Frugal Banana Bread

Most important things first. My Sister gave birth yesterday around 4:00 pm to a very healthy, beautiful and plump baby girl!!! Her name is Naomi Joyce and she weighed 10 lbs and 1 oz! Congratulations Ginger and Michael. I love you all.

Yesterday was a practice in frugality in our household. Eating all leftovers, making banana nut bread.... One important aspect of making your money go further is not wasting anything. I read that 27% of food in America is wasted (One Country's Table Scraps, Another Country's Meal). Here is a blog that tracks the wasted food problem - Wasted Food.It doesn't make sense to throw out perfectly good food when it can be used for other purposes.

If you are keeping in line with the general trend, you could possibly save 27% on your grocery bill. Being organized and knowing what ingredients you have on hand and when they go bad can keep you from making repeat or impulse purchases at the market. If you know what you have, you might even drive past that fast food restaurant. Creating other savings---hmmm?

One mantra I tell my girls is, "You can always get more, but you can't put it back." I start them off with a small amount of food, milk or juice (about an inch for liquids). This prevents having to pour expensive organic milk or juice down the drain. It might even teach them appropriate serving size and prevent obesity.

Also, we eat leftovers. They're good! We have many recipes to re-invent leftovers: eggs and rice, crawfish velvet soup (you use all the leftovers from a crawfish boil and it's to die for), chicken pot pie, sandwiches, salads...the options are as big as your imagination. Any inedible vegetable scraps get put aside for the chickens. I also give my dog appropriate scraps (She even likes lima beans scraps).

Then there is the ever wonderful Banana Nut Bread. The perfect yummy way to make use of rotting bananas. These loaves were made from 5 large rotting bananas, eggs from my hens and pecans from my back yard (shelled and put in the freezer last winter). Hopefully I will make my own butter from my own cow in the future :)! It was so delicious. Today I enjoyed a chunk with my morning coffee. Mmmmmm.. The Banana Nut Grand Canyon
Wish I could share it with you, but since I can't, here's the recipe.
Recipe: Banana Nut Bread

1 c. sugar

1 stick of butter

2 eggs

3 very ripe bananas

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

2 c. flour

1/2 c. chopped nuts (I use a lot of extra)

Cream butter, eggs and banana. In separate bowl, mix salt, baking soda, flour and sugar. While beating, add flour mixture slowly. Beat two minutes more. Stir in nuts. Put batter in greased bread pan and bake at 350 degrees for one hour or until fork comes out clean.

Recipe: Leftover Rice and Eggs

Fry several eggs over easy and set aside. Fry rice in a little butter until slightly crispy. Throw eggs into rice, bust the yolks. Stir fry quickly and remove from heat. Salt and pepper to taste. This is a very old Cajun breakfast recipe to make use of leftover rice. They also have a "lost bread recipe" which is really just french toast made from stale bread. Bread pudding is also a Cajun recipe to make use of stale bread.