cheese served with steamed broccoli. When given a choice, my kids rarely opt for restaurant food. Mom's dinner is best.
Simple home cooking is the best. Food for the soul.
Had to stop the video and relate the story of the stealth veggies 😂
My grandson had an aversion to veggies of colour (he would only eat the white ones…potato and cauliflower with white sauce….putting little bits of onion, carrot and mushroom on the edge of his plate, just like his dad)
My daughter was beside herself, thinking that he wasn’t getting all the nutrients he needed. We invented the ‘Stealth Spaghetti Sauce’ It had onion, garlic, grated carrots, mushrooms, zucchini, pumpkin, capsicum etc., all blended with the tomato sauce base.
‘Ah!’ my grandson would say ‘I really like Grandma’s Spaghetti Sauce best’
Sharon from Australia 🇦🇺 🦘
Great story
When I first got married over 40 yrs ago I always cooked a good meal but never could be faffing with a pudding (had a busy job always late home ) my husband went on and on about his mums home made rice pudding so I bought a tin of rice pudding put some cream in it and nutmeg on top said it was just as good as mum's doesn't know to this day !!!😂
Thanks for sharing
My parents didn't start their family until they were in their forties. So in a sense, I was raised by parents old enough to be my grandparents. During the depression, my mom had to drop out of school in eighth grade to work and help support the family. She was frugal due to necessity and her frugality carried over into their marriage. My mom was an excellent cook and knew how to make food stretch. Nothing was ever thrown out. I don't remember her experimenting with new recipes. We had the same rotation of meals every week or two. I liked what you said about not trying something new during these economic times. That really makes sense. You don't want to waste your money on food that isn't going to be eaten. My husband and I starting canning again this past year. It is something both our moms taught us to do. I love making my own jams, jellies and pickles. We just bought a freezer and we plan on growing and freezing vegetables this summer. It also comes in hand when we can get meat at a really good price. Thanks for sharing your life with us. We enjoy your show.
Thanks for watching
Absolutely love pilchards in tomato sauce on toast, and another of my favourite meals is liver and bacon casserole, so good for you. We are having beef stew and dumplings tonight, good old fashioned plain cooking, filling and nutritious and made in the slow cooker so it was effortless to make, popped it in this morning before work. Thanks for another great video Jane.
Sounds great!
Fish cakes are soo dilicious with some fresh chives or parsley from the balcony or a drop of fish sauce, thanks for reminding me👍
So good!
Growing up my frugal mother could feed a family of six, three meals with one chicken. We would have baked chicken for Sunday dinner, along with potatoes, gravy & , a vegetable. The next day she would make a potpie with the leftovers. Then she would cook the chicken bones & skin in water to make broth, & get the last bit of meat off the bones. Then she would make it into a delicious soup.
Love that!
Fussy eater here! There are some things that I don't like in their own mustard and onions for example) but I can tolerate mustard and onion in potato salad because neither are the primary flavor. I agree that blending vegetables into dishes is a great way to hide them in soups and casseroles. And "decanting" generic and store brands are wonderful for hiding the plain label brand! My parents were raised in the 1920's-1930's and my grandmothers' raised 5 and 8 children. Times were tight and my mom and aunts could pinch a penny and stretch a dollar. They taught me well. Being a one-person household, I am not as likely to make big meals very often. But when I do I save extra portions for later meals either over the next day or two or I will freeze portions for later so I don't get too tired of eating the same thing. I frequently will just have toast and coffee in the morning and then maybe a sandwich later in the day. I've learned I need to eat less now that I no longer work. My dad loved liver and onions! Maybe he ate it growing up in the 1920's? I grew up eating canned tuna and salmon. Salmon is my favorite fish to this day. I live in the Midwest United States so we are very landlocked. Fresh fish has to be imported and therefore is very expensive. I don't get it very often but I will buy a large piece of salmon at a good price at our area Club stores. I cut it into individual portions and then freeze them to use at later times. It's very easy to bake up a piece of salmon with a little bit of dill sauce on top of it and it makes a wonderful meal. I am around your age I believe and I grew up in the 70s and actually had home economics classes in junior high school as well as in girl scouts so I not only had some educational training on cooking I also helped my mom in the kitchen a lot. I was more of a baker than a cook but I've evolved into doing more cooking than baking now. I'm certainly no expert but I can certainly put together a decent, tasty and nutritious meal. It is a little more challenging now since my stroke and I only have the use of one arm so I've had to rely on things like my stand mixer and food processor more to do the shopping and mixing for me but fortunately I had many of those items prior to my stroke so I have just put them to use. Thank you for such a wonderful video with all of your encouraging tips and opportunities to show us how you do stretch a dollar in the kitchen. We had a pretty tight food budget when I was growing up and I used to get so upset with my mom when she would buy the store brand of most items at the grocery store. Now that it's my money paying for the groceries and I think that store in generic brands have gotten much better over the last 20 years, I primarily only by generics. I can count on one hand I don't even need all five fingers to do it to tell you the number of store brands that I didn't care for over the name brand. There are a few things that I do by the name brand of either because there isn't a generic of it or I didn't care for the generic but most of the time I'm buying the store brand unless the name brand is on sale and it's a better price. If you do this, you're going to save here in the US I would say 15 to 30% over always buying the name brand. Most store brands in the US offer you a money back guarantee if you don't like it so you really aren't out anyting. If you buy the cereal and your kids find out it's a store brand and they say they can't stand it you can always return it and get your money back. But if you put it in a Tupperware type canister I bet they won't know the difference! As long as they don't see that it's the store brand they probably won't taste a difference. Hello to Mike and also to the adorable Mary & Dolly!
