Bone broth times two

Meat is very expensive where we live. We don't have meat daily, especially red meat, which is more like an occasional treat rather than a daily necessity for us. So when we do have meat, I want to take advantage of it to the fullest. Part of that includes making bone broth. Not only is it a very tasty drink, it's also very nutritious, and a great way to flavour up many otherwise meatless dishes. I rather don't think of all those years of bones being thrown out when I didn't know there was such a thing as saving bones to make broth... But then again, it's just a learning experience. And perhaps I can inspire someone wherever they might live, who doesn't have a clue about what to do with bones to start making their own broth. Isn't that the fun thing of blogging? 🙂

So in June we butchered a lamb, and it wasn't until past Sunday that I used up the very last bag of lamb meat. I already made bone broth with around half of the bones a few months ago, but there still was a bag of bones in the freezer, waiting to be used. Everytime I wanted to make broth there was something that came up, and since it's supposed to be on the stove for hours there obviously has to be someone present in the house all day. It also has to be good weather- not terribly cold so that my north African tiled cuisine walls won't fog up too much, and preferably not even windy, so I can open a windows during the process. Yes, I'm a bit demanding I guess! 😉

But on Monday, I figured it was the perfect day to do some bone broth making - perfect weather circumstances, and not a lot of other food prep planned (or it wouldn't fit on the hob). You essentially don't have to do a lot - apart from being there, just in case. So that day the entire house smelled lovely. My children would disagree, but I absolutely love the smell of lamb broth. Most people when making bone broth apparently leave it to simmer for 24 hours, but that doesn't seem possible for me, so I put the heat off when I went to bed. Since it's quite a large pot and steaming hot, I just left it to cool down overnight. The next morning, when I came in the kitchen it was still a bit warm. So I just strained it (because of the seasonings I added) and transferred most of the broth into bottles to freeze for later use. I also kept some in the fridge to use right away. For some reason, it feels very reassuring to have those bottles there in the freezer - always being able to make a nice pot of soup out of that lovely broth! 

But here's where it's getting a bit extra frugal . After straining the broth, I put the bones back into the put, added seasonings again, filled the pot with water and there I had yet another day of making bone broth! Yes, apparently those bones can be reused. I found this out not that long ago and I knew I had to try it. This was actually Mt 2nd time of reusing the bones, and both times the 2nd batch of broth came out fine, albeit a bit less strong, but still good enough worth all the hours of simmering that broth. Perhaps it could be used a 3rd time even. That's what others tried with beef bones anyway, but I figured that since beef bones are obviously much bigger than lamb bones, it wouldn't be worth the effort and will come out too watered down, so I think for the time being I'm just sticking with only reusing the bones once. 

So that was a bit about making bone broth - why I do it, and how I make it extra frugal. Today, I'll be cooking up a pot of rice for my family, using the "2nd batch" of broth. And I'll enjoy a nice mug of broth for lunch. 

Egg replacements

We've probably read or heard all about the egg shortages in the US lately- that is, if some of us aren't affected directly by the shortages. While we don't live in the US, nor do we eat US imported eggs (as far as I know anyhow), eggs still aren't quite as cheap as they once were, so it definitely won't hurt to reconsider the amount of eggs we consume. 

Since we don't have egg shortages (unlike the other products that we have shortages of, which I blogged about a while ago), we don't strictly have to ration them. But I still like to save money whenever we can, and if that's by replacing one more expensive ingredient by a cheaper ingredient, that's good! And frugality aside, there are other circumstances in which eggless options become an necessity. Think of allergies and ethical/religious dietary requirements. If you're not allergic or being religious forbidden from eating eggs but you're in company of people that are, it's still nice if you can all enjoy the same meal. That's what I would feel like anyhow- being the one with a "special" meal will make me feel left out,  but perhaps that's just a remnant of my childhood trauma when I was always the only vegetarian among the meat eaters 🙂

Enough said... let's talk egg replacements. Since there are quite a lot, I'll just go through my list! 

Banana (mashed)/applesauce: this is great for baked goods such as (pan)cakes, muffins etc. 

Sweetened condensed milk: also used for making baked goods. I remember using them to make brownies and wasn't disappointed at all! 

Corn starch: haven't used it enough honestly, but I do know that they make great French toast. In fact, I actually prefer French toast made with cornstarch now over the variety that includes eggs - even if eggs were free, I'd probably still be using corn starch! I have read (but not tried out myself) that cornstarch is also very suitable to make pancakes, muffins etc. 

