A How-to Guide to Becoming a Frugal Foodie

{Today we have a guest post from the team at Frugal Dad. Thanks for the info, guys!}

While the definition of "foodie" is somewhat debated, most can agree that a foodie simply loves the sensuous experience of food. Not just any food, however: food comprised of high quality ingredients and adventurous pairings. A foodie is curious about and appreciates a vast array of food options. By using cost conscious websites like CouponCravings.com for deals, coupons and savings advice you can improve the quality of your life and be -- yes -- a frugal foodie. Here, you’ll find tips on how to prepare and savor quality foods on a budget. 

DIY Foodie

You aren’t about to blow serious cash on your local gastro-pubs to find out what the new trends are popular in the world of foodies. While molecular gastronomy is a hit with foodies lately, these creations require serious investment. The frugal way to become a foodie is to bring your focus home. Think about the quality of your ingredients and price of the equipment you need. Try searching food blogs for ideas and inspiration. Alice Waters is widely held as the person who inspired the foodie movement in the U.S., a champion of recipes with simple, quality ingredients using only a pan, a slow cooker and a wooden spoon to make foodie magic.

Slow Cooking 

If you buy the less expensive cuts of meat at the grocery store, you can slow cook or braise it. If you work all day, you can put a pork shoulder in a slow cooker with a marinade (that can be as simple as a single bottle of root beer!), and when you get home, you have tender, juicy pork that will feed you for a week.

The Whole Chicken

You will also save money by buying unprocessed meats -- for example, opt for an entire chicken rather than just the drums or breasts. Not only can you use the meat, but you can use the bones as well. Bone broth is the most nutritious broth you can consume because marrow is packed with minerals essential for your own bone and joint health. Fancy that! Of course, “using the whole chicken” can be a metaphor for all of the food you use in your home. If you can find a way to use it, use it!

Shop Farmer’s Markets

Another aspect of foodie culture is enjoying locally grown, organic produce. This is because the food will be more appropriately ripened since the farmers know they will not have to transport their food long distances. Farmer’s market prices are cheaper than grocery stores since they do not have to pay corporate middle men, truckers, or anything of the sort to get their food to you.

So, now that you know it’s possible to be a frugal foodie, head to your local farmer’s market this week to smell the tomatoes!

All grown up

I spent hours this afternoon trawling through the Accidental photo archives. It's hard to believe how quickly the girls have grown. The dogs, too. And Mr Accident and I used to be so young! 

I don't normally notice the passage of time, but sometimes I just have a moment of clarity. I had one today, watching Peanut swim her first whole lap of the pool. 

She hopped out, dripping wet, and ran towards me grinning. 

And time slowed down. 

I realised that somehow over the past three years that I became a wife, and a mother, but I've been so busy being a wife and a mum I rarely stopped to actually noticed it. 

I've become a grown up. 

What a surprise!

It's your turn

I think it's time for a delurker post.

I love checking up on my blog stats. Not so much the numbers, encouraging as they are, but the locations! Fascinating.

I have plenty of Australian visitors, and a few from America, too. A couple from the UK (I think that's you, Gartcott!) and some from South Africa (Hi Stel!) But who else is here?

I'm turning this post over to you, my dear semi-regular reader, my adored occasional or never-before commenter. Come in! sit down! And write...

The "hen-d" of an era: bye bye birdies

Ethical question: is it ok to eat your own pets? Even if they are chickens? I'm firmly in the eating is ok camp. Mr A is not.

My position is based on the argument that, if you wouldn't eat our chickens, why would you eat any chickens? At least ours were ethically raised, free range and only occasionally chased by a crazy puppy. I hear puppy chasing is de riguer in those battery hen houses. And the puppy is a wolf.

Mr A's stance is that they are cute and fluffy and our pets. It's a pretty solid argument. It's certainly not worth upsetting marital harmony for the sake of two dinners, so Mr A won.

We're moving at the end of this year - Sydney, this time. I've been hitting up Google Earth and the real estate sites, and it's growing increasingly obvious that it's not going to be a chicken friendly location. Since Canberra has a dearth of anonymous chicken adoption drop locations, complete with friendly nuns and a strict chicken education system, I had to find an alternative. Luckily, a coincidental chat with another mum at play school led me to the perfect home. She was about to buy chooks that day!

I spent a delightful morning chasing the chooks around the back yard. It is surprisingly difficult to stuff two large chickens into a small mandarin box. Get one in - no worries. Get two in? IMPOSSIBLE. The dogs and the toddler were not helping. Stop opening the box, Bug! Stop chasing the hens under the trampoline, Panzer! Mien gott.

So, we're now henless.

