A Week's Worth of Three-Minute Salads

I go through about 3 quarts of a lettuce and
veggie blend each week for my lunches

I have a large salad for lunch as often as I can. I love the freshness, the flavors, and the way my body feels after I've eaten. I feel fueled without feeling weighed down. But, as I mentioned earlier this week, I'm a busy person and don't want to take more than 3 or 4 minutes out of my day to make my lunch.

I thought today I'd show you what my meal-prepped salads look like for a week. But before I do, I wanted to share my cost comparison of bagged salad blends and doing that prep-work myself.

A medium head of iceberg lettuce weighs about 19 oz, and this winter is selling for 40 cents a head at my local Walmart. So, that's about 34 cents per pound. Carrots sell for about 69 cents per pound in a 5-lb bag and cabbage has been priced at 40 cents/pound for green and 88 cents/pound for red, all at my local Walmart.

A couple of shelves over, the 12-oz bag of Marketside Classic Iceberg Salad blend (iceberg lettuce, carrots, red cabbage) is priced at $1.48. (That's $1.97 per pound.) If I put together my own salad blend from a head of iceberg lettuce, some carrots and cabbage, I estimate my cost at about 45 cents per pound.

The bagged salad blend offers great convenience. However, making a salad doesn't take much finesse or expertise. Some foods take a great deal of experience in order to do a good job in their preparation, like croissants or Beef Wellington. But salad is easy. Tearing lettuce is a job that we give to children. So, the convenience is in time-savings. To make a salad, I would need to get out the cutting board and a good knife, wash and chop some lettuce, peel and dice a carrot, wash and shred a little cabbage, then clean up my mess. So, that's where bagged salads make their sale. If I have a salad every day of the week for lunch, then I am going through this process 5 times in a week.

On the other hand, I don't need to go through the process 5 times in a week to have salad 5 days in a week. Making 4 or 5 days' worth of salads, all in one go, doesn't take that much more time than making 1 day's worth of salad. Getting out the cutting board and knife take the exact same amount of time. Washing a head of lettuce and head of cabbage takes exactly the same amount of time whether I'm using the entire head or part of a head. Cleaning up my mess takes exactly the same amount of time. The part that takes extra time is chopping more lettuce  -- an extra couple of minutes. Same with the cabbage. Peeling and dicing two carrots instead of one will take an extra few minutes, too. But that's it on the extra time for prepping a basic salad blend that will last me all week.

When I was just beginning with meal prep, I started with prepping salads and chopped onions and minced garlic. These were the items that gave me the most bang for my buck. Just a little extra work, but a lot of time saved. And the payoff was that I could have a large salad as my lunch everyday if I wanted, even on the days when I was steeped in a project or course assignment, or even if I was away from the house.

Of course, a main-dish salad is much more than lettuce, carrots, and cabbage. I also keep items like olives, raisins, nuts & seeds, shredded cheese, hard-boiled eggs, cooked grains, canned veggies, avocados, cooked beans, bacon bits, and canned tuna for quickly adding to a salad. If I were to just eat the lettuce/cabbage/carrot combo, I'd call these 30-second salads -- 30 seconds to grab a fork. I estimate that I spend between 3 and 4 minutes quickly throwing ingredients onto the salad blend base. Dressings are almost always super simple -- oil, vinegar and seasonings poured directly onto the salad. Occasionally I mix 2 ingredients in a small dish to make a simple dressing (like the salsa and mayo below). So, on average, a three-minute salad.

Although I like to prep my salad ingredients, I also like the flexibility of waiting to see what I want to add to a salad just before the lunch hour. So, I prep the basic blend and dice one or two vegetables (as part of the rest of my dinner prep) in advance, and the add-ins come from the fridge, freezer and pantry at the last minute. 

I store the basic salad blends in quart-size canning jars and the extra diced veggies are stored in a large plastic container. The lettuce is the most fragile of all of the salad ingredients, keeping for about 5 days.

So what was in my three-minute salads this week?