Gram flour/chickpea flour: this is whet it gets a bit different. While chickpea flour is a great egg replacement, it certainly has to be used with caution as it does, obviously, have a strong chickpea flavour, which won't always taste great in sweet baked goods (unless you bake Tunisian ghorayba 7oms, or chickpea flour cookies 😉 but that's for another post!). Still, in a lot of savoury dishes, chickpea flour is a very good option. Or when you want scrambled eggs minus the eggs! If you do like the texture of chickpea flour but you're not a huge fan of the taste, you can always opt for other legume based flours, such as soy or lentil flour. I once got a bag of soy flour from a friend that she wasn't using (yes, my friends know I waste nothing, lol) and it tasted quite neutral. 

Speaking of chickpeas- chickpea aquafaba is also a terrific egg replacement that can be used in many ways, I once posted a mayonnaise recipe that uses aquafaba instead of egg. Other people even make meringue with aquafaba instead of eggs, but I'm yet to try that out. Btw, make sure it's chickpea aquafaba and not another kind of bean/pulse water. Chickpea water is really the best to use. 

Flax seeds: flax seeds are very versatile. I mostly use them in my yogurt for breakfast, but I've also used them as an egg replacement. It's usually 1 teaspoon + some water to replace one egg. To get the best result, it's best to use broken seeds, but I just grind up whole seeds in my small coffee grinder, which works perfectly. Apparently, chia seeds function the same as flax seeds, but I'm not a chia seed fan so haven't tried that myself. 

Tofu: if you don't really like the chickpea-y flavour, you still can make scrambled "egg" by using tofu. 

Cream/milk: when you neef an egg specifically for an egg wash for your bread, cream or even milk seem to work as a decent replacement. I've heard that some people have even used pasta water... Not sure how great it would work, so iv you're trying it, do so at your own risk. 

Mayonnaise: apparently this works in savoury dishes such as casseroles as well as certain baked goods as cake, but don't hold me accountable as I've only vaguely remember once using mayonnaise for these purposes 

No eggs at all: you may find yourself in the situation with no eggs and no egg replacements, or just can't be bothered to use any substitutes. The good news is that in many cases you can just leave out the eggs altogether. I've made eggless cakes, pancakes, muffins, and cookies... sometimes you need to alter the recipe a bit, or switch to another recipe but it can be possible. 

Tightwad tip: repurposing old towels

As of lately, we had quite a few towels that were thinning out and weren't really suitable for drying ourselves anymore. However, that doesn't mean to just toss them, there are still many uses for old towels. We did buy some new ones recently. Well, "new" as in thrifted, but in perfectly good shape! I really like how these thrifted towels seems to be of better quality than brand new ones. Unfortunately, bad quality is being used for most stuff nowadays!

Here's some ways I use old towels.  

Handkerchief: I use these a lot because I have a chronic cold. I prefer them over regular handkerchiefs, as they're usually a lot softer. They also tend to absorb more- even when they're thinned out. 

Washcloth: my daughter likes to sew and she made a few washcloths out of an old towel. We use washcloths a lot, since we use a bar of soap instead of gels when taking a shower. These washcloths may be a bit thinner than the usual washcloths, but still perfectly functional for this purpose. 

Reusable makeup pads: essentially the same idea as the handkerchiefs, but just cut in smaller squares. I do want to add that you have to make sure to always use a laundry bag to wash these when putting them into the washer! A friend of mine told me that a few of those pads almost ruined her washer, with even a lot of water damage on the floors. So beter be careful. 

Cleaning rags: I've used old towels as cleaning rags a lot too. I like their texture for cleaning, as it's somewhat similar to microfiber- minus the microplastics that come with many microfiber cloths! 

Cat: our cat always love to lay down on something, even during the summer, he doesn't like the bare floor. So I use old towels for him to lay on. I've read that some people even make cat toys out of old towels, but I'm yet to try that. I don't know if he'll like that anyway, as my boy is more of an outdoor cat, coming home just to catch up on sleep. 

Using an old towel as is: I like to keep at least one towel intact (there is one with a very retrospect design and a label with 'made in West Germany', so that's a very old one!). When I treat my hair with henna and I'm afraid it's going to be messy and my hair is leaking still some reddish water after rinsing, to protemy clothes, for example. Or when I rub my arm with oil/cream when my skin has dried out that much it starts to hurt, and I don't want to make a mess of my pillows and sheets. I also like to dry the bathroom floor with a towel. I do use a squeegee, but especially during the winter it dries a bit slowly, so I usually wipe it with a towel to make it as dry as possible (yes, I know some people use the very same towel for this that they use to dry off themselves. But we defenitely use our towel more than once, so that's not really an option in that case.

Those are just some examples, and I'm sure there are so many other reasons for keeping at least one old towel. Waste not want not! 