Tomorrow's job is to reclaim the backyard. Scrape all the pine bark off the grass, take down the fences, scrub out the henhouse and turn it back into a kennel. And somehow recover the grass. Do you have any lawn tips? I could use them...

Facing the facts

It's official. I'm a ghost.

Winter has not been kind to my skin, or my skin tone.

I was gently spackling my skin with a light truckload of foundation, trying to polish over the ravages of a Canberra winter, when I realised my foundation was a touch too dark. And by too dark, I mean it made me feel like white bread smeared in nutella.

Luckily it was a shopping day, so I resolved to remedy the situation post haste. Unluckily, I didn't check the colour of my current foundation before rushing off to buy another pot. I just assumed I would get the lightest shade available, probably something called "albino snowman".

Struck mute by the tyranny of choice that is the beauty counter, I inevitably went for the same old brand, and chose the very lightest colour available - ivory.

It looked pale as pale, snowy white linen in a jar. A little pot of liquid cloud. In fact, it looked too pale. Well, winter's long, I'm only going to get paler, right?

So I bought it anyway...

It's the same tone as the one I already had, my trusty jar of nutella. Yep, I'm a ghost.

The tuneless song

There's a love song that's sung in our home.

It's wordless and tuneless. A constant beat, flowing through my life, pouring out of Mr Accident and straight into my heart.

I find stanzas dropped in the bathroom, where I see that the newly washed nappies have been hung up to dry.

I find a note or two in the bathroom, when my electric toothbrush has mysteriously been put on to charge.

There's pages and pages of music in the kitchen, when I am feeling sick and dinner appears on the table.

I hear it when he makes me a lemon and honey tea for my sore throat. I hear it when he rubs Bug's sleepy back. It's there when the chooks are let out on an icy morning.

I don't know if he realises the effect it has on me. I walk around my home and see all the things he has done - the thousands of little expressions of love and service - and it's like walking around in a constant gentle hug.

My friends tease us as "the newlyweds". We've been together eight years, but I still get that same old flutter when I hear him at the door.

I hope my actions show him my love, as much as his do to me. I know I'm guilty of spending "five minutes more" on the internet, of ducking a hug when there's dinner to be made, or begging out of sitting for a bath-side chat when I think there is something more important to be done. More important? Who am I kidding?

Mr A, my darling: I will do better. I will try to sing for you the way you do for me. I suspect my first verse will be entitled  "cookies". You're welcome. ;)

Airbrushed

Peanut went to her little friend's party. She wore her favourite blue dress, her white tulle party "hairclippy", and had a big bugger of a scratched mozzie bite right in the middle of her nose.

The birthday girl's mother is a professional children's photographer and she documented the entire party, including all the children with their faces beautifully painted. A few days later she dropped around and gave me a large mounted photo of Peanut. It's gorgeous. The blue in her face paint and dress sets off her stunning eyes (stolen from Daddy), and she has on a beautiful, genuine smile that lights up her face. But the mozzie bite is gone.

Photoshopped away.

It makes me uncomfortable. It's still Peanut in the picture - her face shape hasn't been changed, her eyes are still the same colour, it's her through and through... except it isn't. Because she never looked like that.

Now Peanut is still young. She's not likely to remember that she had a huge red hole in her nose that day, from a night spent unconsciously scratching an itch. And I still ended up with a beautiful photo of my daughter. But I hear they are offering a retouching service on some school photos now, and it concerns me. At what stage do we draw the line?

I have an excellent school photo of me from about year nine or ten. We had just come in from playing soccer for PE, and we had barely five minutes to change into uniform. My photo shows me red faced and flushed, with damp sweat curls around my face, falling from my scraped back hair. I look beautiful. I really do. That photo caught me at my best, grabbed the essence of my favourite part of my school days and saved it forever. Retouching would have ruined it, made it just another plastic photo, carefully documenting an event that never really happened.

Maybe it's just me. I feel the same about staged photos. You know the ones - you're snugged up reading to the baby, but then in comes the self appointed family photographer. They decide to move the book, direct you to point somewhere random, and then get cross when the kid is more interested in what happened to Hairy Maclary than getting her picture taken. Or the "stop playing on the swings and peek through this tunnel so I can get a photo" pictures. In my view, either you catch it when it happens, or you're fresh out of luck. No do-overs. No faking.

My dislike of staging doesn't extend to purposeful photo taking. If you've planned a proper photo-shoot, by all means sit your kid on a chair in the forest and snap away. Feel free to take fifteen group photos to get the right one. But don't make our normal playtime feel substandard because it's not being done photogenically enough. Life is not a film shoot for Facebook.

And my daughter? She meets my standards for beauty every single day, mozzie bites and all.