Frugal Ideas

Maybe everyone reading this already does these types of frugal things, but as the title of this blog suggests, I'm still attempting domestication. Recently, we've had some unexpected financial needs, so I am trying to be even more frugal than before. Hence this post! :)

Crockpot Rotisserie Chicken

We're trying to use what we have in the freezer because it needs to be defrosted. I found a whole chicken wayy in the back that I didn't remember I had. Let's just say it was pretty old. However, it was sealed in it's original packaging and looked perfectly fine. And it was! I defrosted it overnight in the fridge and then cleaned it out and soaked it overnight in water and kosher salt. The next morning, I placed 4 potatoes in each corner of my crockpot with a little water in the bottom. I seasoned my chicken with lemon/herb seasoning, garlic and pepper and then placed it BREAST down on top of the potatoes. I do the breast down so that all the yummy juices flow to the breast and make it nice and tender. Low in the crockpot all day and you have a delicious rotisserie chicken with potatoes. That was Friday night's dinner.

Chicken Stock

Friday night I took all the chicken meat off and put it aside to make chicken salad for sandwiches. I took all the bones, fat and drippings and put it back in the crockpot, added half an onion, a handful of carrots, 6 peppercorns, a bay leaf and filled it up with water. I cooked it overnight on low. The next morning, I scooped out all the "matter" and then put the broth through a colander. I got 10 cups of chicken stock!! Each can of stock from the store has 2 cups and runs .50 to $1 per can. That is a savings of $5-$10 with stuff I would have normally thrown away!

Crockpot Vegetable Soup

Saturday morning, I took half my chicken stock and put it back into the crockpot (hardest worker in the family that day!) and added 1 1/2 lbs browned ground beef, 3-4 beef boullion, 3-4 potatoes chopped, 1 small chopped onion, 4 garlic cloves minced, 2 8 oz cans tomato sauce, 2 8 oz cans water, pepper, salt, garlic salt and 8 oz frozen mixed vegetables. Cook on low 8 hours.


That chicken in the back of freezer went a long way! :D

Ground Beef

I like to do as much work ahead of time as I can and cut out extra steps of cooking if I can. One way I do this is by cooking all my ground beef once per week. I cooked about 4-5 pounds of it on Saturday when I made the soup. I took 1 1/2 lbs and put it into the soup as noted above and then seperated out the rest into baggies and put it in the freezer. Monday night I am making sloppy joes. I will just take out the baggie of ground beef, put it in the small crockpot for about 30 minutes and then I can take it out of the baggie and let it cook for another hour and then add my sloppy joe items and let it cook another hour before serving it. Thursday night I am making spaghetti and I can do the same thing with the ground beef in the crockpot and then add the sauce about an hour before serving. Very easy and makes the task of dinner time way less daunting!


Deli Meat

My newest endeavor into frugalness is deli meat. We go through quite a bit with 5 people eating sandwiches every day. A friend of my mom's gave us her meat slicer recently and we have put it to use! (check garage sales, you might be surprised what you find) We buy ham or turkey ham in a package like this. I got this at Walmart for just under $7 - it is 5 lbs which works out to be $1.40 per lb. - find that price another way, good luck! You can also get smaller packages if you don't want to do 5 lbs. but this is the best deal so far I have found. We just slice it up, foodsaver it into packages and stick it in the freezer. Pull out what you need! You can do the same with any meat you have. I plan on doing it with turkey once they go on sale this month and ham if I can get a good enough deal.

I plan to roast this for deli roast beef. Yum!

I hope you're able to use some of these ideas to make your kitchen more frugal. Let me know if have any other frugal ideas for me!