Lots of tomatoes! + recipes

It's all about tomatoes lately at our house! Theyre in season now, and very cheap. We bought a lot at the souk, and then we were gifted even more by our neighbour, whose aunt lives on a farm and apparently had a very good harvest this year. So I've been making lots of tomato/marinara sauce. I'm also planning to make slata mechouia, which is a Tunisian condiment quite similar to salsa. 

I've used the tomato sauce as is in a pasta dish, and also made a scrumptious tomato soup. My husband and children aren't the biggest fans of soup (tell me you're north African without telling youre north African 😆), but they all gobbledit up, it was that good! Best thing is, the soup was beyond easy to make - that is, if you don't include making the huge pot of sauce. There was still a lot of sauce left, so I used that sauce to can. It's a bit work, but it's so convenient to have some jars of canned food at home. I love that it doesn't take up precious freezer space - while we do have a relatively freezer, there seems to be never enough space somehow. So if I can save space by canning instead of freezing, I'm happy to do so. 

I want to share the recipes, but as always, just take the amounts as a guide- just add less or more seasoning, oil, onions etc. 

For the sauce, I used about 2/3 bucket full of tomatoes, diced into pieces. This was all chopped before starting. Then I chopped 4 large onions. I sautéed the onions in a generous amount of olive oil, then added two heaped teaspoons of garlic paste and the seasonings: black pepper, paprika, parsley, basil, oregano, sage, and rosemary. I also added salt. Then I added about half of the chopped tomatoes, stirred well so the tomatoes would be mixed with the seasonings, and then added the remaining tomatoes, and stirred again. I then added some bay leaves. Then just let it simmer until enough water has evaporated (this depends on your personal preference, some people prefer thick sauce whereas others prefer the sauce to be runnier). Towards the end, I blended it shortly (on the lowest setting, my immersion blender has 5 settings), then let it cook a bit more. Keep an eye on it and stirr regularly! I made two of these pots of sauce. Perhaps I will even make more if we find/get more cheap or free tomatoes. As I mentioned, you can use whatever seasonings you like, even keeping it as basic as possible with just salt and pepper, so it's more versatile without a distinct flavour profile. 

As for the soup, I used about 2 cups of sauce, diluted with water and blended (in a regular blender which you use for making smoothies) until very smooth. I then made a simple white sauce, and added the tomato "juice" to that. The remaining sauce in the blender was diluted with more water - to make cleaning up more easy. I poured this in a small saucepan, added two vegetable bullion cubes (could have use real brothbut I guess I was lazy!) and about 2/3 cup of vermicelli. I let this boil until soft and then added it to the soup. Easy but delicious! I served the soup with homemade dinner rolls and egg salad. These kind of meals are among our favourite; simple yet delicious. 

Rescuing foods - produce edition

Here's a few tips to save your produce from spoilage. Of course it's better to plan everything perfectly in advance and try not even to come near that stage, but sometimes life comes in the way. Fortunately, there are still ways to rescue produce, even when that doesn't seem to be a possibility. 

Carrots 🥕: softened carrots can be firmed up again by soaking them in water for as long as needed. The softer they are, the longer they need to soak. As we're speaking, I put some carrots to soak that had become way too flexible. They soaked overnight and are firm again! 

Tomatoes 🍅: spots need to be removed obviously. Our cat loves tomatoes and gobbles it up as if it were meat. So spotted tomatoes become cat food in our house! Tomatoes that aren't ripe enough (think green tomatoes) can be used in a variety of ways, I read some about a green tomato chutney, but never tried that myself (I have never come across unripe tomatoes here honestly, but I know it's a common problem for gardeners at the end of the season). 

Cucumbers 🥒: Like carrots, they can become flexible too. Especially the breed of cucumbers they sell here, which is a bit different from what I was used to in the Netherlands. If the soaking trick doesn't work, I usually just cook them. They resemble cooked courgette in taste and texture. This is also an idea to use up accidentally frozen cucumbers. Even if you don't have to "rescue" them but you've become bored of eating raw cucumber day after day, it's still nice to get some variety and cook up yourself some cucumber. 

Lettuce 🥬: The most common problem with leafy greens and especially lettuce is probably wilting. Rconsidering the way of consuming it isn't restricted to cucumbers, and I have added lettuce to soups and stews. Of course, you won't end up with a lot, so unless you have a massive amount of lettuce, don't use it as your main ingredient. It really does give some extra flavour to many dishes - you can use it in place of using spinach, kale, chard or whatever leafy greens you're used to. If you insist on eating your wilted lettuce raw, you can firm it up a bit with ice cubes. 

Potatoes 🥔: Just like carrots, softened potatoes can be soaked in water to make them more firm. 