Monday-- lettuce, carrots, celery, cabbage, boiled egg, raisins, sunflower seeds, olives, shredded cheese, vinaigrette dressing, and oyster crackers plus a pre-prepped beet/apple/spinach juice drink

Tuesday -- lettuce, carrots, cabbage, celery, rice, boiled egg, cheese, sunflower seeds, Mexican seasoning powder, oil & vinegar

Wednesday -- lettuce, carrots, cabbage, celery, cheese, sunflower seeds, ham cracklins' (like bacon bits), olives, oil & vinegar, pretzels on the side

Thursday -- lettuce, carrots, celery, cabbage, olives, cheese, sunflower seeds, mayo/salsa dressing, toasted corn tortilla (toasted in the toaster while adding ingredients to salad)

It's early-early on Friday morning, so too soon to know what will top today's salad. Maybe some canned tuna, cheese, canned green beans, and olives, dressed simply with mayo. Yum! I can hardly wait.

What's your go-to weekday lunch? What are your favorite salad toppings?

My daughter bought a Roku streaming stick for the family TV this fall: My frugal thoughts

A few months ago, my daughter Julia bought the least expensive Roku, spending about $25 at Target. What is a Roku (and other streaming devices), you ask? Streaming devices hook up to your television so that you can stream on a larger screen than your computer or phone and share with your entire family. Roku uses our existing wireless internet in our home. It's recommended that you have high-speed internet access, such as cable, fiber, or DSL.

There are no monthly fees. Once you buy the streaming stick, you're set. Simply attach the stick with an HDMI cable (usually included), set it up (takes just a couple of minutes), and begin streaming. The device is tiny and basically hidden from view. 

There are dozens of free channels available, providing music, television shows, sports, news, and movies. We stream our church's worship services in the family room with Roku instead of each of us individually watching on a small computer or handheld screen. We also stream free movies. There are several free services for content as well as paid subscription services. We have taken turns signing up for free trial accounts with various paid subscription streaming services (canceling before any fees accrue) for wider access to available movies. There's even a handy search feature for locating specific movie titles.

some of the free streaming services

Are we getting Julia's money worth on this? Doug (husband) and Julia are huge movie fans. This is right up their alley. In previous years, we'd check out stacks of dvd's from our local library. With the pandemic, the physical building of our library is closed, limiting our ability to dvd-browse. In addition, streaming provides a wider selection of free movies than our local library ever could. 

Our other former mode of getting movies for home-viewing has been to rent them from that well-known red kiosk. At near $2 a pop, kiosk rentals would become more expensive than Roku in just over a dozen movies. I know my family has watched more than a dozen free movies with Roku in just the last two months. 

Beyond movie watching, we've been streaming content from YouTube, opening the possibility to watch all kinds of content, including workout videos, cooking shows, DIY info, funny video clips, and old episodes of favorite tv shows. Again, money's worth? I think so. When you consider that we use streaming for more than just entertainment, but also for fitness and DIY projects for the large screen, we're getting a lot of use from our Roku.

Besides the content, some things I like about Roku:

• The technology was super easy for me to learn. I'm not very tech-savvy, so this is saying a lot. The Roku was easier to figure out than learning how to use the television's remote or setting up the dvd player. 
• It comes with its own remote. I had thought that smart TVs or similar devices would require using a laptop or phone with every action. You can access Roku with a smartphone, but the remote does most of what you would need.
• We didn't need a special type of television. The only requirement was an HDMI connection. Our TV is a 2008 Samsung, so not super old, but getting up there in years.
• The actual "stick" isn't even a stick. The device is smaller than a smartphone and can be placed anywhere on the TV with the self-adhesive tabs. It has a very low profile.
• We get a much larger screen for streaming, which means our family has been more inclined to spend time in the evenings together, instead of us all scattering after dinner.
• We can watch content without cable, a dish, or even an antenna. That means we can watch content anywhere on our property where we have wi-fi and can plug in a TV. 

We're cord-cutters, cutting cable about 30 years ago and relying solely on an antenna and dvd/VHS player for video content. For cord-cutters, cord-shavers (those folks who are trying to reduce the expense of paid TV access but not cut it out altogether), and cord-nevers (those who have never been tethered to satellite disk or cable), streaming devices offer expanded content at a very low cost. Other than Roku, brands include Amazon Fire, Apple, and Google Chromecast. 

We're enjoying what Roku can bring to us. At a one-time $25 cost, it's a frugal option for added entertainment content in place of cable/dish plans or dvd rentals from the red kiosk.

