What the Heck Is Wrong With A Glass That's Half Empty?

I have moderately large drinking glasses and the other day, I noticed that I almost always end up putting a glass one-half to one-third full back in the refrigerator after meals.  Where, if I don't remember to pull it out for the next meal, usually ends up getting—shall we say?—a trifle aged. Especially if I push it to the back of the shelf and foget it. There's something about a glass of milk or juice that's been sitting in the fridge for three days that just a bit unappetizing.

Now, I hate to throw food away.  I even keep a special plastic container in my freezer just for what I call "handfuls" of food that I refuse to toss in the trash.  So it bugs me when I end up pouring slightly fermented juice, just-starting-to-curdle milk or long-flat soda down the drain.

Being only slightly dense, it finally struck me….why pour myself a whole, full-to-the-brim glass in the first place?  I almost never drink it…why do it?

What the heck is wrong with only pouring yourself half a glass of beverage? Or making half a package of hot cocoa? Half a cup of coffee?  Half a cup of hot tea….and saving the teabag for later?

Somehow, as we grow up, we get a lot of odd ideas in our heads when it comes to "full" versus "half empty."  Our parents (and I've seen people do this) load our plates down with enough food to feed a horse and if we eat a bite here and a bite there and then want to stop, we're told to "not waste food."  

I remember once watching a five-year old relative contemplate a plate stacked with two large pieces of chicken and two full serving spoons worth of potatoes and vegetables. He ate half his drumstick, half the potatoes, a third of the vegetables and pushed the plate away.  And the dialogue started.  "Don't you want more?" "No, Mom."  "Why don't you just have a few more bites?" "I don't want it, Dad."  "Would you like some bread instead?" "No."  "Would you like me to slice you an apple?"  "No." His parents, to their credit, didn't hit him with the "Think of all the starving children" line I got when I was a kid, but they spent a good ten minutes try to get this kid to eat more.  And he just didn't want it.  A healthy kid, slender but not skinny, and five years old. And they were worried because he wasn't chowing down what really should be enough food for a full-grown adult.  How the heck does that make any sense?

Why do we do this? Why do we load up our plates?  I have a friend who used to be grossly obese. (She's better now.) Her husband was also overweight. They had plates that were a good two inches in diameter larger than regular dinner plates and they would full them from edge to edge.   Why?  Well, in their case, the husband had gone without enough to eat a number of times when he was a kid. A big, full plate was his reaction to this, but it was a reaction that was emotional, not sensible, and the extra weight it helped generate probably was a factor in his later developing diabetes.

Filling up that glass, filling up that plate. Sometimes it's just habit.  Or an unrecognized conviction that a plate should always be full, and that if it's not, you're somehow being shortchanged or deprived.

 If you want that much, fine.  If you don't…why do it?

If two-thirds of a glass of milk or tea will get you comfortably through dinner or lunch, why not stretch your budget by only pouring or making yourself that much?  If you typically leave half your dinner roll or biscuit on your plate when you finish, why not just take half a roll or biscuit in the first place?            

Slice half a banana onto your breakfast cereal.  Give your child half a sliced apple to take to school.  If that's not enough, you can always add a little more.

"Waste not, want not." Is a very old saying that can have two meanings.  Traditionally, it meant that you didn't throw food away, that you ate everything on your plate, every last scrap.  But it can also mean preparing a little less food in the first place, after observing what you and your family actually eat.  That saves time, cuts calories, and saves money.

 Sometimes, a glass served half-empty is just exactly the right amount.  

My Recipe....for Saving

A spoonful of this, a handful of that...

One characteristic I've found essential to saving money is flexibility. If you're rigid about how things are done, you'll miss a lot of chances to cut your costs.

