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.

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!

Dean and Delucrative

A whisk, sea salt, bagels, assorted herbs, salad dressing (probably 8 jars), skewers (a handful out of thousands), soy sauce, BBQ sauce, tomato paste, green beans, dozens of eggs, a peeler, and cookie cutters!

Please note that the fumee de sel carries a price tag of $28.  And cookie cutters don't go bad.

$291.05

I tallied the price tags of the non-perishables that I collected from Gristedes the other day.

The total is $291.05.

I only took what I wanted and could carry, which was only about 1/5 of what was there.  And the figure doesn't include baked goods or produce.  And that was only one store out of so very many on one night out of so very many.  Consider how much that all adds up to!

I understand the need for an sell-by labeling system.  It's the same with college move-out day--I understand why it happens, I know the feeling of having three hours to pack to move across the country while hungover, with your parents looking over your shoulder, foreseeing no future use for a shower caddy or XL twin sheets.  The frustration I have is that because it is foreseen and unfailing, then infrastructure should be in place to comfortably consign the goods to another user.  Cambells soup!  The most classically non-perishable food item I can imagine, was being thrown out by the dozen.  Yes, the sell-by date had come and gone, so fine...the store can't sell it.  But value does not have to vaporize along with that store's ability to put it on their shelves.

The granola and nuts were being tossed because their expiration date had passed.  The thing is, granola doesn't instantaneously spoil.  A cereal moth might nudge it's way in, or the oil might begin to taste past its best, but even then it's a matter of taste--it's nothing biological emetic.  That being the case, it would be nice if there were a way for liability to be relaxed so that perfectly edible food could be redistributed.

I don't meant to get preachy, but with 400,000 people in New York City suffering from moderate to severe hunger, and over 1,000 soup kitchens & food pantries in operation, many far over capacity, the framework of food disposal seems to be in need of a major overhaul.

Buns and things

Seasonable for summer barbeques, I discovered quite a load of hot dog and burger buns.  Grilled the asparagus, and made a refreshing chilled broccoli and tomato salad.  The bagels and croissants were craft services on our film shoot.

...just the daily victuals from the square of sidewalk that never quits giving.

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.

Dean and Deluca

artichokes (!), heirloom tomatoes, corn, eggplants, limes, broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, zucchini, bell peppers, spinach, yellow squash, cucumbers, ginger, vegetable stir fry, croissant, muffins, scones, artisan bread.

Rainy day treasures

tomatoes, cantaloupe, yellow squash, zucchini, asparagus, eggplant, yam, bananas, beets, watermelon, onions, apples, broccoli, scallions, lemon, celery, cauliflower, veggie dip, hamburger buns, slider buns, hot dog buns, crackers, and a whole box of shredded wheat!  

Strolling on a hot night, hankering produce.

grapefruits, carrots, scallions, apples, parsley, mushrooms, cucumbers, thyme, pears.

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.