Vegans in Poverty - Cheap Tricks!

[ETeSelle]

I need to find a source for dried chickpeas, which she used a lot and I like them a lot. I haven't seen them in my usual grocery stores, but I'm going to look online.

Indian grocery stores! They carry chick peas and a million other kinds of beans and peas in huge bags very cheap.

[Plumerias]

I need to find a source for dried chickpeas, which she used a lot and I like them a lot. I haven't seen them in my usual grocery stores, but I'm going to look online.

Indian grocery stores! They carry chick peas and a million other kinds of beans and peas in huge bags very cheap.

Oh, I'll second that one! Their spices are also equally cost effective. While I have not shopped at this particular location, I have shopped at many of their other US locations and don't hesitate to recommend them. http://www.patelbros.com/locations/loca ... fault.html

[Anna Green]

Heather from The Butterfly Effect talks about shopping for greens at Grocery Salvage stores. She eats a ton of veggies a day. She buys big tubs of organic greens for a dollar. I do it occasionally too and sometimes find good stuff but not as much as she does. She lives on the west coast however and I'm in the South. I'm hoping since you live on the west coast you could also find good salvage stores. Good luck and thanks for starting this post. It reminds me that I need to make the effort to find the cheap stuff because I can't really afford what I've been buying.

[Bougainvillea]

What a great thread! Thank you everyone for those suggestions! I'm getting ready to open a healing center and focusing on no oil plant based cooking classes with a focus on healing illness and want to have resources for underprivledged families with kids with a "diagnosis." Whenever a child is unwell the whole family is unwell. These suggestions are awesome.

What a fantastic thing to do! Good on you!

I have personally found the easiest transition food to be burritos and tacos. The only thing missing is cheese, but that doesn't keep them from being familiar and easy and cheap and yummy. The other one that is cheap and is familiar comfort food for me is soup.

[Bougainvillea]

Okay, another cheap trick is canning your own food. This does require an initial investment. And an ongoing cost of more jars, if needed and canning lids.

I have learned that I can re-use canning lids several times. Of course, they tell you not to do it - but if I get a good seal, I don't worry about it. Also, you can buy forever reusable canning lids, which I plan to do as soon as possible.

So, no wonder I was grumpy yesterday and my knee was killing me LOL. I did a LOT of work in the kitchen yesterday.

I had soaked and sprouted and cooked black beans already, so they were ready to be canned. Just had to heat them up, put them into clean jars and then process them in the pressure canner. I got 8 pints of black beans - mostly fart-free LOL - for free, as I'd gotten the dried beans at the food bank. But, even if you bought the dried beans, they're around $1.00 for a package (I think the packages are 1 lb.)

I had some left over, so put those into my ongoing rice/legumes/corn/veggie mixture I make my breakfast tacos out of. And I saved the leftover bean water, which is so tasty to put into soup.

At the food bank, I was so bummed because they didn't give me any veggies. Then, while sorting through my stuff out front at the tables they put out for us to share stuff we don't want - I'm giving away the meat and milk and eggs to very happy people.....and out comes a worker with a huge box of yellow summer squash! Wahoo!

I waited to make sure nobody else wanted some, then grabbed a bunch. Then they brought out more! I ended up with about 25 - 30 squashes, which in the store are about $1.00 each. What a score!

So, I canned those up with the jars I had left. Here's my canning results from yesterday:

http://prntscr.com/h080jq

I still have about a dozen squash, but no more empty jars, so I will just cut them up and freeze them raw. Squash actually freezes really great raw, and you can just throw it frozen into stir fry or sauces, etc. So, more chopping today!

Canning, once you have the equipment - the canner, jars, lids and it helps to have the large mouth funnel and the grabber and magnetic wand for getting lids out of hot water ---just takes time. Once you know what you're doing, it's super easy. But, there's time in washing and cutting things up, like veggies. Something like soup or beans, that you've already cooked is really easy. Just have to heat it up and put it into clean jars.

Then, you have to be around a hot kitchen, close to the timer.