This evening, I did what I often do when it comes time to make dinner. Instead of starting with a recipe and gathering (or buying) the necessary ingredients, I looked into my fridge and my pantry to see what I had available. I live five miles from the nearest grocery store, so picking up "a few things" involves a ten-mile round trip and costs me $2 worth of gas and at least twenty minutes. I also hate to waste what I call "bits and pieces"....the last little chunk of this, the final piece of that, the spoonful or two of something that I didn't want to throw away.(I rarely eat more than I want of something just to "finish off" an ingredient.)

So....I started looking. I had a can of chili. One can of chili cost $1.60 and will basically feel one person if you have nothing else. Me, I like a more complete diet. So I kept looking.

A handful of rice left in the bag. One tortilla. About a fifth of a raw onion. Maybe a cup of frozen corn.

Are you seeing where this is going?

What else? About four inches of turkey sausage. A unopened can of black beans. A cup of shredded cheese.

Good enough. Plenty enough. I didn't have to go anywhere or buy anything and I could use up a lot of small amounts of food that might, if I let them spoil,end up in the garbage disposal.

So...grab.a casserole dish. Rice on the bottom, with a little water. A layer of corn next. Chop the leftover onion, the leftover sausage, layer those. A bit of the cheese. Drain and rinse the beans and add some of those. Cut the tortilla into thin  strips and layer that on. A little more cheese. A sprinkle of red pepper. (Don't overdo the red pepper.)  Three spoonfuls of chili on the top, the rest of the cheese atop that.

I baked it until it was bubbling, let it cool a few minutes and tried my impromptu Mexicali casserole. Delicious!

My point isn't to provide a recipe, it's to emphasize that flexibility can help you save. (For another example, see the 10 foot wraparound desk I build for less than $200.)  In this case, if I'd had two tortillas instead of one, I might have used some leftover chicken I had, the onions, the cheese, the final spoonful in the sour cream container and some bits of frozen bell peppers from my "bits and pieces" container in the freezer to make myself some fajitas. No chicken? Use an egg instead and have breakfast burritos....for dinner.

Get over the idea that you can only do things in a certain way. Flexibility, in so many ways, will help you cut waste, save time and save money.

Excuse me. I'm going to have a little more casserole. Then I'll put the rest in the freezer and day after tomorrow, have it for lunch.

Even PBS Get's It Wrong!

I came in on the tail end of a PBS program about food the other day. As best I can remember, it theorized that the reason people are fat in this country is because they can't afford decent food. They can only afford to buy cheap food from the "dollar" menu at various fast food places.

As an example, they showed a family of four--Mom, Dad, (both overweight) a daughter who looked to be about fourteen and another child who was perhaps nine or ten. They went through the drive-through at an unnamed fast food place; the tab for four hamburgers, two chicken sandwiches and four sodas--fat, fat and sugar supreme!--all off the dollar menu, was over $11.

Then they showed the same family in the produce section at their local grocery store. My mouth dropped open when the two little girls found that 99 cents would only buy them two pears. "Too expensive!" My jaw hit the ground when the parents pointed out that broccoli at $1.59 a lb. was also so pricey that it proved they couldn't possibly afford to feed the family "good food."

Incredibly, the narrator of this documentary repeated this bit of idiocy as though it was gospel truth. People of limited means can "only" afford the lousy food found on dollar menus.

Bull. Pure unadulterated bull

Let's take their own examples. They could start by buying three pears for $1.50. That's a pear each for the parents and a half pear each for the kids.

One and one-half pounds of broccoli would be a whole $2.40 and be plenty enough for the entire family to have a serving.

I buy whole chickens for $4.50 or less at least once a week. One three-pounder at that price would easily provide a meal's worth of meat for this whole family.

A few tablespoons of iced tea mix or lemonade mix in tap water would provide drinks for all four people and cost maybe 50 cents.

Four servings of brown rice with a little butter would cost about $1.

So....a meal of roasted chicken, broccoli, brown rice and pears, with ice tea or lemonade would be much more nutritious, add up to fewer calories and cost:

$8.90.

