Frugan February!

This month I'm eating everything frugan.  This is a taste of how it's going:

The tortilla española is a perfect frugan meal--full of ingredients easily acquired, painless to make, warm and filling.  I put together a couple potatoes and onions salvaged from the garbage, some meatless Italian sausage that I had leftover in the freezer, 5 eggs, creme fraiche my roommate had left behind, and a glass of delicious boxed wine purchased in New Hampshire, the land free of sin taxes.

Lunch at the office--cottage cheese from the trash, leftover quinoa salad I had made from onions, spinach, mushrooms, and quinoa from the garbage and then frozen, and some pudding from Wal-Mart (yes, Wal-Mart.  My boybott is on hiatus while they seem to explore sustainable business practices with a good deal of dedication).

The next night I took three bean stew that I had from the trash, fancied it up with some of the quinoa salad that I still had leftover, and heated up cheese toast with bread from the trash, cheese leftover from my roommates who had moved out, and some sate seasoning from my mother.

Sharing is caring

One of the niceties of urban hunting and gathering is the generous stockpile that it generates in the pantry.  When my brother comes over to study, I can make him a snack.  I rest easy knowing there is always something to whip up, and I don't think twice about the cost (in fact, there is always plenty of food solely because it is free, otherwise I think my cabinets would be quite barren).  On this day, I had hamburger buns, onions, and sloppy joe sauce all from the trash, so I paired them with some ground chuck in the freezer, and in minutes I had a hearty delicious dish to fill the belly of the brother.

More from the store

I mashed the potatoes  and roasted the carrots and yams, threw in some frozen peas and an organic Italian sausage that I had on hand.  The next night I sauteed some onions and kale that I had from a previous trash trip and mixed it with one of those packets of Indian curry from Trader Joe's and blanketed it over the freshly baked (albeit Pillsbury) bread pictured above.  Perfect easy meals for chilly autumn nights!

Gleaning Dean and Deluca

To make cauliflower whisk together olive oil, salt, pepper, curry powder, coriander....and guava paste.  Spread florets on baking sheet, coat them in the dressing, and roast at 400º for 25 minutes.

"Intellectual property has the shelf life of a banana.”

I also came across 8 bananas.  So I used 6 of them along with 6 of the now 51 eggs and mixed them with flour, sugar, and pecans from NYU, butter from Columbia, salt, baking soda and powder.  Three loaves into the freezer for craft services!

Like gum balls in a quiche but better

I found 5 dozen eggs, 3 red peppers, 1 zucchini, 4 tomatoes, and a head of broccoli.  Sophia had previously found a box of pie crust and put them in her freezer.  Combined with some spices and milk (and only 9 of the 60 eggs), I made three delicious quiches and froze them to serve to our cast and crew on set next week.

If a pot is cooking, the friendship will stay warm

I coralled some friends and whipped up many of the veggies from our rainy day treasures into a hearty ratatouille.  Then we roasted the beets, broccoli, and yam for soup.  We pureed them along with some turkey broth that I had made from a carcass and frozen.  We also made risotto with the scallions, some leftover wine, and arborrio rice I had lying around.  Peppered with giggles and cheer, we had quite the repast.

Picnic

In preparation for my picnic this weekend, I went on a food run at Gristedes.  Freegan findings: 4 cartons of spinach, 3 boxes meatless buffalo wings, 2 boxes meatless chicken wings, 4 red bell peppers, 2 green bell peppers, 2 apples, 1 pear, 3 bananas, 2 carrots, 1 cucumber, 1 head of lettuce, 2 bags chips, 1 bag of pretzels, and 2 cylinders of biscuit dough.  And with the generous aid of some condiments, I had a picnic.

Old wine, too many onions

Ever had an open bottle of wine that's just a couple days past its prime?  It makes pleasant yumminess in pasta sauce or soup.  I found a masive sack of onions in the trash after I purchased some stuff at Gristedes today, so I decided to make French onion soup. I sauteed a whole pile of sliced onions in olive oil and butter for 20 min, deglazed the pan with a little vermouth, cooked 5 min more, added the rest of the bottle of wine along with some parmesan rind my friend had saved for such an occasion, simmered 15 min more, added 8 cups water and some bouillon, then salt, pepper, and rosemary, and simmered another 10 min or so.

More yum

Dumpster treasure from last night: 2 gallons of milk, a container of trail mix, almonds, kale, 13 apples, 11 tomotoes, 2 packages of tofu, and 3 green peppers.  Again, this was from 3 trash bags outside of one Gristedes.  The milk doesn't expire until April 21, but the neck of the bottle had been slightly bent so it was thrown out.  I made the milk and tomatoes into tomato bisque.  I also used the milk along with freegan bread that I had frozen a few months ago and eggs and cheese to make my delicious Easter egg puff.  Then I made an applie pie out of the apples.

Freegan Dinner

I picked up this produce from the trash bags outside Gristedes.  During a friend's dinner party, I popped down to the store around 9:30pm and picked up the veggies shown above, in addition to a bag of potatoes, another zucchini, more sweet potatoes, a spaghetti squash, apples, carrots, and of course the requisite bagels and bread.  It took about 5 minutes and I only looked through 2 bags, and even left much of what was in those bags behind because I couldn't carry it all.  Multiply that by every other bag there, and then by every supermarket in the city, and then by every day of the year, and you're talking about a ton of food going to waste.

For the top dish, my friend and I mixed in some coconut milk, shellfish sauce that I had frozen from Momofuku leftovers, spices, and made some rice.  We mixed the beets with crumbled feta and leftover salad.  Note: I dove for these vegetables and then threw them in the crisper.  These pictures were taken 10 days later when I got around to cooking them.  So not only is the produce from the trash good enough to eat that day, it's still in fine form long after.