Kitchen Frugality - Irish Style!

The week before St. Patrick's Day in my neighborhood is a week of sales. Stores compete to over prices on corned beef, cabbages and potatoes (the classic boiled supper) until it almost seems they are giving the food away! Cabbages are $.07 a pound!! Corned beefs of a size more than sufficient to feed a small family can be bought for $5!

Its a week I enjoy using my cooking creativity to stretch our food budget ;)

Today, I purchased a cabbage, a small corned beef, a 1lb bag of dried split peas, 5lb of potatoes and 5lb of carrots for $11. The beef is simmering in a large kettle along with a quartered onion (with a few cloves stuck in) - when the meat is closer to "done", I'll toss in a few peeled and chopped carrots and potatoes. At almost the last minute, I'll add the cabbage - cut into large wedges, like mom used to do. With a few slices of home baked bread and some mustard, its a meal fit for a hungry king.

But the real fun is in the leftovers! In addition to red flannel hash and the obligatory cold sandwiches, I take the broth (cooking meat in water makes broth, so I use a LOT of water to make my boiled dinner and have the benefit of this tasty, salty broth) and use that plus about a handful of shredded or finely minced corned beef to make a kettle of split pea soup that is mmm mmmm good! Split peas usually sell for about $1 for a pound around here - and they can be even cheaper if bought in bulk. I add a minced carrot - and sometimes a diced potato or two to make it more filling.

Not bad for $11, eh? And I still have a lot of carrots and onions left for other uses...like the chicken soup I always make from the carcass of any roasted chicken dinner...

And since cabbages are so VERY cheap right now, there will be lots of cabbage dishes cooked over this weekend for freezer meals...

How do you stretch your food dollars?