But, yesterday, I got the equivalent of 8 jars of black beans, which would cost at least $1.00 each in the store. And, these were special sprouted beans for less gas. (You can't tell they were just beginning to sprout, but that's all you need for way less gas.) And you don't have to add salt to what you can. I did add a little salt to the beans when I cooked them. But, did not add any salt to the squash. And I got 4 pint jars of squash, and 4 pint and a half jars.

And I love squash! Yay for me

I started canning again (used to can when I was a young hippy) because I don't have much freezer space and am not allowed to have a separate freezer in my apartment. I just have a small freezer on the top part of my fridge. So, if you can, you can put up a lot of food that can just go into cupboards.

Then, you can create your own "fast food," too, from what you have in the cupboard. Soups and jars of beans = foods you can just heat up in the microwave.

[Bougainvillea]

I need to find a source for dried chickpeas, which she used a lot and I like them a lot. I haven't seen them in my usual grocery stores, but I'm going to look online.

Indian grocery stores! They carry chick peas and a million other kinds of beans and peas in huge bags very cheap.

Oh, I'll second that one! Their spices are also equally cost effective. While I have not shopped at this particular location, I have shopped at many of their other US locations and don't hesitate to recommend them. http://www.patelbros.com/locations/loca ... fault.html

That is so close to me! I'm going to go check them out today! I was in a Ross Dress for Less looking in their food section - sometimes I get lucky there - and there was a bag of turmeric. I've been wanting to learn how to cook with Indian spices, and I'm staring at this turmeric wondering if it's a good price, and an Indian woman turns into my aisle - so I asked her and she was so nice! She said it was a good price and also suggested shopping at an Indian store and I just haven't been yet Thanks!

[Lyndzie]

Hi Boogie - I love this thread. I like to can, too and used to can all my beans before I got an Instant Pot. I've tried the Tattle reusable lids, and had terrible luck with them. Usually a couple of jars wouldn't seal, then a few more would lose their seal over a couple months. I ended up throwing away a LOT of jars. If I were you, I'd just stick with the regular disposable lids. Yeah, they cost money, but not as much money as throwing away jars of food.

Also, we're starting to get cold weather here, and tomorrow I'm planning to make cabbage soup, also known as kitchen sink soup. It's the perfect dish on a budget - just throw in what you've got!

[Bougainvillea]

Hi Boogie - I love this thread. I like to can, too and used to can all my beans before I got an Instant Pot. I've tried the Tattle reusable lids, and had terrible luck with them. Usually a couple of jars wouldn't seal, then a few more would lose their seal over a couple months. I ended up throwing away a LOT of jars. If I were you, I'd just stick with the regular disposable lids. Yeah, they cost money, but not as much money as throwing away jars of food.

Also, we're starting to get cold weather here, and tomorrow I'm planning to make cabbage soup, also known as kitchen sink soup. It's the perfect dish on a budget - just throw in what you've got!

I'm so glad you told me about the Tattle lids not working for you. I did see online that there's a trick to them - I guess that should have been a red flag. That would irritate me to no end! And actually, since I've discovered I can reuse the disposable ones a couple times, it makes them a whole lot cheaper to use.

I had a Canadian friend who called her "whatever is in the cupboard soup" - garbage soup. I told her, yuck! that sounds so unappetizing. So, I suggested calling it cupboard soup instead.

I love cabbage. And soup. That sounds so good right now.

It's still hot here! I'm ready for fall weather. Will be almost 90 degrees Farenheit (sp?) next week again. Ugh. But, it's better than snow. Used to live in WA, and I'm really over living where things freeze. But, I love a nice day that's cool enough to wear soft flannel. Ahhhh. Flannel and soup - great combo!

[Bougainvillea]

Okay, after being inspired by the posts suggesting shopping at the ethnic stores all around me here, I went on an adventure yesterday with my dog, as it was actually not hot - was sunny and around 70 degrees (F), and I could find shade to park in for my dog. She's fun to drive around with. This is Jackie. I have a seatbelt tether thing I attach to her, so she won't fly out the window if we crash or she sees a squirrel lol, so don't worry about her flying out the window.

