Pinch Your Pennies - Breakfast Convenience Foods

Greetings!  I'm back after a long and sunny weekend in New York.  There are no recipes today, because I'm in the midst of unpacking, laundry, checkbook balancing, and getting myself organized again.  You know, the normal post travel agenda. 

I do have a penny pinching post, though!  If there's one thing I go out of my way to do, it's save money wherever I can.  Too much goes to waste in this world.  Anyway, I'll be the first to admit that breakfast convenience foods are ... well, convenient.  However, they are generally neither healthy nor are they inexpensive.  For example, at my local grocery, a box of French Toast Sticks costs $6.99, making them $1.09 per serving.  One serving of five pieces, has 330 calories.  I make my own French Toast for a fraction of the cost and about a bazillion times the health.  Mine ends up having 76.5 calories for the same serving size, and the total cost per serving averages out to be 15¢.  That's a savings of 253.5 calories and 94¢ per serving!  That's a big deal, you guys.

You can do this with pancakes and waffles, as well.  Not only are you saving a lot of money, you get to decide what goes into your food.  You can make it completely vegan, low fat, sugar free, organic, etc. etc.  It's all up to you.  You get to decide what kind of bread to use in your French toast, or even make your own bread.  You get to decide what types of flours go into your waffles or pancakes.  Find a hour or so of free time, make up a big batch, freeze it, and then pop the (French toast, waffles, pancakes) into the toaster (just like the expensive, caloric, chemical filled grocery store kind!) for a fast and convenient breakfast.

I recently made two loaves of French Toast.  The total cost for both loaves was $5.68.  That's 40 servings of French Toast sticks for $1.31 less than six and a half servings of the store bought variety.  Mine was sugar free, salt free, and of course chemical and preservative free.  It was not vegan, but the point is that it could have been.  This is what you make it.

I mixed up a big bowl of Egg Beaters, soy milk, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg, and I used whole wheat bread.  I staged everything so I'd be ready to go.  I made mine on a griddle, but you can just as easily use a nice skillet.

Next I dipped the bread into the egg mixture and cooked it in batches on the griddle.

No matter what it is that you're making, be sure to cool it COMPLETELY before freezing.  I do this by laying the pieces out on a clean, dry dish cloth.

When it is completely cool, then you can freeze it.  I just put my French toast pieces back into the original bag that the bread came in.  You can store it in Ziploc bags.  You can put it in freezer safe containers.  You can wrap it in waxed paper and tinfoil.

When it's time for breakfast, just pop a couple of pieces into the toaster, and you're all set to enjoy a quick, convenient, low cost, and healthy breakfast!

Keeping Produce Fresh

I buy produce like it's going out of style.  I buy large amounts pretty much every time we go grocery shopping.  I've found a local Hispanic market that makes doing this easy and economical.  I can get literally almost six times the produce that I can from the grocery store for the same price.  We generally manage to go through it all before it goes bad too.  One of the things that has helped a lot is that I learned how to properly store it to best extend its life.

When storing produce in the refrigerator, keep fruits and vegetables in separate drawers.  They both spoil faster if you keep them together.  This is because of the ethylene that builds up.  Keep your produce in perforated plastic bags in the crisper drawers.  There's no need to buy fancy bags; you can perforate your own by poking them with something sharp.  Store everything unwashed.  Wash it as you go.

The following items should be stored in the refrigerator:

• Apricots
• Artichokes
• Asparagus
• Beets
• Blackberries
• Blueberries
• Broccoli
• Brussels sprouts
• Cabbage
• Cantaloupe
• Carrots
• Cauliflower
• Celery
• Cherries
• Corn
• Figs
• Grapes
• Green beans
• Green onions
• Herbs, with the exception of basil
• Honeydew
• Lima beans
• Leafy vegetables
• Leeks
• Lettuce
• Mushrooms
• Okra
• Peas
• Plums
• Radishes
• Raspberries
• Spinach
• Sprouts
• Strawberries
• Summer squash
• Yellow squash
• Zucchini

Store these things on the counter top:

• Apples
• Bananas
• Basil
• Cucumbers
• Eggplant
• Garlic
• Ginger
• Grapefruit
• Jicama
• Lemons
• Limes
• Mangoes
• Oranges
• Papayas
• Peppers
• Persimmons
• Pineapple
• Plantains
• Pomegranates
• Tomatoes
• Watermelon

There are several items that should be ripened on the counter top and then stored in the refrigerator:

• Avocados
• Nectarines
• Peaches
• Pears
• Plums
• Kiwis

And lastly, these foods should be stored in a cool, dry place:

• Acorn squash
• Butternut squash
• Onions
• Potatoes
• Pumpkins
• Spaghetti squash
• Sweet potatoes
• Winter squash

Potatoes and onions must be stored separately, also because of ethylene build up.

There you have it.  If you store things in the proper manner, you'll get the longest life possible for your produce, and it will be money well spent instead of money tossed away.