Because I lived in Austin, Texas and near Lebanon-Hanover, New Hampshire I was used to shopping in Central Market, Whole Foods and the Co-op. I purchased excellent quality foods that were good value for the dollar for the most part. And I splurged as needed.

I started commuting to Shreveport, Louisiana and had to find a local grocery store to feed me. I began my reconnaissance of the local grocery stores.

Store A is a smallish grocery store conveniently located ¾ mile from my house and serves a mixed socio-economic neighborhood of historic homes. No matter what I would go in there for all I ever come out with was a can of Folger’s and a bag of dog food.

This store specializes in fat, starch, sugar, alcohol and over-priced fresh orange. I was going to starve to death shopping here.

Next I test drove Store B which is 4 miles from my house. This is a grocery store for what was the Shreveport everyman. I began my exploration of the store and was immediately disappointed. There was no variety, no organic foods, no bulk, no nothing. I was so damn depressed. I consulted some locals and they directed me to Store C.

Store C is located 3 miles from my house and serves a higher end socio-economic group. In this neighborhood the houses are beautifully massive and the squadrons of giant flying cockroaches are called water bugs.

I made my trek to Store C to see if this grocery store was going to meet my needs. It has fruits and vegetables, some imported items, organic meat and vegetables and my staples. There is produce that I would consider a staple in Austin that is 3 times the price in Store C so I do without. But still out of the three, Store C was the best suited to my needs.

So you would think the post would stop there:

• Explore your grocery store options
• Pick the grocery store best suited to you
• The End

I thought that was the end too. But a friend, who lives 4 blocks from Store C, told me she was shopping in Store B. I was floored as I had seen what was in her fridge and it looked nothing like what I had seen at Store B.

So BACK I went to Store B. It was fabulous. They had been undergoing renovations for months. I walked into a beautiful produce section immediately hitting a wall of organics that were only pennies more expensive than the regular produce.

Green peppers were $0.99 each at Stores A and C, ORGANIC green peppers were $0.99 each at Store B. I try to stay away from the bakery but they had fresh baked cheese biscuits 3 for $1.00.

The prices are cheaper than Store C, the quality and selection are better than Store A. I was so happy I damn near burst into tears.

I now firmly believe that the choice of grocery store should be revisited annually.

The grocery chain marketing departments are constantly reassessing: what should be sold at each store, improvements and renovations, the pricing strategies, specials, etc. You never know when something is turning to your advantage in a different store.

I struggle mostly with saving money while shopping for food because its hard to buy produce for one without spending a lot of extra money for small portions and a lot of packaging. When I buy regular-sized things, they tend to go bad before I can finish it. I hate to waste food because it feels like I’m throwing money away! Do you have any advice on how to shop more frugally for one?

I understood exactly were Elizabeth was coming from. I am single and live alone except for my beloved tri-colored corgi. I have a small 720 square foot 1/2 duplex with a tiny kitchen and very messy pantry.

At the end of 2008 I was working in the hospital building industry. The industry just tanked and all of a sudden I stopped working for my client. I found myself happily broke, moving in the direction I wanted to be moving in and now having to cook my own meals. I wasn’t even sure if I remembered how to cook for one person.

I had been single for ages but hadn’t done my own cooking. The culture I had been working was one where you went out to lunch every day with your co-workers. This entailed a $10.00+ meal of varying degrees of nutritional goodness. The meals fell into the categories of bbq, mexican, chinese, southern and foods from your childhood.

Dinner was eaten out or whatever snack food and condiment combination I came up with from my fridge. That is one thing about being single you have a great condiment selection. I am very partial to pickles, olives, pestos and mustards.

And I have definitely gained some weight over the last couple of years embracing this lifestyle. This is not something I am happy about. I am short and when I gain weight I start to look alot like a fire hydrant. Not particularly attractive. Plus being in my mid-40′s now with bits falling off I am hyper-aware of health and eating.