This is from last year when we lived by the ocean in CA, but way up at the Oregon border:

http://prntscr.com/h0ivul

Okay, here is what I learned yesterday after going to a local Indian store and Mexican store, and the Smart and Final discount stores: Basically, if you did all of your shopping in just one of them, you'd spend the same amount of money overall for your groceries. They will all have some things cheaper than somewhere else, but other things will be more expensive, so it would probably all just even out. But, of course, some will have things you can't find at the other stores, or will have more variety of certain ethnic foods.

Other than just checking them out, I was specifically looking for dry chickpeas.

Indian market (Patel Brothers in Santa Clara, CA): If I buy a huge bag of chickpeas, it would be the best deal in town. But, we're talking at least a 10 pound bag, otherwise, I could honestly find a better deal on chickpeas at Walmart if I order them online and pick them up at the local Walmart Neighborhood Grocery store.

What the Indian market had, other than lots of spices and things I had no idea what to do with - and wish I did - is they carry a bunch of different types of flour. So, now I know, if I want rice flour or corn flour or many types of wheat and I forget what all types they had - but that was really cool to learn.

They also did carry organic foods, including chickpeas, but they were pricey.

Mexican market (Buenos Amigos in Santa Clara, CA): They have a casual restaurant in the back and everything looked so yummy! It's a deli type setup where you can see the food and they put it together in front of you. It wasn't crowded, either. I didn't really check out the menu, but if/when I want to go eat some local Mexican food that someone else cooks for me, I'll go try these guys out. It smelled so good!

They had a ton of different brands and types of tortillas. I'm trying to learn how to make my own and not being very successful at it, so I may give up and this is where I would buy my tortillas. They definitely had better prices on tortillas and they looked fresher than other stores like Walmart.

The chickpeas were not cheaper here, either, but they do carry dry chickpeas. Huge variety of peppers in the produce section. Huge variety of hot sauces in the canned section. Oddly, their spices were higher than I expected. Usually the Mexican food sections in regular grocery stores (like Safeway) have really great prices on the Mexican spices - but in the Mexican market, they were not cheaper LOL. I guess that's one place they balance out the sales they have on other items.

They did carry varieties of masa harina (for making tortillas) but none said they were non-GMO or organic.

If my tortillas don't get better, I may just quit caring about the GMO corn and just buy them already made. Or at least try the Mexican masa harina flour. I'm wondering if the issue is the Bob's Red Mill organic masa harina flour I bought for my first attempt. Maybe it's ground too coarse - anyway, I digress.

The Smart and Final store in Santa Clara: They had really good deals if you bought enormous cans of things like chickpeas (already cooked) or tomatoes or corn, etc. Like restaurant-sized huge cans. They also had some produce by the crate you could buy for cheaper than full price. These were still not as cheap as I can remember buying from the farm stands when I lived in the country, but they were a little cheaper than full price. To me, it wouldn't be worth all of the work to have to can a full crate of something, rather than just buy what I wanted to cook for a meal. Not enough of a price break.

I didn't see dry chickpeas - just cooked and canned ones.

I checked their alcohol section, and they were comparable to Walmart's alcohol prices. I get the best deal on my gin at the CVS pharmacy with my club card - even cheaper than Walmart.

Conclusion: I'm really glad I went on this adventure. I still need to go to the Asian market, but basically, each different market has it's specialty items and some things will be cheaper than other stores - but to get the best prices, you need to buy different things at different stores.

Where I shopped, all of the above stores were within a block of each other. So, it wouldn't cost me a bunch of gas for my truck, to buy this and that from the different stores above. I love going to Grocery Outlet, because I'll get some great deals, but you never know what they'll have. The stores above, always stock the same things.

The Indian and Mexican markets regularly carry dry chickpeas. The Indian market will carry lots of options of them and has the best price on chickpeas if you buy a huge bag.

It was really fun! The Indian store smelled so good, and it was the most foreign experience for me. I'd never been in one before, and they were really tolerant of me walking around and just looking at everything for probably a good half hour. Nobody started following me around like I might be trying to steal something - like happens in other stores when you just linger and wander around lol. I'd love to take an Indian cooking class. Gonna put that on my bucket list.