Can You Really Put Healthy and Chocolate Cupcake in the Same Sentence? (Plus Homemade Chocolate Cake Mix)

Weaning myself off holiday goodies requires some inventiveness. To that end, the other day I decided to make these pumpkin-chocolate cupcakes. They were fudgy, chocolatey, and hit the spot. Most importantly, they were guilt-free!

Did I mention these cupcakes were healthy? Not only are they reduced-fat, but they also have fiber, Vitamins A, B (several of them), E & K, iron, calcium, potassium, copper, manganese, magnesium, phosphorus, and trace amounts of zinc and selenium. Whew! That's a lot of good stuff packed into something so tasty.

Remember the pumpkin-spice cake mix hack that Kris told us about? Here's a chocolate version that is topped with a melted chocolate drizzle. I made this as 16 good-sized cupcakes. It can be made into 18 smaller cupcakes or a 9X13-inch rectangular cake. I prefer the cupcakes as they're portion controlled while delivering on the chocolate.

Healthier Chocolate Drizzle Cupcakes

15.25 oz box chocolate cake mix  or  3⅓ cups of chocolate cake mix

15 oz can pumpkin puree

½ can (pumpkin can) of water

½ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

2 teaspoons vegetable shortening

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Brush with oil or spray with baking spray, 16-18 muffin liners set into muffin pans. 

Mix the cake mix, pumpkin and water until thoroughly combined.

Spoon batter into prepared muffin liners. On a center rack in the oven, bake for 20 to 24 minutes, until the tops spring back when gently pressed with a finger. (Don't rely on toothpick test for these cupcakes.)

Cool in the pans for 15 minutes then remove to wire racks to fully cool.

Chocolate Drizzle

Melt ½ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips with 2 teaspoons vegetable shortening in the microwave in 15 second increments, stirring in between. When fully melted, drizzle over tops of cooled cupcakes. 

I place the cupcakes very close together on a platter and drizzle the melty chocolate with a fork over all, quickly, before it begins to firm up.

Since I rarely buy cake mixes, I used this homemade chocolate cake mix. It makes 4 cups of dry mix, which is equivalent to what was in the older 18.25 oz boxes of cake mix. (Anybody else remember the larger cake mixes? They shrank a couple of years ago.) Today's 15.25 oz box of cake mix contains about 3⅓ cups of mix. 

Homemade Chocolate Cake Mix

1¾ cups all-purpose flour

2 cups granulated sugar

¾ cup natural cocoa powder (not dutch-processed)

1½ teaspoons baking powder

1½ teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

⅓ cup instant dry milk powder

4 tablespoons vegetable shortening

With a mesh sieve over a large bowl, sift the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt to remove any lumps. (This is primarily for the cocoa and leavenings.)

Stir together with a wire whisk or pastry blender. Cut in the shortening, using the whisk/pastry blender, until uniform consistency.

Store in a cool, dry location in a tightly covered container or resealable bag, up to 3 months.

This mix can be used in place of a commercial mix in cake mix hacks, using 3⅓ cups of mix in place of a 15.25 oz box, or it can be baked as a cake on its own.

To bake the Homemade Chocolate Cake Mix as a cake:

In a large bowl with electric mixer set on LOW, combine the mix with 3 large eggs, ⅓ cup vegetable oil, and 1¼ cups water. Increase the speed of mixer to MED for 2 additional minutes. Pour into greased and floured baking pans and bake at 350 degrees F.

• 9X13 rectangular baker -- 35-38 mins
• two 9-inch round pans -- 30-33 mins
• 24 cupcakes -- 19-22 mins

Have I shown you my mom's trick to fit 16 to 20 cupcakes into a small, 30-inch oven all on the same rack?

Set one muffin pan into another, off-setting the top pan by 4 or 8 indentations. 

Do you know the difference between natural cocoa powder and Dutch-process cocoa powder? 

I didn't know until recently. Here's what I found out. Dutch-process cocoa powder has been treated with an alkaline substance to neutralize acidity that is naturally present in the cocoa beans. And Dutch-process cocoa powder is darker in color and smoother in flavor than natural cocoa powder. Many recipes don't specify which type to use. 

