Vegan MoFo: Overdue Garden Update

*Brief background: We grow some plants on our apartment balcony as well as an herb aeroponic planter indoors. The strawberries and lettuce are done for the season. We have only had one tomato before, and now we have two new ones! (heirloom seeds that we sprouted indoors in April)

Itty bitty green tomato!

Bigger one is turning yellow and red- hopefully we enjoy it before the stinkbugs do!

This is exciting! This basil plant (over a year old) was DEAD.
Brown and brittle. All of the sudden new leaves started to grow!

It turned into a brand new fresh basil plant out of nowhere!

How I Save Money on Food

Farmer's Markets: Find out where these happen in your area and go! In my experience, the produce is usually very cheap with added bonuses of fresh, possibly organic, and supportive of local economy! However, I recommend asking the price before you buy. There could be a product that is harder to grow or less available or whatever and cost more. You can sometimes haggle with a farmer or get a great deal if it's something that will go bad soon, they have too much of, or because you are a repeat customer! Bring cash and bags. If possible, sign up for a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). 

Find a Farmer's Market in your area 

Other posts about Farmer's Markets: Farmer's Market Haul #1, Farmer's Market Haul #2

Coupons: Even if you eat very little packaged food, there is still a coupon out there you can use! I found one recently for bagged baby spinach which I buy every week! We do not get newspapers, the typical coupon go-to, so I print them all online. I use a coupon binder to organize. There are many coupon blogs out there, even organic ones, to alert you as to newly available printable coupons. Find out your store's policies on doubling and stacking to maximize your savings.  

Future Post with More Information

Storing coupons in clear inserts with labeled tabs

Rewards Clubs: Take advantage of extra sales or print extra coupons. Be careful you are not signing up for a charge card unless that is your intention. They will also get you discounts but with bigger obligations.

Sales: Find out what is on sale at your stores and shop strategically. Look at newspaper inserts, websites, and coupon blogs. Also check out the clearance/discontinued sections. Find and use coupons on sale items- you may end up getting some for free!

Stock Pile/Store/Freeze: You will end up with many items that you will not use immediately if you shop sales and with coupons. Select a way to store and organize your nonperishable edibles in a stockpile. For anything in my kitchen cupboard for which I have duplicates, I store those in shelves in my laundry room. Store other extras in the freezer- great way to enjoy summer fruits and veggies in winter and to have ready-to-eat foods on hand.

Buy In Season: The least expensive produce is the produce that is growing currently in your area. Fruit and veggies out of season are probably grown far away so you are paying for transportation or grown less naturally like with a greenhouse or extreme fertilizers and pesticides  which adds to the cost. 

Amazon.com: We buy a lot of food from Amazon.com because the prices are usually lower than in stores with retail costs and we get prime shipping which is free and arrives in two-days. With Amazon.com, you can buy in bulk sizes for extra cheap or single items. Additionally savings are possible if you choose Subscribe and Save and receive an item on a regular schedule for 15% less cost. We also use a Amazon.com Rewards Credit Card and get points on purchases which add up to Amazon.com gift cards.

Indoor aeroponic planter with herbs

Garden: Grow your own food! This can be done anywhere. We use our apartment balcony, but you can grow indoors in pots by a window or door! We also have an indoor aeroponic planter. Seeds are very cheap and you can be in control of getting organic/heirloom but seedlings and started plants can be inexpensive also and save time.Other posts about Gardening: Sprouts, Heirloom Tomato, Starting to Flower, Transplanting, Starting to Fruit 

Buy In Bulk: Large amounts of something are bound to be cheaper! If you buy from bulk bins like I find at my local organic store, you are also saving money on packaging/containers. Bring your own bag and fill by the pound. I usually get bulk grains, legumes, and other staples but you can find snacks, desserts, even oils! Or, buying bulk can mean buying many packages at once ala Costco. I buy huge bags of dried herbs and seasonings from Amazon.com and refill small shakers as needed. 

Meal Planning: Make a plan for what you will cook and eat that week, or at least your dinners. This way, you can make a solid shopping list and stick to it rather than making spontaneous purchases. You can also use up what you already have, especially before it turns bad.

Other posts about Meal Planning: Week of 7/17, Week of 7/24, Week of 7/31

Future Post with More Information

Homemade Food: Cook for yourself! Packaged prepared foods are most costlier than individual ingredients. Make large quantities to enjoy leftovers and freeze for future meals. You also ingest less sodium and preservatives. Recipes are available for free online. We rarely eat at restaurants and will occasionally get carry-out or delivery food for which you end up tipping less and spending less on extras like drinks. 

Other posts about Homemade Food: Meal Photos #1, Meal Photos #2, Eggplant Parmesan, Smoothie, Popcorn, Potato Tacos, Quinoa Burgers, Hummus

Bulk nuts, seeds, and fruits to mix up trail mix

Homemade muffins- sunflower seed butter and chocolate chips

Reusable Bags: Many stores will offer discounts of five or ten cents for each reusable bag used- those savings can really add up! Reusable bags can be purchased for little money, gotten for free at events and especially if they display advertising, or you can make your own! We have awesome cloth produce bags from my mother-in-law. Make sure to wash your bags often as they can accumulate bacteria. 

Avoid the Oven: When cooking, you will use a lot less energy by opting for the microwave or the toaster over. The conventional over and burners lose a lot of heat that does not go to your food and cost a lot more. If you are going to use the oven, try to make all your week's dishes at once to capitalize on the heat and experiment with not preheating and turning off the oven five minutes before cook time is over. 