So I searched around online to see if there was any web sites with tips and so forth for the single kitchen. I thought it would make my transition to home cooker on a budget easier. There wasn’t to much out there but I did learn how to potion out 24 servings of chili to freeze but that was about it. Which is really surprising considering that according to Euromonitor International:

• The number of one-person households worldwide reached 202.6 million in 2006, up from 153.5 million in 1996;
• The trend of single households is closely correlated to culture and living standards. As such, developing regions tend to have a considerably lower proportion of single households than developed regions;
• Most single householders fall into one of the three categories: single young professionals who can afford their own place, middle-aged divorcees, and elderly people who tend to be on a tight budget;
• The proportion of single households is highest in developed countries. In 2006, one-person households accounted for 28.9% of all households in Western Europe, 26.7% in North America and 25.7% in Australasia;

That’s alot of single people that need help in the kitchen. I know 8 months ago I did. And it is not like I can’t cook because I can. It is just different when you are single. Even a friend of mine who is a stellar cook admitted to regularly eating canned tomato soup and toast in her single kitchen. And Elizabeth is right about the food waste. The USDA states:

• 91 billion pounds of food were lost by consumers and foodservice in 1995.
• Foodservice and consumer losses accounted for 26 percent of edible food supplies.
• Fresh fruits and vegetables accounted for nearly 20 percent of consumer and foodservice losses.

That is an outrageous amount of waste. Waste that I can’t afford in my kitchen. The USDA Food Plans budgets for my sex and age group anywhere from a thrifty $34.80 to a liberal $69.00 per week for food. That means I can be losing anywhere from $9.04 to $17.94 in food waste per week. I have better things I could be doing with that money than tossing it out.

For the last 8 months, I have been practicing and experimenting in a single kitchen to see just how best to operate a kitchen for one and save money. And now that we have the site relaunched I have a forum to expand on this topic.

I hope some of my posts help you in the kitchen and you find the rest of our site useful as well.

How to Boil Water.

How to Boil Water caught my eye at my local bookstore. I liked the attractive bright cover full of pictures of yummy food and the title was perfect in it’s simplicity so I picked it up just to have a look. Sigh… so many of my purchases start this way.

How to Boil Water is a resource book for a new cook or an old cook who didn’t pay much attention in Home Economics class. There is a Victor Borge sketch about a famous violinist who never received his first mail-order violin lesson because it went to Victor. So the violinist was unable to do a basic scrape of the bow across strings because of this missing lesson while being able to play complicated classical pieces that was learned in subsequent lessons. This book will teach you to scrape the bow or bowl as it where.

You will find plenty of delicious, cheap and easy recipes and they literally do teach you how to boil water and then take you from toast to Thanksgiving. The accompanying pictures are understandable and informative. There is an incredibly useful tips with each recipe. The tips are in the categories of shopsmart, cook’s notes, don’t panic, a side of history, wisdom, make it your own, and upgrades. In all they say there are over 1000 recipes, tips and photos spread across 250 pages.

There is a section on how to set up a kitchen. They list the must-haves, the if-you-like-to-bakes and the nice-extras. And they don’t just list them they show you line drawings so you can recognize them. They explain the strategies behind shopping and storage, how to set up a pantry, game plans for safety, where to store fruit to last the longest, etc. The list just goes on.

“The Mechanics of Soup – or how to clean out your vegetable drawer in an hour and have something to show for it” pages are worth the price of the book, which is 20 bucks or less. Who knew there was an order to putting stuff in the pot? There is: Aromatics, Main Ingredient, Liquid, Thickeners and Finishers. And then there is the age-old question, “To Puree or Not To Puree.”

What finally sold me on How to Boil Water was the recipe for Aglio Et Olio (spaghetti with olive oil and garlic). I used to sling Rigatoni in a fancy Italian restaurant and the cooks would make this for me with roasted vegetables for dinner. I loved it but never could duplicate it.

How to Boil Water gave me the recipe plus upgrades such as wilting spinach in the oil before adding the spaghetti – huge yum. It gave me information about garlic such as store at room temperature in a dark place and it will last a long time. My garlic was in the fridge. The shopsmart section explained Parmesan cheese and lesser costing alternatives… all information I didn’t know.