According to King Arthur's website, for most modern recipes, if neither type is specified, either will do. However, if you're thinking of making your great-grandmother's special chocolate cake recipe, you'll want natural cocoa powder. Dutch-process cocoa powder was not widely available in the US until the second half of the 20th century. So, it would stand to reason that older cake recipes always used natural cocoa powder along with baking soda for leavening. 

If you're not sure what you've got in your cupboard, it's often printed right on the front of the label as to which type of cocoa powder it is, such as Hershey's 100% Cacao Natural Unsweetened or Hershey's Special Dark 100% Cacao Dutched Cocoa. If the front of the label doesn't indicate Dutch or natural, check the ingredients listing on the back. If the product has been Dutch-processed, it will say something like "Cocoa-processed with alkali". I use Walmart's Great Value brand cocoa powder. The front of the GV brand just says "Baking Cocoa/ Unsweetened Cocoa Powder". The ingredient listing simply says "Cocoa". I'm assuming this is natural cocoa powder and not Dutched.

Why would any of this matter? As natural cocoa powder has not been treated with alkali and is acidic, it reacts with a base like baking soda, providing leavening. In a cake recipe, that may matter. In brownies, maybe not so much. There are formulas for how to substitute one type for another. King Arthur's article on cocoa powders indicates that if the recipe calls for less than 3 tablespoons of cocoa powder, no changes need to be made. Greater than 3 tablespoons? You may want to adjust the leavening. (See "How to tweak the recipe to minimize changes" in the King Arthur article for details.) 

December treats may have been all about cookies in my house. It's looking like January desserts will be all about cakes, healthier versions, of course 😏. 

Readers' Favorite Recipes from A to Z

Here are your favorite recipes, from A-Z, with links from the game that we played over the weekend. Thanks for playing along, everyone!

A  Light and Creamy Apple Salad by The Seasoned Mom

B  Chocolate Banana Crinkle Muffins by Averie Cooks

C  Crock Pot Santa Fe Chicken by Skinny Taste

D  Dirt Cake by All Recipes

E  Baked Egg Cups by Life Made Sweeter

F  Zucchini-Lentil Fritters with Lemony Yogurt by Bon Appetit

G  Simple {Nut Free} Cinnamon Raison Granola by One Hundred Dollars a Month

G  Greek Chicken Wraps by Budget Bytes

H  Betty Crocker Cookbook: Ham Glaze -- "A fully cooked ham glazed with 1c brown sugar, 1T cider vinegar, 1/2 t mustard powder, 1/4 t clove powder. 20 minutes before the ham is finished cooking remove from oven and cut a diamond pattern on surface. You can insert a whole clove in each diamond if desired then coat the ham in the glaze and continue baking until done." 

I  Instant Pot Baked Potatoes by A Mindful Mom

J  Sheet Pan Jambalaya by Cooking Light with Creole Seasoning Blend by All Recipes

K  Water Kefir by Cultures of Health

L  Lavender Pound Cake by Cooking and All That Jazz

M  Olive Garden Minestrone Soup by Copy Kat

N  No Bake Cookies by All Recipes

O  How to Make Overnight Oats by Wholefully

P  Plomeek Soup by Food Replicator

Q  Quiche or Impossibly Easy Ham and Swiss Pie by Betty Crocker

R  Camellia's Famous New Orleans-Style Red Beans and Rice by Camellia Brand

S  Bakery-Style Cranberry Orange Scones by Baker by Nature

T  Easy 30-Minute Homemade Chicken Tortilla Soup by Averie Cooks

U  Pineapple Upside-Down Bundt Cake by All Recipes

V  How to Make a Quick Cheese Sauce for Vegetables by The Spruce Eats

W  Cream Cheese Stuffed Dates with Walnuts by The Things We'll Make

X  Xanthan Gum Uses in Cooking by The Spruce Eats

Y  Yorkshire Pudding: A Frugal Quick Bread to Go with Supper by Creative Savv

Z  Zucchini: sautéed, spiralized, chocolate zucchini cake and Easy Cake Mix Zucchini Bread by Betty Crocker

photo credits: each photo came from the website for its corresponding recipe link

Be Your Own Prep Chef for the Week

Wouldn't you like to have your very own prep chef? That person who would do all of the tedious prep work, so you could just waltz into the kitchen around 5 PM and throw a meal together in 20 minutes or less?

