Finally, I can boil eggs

It's funny how sometimes the seemingly easiest things can be a challenge. This is true in the kitchen as well! I don't consider myself a masterchef, but I definitely know how to cook. Not every dish that exists in the world, obviously, and not a lot of dishes from cuisines I'm not familiar with, but I can cook. And I do cook some more elaborate foods, too. 

But it's the easiest things that I sometimes struggle with to make right. For the longest time I struggled to make a perfect boiled egg. I prefer medium soft boiled eggs, and so does my family. Not too liquid, but certainly not too hard either. Somehow that just seemed impossible to make. It was always either towards the hard boiled side, or too soft! Quite frustrating. We do like to eat boiled eggs a lot: as a snack, with sandwiches, or as a side with our meals. And i knew it had to be possible to make a perfectly boiled egg thar suits our preferences, so I wad determined to keep trying until I had perfected it. I know there are many techniques nowadays and people use egg boilers, air fryers, or instant pots. With most things, I prefer the mild fashioned way- I don't like single purpose items/appliances. And I don't have an instant pot anyway. I'd sti like to try the air fryer one day, just for fun. But with most cooking, I prefer to stick to regular cooking pots.

I looked up a lot of tips and tricks on boiling eggs, all claiming to be THE best tip, but neither of them really worked so I figured it had to be my own way! And I finally did find the way to boil a perfect half soft boiled egg. 

I put 5 to 6 eggs in a pot with a lid, cold water, eggs directly from the fridge. Then wait till it starts to boil and time it: I boil it exactly for two minutes. If it's very small eggs, the boiling time should be decreased. Then take out all the eggs and put them together in a soup bowl- this step us important because the eggs all have a lot of residue heat, and will continue to "cook" a bit when in the boil. I leave the eggs like this for at least an hour, but usually just until we eat it- if we want eggs for lunch, I boil them early in the morning. It takes some time to cool down, even after one hour they're quite hot so I find that the easiest way. With this technique, it's important to use at least four eggs in one go, or it won't really work (yup, tried but failed!). Anyway, I'm happy to be able to boil eggs to perfection finally! 

Saving on meat expenses

Most of my readers must have noticed that we're not big on eating a lot of meat. I was pretty much raised as a vegetarian, so I'm familiar with vegetarian/vegan eating. My husband, on the other hand, was raised with a more meat heavy diet and not eating meat for a day was out of the question in my MIL's home! So you can image that was a bit of a shock for both of us when we first got married. It took a while, but after some time we did find a good balance of meat, fish, vegetarian and vegan meals. Now, my husband says he couldn't eat meat everyday anymore - regardless of the price. And this goes the same for me; I couldn't go back to completely vegetarian. 

The thing is, meat can be very expensive so for most people, it's typically the biggest expense of all their groceries. We're certainly no exception to that! (Although olive oil is getting more expensive every year and will eventually become an even bigger expense... But that's another topic.) I remember when we went through hard financial times, meat was the first thing to cut back on. There are so many people in the world for whom meat is a rare treat. And for me as a former vegetarian, it was a logical thing to do anyway, as meat is so expensive and you technically don't even need it. Not that much, anyhow. We still had it every so often though, and really enjoyed it when we did. But it was a good way to cut back on our spending. As time went by, I've just stuck with my "less meat policy", as it just hurts to pay that much for foods. There are other ways to spend the money I would have spent otherwise on all that extra meat - but that's just me, I do realise that others value meat more than we do, and that's ok. Throughout the years, I've come up with many tricks to save on meat expenses. 

First of all, the quantity: try to have meat as an ingredient, instead of the main meal. We usually have meat as a side, with carbs (grains/legumes) and vegetables being the fillers. You really don't need that much even to satisfy yourself taste wise, in my experience. There are also many examples of dishes where  meat is stretched a lot. For example, mince (ground beef) in pastas- just use a bit less. A baked chicken/rotisserie chicken can be used for at least a few meals worth of meat - you can use shredded chicken in about everything; soups, salads, rice and pasta dishes, on sandwiches, etc. And then just try to stretch the meat as much as possible. When I make pulled chicken, I stretch it by adding low cost vegetables, such as onions and shredded carrots. That way you don't even notice there isn't as much chicken in it.

