Homemade

Hey y’all,

Wow, this is my first post in a whole week.

I’m sorry I haven’t been on here much lately, but I got a part-time job, and that as well as everything else has been taking up my time… And it’s probably going to continue that way.

I still plan to post things, but not nearly as often as I did a few weeks ago.

Anyway, I have been doing some new frugal things that I want to mention.

I made my own trail mix!

I began looking into this because I can’t eat peanuts, and most of the mixes available contain peanuts. When I began looking, however, I noticed that it’s significantly cheaper to make your own mix.

I also shelled my own nuts since I have more time than money, but it can still save you a lot of money if you use already shelled nuts.

I mixed up hazelnuts, pecans, walnuts, raisins, cranberries, and M&Ms for only $2.40/lb. Generally, trail mix is about $5-7/lb (and that’s for the really cheap stuff)

I also “made” some chicken broth. I’m not into saving bones and making a separate dish, but whenever I buy a chicken, I cut the breasts off to keep raw, and I boil the rest of the carcass. Then, I take the meat off the bones, shred it, and freeze it. This makes for faster meal-prep later. When I do this, I’m left with a pot of chicken broth, so I strain that and freeze it, too.

I don’t buy chicken broth, but it does add a lot more flavor than water. That’s why I keep bullion cubes on hand. Recently, I actually purchased an 8 lb jar of chicken bullion to keep in the freezer because a price mistake was made.

I also made some sweet bean paste to put on my toast in the mornings. Americans will find that strange, but many people (especially those of Asian backgrounds) will have heard of adzuki bean paste. All I did was substitute pinto beans for adzuki beans when I made it because I don’t have adzuki beans in my store.

Speaking of toast, I also make my own gluten-free bread (since it’s also not available here and it’d be expensive if it were). I’ll post that recipe at a later date. This post is already getting long, but I’ll go ahead and share the flour blend I use (which I grind up myself in the blender):

63 g cornstarch

63 g white rice flour

63 g brown rice flour

175 g oat flour

1 Tbsp psyllium husk powder

I grind this up (which saves me money) and mix it all together in a container. Then I can use it almost as a 1:1 flour. I do have to increase the amount of liquid I use, but that’s it.