Well, you can. You can be your own prep chef early in the week, so actual cooking, later, is smooth as silk.

cabbage, carrots, and celery for fried rice, casserole, and slaw salad

Here is it, late Sunday, and I've packed my fridge with the beginnings of several weeknight dinners. We all want easy when it comes to most weeknight dinners, don't we? There are two basic ways to meal-prep ahead of time. 1) You can completely make and freeze entire entrees to be heated just before dinnertime, or 2) you can prep just the ingredients, so that you have a gigantic head-start on dinner when you walk into the kitchen. I actually like (and do take) both approaches. But I prefer the second, as it breaks up the work, gives me more weekday time, and tires me less.

chopped onions and minced garlic -- no sweat if carrot bits mingle with the onions

Prepping large batches of ingredients means that in any one week, meals may look a bit repetitive on paper (on on my laptop), yet in taste and final texture, they're all quite different. I focus my prep work on those ingredients that take the most time, such as cooked grains and beans, chopped/diced vegetables, dressings and sauces, and cooked protein sources, such as boiled eggs and poached or roasted meat.

an extra-large pot of rice for fried rice, casserole, burrito bowls, and pudding

Here's my approach to prepping for the week's dinners:

1) First, I survey the contents of the fridge, and pull all of the leftovers and soon-to-expire ingredients to the front. I try to make sure all of those leftovers go into meals at the beginning of the week.

2) Next, I make a written plan of the week's dinners. I do this on the notepad feature of my laptop. It takes about 10 minutes of brainstorming and typing it all out, and it helps me to see all of the prep work I will need to do in advance. As I'm planning, I try to use specific ingredients 2 to 3 times in a given week. 

3) For those ingredients that overlap from one meal to another, I prep in one large batch. I get out the largest cutting board and best knife and begin. I shred some cabbage, dice several carrots, slice celery, tear a bunch of lettuce, chop the onions and bell peppers, mince the garlic, boil some eggs, poach or roast some chicken, shred cheese, steam a big pot of rice, boil a large pot of beans, cook a basic pasta shape (macaroni or penne), make a large batch of quickie marinara sauce, and mix up a couple of pitchers of different frozen juice concentrates. I make my own salad blends with some of the veggie ingredients and keep them in mason jars for several days of lunches. 

4) I store it all away in the garage fridge, knowing that I'm ready to take on a week of dinner-cooking. You know, I'm at home all day, every day right now. But I still don't relish the idea of spending large chunks of my late-afternoon in the kitchen. I have projects and a course that consume my weekday time. Prepping in bulk is a way to give myself more time on these days.

boiled eggs will keep all week

How it all plays out

Here's an example of some double-duty prepped ingredients. I shredded cabbage, then sliced carrots and celery for one large container and diced onions and minced garlic to keep in another. I also made an extra-large batch of rice and a large batch of easy marinara sauce. 

• One night this week, I'll make a chicken and vegetable fried rice, using a couple of cans of chicken, some rice, and some of each of the prepped veggies, along with seasonings and frozen peas. 
• Another night, I'll use some rice with most of the marinara sauce, some onions, celery, a can of green beans, rehydrated TVP, and shredded cheese in an Italian vegetarian casserole. 
• I'll use the rest of the marinara sauce on homemade cheese and pepperoni pizzas. 
• Rice can be used with leftover cooked beans in burrito bowls, adding canned corn, avocado, shredded cheese, olives, and salsa. 
• And finally, the last of the rice will be turned into a custard-style rice pudding at the end of the week, and I'll make a slaw salad with whatever remains of the cabbage, carrots, and celery. 

Anything left over? Well, that's what weekends are for, right? Since this week will be rice-heavy, next week I'll choose a different grain.

not-yet-tossed salad in a jar will keep several days

A few tips:

• I prep veggies from mildest to sharpest in flavor to minimize washing the cutting board and knife.
• I store chopped veggies to be cooked all in two large containers, keeping pungent ingredients separated from non-pungent. I'm fine if a stray cabbage shred gets into the Italian casserole.
• If I have a recipe that requires a specific amount of one ingredient, I bag that up separately and label.
• I use lettuce salad bases early in the week and cabbage ones later in the week.
• I tend not to prep fruits, other than washing, as the cut side of a piece of fruit will brown and some fruits loses their favorable textures soon after cutting or slicing (like bananas)
• I never prep seafoods in advance, due to their short safety life, even in the fridge.
• If I pre-cook other meats, they go onto the menu within the first 3 days of the week. Boiled eggs will keep the entire week in the fridge, so will cooked beans and baked tofu.
• I plan on using my prepped ingredients along with some canned or frozen vegetables and meats. I still get that freshly-made taste and texture, but also the ease of canned and frozen.

