Rebuild from Depression Blog

I always look at the price of old pickle crocks when I'm in antique stores and yard sales. A large antique pickle crock in good condition sells for about $75 in Central California. They are probably over $100 in other parts of the state.

One problem with a 5 gallon crock is that it is a 5 gallon crock. They are beautiful, but they are heavy and take a lot of storage space. They could certainly keep me in pickles all winter and one crock may have just that opportunity some day.

But I found something even better and more useful all year round -- these small crocks. I paid $20 for the two crocks and can use them on small projects.

If I have a few pieces of fruit I want to turn into a fermented fruit compote, I put them in the small crock, cover with water keifer, and weight them with a saucer. Some people will use a bit of whey to start the fermentation instead.

For a small batch of vegetables, I add a few sprinkles of salt, mix and stir around, cover with water, and weight with a plate.

In both cases, I cover the whole business with a dish towel and check it every day or so. I let fruit go for at least two days and vegetables go for longer (more like a week). But I'm not a slave to the calendar. If the batch turns, my nose tells me. Yours will too -- if it smells like it's rotting, it is.

I am so excited to end up as the owner of one of my grandmother's serving items: her brassware from somewhere in Asia. It appears that I am the fourth person to be asked to provide a home for this treasure. It fit no one else's lifestyle.

Twenty-five years ago when my grandmother died, my granddad dutifully split up the set between my mom and uncle. My mom immediately gave her half to her brother. "What would I ever do with brassware?" Apparently he didn't have a good answer either because the set stayed packed in a cardboard box for over two decades. Along the way I heard that my cousin would be inheriting the brassware. (I got the crystal which is beautiful and rarely used, but I always had a fascination with the brassware.) My cousin married, was offered the brassware, and turned it down. The big question became: "What do we do with the brassware?"

"Bring it to me," I said.

I am certain that the three people before me who rejected the brassware were really locked into the issue of "It doesn't match the china" or "When would I ever use china?" Good for me. The brassware is perfect in our craftsman home with tag sale pottery.

My biggest problem now is figuring out what piece is what. The set is truly enormous with utensils for everything I can think of and apparently some that I cannot imagine. It appears we can have assorted seafood, fondue, and still never run out of forks. There are three forks in the photo and a number of others in the set.

Technorati Tags: brassware

For Nourishing Gourmet's weekly Pennywise Platter (which you should read for more money-saving food tips ~~ here is this week's post), I thought I would share one of my favorite frugal secrets -- The Grocery Outlet. If you are located in the western United States, you may just have this discount food store near you.

Shopping at The Grocery Outlet is a shopper's scavenger hunt with seasonal overstocks and the scratch-and-dent equivalent in the food market. You will find aisles of canned goods, cleaning supplies, and even whisky. The key to healthy shopping at The Grocery Outlet is knowing the sections of the store that contain the possibilities for gold.

When I go to the Grocery Outlet, I skip most sections of the store but never miss the dairy and meat case. I have purchased New Zealand butter that was the darkest yellow I have seen. The price rivaled any sale butter in a grocery store (about $2.50/pound) but it had the benefits of grass fed butter. Granted, it was shipped across the sea, but I purchase it nonetheless. I have found deals on gourmet cheeses as well.

Near the refrigerated dairy items I always look at the packaged meat items. You can usually find a gourmet sausage and could well find just about anything else. I skip the bologna. :)

The other primary area I scope is the canned meat section. I find Alaskan pink salmon fairly regularly for $1 for a 15-ounce can, a high Omega 3 depression-fighting fish. They often have sardines, another fish high in beneficial fats.

My mother makes a bee-line to the $1 wine that she uses for cooking. On occasion, she finds a wine she actually likes to drink. My husband makes a bee-line to the gourmet ice cream in the freezer section, though I have to warn that sometimes the ice cream has been partially melted previously and has that not-so-satisfying "crunchy" texture. The prices are great, though, and make it worth risking crunchy ice cream and cooking wine.

Find a location near you: Grocery Outlet store finder.

Happy hunting!

Giveaway results

Just about everyone I know has been affected by the economy enough to watch their food budget. With that in mind, I have three quick tips to pass on to frugal meal planners.

(1) Join a food co-op or start your own. I have described in the past how you can start your own co-op and order a great deal of food items at wholesale prices (read more on food co-ops). This is a powerful way to save money and something you can do today.

(2) Find a discount store. I have mentioned one of my favorite discount food stores (The Grocery Outlet) in a previous post. I have purchased some exceptional New Zealand butter and gourmet meat items at our local store. You can even follow them on Twitter (Grocery Outlet on Twitter) and you might as well follow me on Twitter while you're at it.