[greensheep]

Regarding Indian food, at the risk of sounding like a broken record (I know I've mentioned this once or twice in other threads), you cannot go wrong with veganricha.com or her cookbook, Vegan Richa's Indian Kitchen. I have nothing to do with her; I just love her recipes!

Richa was born and raised in India, moved to the US, and took over her husband's cooking tasks when an illness made her unable to work outside the home. Some of her recipes use oil, but it's never very much, and it's usually just for sauteeing the onions or whatever, so I just leave it out. She uses authentic Indian spices, rather than American substitutes, so her food tastes the way Indian food really should. In her book, and I think somewhere on her website as well, she gives very good explanations of the different spices, legumes, etc. And now that you have an Indian market at your fingertips, you should try it out!

[colonyofcells]

I have tried pouring hot cereal or hot soup over frozen vegetables and they turn out ok for me.

[Bougainvillea]

Regarding Indian food, at the risk of sounding like a broken record (I know I've mentioned this once or twice in other threads), you cannot go wrong with veganricha.com or her cookbook, Vegan Richa's Indian Kitchen. I have nothing to do with her; I just love her recipes!

Richa was born and raised in India, moved to the US, and took over her husband's cooking tasks when an illness made her unable to work outside the home. Some of her recipes use oil, but it's never very much, and it's usually just for sauteeing the onions or whatever, so I just leave it out. She uses authentic Indian spices, rather than American substitutes, so her food tastes the way Indian food really should. In her book, and I think somewhere on her website as well, she gives very good explanations of the different spices, legumes, etc. And now that you have an Indian market at your fingertips, you should try it out!

I'm so glad you shared this again, because I hadn't seen your previous posts. I'm really excited about this. Thanks!

I just checked my library's inventory and they have one of her cookbooks! So, I requested it to be sent to the branch near me. Yay!

[Bougainvillea]

I have tried pouring hot cereal or hot soup over frozen vegetables and they turn out ok for me.

Brilliant!

[Bougainvillea]

I just discovered this fast-food option at Walmart yesterday. It was only around 80 cents and was good. It's fat free, but was fairly high in sodium. It's basically like a fat-free Rice-A-Roni spanish rice mix. You just boil water, throw the package contents into the boiling water, simmer it for 7 minutes, let stand for 2. Easy as can be and was really tasty and filling, and cheap. I'll be buying more to have on hand for those times I just want something easy.

http://prntscr.com/h0yqfd

Here's a screen shot of the back of the package I found on the Walmart website. My photo didn't work because it's too shiny:

http://prntscr.com/h0yraz

[verovegan]

It's strange because I grew up poor--so poor. We ate beans and rice and macaroni (no one called it pasta then) with canned tomato paste (no spaghetti sauce), and oatmeal. We were so poor. But I loved the food! My Mother would cook it, and it was so delicious! Cornbread and biscuits, greens, and vegetables from the garden--carrots, radishes, corn on the cob, tomatoes! We were so poor, but we were so rich!

I didn't know how rich we were until years later! Years of eating the "rich" food that "rich" people ate--the food that said you had arrived--steaks, and pork chops, and hamburgers cooked rare, with white bread and white flour cakes, cookies, and pies in all fancy shapes with fancy toppings! We were rich, but our health was so poor!

Even though I had arrived and was eating "rich", I missed that "poor" food! I missed the beans and rice, and beans and cornbread, and oatmeal, and greens, and garden fresh vegetables!

Now that I have discovered McDougal's Starch Solutions--I am rich again by eating poor food! I don't have to have poor health! I get to be rich in so many ways--rich with energy, rich with joy, rich with good health, rich with laughter, rich with a youthful appearance, rich with the abundance of good, fresh food I get to eat every day with no guilt, no regret, no pain! So rich!

I grew up poor too. We had six kids in our family. About the only meat we ever has was spam or chipped beef gravy on toast (SOS). I remember eating a lot of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and a lot of grits. We ate a lot out of the garden too. We had many all vegetable meals, lots of beans and soups. I never had an oz. of extra fat on me until I grew up and started eating a lot more meat and processed food. I guess that's why eating a plant based diet is like going home---it's very familiar to me. You can have all the possessions in the world, but if you are unhealthy they don't matter. I would rather have health!