Eat Vegan on $4 a Day by Ellen Jaffe Jones

With the economy not always thriving like most of us would like, it’s so important to find ways to try and save money. Unfortunately, a lot of people have a misconception that saving money is buying a couple of burgers from a fast food joint every day for lunch rather than making their own meals from scratch. A few years ago I created a new category called Frugal Eats which was meant to help show people that they can save money by making their own food. While I don’t always follow my own advice in the grocery store and the kitchen, I still believe that we can cut corners without sacrificing health and good quality food. Thankfully it appears I’m not the only one who believes this way.

A few weeks ago I was sent a copy of Eat Vegan on $4 a Day, “a game plan for the budget conscious cook” by Ellen Jaffe Jones (The Veg Coach). This slim book is full of advice on how you can approach eating with both your wallet and health in mind.

Be an educated consumer at your grocery store and in your kitchen

The first few sections of the book focus on making you more of an educated consumer. So many of us, myself included at times, go to the grocery store without thinking about how many meals a pound of beans is going to support or how much each serving is going to cost. Her advice is about empowering you so that you know exactly what you’re getting when you shop for food.

One of the things I really like about the first part of the book is that there are several tables full of practical data to help you be informed when you are shopping for recipes. For example, prices tend to fluctuate quite a bit, but the thing that will always remain the same is how many cups of cooks beans or grains came from x-amount of dry beans and grains. There are a couple of tables that list out many varieties of both. There is also a table where you can enter in your own price comparisons between stores (i.e. if you were to price out the cost of dry split peas).

Now you know how much each serving costs

Most of the book, though, are recipes from breakfasts to salads to desserts. I had planned on making at least one or two of her recipes, but unfortunately I didn’t have chance, so I can’t tell you how they taste. But what I can say is that I like how each recipe shows how much each serving costs. Some servings cost more than others – for example, the Cabbage Wraps on page 96 cost $2.50 per serving (the recipe gives two servings), while the Rice and Beans, Rice and Beans recipe cost $0.25 per serving (this recipe yields 10 servings). It also seems that some recipes are more suited to a smaller household of one or two people (several recipes have one serving), but you can always do the math and adjust to how many people you’re feeding.

One thing to keep in mind when you are looking at recipes is that they are all priced based on in-season, and likely conventional, produce prices. Not everyone buys things locally or in season, and not everyone can afford organic, so the price may fluctuate for you depending on your location and how you eat throughout the year.

Overall, I would say that this book is a good investment for someone who is trying to learn how to feed their family for less, but still provide healthy food. The information contained all throughout is easy to understand, and while it may be challenging or time-consuming at first to price out meals I think that the point is to get you to a place where you understand roughly how much each dish or meal costs. If you have ever counted calories, it’s a pretty similar process in my opinion – after a while you just automatically know how many calories a banana and a couple tablespoons of peanut butter you’re going to be getting. With this, it’s just a matter of time before you’re saving money automatically.

Visit www.vegcoach.com to learn more, like the book on Facebook, and purchase it online.

Giveaway!

Two – yes two – lucky people are going to get their very own copies of Eat Vegan on $4 a Day by Ellen Jaffe Jones! Here’s what you need to know:

The contest has ended will run until midnight (12:00am) on Monday, October 3, 2011, and it is only open to those of you that live in the United States and Canada. The winners will be selected via a random number generator and announced the following day in this post. I will email you if you’ve won.

To enter, answer the following: How do you try to save money when it comes to food?

Here are the winners, selected at random via Random.org. Check your inboxes for an email from me!

Giveaway winners! Congrats e and Jill!

Be sure to read everyone’s comments for some great advice on how you can save even more money in the kitchen!

Kidney Beans

This is another post in the Frugal Eats series, as well as the How to series. Cooking beans is both cost-effective and so much more delicious!

At least once a month, the waft of cooking beans fills our home. There are a lot of cooking and baking smells that I love, but beans slowly simmering for a couple of hours is probably in my top ten, maybe even top five list of most favorite smells. It’s one of those smells that envelopes you, like a warm sweater on a cool day. It’s both comforting and nourishing, and I find myself smiling more as it drifts from the kitchen into every other room.

When we do break down and buy beans in a can a part of me feels like I am doing an injustice to not only my wallet (more on that in a bit), but to the beans and myself, too. When you cook your own beans you control the amount of salt and other ingredients, as well as the tenderness. Cooking gives you control, and allows you to experience a more flavorful meal.

Usually when I do one of these Frugal Eats posts, I do a financial breakdown of how much it costs. I will do it again this time, but I will use only one type of bean as an example because oftentimes different kinds of beans can cost varying amounts. I will use kidney beans as an example, and I am referring to online grocery store prices, so you may find that the cost varies from your own shopping experience. Also be aware that these are U.S. products and dollars.

