High-value January Freebies

This past month I got these freebies – one in the mail, the other I went and picked up myself.  The Dave Ramsey books were part of a promotion at Money Saving Mom as she released her first book, The Money Saving Mom’s Budget.  If you purchased her book on that particular day and and were one of the first 200 people to email your picture with the receipt, you got this great starter package from Dave Ramsey.  Even though I was still in my pajamas, I was one of the first 200 – I was really excited to get the package, and hope to reread the book and use the cash envelopes.  I think it is also awesome that Crystal is donating 100% of proceeds from the book.

The black tube is a Geobin compost bin that is offered for free to Shawnee county households – worth $54 retail.  Once the weather warms up a bit, I hope to start composting all of the produce scraps we’ve been throwing out so far.

And the baby . . . ? With a double coupon, I was able to get him for free too in the Target clearance section, though he seems to require a lot of hidden add-ons and additional purchases over time ;).

In addition to these things, my mom sent me four boxes of craft supplies as she cleaned out her storage.  I’ve unearthed all sorts of cool things like a light box, baskets, fabric, embroidery floss and hoops, and even a bunny my mom made when I was a kid.  My poor mom – I really didn’t appreciate all of her handiwork back then, and would take all of the pre-assembled bunny legs she had in her craft area and make them stick out under heavy objects like the Wicked Witch of the East.  Who knows what trouble I’ve earned for myself now that I have three boys to hide my own craft projects from.

The reason I like to write about these kinds of things is to remind myself of how many ways God is blessing us without necessarily giving us money.  Kimberly Eddy wrote in her book, “Thriving on One Income,” that even though it is good to have a budget and stick to it, we can’t always control the numbers, and if we place the budget in a place where it dominates our thinking, it can become almost an idol.  I struggle with this a lot, because I’m a numbers geek and like to save and meet financial goals, and things like an unexpected traffic ticket or visit to the ER can really stress me out, but if there’s anything I’ve learned over the past few years, it’s that God does take care of us, even if it doesn’t work out on paper.

Yes, you can eat steak on a frugal budget

I discovered a new (for me) cut of steak a couple of months ago when I was reading an informative and well-detailed chart from one of my favorite cookbooks (America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook).  It’s known as the Top Blade, Blade or Flat Iron steak, depending on how it is cut.  The reason it caught my interest was because in the cookbook’s chart, they evaluated all types of steak according to three criteria:  taste, tenderness, and price.  Obviously, for someone on a more limited budget, the price is important, but if you’re like me, you’re also wanting to maximize the quality of the steak compared to what you pay.

Now here’s what’s interesting:  Filet Mignon, which we all know is both good and expensive, had a tenderness rating of four stars, a flavor rating of one star, and an expensiveness rating of four stars.  Top Blade had a rating of three stars for tenderness and flavor, and an expensiveness rating of one star.

I discovered that our local Safeway carries these steaks for $3.99/lb normally, and when they go on sale, you can get them for $2.49/lb.  Not bad when a good price for chicken breast is $1.99/lb.

I finally got to try the package that we had purchased and froze last night when I made some Beef Kebabs with Asian flavors in our oven under the broiler.  And the results?  The beef was cooked medium-well as one-inch cubes on skewers, and was amazingly tender and flavorful.  I think it was even better than the New York strip steaks I splurged on at $3.99/lb for Labor Day weekend.

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Additional notes:  This may get confusing, but Top Blade Steaks are basically cross-cut sections of Flat Iron steaks, kind of like what salmon steaks are to salmon filets.  Flat iron steaks can be a bit more expensive, but essentially, they are the same thing, just either the top or bottom portion of the “blade roast” with the gristle removed.  The top blade steak also comes with a thin ribbon of gristle down the middle (see picture above), but it was easily removed with my knife when preparing the kebabs.

When I was reading up on this cut on the Internet, I saw in some comments that occasionally this cut can have a slightly livery taste.  This concerned me, as I really don’t like liver, and I had a couple of bites of our kebabs that had a hint of that flavor, but for the most part, it just tasted like really really good steak.

Freezer Cooking

When I was approaching the arrival of my second son, Dylan, I spent a few weeks making extras of meals to stock up in my freezer.  But since he was born in September, it’s felt nearly impossible to find time to do more than dinner for one day, let alone several, except for the times where I make a recipe that makes plenty more than we normally eat and just freeze the leftovers.

Over at Money Saving Mom, though, Crystal has been on a once-a-month cooking kick for several months now.  I don’t think I’m ready yet to jump into cooking a full month’s worth of meals at a time, but I did take some time tonight to reorganize my pantry, spread most of its contents out on the kitchen table to see what I had, and start writing down ideas of things I could do with everything.  I’m going to try to participate w/MoneySavingMom’s cooking days and make a few meals at the same time over the next couple of days.  Here’s what’s on my list:

Stewed Lentils and tomatoes

Terrific Turkey Chili

Baked Turkey Meatballs

Potato Pancakes (for appetizers that we can freeze, and because I have to find something to do with that 5 lb bag of potatoes I got for $1)

Banana Crunch Muffins (for snacks/breakfasts)

If I had more nuts and dried fruit on hand (I’m completely out right now), I would make another batch of these chewy granola bars.  I made some last Friday, both to have a semi-healthy snack on hand, and to give Eli something to do (he’s really into stirring the pot these days).  The only problem was, they turned out to be so good that I ate a third of the pan “for lunch” before Michael even got home to try them.  They taste like a cross between an oatmeal cookie and a really good peanut-butter chocolate chip brownie (we put chocolate chips in ours) – but all without flour or eggs.

Now, if only I had my sous chef to help with chopping all the onions . . .