More than a dollar less than the vegetable-poor, sugar and fat-laden "cheap" meal off the dollar menu.

Ah! But what about the time it takes to cook all this food! Who has the time?

Almost everyone.

We've also been sold the idea that it takes all sorts of specialized equipment and hours of time to cook food at home. Again, pure bull.

Yes, it takes about an hour to roast a chicken. But....here's something the TV cooking shows won't tell you....you don't have to spend that entire hour in the kitchen.

If you've planned ahead and bought the necessary ingredients on the weekend, here's what's involved in our sample meal.

Rice? Before you start on the chicken, put the rice and water in a lidded pot, put it on the back burner on high, and by the time you get the chicken in the oven, it will be boiling. Turn the burner off, leave the lid on and let it sit.

While the rice comes to a boil, pull the chicken out of the wrapper, rinse it, put it in an oven-proof pan (I use glass cake pans) and stick it in the oven. I use a large toaster oven that I bought years ago secondhand for a few bucks to avoid heating up my full size oven. (You should cook things at a slightly lower temperature in a toaster oven. Experiment and find out what works for you.)

All this takes about five or six minutes. When you're done and the chicken's in the oven and the rice is turned off and sitting, go off and do something else. A load of wash, a check of your email, whatever chores will take about an hour. Watch a TV show if you want. Just check the chicken at least twice during that hour and baste it.

When the chicken is done, pull it out and set it on a heat-proof surface to cool, while you take the broccoli, rinse it and cut off the lower part of the stalk. Then just put it on a microwave proof plate, upend another plate to use as a cover--no, you do not need a special microwave steamer!--and microwave it on High for two to three minutes until it's tender. While you're doing that, mix your tea and lemonade, carve your chicken, then call everyone in for a nutriitous and cheap dinner that only took about fifteen actual working minutes to prepare.

I've seen people spend more time than that creeping along in the drive-through line.

And by the way....if you cook double amounts of such food on the weekends, you can make your own microwaveable frozen meals to eat on weekday nights...at perhaps a third the cost of the ten bites worth of processed, over-sauced frozen food sold at the grocery store.

'Nuff said. I'm hungry. Time for a plate full of homemade spaghetti, full of tomatoes, onions, bell peppers and mushrooms, all bits and pieces that I didn't use on other meals. I chopped 'em up and put them in a container in the freezer over the last ten days. The spaghetti took me fifteen minutes to make three days ago (plus an hour of simmering, while I did chores) and I've got three more portions in the freezer....at a cost of about $1.50 per portion.

Dollar menu? Please. Spend a few minutes planning and a few minutes cooking, eat less and eat better. You'll be skinnier and your wallet will be fatter.

More Travel Tips

I just got back from my vacation in North Carolina and I have a few more tips on saving money when you fly or drive.

First, travel light. The airlines are now charging for every check-in bag when you fly Economy. In my case, the hit was $15 for one bag each way or an extra $30 total. (I did mention in my initial post that you should always allow for extra expenses, right?) Even though I only took one check-in bag , that was one bag too many. I took a complete change of clothing for all six days, which was overkill since I wasn’t heading for the Arctic Circle or the wilds of Borneo; even in North Carolina, they do have these places called LAUNDROMATS. Actually, four of the five Motel 6s I stayed in boosted coin-operated washers and dryers. I ended up relaxing with a book for 30 minutes while washing three days worth of dirty clothes; if I’d only bought that much to start with, I could have fitted it in a single carry-on and saved myself both money and effort. (Check online with any airline to find their dimensions for carry-on bags.)

Second, if it’s going to be a long flight, bring along a bag of nuts, an apple, a banana or some other snack. Paying $6 for a bag of airline almonds is not my idea of frugal, so I was happy I had a banana in my handbag when the hungries hit halfway through the two-hour flight.

Third, as I also mentioned in my previous post, allow for extra fees, taxes, etc. I’d booked a rental car for $181 for the week, but somehow a few previously unmentioned charges hiked that nearly $40.