(3) Rice and beans. There is nothing like them when it comes to "inexpensive," but to get the most out of them, check out my resources on how to prepare them to reduce their phytic acid content. Phytic acid will block your absorption of some of their key minerals. The phytic acid resources right here at the Rebuild site are the most extensive on the Internet.

(4) Watch Jenny. Jenny at Nourished Kitchen is going to eat this month on a budget of $227 (the budget amount is inspired by the Food Stamp program). Jenny always has great posts, so this should be interesting to watch. (Read more at Nourished Kitchen.)

(5) Read the Pennywise Platter tips. Every week at the Nourishing Gourmet, many great bloggers post tasty, inexpensive recipes and tips. In fact, this post is part of that Pennywise Platter Thursday.

I love storing food in glass. Glass does not absorb flavors and smells as does plastic and it is cheaper than stainless steel. In the pantry we store in jars ranging in size from gallon jars (recycled pickle jars) down to half-pint jelly jars. For leftovers, we make use of the same jars, particularly gallons and half-gallons for soups and sauces, but generally I prefer containers I can stack so I can more easily seen everything in my refrigerator. I have tried some expensive glass storage containers with glass lids. They can be very heavy once they are packed with food and the price is unreasonable to start with.

This summer I found a great deal at Costco on this collection of nine storage containers -- "Glasslock" containers from Snapware (see the items at the Snapware website). The lids are plastic with silicon seals which can be removed and cleaned. The set includes square and rectangular containers. The squares have blue seals, the rectangles green seals. The color difference would keep you from going bananas in trying to figure out whether the smallest seal goes on a rectangle or square.

While the containers retail anywhere from $7 to $13 each depending on size and vendor, I paid just under $30 for all nine at Costco. (It was such a great deal I am posting this find on Pennywise Platter, a blog carnival worth reading.) I have used these containers for about three months and just bought a new box, knowing that Costco deals don't last forever. We will add some of the new containers to the rotation and store some in the pantry.

All Costco locations have some of their own inventory so this product may very well be missing in the Costco nearest you, but give it a look. Check in the kitchen section near the cookware and dinnerware.

Why glass
In an early version of the book Rebuild from Depression, there was actually a Part III. Part I is the memoir, Part II the nutrients and food science, Part III was establishing structures that reduce our need for nutrients. Basically, stress and toxic exposure eat up our nutrient stores. Reducing both is a good idea for a whole lot of reasons, though depression is one of them.

Whether plastic is toxic is controversial though now even the government acknowledges that a common chemical used in plastic, BPA, is unsafe (though it also says that levels in plastic are too low to cause concern). I really don't see waiting for the other shoe to drop. We use very little plastic in our kitchen and have been phasing it out for years. It helps that plastic is an inferior choice in food storage anyway with its ability to retain the flavor of last month's dinner.

"Where can I buy coconut oil?"

It's a good question if you're new to the product. There are a lot of extremely high-priced products out there, most of which I have tried. I used to guard it like the gold that it was but then found a great deal and have less need for restraint.

I do love coconut oil. It is a great substitute for shortening in baked goods such as these chocolate cinnamon cupcakes. It is great on a grill for foods such as pancakes or tempura. From the Omega 3/Omega 6 perspective I discuss quite a bit on this blog, it does not actually have much Omega 3 or Omega 6 and so it is basically a neutral oil in the Omega 3 to Omega 6 ratio. For cooking, you can buy a refined coconut oil, but I don't actually do that. Basically, I get such a great deal on organic, virgin coconut oil that I use it for everything. I met the vendor at ExpoWest in Anaheim and marveled at their beautiful herb display but said, "It's that coconut oil that gets me." I became an affiliate. You'll even see coconut oil in the sidebar of this blog now.

Coconut oil is great for your skin, including your scalp. Coconut oil is of the class of "dry oils" which means that when you use it on your skin, it will not appear shiny when it sinks in. With everyone in the house apparently not getting any younger, we have come to appreciate good oils and not walking around shiny.

The unrefined coconut oil is also what you are going to want to add to drinks such these kefir smoothies. In warm weather the coconut oil is liquid at room temperature making it extremely easy to add to drinks. When you add it to a smoothie that has frozen fruit in it, little bits of the oils will freeze up too in that smoothie and you will have little coconut bits in your shake. I love the texture it adds. In the winter, add it to hot cocoa where it does float on top, but adds that coconut-flavored tone to your drink.

In any case, check it out. At $37/gallon it's a great answer to the question "Where to buy coconut oil?" When I'm in cooking mode, I get the five gallon container at a bigger discount still.