Thanks for watching
This is a very good video thank you Jane
You are so welcome
I always soaked the liver in milk to tenderize it, and then after cooking the liver in bacon drippings, then remove liver and use the milk in the roux made from flour in the bacon drippings to make a gravy for over the potatoes and liver, no waste. 😊
This is one of my most favorite videos you've made and I love all your content. I too grew up in hard and frugal times and am so grateful for those slkills now. I appreciate all you and your husband do :)
Thank you so much!
Dear Jane, last weekend I invented a meal that is a variation on a vegetable stew that I eat daily because I love it so much. I have a 20m x 10m garden and an allotment of about the same size. I grow enough veg, tobacco, fruit and duck / duck eggs to see me in food, smokes and wine all year around. My meal invention is a veg stew with a hard boiled egg as animal protein substitute. mmm, I've solved my main meal of the day for life. P.S. I also generate my own electric and heat with wood / coal, toasty warm.
You’re living the dream.
Oh yes, I also have four cats that only like shop food - help please anyone !
Apart from thee four cats, yes I am living the dream, but they are the nightmare, lol.
We have so much food snobbery nowadays many people do not know how to cook some of these basics. This was great video-thank you!
You are so welcome!
❤ love this. I was raised frugal and am doing all these things. It is so encouraging to be encouraged to cook plain meals without expensive ingredients. Just wish I could hide tinned fish..... my husband can find it no matter what and refuses to eat it. 😅 He is not fussy, though. Just really hates tinned fish. Eats everything else.
Also, I was forced to eat liver as a child due to being anaemic, and I can't stomach it now. We all have one food that we just can't do!
Thanks for sharing
Thank you for addressing food sensitivities. They are real. I completely agree about plain cooking! That is how I cook, and my husband likes it every meal. Slow cookers and bread machines truly are a blessing! Thank you for a lovely video. 💐
You are so welcome!
Fabulous video Jane! I think there are many in my children’s generation who need to know more about cooking. This gives them a great start.
They can and do learn to cook from tik tok
Lovely video! About the skills and culinairy historie; I just made a little booklet with old family and friends recipes and photo’s. Now also the younger generation knows my culinairy history and can always look up the recipes of my grandmothers, mother, me and my friends. Loved to do it and they are delighted with it ❤️
Sounds great!
Great tips here, I hope the younger generation are tuning in and learning them. I remember having beef stew with dumplings, liver in onion gravy served with potch. (Potatoes and swede boiled & mashed) , Blue Peter special, ( a corned beef recipe that we saw on the show but couldn’t remember the name of) with crusty bread, bread & butter puddings with the stale bread, rice puddings, roast dinner on a Sunday then bubble and squeak on Monday. Although my mum didn’t cook hearts, my boyfriends mum did and it was so special! I loved it. Money was very tight in our house, but mum was great at feeding us with nutritious foods and keeping us healthy and happy. ❤
I love cooking with heart
@Frugal Queen in France I wish I was mobile so i could go to a farmers market/stall to get heart as we don't see it in the supermarket's in the U.K. Once I'm mobile again, it will definitely be in my menu. 😋😋
One thing I've learned from my grandma is canning, gardening, and freezing. I started a garden this spring again since I haven't had one in 4 years. I look forward to putting it in jars and on the shelf and in our freezers. Gardening is almost free now days. Just seeds or plants and manual labor.
Hi Jane. thank you for a great video. I used to hide the veggies in soups and gravies by blending them so that my children would not suspect it. I would also make "meat balls" from chicken livers for the soup and they loved it, without knowing what was in them.