If you have a child (9 to 99) that is interesting in cooking or you want to gain confidence in your own cooking then I highly recommend this book.

And if you need a gift for a young adult then pair How to Boil Water up with Eat This Not That! Supermarket Survival Guide and you will give them something really useful… the ability to feed themselves and maybe you someday.

How to Boil Water: food network kitchens

Fresh Food Fast

I like Fresh Food Fastbecause in addition to the fantastic recipes it is laid out in a really useful manner. After the introduction, tips for using the book, pantry instructions, equipment and pressure cooker sections the recipes are divided seasonally. The book is almost 300-pages long and you can buy it for about 25 bucks.

Each season has 12 complete meals and there is a dessert section at the back of each season section. At the beginning of each meal there is a Market List that includes fresh produce, dairy, pantry ingredients. Then you have the list of equipment needed, the game plan to create the meal and speed tips.

There are informative sidebars scattered through out the book as well and the pictures are delicious. This cookbook is the trifecta of cooking… it saves you time, money and calories.

I found this Amazon Review summed up the power of the book nicely:

“This book has changed my life- seriously! My kids and husband are now convinced that I am a good cook, and we can all sit down to a delicious vegetarian dinner every night of the week! The recipes are easy to prepare, and once you start using them, you will have most of what you need on hand to create almost anything in the book for that season! It’s really terrific; I can’t recommend it highly enough!!”

Below is my current favorite recipe from the winter section of  Fresh Food Fast. This salad is served with Provençal Garlic and Herb Broth. I asked Tina what our meal had cost. She did a quick calculation and said the meal cost about 8 dollars for 4 people. Not bad.

Warm White Bean Salad with Sun-Dried Tomatoes and Smoked Mozzarella

This is a true winter salad – warm and savory. The smoked mozzarella really adds another layer of flavor, but you can use regular mozzarella if you like. If your tomatoes are very dry, soak them in very hot water to cover until supple. Yield: 4 servings
½ cup firmly packed sun-dried tomatoes (not oil-packed)
½ cup extra-virgin olive oil 1 cup diced red onion (about 1 medium)
½ teaspoon course sea salt or kosher salt, plus additional to taste
1 cup thinly sliced peeled carrots (bout 2 medium)
1 cup thinly sliced celery stalks
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh rosemary
½ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 (15-ounce) can while beans, drained
4 cups arugula leaves, for serving
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley for garnish

1. In a large sauté pan over high heat, combine the oil, onion and ½ teaspoon of salt and sauté for 2 minutes. Add the carrots, celery, garlic, rosemary and red chili flakes and sauté for 1 more minute. Add ¼ cup water and cover the pan. Cook over high heat until the vegetables are just crisp-tender, about 2 minutes.
2. Uncover the pan and turn off the heat. Stir in beans, tomatoes, mozzarella, and vinegar and season with salt.
3. Toss the bean with the arugula and served garnished with chopped parsley.

Other recipes include: Sesame Noodles with Tofu Steaks and Baby Asian Greens – Spicy Corn Frittata with Tomatoes and Scallions – Pan-Seared Summer Squash with Garlic and Mint – Radish, Orange and Avacado Salad and Leek and Turnip Soup with Potatoes and Chard.

Fresh Food Fastis also going to help me plan my garden. The veggies that are a little pricey in my neck of the woods are the ones I am going to grow in my garden and I will buy the rest from the farmers market or the store. Fresh Food Fast: Delicious, Seasonal Vegetarian Meals in Under an Hourby: Peter Berley and Melissa Clark

The Marlboro Cookbook

You can’t buy the cookbook in stores but you can find it at flea markets, in secondhand bookstores and used on Amazon.com. It is well worth the effort to find this cookbook. And it is cheap to buy.

I have a friend who herself does not smoke but she has a vast network of smokers and city workers who collect empty cigarette packages for her. When we would go shopping in the catalog it was not a question of whether we had saved up enough miles for an item but how many of that item we were going to order. We often wondered when they were sending her the iron lung.