Freecycle: Yep! Food items are sometimes posted on Freecycle and they are free to pick up. People clear out their pantries when they move. I posted some food items I was no longer allowed to eat when I found out I'm pregnant.

Other post about Freecycle: Favorite Reuse Sites

And, of course, Purchase Few or No Animal Products: Meat, dairy, and eggs are some of the priciest food items. Unfortunately, the high price does not necessarily mean quality or fair wages for those who produced the products. Besides the other benefits, avoiding them will save you money. It is also helpful that I haven't had alcohol in eight months and Ian drinks very little. Plus, most alcohol contains or is made with animal products. Eww!

Coming Soon: How I Save Money on Energy and Household

Please add your tips to the comments! Thanks!

Egg-Less Eggplant Parmesan

Semi-Vegan Eggplant Parmesan. We nix the eggs but keep the cheese- however, the cheese could easily be Daiya or some nutritional yeast concoction! We don't really follow a recipe but this is how we have learned to make it work:

The eggplants or aubergines were long and skinny so we ended up cutting strips. On the left if the egg replacement. The proportion we use for this is:

1 tablespoon ground flax seed ~ 2 tablespoons water

Stir and let it sit for a few minutes. It was soak and become thicker. Dip in the strips and then drench in breadcrumbs. 

Set in the frying pan on a high setting, otherwise they will become soaked in the oil. Flip when golden brown.

Ian whipped up this sauce. It is just tomato paste, basil from the garden, oregano, sugar, garlic powder, and onion powder.

The finished product with a couple servings missing! Basically, layer eggplant, sauce, and cheese or cheese-like substance. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Let sit before serving. Nom!

Farmer's Market Haul, Meal Photos, Meal Plans, Baby Bump

My camera battery died and since we moved recently, it took me a while to find the charger. So, I missed out on taking a lot of food and grocery haul pictures and this post is a jumble of things from this week. I went food shopping at Food Lion, Target, and the local organic store with beaucoup couponage, though it didn't help with my effort to grocery shop less often. 

Here is my farmer's market loot from today. We didn't need much because we have most of what we bought last week:

Peaches, canteloupe, black walnuts, and some kind of peppers

Meal Plan for This Week 

Falafel with Edamame Hummus

Quinoa Burgers with Spinach

Paddy Pan Squash (Possibly Pasta?)

Eggplant Parmesan

Leftovers Night

Gardein "Chicken" Tenders and French Fries

Marinated Portabella Burgers

The one and only tomato growing on our balcony garden! So red! And all squishy because it's heirloom.

Vegans, look away! The next two meals are dripping with cheese. It was that kind of week.

I refilled these staples from bulk containers from the local organic store. Yes, vegan chocolate chips are a staple for me.

Baby Bump at 18 weeks, 1 day! Definitely its biggest so far!

Come Into My Garden

We have three containers of strawberries. We had delicious strawberries for a while and we are hoping the new green leaves will mean new flowers and new fruit!

Catgrass gone to seed. Dying lettuce. Basil we grew from a seed, trying to prevent it from flowering! Need to pick it more.

This basil plant was old and time for it to floewr. On the side you can see a baby basil plant we grew from a seed.

I've had two hibiscus plants for over a year.

Tomato pot #1! These just keep growing tall without many flowers yet.

The lettuces we grew from seed tasted great at first but are not doing well. This looks diseased. 

Tomato pot #2! The first and only tomato!

Here it is! This tomato has been going for about 3 weeks.

Fruit-Bearing Garden

Our garden is pretty much complete, save for a few sprouts that still need to be transplanted.

Roll call of edibles in garden: Wheat Grass (for cats), Catnip, Basil, Oregano, Cilantro, Tomatoes, Strawberries, Variety of Lettuce, Baby Bok Choy

Four strawberries are already growing!

Proof that you can grow (some) of your own food with limited space! This is our one-bedroom apartment balcony with limited sun and everything is still growing well. 

Happy Gardening!

Progression of the Garden

We no longer have to awkwardly store our plants indoors! The frosts have passed, everything has sprouted, so we have a very small amateur garden on our apartment balcony. We are in need of some more pots and potting soil, so this is not the finished look.

Variety of lettuces in the bigger pots. Sprouts for different herbs, wheat grass for cats, and catnip are sprouting in the Keirug coffee cups.

Tomatoes, strawberries, basil and other herbs, and some type of flowers given to me by a parent when I completed by Kindergarten student teaching.

Tomato plants (don't tell, but I actually do not care for tomatoes)

On the left: two Hibiscus plants from our wedding rehearsal dinner, about 11 months old. Unfortunately not in bloom at the moment.

Ian has also begun raising herbs in an aeroponic planter! Pics from that soon. 

Sprouts!

Not the eating kind- the beginnings of an awesome balcony garden.

Hubby/partner and I got excited at the end of a week of warm weather, in seventies, and began sprouting seeds and setting plants out on the balcony of our one bedroom apartment. Biiiig time fail. Then, we have had two continuous weeks of thirties and forties including snow. We pulled almost everything inside and saved most things.

Squeezing sprouts and plants on the stovetop, of course.

The problem is indoor space and sunlight. We keep everything in the bedroom while we are at work where they sort of get sunlight. When we are home and the sun is down, they are on the kitchen counters where the cats do not go.

Strawberries we bought as small plants. A little blossom!

I will do another post about our sprouting methods because we tried about five ways, some successful and some cumbersome.

Can't wait for summertime veggies and herbs and kitty treats!

 

Our garden at my parent's house in 2009 which was brutally eaten by deer