Fourth –a word of warning—the rental car company may try to convince you that your best value on gas is their “prepaid” fill-up. The pitch to me was that if I paid $36 up front, they’d fill up my car when I got back, at a bargain rate of $1.70 a gallon, and I wouldn’t have to waste time tanking up. Since gas in NC at the time was running about $1.99, this sounded like a good deal, but here’s the catch….my car had an 18 gallon tank. (I asked.) My filling up an almost empty tank ( you have to top it off within ten miles of the dropoff point) would have cost only $33.84, even at $1.99, and if I’d still had a gallon or two in the tank, it would be even less than that. So prepaying $36 would have cost me extra.

Fifth, (shameless plug!) Golden Corral is my favorite fast-in, fast-out restaurant of all time. For the same $7.50 I paid for a sandwich and a pile of fries at Chili’s, I happily ate lunch at GC three of my six days, browsing through a dozen types of meat, a comprehensive fruit and salad bar and more types of chocolate deserts than is really good for me. (If you don’t want to pack on pounds eating at GC, don’t pile your plate high. Go for variety, not quantity.) Plus, you don't have to wait ten minutes for a waiter, ten minutes to get your food, or ten minutes to get your check. I found myself looking for GC signs every time I drove the highway. (By the way, a week’s worth of nothing but fast-food burgers and burritos will not make your innards happy, and few things are as miserable as getting sick when you’re traveling. So be sure to include fruits and vegetables in your travel diet, even if it means stopping at a grocery store to buy apples, bananas and snack-packs of raisins.) Also, unless you can handle huge portions, look for half-serving options whereever you eat. It will help save you money and keep you from coming home ten pounds heavier than when you left.

Sixth, remember to allow for tips. Yes, I was not eating or staying at expensive restaurants or hotels, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t tip. Someone has to serve the food and clean the room; so be classy as well as frugal and leave a tip.

Next....some thoughts on my visit to the largest private home in the country...the Biltmore House!

Tasty, Fast and Low-Cost

As I've said in a few of my posts, I'm not a cook. My culinary goals basically consist in making sure I get a reasonable amount of nutrition without giving myself botulism.

However, even I sometimes have to contribute something to a social occasion and a few weeks back, I brought one of my favorite dishes to a meeting for about 30 people. At least twenty people ate my offering, no one sickened or died, and to my complete surprise, I was actually asked for the recipe by some of those present.

Thus encouraged, I'm offering my version of a low cost sort-of salad: easy to make, reasonably tasty and made with low-cost stuff you'll find in any supermarket.

Start with a a pound of frozen corn. (And no, you don't have to cook it first.) Put that and a half pound of frozen peas into a colander and rinse with water to thaw. Then drain. Add half a can of rinsed and drained black beans. (Rinse 'em until the foamy stuff is gone.) Rinse, chop and add two small or one large stalk of green onions. (Discard the really green part of the stalk.) Add two coarsely chopped Roma tomatoes. (I like Romas because they have less water and more meat than regular tomatoes.)

Next, add about two tablespoons of Thousand Island Dressing, a little salt to taste and a shake or two of red chili powder. (Don't overdo the chili powder.) Mix gently until the dressing and chili powder are evenly distributed throughout the salad.

That's the basic salad, but you can also add, if you like, some chopped cooked chicken, a cubed avocado, some cubed tofu, some sliced mushrooms, a bit of grated cheese...whatever you have on hand.

That's it. Takes about five minutes to put together, costs about $2 in ingredients for the basic recipe and makes a nice side dish for eight to ten people. (I doubled up the recipe for my meeting.) If you're taking it somewhere, don't thaw the corn and peas and they'll help keep the salad cool.

Now....I've done my duty in providing a tasty (at least so I was told by those who ate it) low cost dish. (And no, I'm not expecting The Food Channel to call.)

It's your turn. What's your favorite money-saving recipe?