Chicken livers are much cheaper than the meat so I learned to cook these from my mother/grandmother. We always had a very tight budget so I would find ways to make frugal meals to keep the family happy. Left overs were/are re-used to make another meal.
Thanks so much for sharing
Cooking skills are important, and we have so many options and ways to learn how to cook anything. Be adventurous and find a new recipe that is frugal and tasty.
Yes! Thank you!
Thanks
Welcome
Spicy jalapeños lentil and ground beef cooks quick amount and healthier.
My aunt taught me how to make liver and onions I make it the way she taught me to this day and my mom taught me creative ways to use leftovers like re-frying leftover potatoes in a little bacon grease yummy
That is awesome!
My mom always said if you can make a good rue, you can make anything.
She’s right
My mum used to add a bit of vegemite to vegetable mash. We loved it and were more likely to eat it.
Good trick
A substitute for expensive flavored packs of instant oatmeal. Soak 1/4 cup of oatmeal flakes or barley flakes overnight in 1 cup of water. Add a few raisins if desired and flax seed. Microwave for 5 minutes in large bowl and put into small bowl with a little milk and eat. No need for the stove, if you have peeled apples put the peels and cores in a pot and cover with water and simmer for 30 minutes, strain and use that to soak your porridge each night with a dash of cinnamon.
Thanks for sharing
One of my favorite frugal dishes is Polish sausage and cabbage. Cut up a kielbasa or similar smoked sausage, a large onion, a head of cabbage and a few cloves of garlic. In a little oil or bacon fat, brown the sausage well, then add the onion and garlic and cook until the onion starts to soften. (You can add a sprinkle of caraway seed if you like it, but it isn't essential.) Then toss in the cabbage and a bit of water to help the cooking process. It will look like a lot of cabbage, but don't worry, cabbage wilts down as it cooks. Once everything is fried up and the flavors have had a chance to get to know each other, give it a good salting and peppering, and optionally give it a little stone ground mustard or serve some on the side.
We love fried cabbage and bacon too, thanks for sharing.
My grandmothers and mother taught me to grow a garden, pressure can and freeze the harvest, raise and butcher chickens, and turn simple ingredients into nutritious meals. Living through the depression and rationing gave them skills and knowledge that was passed on to me. I was taught that if food is good enough to be on the table, it is good enough to eat without turning up my nose. I am forever grateful for them.
Those were great lessons
Awesome ideas as usual! Love those fur babies!
Thanks so much!
I HAD to eat liver as a child. I didn't care for it much at first but I absolutely love it now. Smothered in onions is my favorite.
It's so good!
Jane: thank you for today’s video. You reminded me of two things when you mentioned sardines and liver. 1) one of my dad’s favorite snacks was sardines with Ritz crackers. It was a special treat for him and luckily (for him) a treat that we kids didn’t clamor for! 2) my mom would sauté chicken liver and minced onions in butter and then finish with Harvey’s Bristol Cream sherry! It was simply delicious served over white rice with a vegetable on the side. Thanks for the memories. 🙂
You’re welcome and thanks for watching
Enjoyed your presentation, Jane.
Bit of memory lane. As planting time is near, your chat reminded me too of how the older generation made a lot of their own preserves from berries, rhubarb and apples in their own gardens and given as gifts from family and neighbours. We lived in a rural place and part of our childhood was to pick blackberries from hedgerows for pies and jam. Even in her late sixties my mum watched for crab apples in the area, picked them herself and made jelly. A real treat was to be allowed to pick those large mushrooms in a neighbours field and cook these gently in butter.
Hazelnuts were commonly available too. They made the most of everything and they shared.
Thank goodness that we learned from them
Hello from Tucson, Az USA happy to be here!
Welcome
Hello from south of Boston,Massachusetts
I love my slow cooker for cheaper cuts of meat, as they come out very tender. There's a difference between your area and ours in that chicken here is much cheaper than what your chicken sells for, but oxtail here is as high as a premium steak, per pound. 😥 homemade cookies ARE so much cheaper than store bought and so much better. Basic cooking skills are so very helpful😊 I didn't have a mother or grandmother to learn cooking from,and could literally burn water😖 but when I was older, I learned the basics from my Dad and then, got a few used cookbooks from the thrift shops and just tried new recipes. From there, it grew. I went to Culinary school when I was 54 and learned so much. But, I'm still learning. Currently, I am learning how to cook Korean dishes. You are never too old to learn something new.
Thanks for watching
Save potato,carrot skins for vegetable broth