Waste Nothing: Salvaging cinnamon sticks from making spiced cider

I made 3 batches of spiced apple cider this autumn. After the mulling spices were done with each batch, I picked out the cinnamon sticks and kept them in a container in the freezer.

To salvage these seemingly spent cinnamon sticks, I do a couple of things. First, I simmer them in about 2 cups of water, for 20 minutes, to remove the stickiness from the cider. Then I dry them on a baking sheet in the toaster oven, at a low temp, for about 30 minutes.

Now they're ready to grind into cinnamon powder to add to applesauce, oatmeal, cookies and breads.

You can use a microplane to grind cinnamon. But I like my knuckles with the skin intact, so I prefer my coffee mill. I break the cinnamon sticks into pieces,

then grind to a powder.

If there is any residual graininess, I roll my mortar and pestle around for a minute to reduce it to a fine powder.

Surprisingly, even after being used for spiced cider and then simmered in water, these cinnamon sticks are still quite aromatic. I've used this freshly ground cinnamon in oatmeal already.

I did a taste comparison between this cinnamon and that I have in a canister. My best estimate is salvaged cinnamon sticks yield about 1/2 to 2/3 the flavoring power of ground cinnamon from the canister. Not too bad!

FYI -- My 3 cinnamon sticks yielded a little over 1 tablespoon of ground cinnamon.

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What would you do with an extra $10 to $15 in your grocery budget?

When looking at my grocery spending, I can see that for the coming months at least, I won't be spending all $170 that's budgeted. I should have as much as an extra $10 to $15 each month to spend on groceries. It's not a large amount of money, but it gives me something to play with. Some possibilities that I've thought of:

• fresh seasonal produce, such as lettuce and spinach for green salads, currently out of season for my garden
• honey -- I can buy a large jug of honey at the wholesaler for a fraction of grocery store prices. Honey would be nice, but not a necessity.
• more meat, specifically beef -- I miss having beef
• fish -- I don't care much for fish, especially canned fish. If I bought higher quality fresh fish, I may like it more.
• aged cheese -- cheese aged for a year or more is the lower in lactose than most grocery store cheese, and better for my system. But cheese is not a necessity for me, just something nice to have.
• fresh fruit -- one of my daughters would love to have more fresh fruit in winter. We do have ample frozen and dried fruit, but she really loves fresh fruit.
• junky stuff -- the other daughter would be in heaven if I would buy Pop-Tarts, her absolute favorite breakfast (if you can even call it that!).

I suspect that I'll try to balance nutrient-dense additional foods with particular preferences for each member of my family. But I'm open to ideas and suggestions.

What would you do with an extra $10 to $15 per month to spend on food?