The kind of meat: red meat is most expensive, so that's obviously a thing to keep in mind. In a lot of dishes, red and white meat can be used interchangeably- it will affect the taste somewhat obviously, but it's still as good. You can even use fish instead - I like using sardines instead of beef/lamb mince for making kofta, and even fish haters don't notice it's fish. I've heard that turkey is the best replacement with mince. I've never tried that, as my husband doesn't like turkey, but I'm keen to try it. Texture changes the taste so I guess turkey mince should taste different from, say, a part of the leg. You can still splurge on red meat once in a while if you want to obviously, but it's good to realize that there are cheaper options and can splurge just every so often on the more expensive favourite meat. 

Vegetarian options: I obviously had to mention this one, but I really makes so much difference in your budget! Even when I compare our local legume prices with the cheaper meats or fish, legumes are much cheaper. One kg of lentils is about €2, whereas chicken is around €5 per kg. But, a kg of dried legumes will stretch a lot better than a kg of chicken, as the lentils will expand whereas the chicken not only just doesn't expand- it actually will shrink when being baked. So you'll even save more if you take that into consideration. You obviously don't have to eat only vegetarian meals, but a few times a week will make so much difference already. What I like to do is when I batch cook, we'll have one meal with meat and the other batch without. That way it still has the flavour- meat can be such a flavour enhancer. I do this too with legumes; when I make lentil stew in advance, for example, I cook some chicken in it for extra flavour. And then I take out the chicken to have with the meal we're eating that day. You can obviously cook lentils without chicken, but it does give the dish more flavour. I also like making my own tofu and seitan, which I hadn't done in a long time but recently started doing again. I know not everyone likes tofu, but I think seitan is definitely adaptable for meat eaters compared to other plant based alternatives, as it has a bit of a meaty texture. 

Nose to tail: I've talked before about how we love nose to tail eating, which essentially means to eat ALL the parts of the animal, not just the more popular parts. Not only is it healthier but it's usually cheaper too. You don't necessarily have to buy organ meats (although I would highly recommend it!), but there are many alternatives for the more expensive cuts of meat. And that's not just the case with red meat. When I want to use chicken breast, I never ever buy a chicken breast, but instead I buy a whole chicken of which I cut the breast off, then use the remaining parts for other dishes. I usually use the legs/tighs/wings together a dish and then what remains are the frames and the necks, which makes a very good base for any soup. My husband also likes to eat the necks as is, so if I have a lot of them I might cook them up separately and only use the frames for soup. 

Using everything: we're very big on not wasting anything, and this applies even more so for meat. As it's so expensive and does have quite a big environmental impact, I just can't not be frugal with meat. I really use everything - the bones (for making bone broth), chicken skins to render, sheep fat to render, etc. Scraps also make good cat food. When I make broth with chicken necks/frames, I take off the meat after cooking which our cat obviously loves! 

A kitchen without an oven

One thing in particular has caught my attention when it comes to being frugal with utilities, and cooking in general. And that is that we don't use our oven a lot. It seems like for most people, an oven is a kitchen essential, and they'd be lost without one. The other I saw someone on a Facebook group asking what other people make if they have no oven. This was supposed to be a frugal living group, so I assumed that most of the people there were like me and used their oven occasionally. But I was wrong, and most people's responses were that they absolutely didn't know what to do without one. 

