Breadcrumbs Re-visited

Way back I wrote about how I use breadcrumbs.  If you didn't see it you can check out that post here: Bread Crumbs. A pretty simple concept, but a process that can save you money over time.  If you've already started saving those bread crumbs from your toaster drawer, then this won't be a huge change as well. 

If you're like our house your kiddos don't eat their crust very often.  Most days, I will eat their crust, but there are days I just don't want to.  I started adding the crust pieces to my bread crumb jar.  I keep my bread crumb jar in the freezer so after a few days the crust pieces are easy to break down and crumble.  

This is just one more way you can get bread crumbs.  This has been really helpful with our family's recent shift in being more gluten free.  We don't all need to be gluten free, but my youngest has done better when she's not eating gluten.  With that, she also doesn't like the crust.  We now have a bread crumb jar and a GF bread crumb jar in our freezer.  Instead of having to buy GF bread crumbs, we were able to make our own without spending any extra money.  That is huge when GF food is just so much more pricey. 

Hope this helps you save a little 

Blessings, 

Potato Soup with Sausage

    As I said in my previous soup post, it's soup season!  Being one who really likes soup, IF I had my way, we'd have soup 2-3 times a week during this time.  But, alas I have children and so we have soup twice a month at most. If you missed my last post on how to make your garden produce go farther by making soup you can check it out here: Soup.  Potato soup is my favorite soup.  I have different versions of potato soup that I make, but one way the whole family enjoys is adding sausage. 

We have made potato soup based on recipe I found years ago that added andouille sausage.  It's really good.  But, I wanted to make it cheaper.  So one day I bought a summer sausage.  Now, summer sausage is a little more, but I halved it and only added half the sausage in the potato soup and then froze the other half for another time.  You can do this with the andouille sausage as well, but there's just a little more sausage to the summer sausage roll so I found it works a little better.  Also, if you have a SAMS' CLUB or COSTCO membership, you usually can get them even cheaper in bulk. 

Another way, I've cut back on the expense of sausage in our potato soup is by using pork sausage.  Pork sausage is even less expensive than summer or andouille sausage.  If you can handle the more ground beef texture in your potato soup then this would work great. I accidentally stumbled upon this one time when I was cleaning out the fridge.  We had a little pork sausage and potato soup leftover, I decided to just combine them and see.  I actually really like it this way; however my family does not agree, so we stick to the summer sausage, but only use half the roll each time.  

Andouille sausage: $4.69/lb

Summer sausage: $4.74/lb

pork sausage: $2.32/lb 

Soup

As we near Fall, we near soup season.  Although, I'm one that can eat soup all year long, but that's not the case with everyone else in my family.  So, I save soup for the Fall and Winter seasons.  I really enjoy making homemade soup and one thing that works great is to use up all those vegetables that you haven't used from your garden to make your soup.  Then you can store the soup in smaller containers and freeze for when you need them.  

This is great for those busy school nights, just pop a container or two out of the freezer and put in your fridge in the morning.  Then around supper, all you need to do is reheat it.  Quick, easy and you saved money by using produce from your garden.  

Garden Produce

Here are some garden produce that are great to add to soups:  

• squash
• peppers - ours had a woody taste this year,  (that's the best way to describe it) but cooked in a soup, you can't tell. 
• tomatoes - all tomatoes work well in soup.  I accidentally planted multiple cherry tomatoes this year and we don't like tomatoes.  I usually use them to make sauce.  So I found myself with a lot of cherry tomatoes to use up.  I gave away a bunch and then added the rest to my soup. Also froze them before hand so I could wait to make my soup when I had the time. 
• cabbage 
• sweet potato 
• carrots 

Those are just a few, there's so many more veggies from the grand that are great to use in soups! 

My favorite soups

Potato Soup  

This recipe is one that I start with, but have changed a few things.  Instead of bacon, I use sausage.  Instead of the green onions, I use our onions & peppers from the garden, you could keep the green onions too. 

Cabbage Soup

This one is a great recipe to use up that cabbage, it uses 1/2 a cabbage head!  It also uses up carrots &  potatoes.  Plus, you could cut the sausage in half you used for the potato soup and add the other half to this soup.  We tried this one this late summer and I froze it.  It froze and thawed well (I only had it from for about a month).  Also a great add in after you thaw it, make some white rice and toss it in.   

Autumn Squash & Sweet Potato Soup 

This soup uses squash, sweet potatoes and tomatoes. 

Saving on fruit

So you're in the store and you ask your kiddos, "what fruit do you want this week? Apples, bananas, grapes etc?"  They say bananas so you buy bananas and then later that week you see that the bananas are already turning. 

Happens to me so many times! And lately, I feel the bananas are turning faster.  Fresh produce just isn't as good as it was.  I think we're still catching up from COVID and things being shut down, the produce just takes longer to get here and while it's been waiting it's starting to ripen sooner.  But, that's my short opinion.  

Anyways, I've learned over the years that I could freeze them and keep them to make banana bread later.  That has worked well for us.  We like a good banana bread for breakfast in the fall and winter.  But, I wanted to help them last a little longer on the shelf or something. 

Thanks to The Cross Legacy I have! She has so many great ideas on helping keep your produce last longer. I've recommended her blog before, but I wanted to do so again.  This time of year we try not to go to the store as often, just because life gets busier with school and sometimes the weather isn't nice.  Currently our local grocery store is about 15min away in another town.  So, finding ways to help make less trips to the store has been very helpful.  

Amy Cross has many tips on how to keep lots of produce fresh longer than what you'd normally be able to keep it.  Check out her blog for more info!