Are you a Sunday meal-prepper? What tips could you add? Any crock-pot preppers?

A New Year's Weekend Game -- Are You Game?

Happy New Year, friends! 

I thought about posting my NY's resolutions today, but then I thought, "do you really want to read about how I want to exercise more, eat less sugar, read more books, and do more good in the community?" No? I thought not, too.

Instead, how about a game to play over this weekend -- ABC's in Favorite Online Recipes

So, here are the rules:

• starting with the letter A (and going on from there)
• we each add a link to a favorite recipe
• with 10-20 words why we like this recipe
• the recipe has to either feature the name of an ingredient that begins with the next letter of the alphabet, or have a word in the title of the recipe that begins with the next letter of the alphabet
• so, for example, I'll begin with the letter A

A -- This healthier version of apple salad, from the Seasoned Mom.

Nice for salad or dessert, the dressing is lighter than typical apple-based salads, uses common winter ingredients. I sub regular raisins for the golden.

Shall we see how far we get in the alphabet? And, yes, you can add more than 1 comment/recipe. We might not get any further than C or D, otherwise. 😏 By the end of the weekend/game, we should all have a bunch of new recipes to try.

B? Anyone?

(p.s. there's no comment moderation for this weekend, so your addition will show up right away.)

Five Frugal Holiday Things

Here are my top 5 frugal activities from this past holiday week.

1. I rendered ham fat to use in cooking later

I rendered the fat from our Christmas ham, saving the bits (cracklins') to top bowls of soup and the fat itself for use in cooking. (Here's how I render ham fat and make cracklins'. ) 

I was able to save about a half-pound of ham fat and about 1 cup of cracklins' which I'll use like bacon bits. I estimate the value of my savings to be in the neighborhood of $1.

2. I made flavorful stock from ham bones

After trimming as much fat and meat off the bones that I could, I roasted the bones in a 350 degree F oven for 20 minutes, then made ham stock in my crockpot overnight. Roasting the ham bone first really adds to the flavor of the stock -- process.  

After the long simmering, I was able to remove an additional 1½ cups of shredded ham meat from the bones (for adding to soup), and the batch yielded 3 quarts of stock. I estimate the value of the meat and stock to be around $4.

3. I washed used aluminum foil

I washed the aluminum foil that was used for baking the ham and for wrapping the almond-filled Christmas Day bread. I've washed and reused this foil several times. Yes, it has a few tears in it, but those tears can be temporarily "mended" by folding and crimping the foil around the tear. 

I washed 6 sheets of foil of varying lengths, perhaps about ⅓ of a small box of foil, with a value of 33¢.

4. I made 5 pints of eggnog for the six of us

I made 2 batches of homemade eggnog, one batch on Christmas Eve (which was completely consumed on Christmas Day) and the other batch yesterday. 

I saved about $2 by making my own eggnog at home this year. Eggnog is easy to make at home, and my family agrees that the commercial stuff now tastes chemically to us.

5. Free-pile!!!!

I stopped at a free-pile in front of a neighbor's home while on a walk this week and picked up a glass cheese dome/plate and a set of 4 LED snowflake window ornaments. 

"Tis the season to clean out your closets and make room for the new stuff! These are used items, so my estimate is based off of thrift store pricing -- about $4 for cheese dome/plate and window ornaments.

$11.33 for these 5 holiday money-savers. I also saved ribbons/bows/gift bags from Christmas gifts to reuse next year, saved some of the holiday wrapping paper to use in crafting, made several jars of cocoa mix for my family, reused a lightweight cardboard New Year's banner (the kind designed to be used once, then thrown away), found 4 party poppers leftover from last year's package to use on New Year's Eve (hoping they still work for tonight), and watched a bunch of free movies on tubi.

Have you used tubi before? In what ways were you frugal this holiday season?