That made me thinking of my use of the oven and what I do differently from others. First of all, the frequency. Last week, I used the oven twice- once for making a cake, and once to make baked chicken. I usually bake chicken on the hob, but I sometimes like the convenience of not having to flip the chicken every 10 minutes or so since I had other things to do. The cake was a big one, and I froze about half. That's not only healthier (if I wouldn't freeze it right away we'd surely be tempted to finish it anyway), it's also more frugal - less electricity used, as well as saving money on the baking ingredients. This week, I made some cookies and muffins. However, there are also weeks that we don't use the oven at all.  So I'd say, on average it's being used once a week. Another thing is that we don't eat casseroles as much. We rarely do, in fact. I like to make lasagna on special occasions- all of the ingredients are quite expensive, and it's a time consuming meal to make when you make about everything from scratch. Every so often, I make Tunisian tajine (which is like a crustless quiche), and makarouna bechamel, also known as "Arabic mac 'n cheese". But for the most part, we don't do a lot of other casseroles. Probably partly due to the fact that casseroles are considered cold weather meals (in our family, anyway), and around these parts, the cold weather doesn't last that long. For most of the year, it's nice warm weather or unbearable hot. And while I don't mind eating hot foods during the summer, for some reason, casseroles are a bit different. They're just too "heavy", and usually containing dairy of some sort which makes a meal more expensive. Casseroles aren't really a thing in Tunisian cooking anyway, and while I do make dishes from other cuisines from time to time, it's Tunisian foods that are our go to meals. Pizzas are a rare occasion here too, and a rare treat. Bread is either purchased at the nearby bakery or if it's homemade, it's usually stove top flatbread. 

All in all, I think that an oven isn't really an absolute necessity, although it's a nice extra. I've had people asking me what in the world we have for dinner if we don't use our oven regularly. Well, just that: soups, pasta dishes, potatoes, rice dishes, couscous, stews, and I think I can go on and on. I, on the other hand,wonder what they do serve for dinner if they can't function without an oven! My husband was raised in an oven-free household for the most part; my MIL didn't have one until he moved out of the house. And now she doesn't really use the oven anymore and is just used as a storage space. My MIL did have a "wonder pan", a pan you use on the hob and functions as an alternative for an oven. She used this when making cake, among other things. For cookies, the communal oven (which I wrote a post about earlier) was used. She didn't really make casseroles and when baking bread she used the tabouna (outdoor oven, which is comparable to an Indian tandoor). This bread tasted absolutely amazing. 

Here's some other ways we save on electricity when it comes to the oven, other than just not using it very frequently: we have a toaster oven, albeit a relatively large one, but still smaller than most average ovens. This takes less electricity. When we do bake, we tend to do a "baking marathon", as preheating the oven does take more electricity. So we might make muffins and right after that, cookies or bread for example. This is actually quite an old fashioned thing to save on utilities- most women did a baking day once a week. Also, I might be a bit stubborn but I go against some conventional "rules" when it comes to baking. I rarely adjust temperature, for example, and our oven is set at 200° c (which in reality is more like 180° c - talking about stubbornness, ovens kind of do have their own characters I guess 😄). I also don't really preheat, which is an advantage of having a separate/toaster oven, as they heat up much quicker. I turn off the oven before it's "officially" ready, and make use of the residue heat. Yes, I do this when baking cakes too. I must say that I usually stick to the easier recipes, so I'm not sure how that would work out with more complicated recipes. 

Anyway, those were some insights on the use of ovens. I could definitely live without one, although it's a nice extra to me. But a necessity it is not (in my opinion, anyhow). 

Batch cooking

I already mentioned how I love batch cooking. It saves time, cooking fuel, and effort, allowing me to focus on other chores around the house on days I don't have to cook, but only reheat our previously cooked meal. 

People have mixed opinions about batch cooking. Probably the main misconception is that when you batch cook, you have to make do with a very repetitive way of eating. I don't necessarily think that we have to vary like in the way it's being propagated by most modern day nutritionists (fueled by the "food" industry). A so called "varied diet" is quite overrated in my opinion. The funny thing is though, people who think they eat very varied often are only doing so with their dinner while being very repetitive when it comes to breakfasts and lunches. Whereas for us, it's very rare that we eat the same breakfast for two days in a row. So I guess that despite batch cooking, we still do vary enough. 

