We Can Eat Good - without spending big. Whereever
we live, there are 'local' foods that we can get for less than 'imported' foods. The trick is to seek them out, find the places
that sell them for the least amount, and enjoy!
For example: I am lucky enough to live on the Coast of Maine - and to
like seafood. Even at a fancy restaurant, a lobster ("lobstah" in Maine-speak,) dinner will be about half of what it
is just about anywhere else in the country. But fancy is still too fancy for me. I want to pay just for my food, not for 'fancy'
decor and all the trimmings.
For example: I get my lobster
& steamers dinners at a local "Lobster Pound." Fresher lobsters you can't get. Now you don't get potato and salad and
rolls. You get lobster and steamers - and/or mussels, crab, clam chowder, corn-on-the-cob (cooked in sea water, in the husk,)
etc.. (If you want the extras, you can - any many do - bring your picnic basket with all the extras. I like mine plain and
simple. That way I can really concentrate on enjoying the lobster ("lobstah.")
Now for ambiance that even the fancy
restaurants don't have, I eat my dinner at "The Pound" right out over the bay, looking off to the Islands, in the sun, with
the smell of the sea and the symphony of the gulls. It adds to the taste, I swear.
The above dinner (photo) cost less
than $10.00
I get the 'one-claw, soft-shell' at this time of the year. The one claw
is cheaper - but you are paying per pound so you really aren't getting less meat - and at this time of year the soft shell
is still chock full of lobster. (mid-summer, they aren't - they're still trying to grow into their new digs (shell.) Come
fall, after the tourists go home, the soft shells are full again. Also, lobster tastes better in the fall as the water gets
colder - and they're cheaper, to boot. (Don't tell the tourists.)
In the winter, "The
Shrimp Trucks" park along side the road and sell the native bay shrimp - sweet - much cheaper than you can get elsewhere.
Another of my 'eat out" places is a local Oriental place. I get a bowl of won-ton soup and one egg roll - and a free pot of tea - for $3.50. The
soup has meat in the won-tons, snow peas, carrots, chinese cabbage, water chestnuts, etc, in a great broth. The egg roll is
stuffed with veggies, What more is needed?
Another way to save, if eating out, especially if more than one person
, is to drink the free tea or ask for a slice of lemon to freshen the water and don't order soda. Or do take out and
get one big bottle of soda for the price of one glass of restaurant soda. (And no tip to leave. Those two savings will easily
add up to the cost of one meal!)
Of course there is always "gleaning."
Wherever foods are grown commercially, you can usually go in and glean the fields after the commercial harvest. In Florida,
I got bushels of tomatoes and quarts and quarts of strawberries - and breaded, ready to fry shrimp at the packing houses for
really low prices...not to mention the bananas! We'd go down to the docks in Tampa when the banana boats came in and we could
get the whole huge stalk for a dollar! (Probably a little more now.) These were the bananas that had started to ripen and
wouldn't, therefore, last to get to the northern markets. I'd hang the stock in the oak tree in the yard and the kids could
grab one whenever they wanted.
When I lived out in California,
there were the lettuce, strawberry & potato fields, You could get carrots at the packing shed but it was against the law
for them to give out carrots for human consumption. So the bargain was that you would say you were getting them for your horse
(which didn't exist.) Wink-wink, and you went home with a barrel of carrots. I'd pack 'em in sand and they'd last quite a
while.
Here in Maine, we have the
potato fields, of course, and strawberries. We also have the mackerel!
You can fish salt water without a license and there's no limit on mackerel
- that makes a great combination. They're a fatty fish - full of Omega 6 fatty acid, which is what tuna and salmon and
lobster have - making it super for your heart.
At home, one of the easiest money stretchers
is soup. And good home made soups are delicious, whether simple or fancy. I make one basic base of sauteed onions and garlic
in butter - grab chicken broth and go from there. When I'm alone, or have a single guest over, I have two fast and simple
soups I like to make. One is potato soup - my way.
Potato Soup My Way
One onion
and one good sized garlic clove
Saute
in butter - real butter, pleeeze
add chicken
broth, bring to point of boil,
Have ready
and add, grated potato and
grated carrot and herbs - (I use
celery seed, a bit of thyme, a
little parsley, s & p.)
Add
above, cover, take from heat and
let set for five minutes.
Stir
lightly and enjoy! (I also have celery sticks or cucumbers along with homemade crackers. I'll put the recipe for
them in here one day. Remind me.) I also make my own version of corn chowder by simply adding
corn to the above.
I make my own version of Clam Chowder in a similar way - grating potato and carrot into it, rather
that chunks of potato. I love potato just about every way you can cook it and even love it raw. But I do not like
those little squares of potato they put in chowders - especially when they then add cornstarch to thicken it! It
not only thickens, it make it gummy. Potato has it's own starch, so if you put it in grated, it cooks almost instantly and
when you stir it, the chowder or soup thickens without the gumminess.