The book is quite small measuring only 5.5 x 5.5 inches. It has a spiral binding and the paper is coated both making the book easy to have open on the counter and to wipe off spills. There are notes pages for you to make notes on and wonderful pictures of both the recipes and manly men cowboy shots of steers, pick up trucks and chaps. It’s one tough little cookbook.

Over 25,000 entries were sent into the judges of the Chili Roundup. After many months of tasting, begging and brawling for more the top 50 were chosen. There are some great recipe names in the book: “Sedona Sunset” “You’re Not Man Enough” and “Eric’s Wooden Parrot Chili”.

Now I have a confession to make. I have not gotten past my first two recipes in the book because they were just so good that every time I go to make chili it is one of them. My two favorites are “Jamaican Me Some More Chili” and “Margarita Chili”. The ‘rita chili is vegetarian but both Chris and I have thrown hamburger in it. You can also do without the tequila but really why would you want to?

And we can also attest that if you ever have a chili dinner party, which you really should, that these two are a great combo for “with” and “without meat” selections.

I find chili to be a bargain food for me because I love it. I can eat on a pot for a week, be happy and have little or no waste. I also will make pots and freeze individual portions for later.

Below are my two favorite recipes. Try them out and and you will not be disappointed. Then you will be tracking the book down on Amazon.com just like Chris did after he cooked out of mine.

Margarita Chili
By Kimbery Seis, Antigo, WI

2 Tbsp. Vegetable oil
1 large onion, chopped
2-3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
¼ c. tequila
2 28-oz. cans diced tomatoes
2 28-oz. cans kidney beans
2 28-oz. cans black beans
¼ tsp. Ground pepper
½ tsp. Crushed red pepper (or more!)
½ tsp. Salt
¼ tsp. Thyme
1 tsp. Cumin
1 Tbsp. Chili powder
3 Tbsp. Fresh cilantro, chopped
juice from ½ lime
course salt and lime slices (opt. garnish)
extra cilantro (opt. garnish)

Personally, I will give up the tequila before I will give up the garnish. That’s half the fun.

Heat oil in skillet and add chopped onion. Cook until slightly soft; then add garlic, chopped green pepper, chopped red pepper and tequila. Cook until onion is slightly golden. Place this mixture in the cooking pot and add tomatoes and beans. Place the pot over a burner at a medium to high heat until mixture is hot.

Add ground pepper, crushed red pepper, salt, thyme, cumin and chili powder. Simmer for one hour, stirring occasionally. After one hour, add chopped cilantro. Cook for an additional 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add limejuice and cook for the final 15 minutes.

To serve wet rims of bowls, turn bowls upside down on a plate of course salt and turn (as if salting the rim of a margarita glass). Fill bowls with Margarita chili and add lime slices and cilantro as garnish, if so desired. Trust me you want to desire. Serves 6

Jamaican Me Some More Chili
By Donna Myers, Milwaukie, OR

2 pounds of lean pork cut into cubes
1 cup of orange juice
½ cup of lime juice
½ cup of lemon juice
¼ cup of olive oil
6 cloves of garlic, chopped
4 large onions, sliced
4 green bell peppers, seeded and sliced
2 Tablespoons of cumin
1 Tablespoon of oregano
¼ teaspoon of cloves
1 small jalapeno pepper, chopped
½ cup raisins
½ cup of water
2 16-ounce cans of Caribbean-flavored black beans, undrained (or, if necessary, 2 16-ounce cans of regular black beans I have always used regular beans)

Optional: serve with sour cream, lime wedges, flour tortillas and/or shredded cheese

In a sealed gallon storage bag, marinate the pork cubes in the orange, lime and lemon juices overnight. Drain off marinade. In a frying pan, sauté the pork cubes in the olive oil until brown.

In a 3 ½-quart slow cooker, add all the ingredients and stir once. Cook on low 6-8 hours. Serves 6