Apples 🍎: I must admit that I'm not the biggest fruit lover in the world. And while I eat apples, if there's something I especially hate, it's softened apples. It's like biting into a sponge or something 😬 A few days ago we had some soft apples again. While I will absolutely not eat them as is, I don't mind cooked apples. So, I cut off the bad spots, cored them and cut the apples into small chunks. It was a great addition to my oatmeal porridge, and a dash of cinnamon made it extra nice. If you have more apples, making applesauce is a great idea too. But I had just three small ones, with quite a few spots, so cooked chunks of apple it was. There are many other ways to use up soft apples. You can add them to cakes, muffins, make apple crisp, apple bread, even stews...  There's so much to choose from really, there is just not an excuse for tossing that soft apple. (OK sometimes there is... But I'm talking about normal situations lol)

Watermelon 🍉: Sometimes they sell watermelons here that are not that tasty. What to do with a bland watermelon? I have used them for making cold soup, smoothies (sometimes it was just "juice" of watermelon, some sugar and water), even for making jam/syrups. I also tried to dehydrate watermelon, which was quite a fun project, which the kids loved because it was basically just turned into candy! And you can even fry watermelon- it's a bit like a fish/meat replacement for sushi (of course, it can be served in any way but apparently some vegans use it for their sushi). Yes, watermelon is very versatile. And remember not to toss the rinds as they can be cooked (and used as a vegetable), as well as fermented or pickled. 

Bananas 🍌: especially during the summer, Bananas ripen fast. But fortunately, baking with bananas is really good- some people buy bananas on purpose for certain baked goods. They make a great egg replacement and give a very nice flavour overall. In some cuisines, bananas are being used in savory dishes too. My Somali friend from the Netherlands always had a banana as a side with her dinner. If you're having banana with your dinner, a few spots aren't as annoying as they are when eating them as is. 

Melon 🍈: we once bought a melon that appeared to be bland and also not soft enough. I cooked it up and made "pumpkin" soup with it. No one noticed it was melon and not pumpkin. 

These were just a few types of fruit, but all fruit in general can be frozen and used for smoothies. 

Courgettes/zucchini: if it's a bit too bland (usually when it's a massive one from the garden), you can make "mock pineapple", make courgette muffins, or add it to dishes in which it isn't the main ingredient. 

Lemons 🍋: if it's starting to become a bit dry, why not dehydrate the lemon altogether? Dehydrated lemons (also known as black limes) make a perfect addition to many middle eastern/central Asian dishes. 

This was all I could think of right now... Possibly this post will be edited when I come up with more ideas. 

Homemade sandwich spread

Years ago, I ate a lot of Heinz sandwich spread- it was a good vegetarian option in a time when there was not a lot to choose from besides cheese. Being frugal as I was, I later switched to the generic brands when they developed their own version. Even though I wasn't vegetarian anymore, I still liked it, and still didn't eat meat on bread. Now I make my own, as they don't sell anything like this around these parts. The homemade version is obviously healthier, but I find it way more flavourful as well. As it's quite perishable compared to the store bought version, I don't make large batches at once. Or I only prepare the vegetables so I can mix in the remaining ingredients on the spot. This past week, I made a batch sandwich spread to have on baguette with lentil soup. There was some leftovers for the next day. When it comes to perishable foods, I'm always a bit anxious not to make too much as I'm so cautious about wasting anything. 

I always make it a bit different, depending on what's in season and what I have at home. This is how I made it: 

An onion, cut in half and sliced very thinly    Grated carrots, turnips and courgette              Some homemade sauerkraut                            Seasonings: salt, red pepper flakes, dried parsley, and garlic

Mayonnaise and double concentrated tomato paste 

Sautee the onion and then add the carrots, sautee this with the onion for about a minute, then add the seasonings, turnip, and courgette. Stirr well and cover your pot with a lid. The turnip and courgette will release liquid so don't add any liquid. After about 10 minutes, check the doneness and if it's tender but there's still some liquid, let it evaporate without the lid. Then allow to cool completely and when it's cooled down enough, add the mayonnaise and tomato paste. The tomato paste isn't essential, but it kind of duplicates the store bought version that I liked the most. Then add some well drained sauerkraut. You can add any other fermented or pickled vegetables, this is just what I had on hand. The fermented vegetables not only adds in some extra nutrients, it's also a flavour enhancer- there should be a bit of tangy flavour in this sandwich spread, in my opinion. 

Just use your creativity and remember to use what you have, rather than to run to the store for single items. No mayonnaise? No problem! Make your own, or use yogurt/cream cheese/even leftover bechamel sauce. Use any veggie you like. No fermented/pickled vegetables? Add in some lemon zest and juice, or vinegar etc.