If I batch cook a certain dish, we usually eat the same every other day. So, for example, if I make a stew on Monday, we have it again on Wednesday. And on Tuesday and Thursday, we either eat another batch cooked meal, or I make two separate meals. Two sperate cooked meals can happen because I don't batch cook every dish, although I do batch cook most of the dishes we eat. I also do is what I call "half batch cooking". I may cook up a pasta sauce and have it with different kinds of pasta and side dishes/protein sources. Or I steam a large batch of couscous and we have it with different sauces. Even if this method isn't strictly batch cooking, it still saves a lot of time, because more than half of the work has already been done. And an additional bonus is that it's still a bit less repetitive than eating the exact dish being eaten twice. 

I also batch cook ingredients such as the legumes that we use as a source of protein in many dishes. Since some legumes take up a long time to cook, it's best to cook them in larger amounts. As we speak, there's a pot of chickpeas boiling now. I'll devide that in several portions; a part for tonight's dinner and the rest goes in the freezer for later use. I do the same with lentils, despite the fact that they don't have nearly such a long cooking time. Even if it doesn't necessarily saves a lot of cooking time, it saves a lot of energy -and my sanity. If I make a legume based stew, I usually cook a double batch too. It doesn't go in the freezer usually, but we just finish it within a few days, not necessarily for dinner but for lunches too. I also keep small portions in the freezer for my mother in law, since she can't tolerate everything I cook, so I don't always have to cook separately for her. When baking bread, I also make bigger quantities and freeze is right after it's cooled down. That way, we can enjoy freshly baked bread with a bit less of effort. 

Some other concern which is mentioned often is food safety. Even though I have some anxieties when it comes to food, food safety of home cooked foods is not something I worry about a lot. If you think you get sick of eating certain foods, you will probably get sick (in most cases). The thing is, people are afraid of storing foods in the fridge and eat it within 3 days or so- to me, that's just silly. If that's the case, what do you need a fridge for anyway? Most vegetables will keep outside the fridge. In fact, some last even longer outside the fridge, when stored properly. I think most foods can be stored in fridges longer than the official guidelines says. I usually know how long a certain type of cooked food will last, based on experience. If I'm not sure whether or not I'm using up something that's been there for a few days already, and I'm neither planning to freeze it, I simply reheat it to the point that it's been boiled thoroughly. That way, foods can technically be stored for ages if it's then put away again in a new, clean container. Because any bacteria have been boiled dead, it's as if you've cooked up something freshly. By this method, I've rescued quite a lot foods from spoilage. I know this might be a bit controversial and certainly not officially advised, but it does work for us and I have no concerns whatsoever. 

The taste is yet another concern, and I find it a bit interesting that I've heard this concern more than once, because my experience is quite the contrary. In my experience, most dishes improve as they age. This is also why slow cooking methods are much better, taste wise. The faster food cooks, the less taste is has (with a few exceptions such as stir frying). Especially soups, sauces and stews taste much better the next day. This is why I sometimes make certain foods in advance. So in my opinion, this is another benefit of batch cooking; the next batch is even tastier! That's defenitely a win win if you ask me. 

When I was pregnant with my youngest (11 years ago... Time certainly flies!), I batch cooked a lot. The 2nd batch went directly into the freezer to have some quick meals during my postpartum period. It turned out to be very handy as I was hospitalized for a week after giving birth and my husband was taking care of our oldest daughter while being injured himself, after a car hit him. If you have a surgery planned, having a baby, or knowing you'll have an insanely busy time ahead for whatever reason, batch cooking and then freezing that food is really a good solution to still have homemade food with less effort. It's almost like a takeaway, but healthier and cheaper. And about everything can be kept in the freezer, you just need to know how to store certain foods. What I also love about batch cooking is that there's always foods for unexpected visitors. Yes, people will technically be "served leftovers" but I don't see a reason to be squeamish about that. It's not different than freshly cooked foods. And I've never heard that people had anything against it either, around these parts anyhow. 

So, despite all the objections people may have, I love batch cooking and will probably continue doing so for the rest of my life, as long as we have a fridge.