I bet I know what you’re thinking – you’re looking at that last column and wondering where the savings are because there is only a $0.02 difference. Well, if you were to purchase that bag of beans at the same price as the canned beans, it would be exactly a dollar more. Of course, if a dollar doesn’t matter to you, I am hopeful that taste (and smell!) does because it’s still so much better to keep that dollar to spend on some yummy ingredients and spices to throw into that pot of beans.

Of course, if your concern is that you have never made beans and think that making your own beans is hard, be happy in knowing that it’s not. It’s so easy, you can probably do it in your sleep (although I wouldn’t advise it!). Part of what makes it so easy is using a slow cooker, but even if you were to cook beans on the stove it would still be easy. That said, these instructions are for a slow cooker, so if you do not have one I recommend these posts on how to cook beans using a pressure cooker or cooking in a regular pot on the stove.

How to Cook Dry Beans in a Slow Cooker

• 1 pound dry beans (i.e. kidney, pinto, lima, navy, etc.)
• Water (I never measure, so bear with me)

The first thing you always need to get into the habit of doing is sorting your beans.

Sorting dry beans

When you put all of your beans out on a flat surface, just pull a few beans at a time out and examine to make sure that nothing suspect is in your beans. Sometimes you’ll have a pristine batch, but sometimes you’ll find unrelated beans or wheat (not good if you’re gluten-free), rocks, dirt and even bugs.

After you have sorted your beans, put them in a colander and rinse well, using your hands.

Rinsing dry beans

You can then put your beans into a large pot or bowl, cover with water and let them soak overnight. Or, if you want to make your beans the same day, use this faster method which I use all the time.

Put your beans into a large pot and cover with about an inch or two of water (see, I don’t measure). Put it on the stove and boil for a couple of minutes.

Boiling red kidney beans

After it has boiled for a couple of minutes, turn off the heat and let the beans sit for two hours. After they have sat for a couple of hours the water will be cloudy (in the case of the kidney beans, it’s a pinkish, mauve color).

Soaked kidney beans

Put the beans back into your strainer and thoroughly rinse them a second time.

Rinsing soaked kidney beans

Place your beans into your slow cooker, cover with about half an inch to an inch of water and cook on high for approximately one and a half to two hours. This time varies depending on what kinds of beans you are using, so you will need to check to be sure your beans are done before you remove them from your slow cooker.

Cooking dry beans in a slow cooker

(Notice that this is actually primarily a rice cooker, but I don’t even remember the last time we made rice in this thing! It’s perfect for making beans and steaming veggies.)

About half an hour or an hour before your beans are done cooking add in your spices and other ingredients. There are so many different ways that you can spice up your beans, so experiment. We really love spicing things up with onions and garlic, a little bit of cayenne pepper or tomatoes. It’s really up to you how flavorful you get. Stay tuned for a post on how I used these kidney beans!

Do you make your own beans? If so, do you use a slow cooker, pressure cooker or regular pot?

Fried Green Tomatoes

Summer conjures up a lot of culinary tastes and images for me, from corn on the cob to peach cobbler to strawberry lemonade. It’s a season of indulgence and surprise as I rediscover loved fruits and vegetables from my childhood, especially since everything is dripping with freshness and none of it is vacuum-packed in plastic.

One food from my childhood that I had just yesterday was fried green tomatoes. If you have never had one, and if you are one of those people that do not like tomatoes, you’ll be amazed at the unexpected flavor and texture. Fried green tomatoes taste nothing like tomatoes – they are tart and lemony, and while they are tender after fried, they do not have the same mouthfeel as a ripe red tomato. It’s a treat that I allow myself only a few times during the summer, but only because I often cannot bear to take a tomato before its prime. Still, if you’re swimming in tomatoes, consider trying this as a new way to enjoy your bounty.

Fried Green Tomatoes

• 1 to 2 unripe, green tomatoes
• 1 tablespoon cornmeal
• 1 tablespoon white flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• Olive oil or vegetable oil

When you select your tomatoes, be sure that they are very firm to the touch and do not show signs of ripening. You can still fry them as they are just turning a tinge of pink, but it’s best to use them when they are not ripe at all.

Fresh green tomato

Slice your tomatoes thickly.

Slicing a green tomato

In a small bowl, mix together your dry ingredients. I usually just guestimate the amount of cornmeal and flour I’ll need, so do not worry if the measurements are not precise.

Mixing together the dry ingredients

Take a tomato slice and press it into the dry mixture, then turn it over and press again. Make sure that each side is well covered, but be sure to knock off any excess.

Coating the green tomatoes

Heat a skillet over medium to medium-high heat, then add a tablespoon or two of oil. Once it’s hot, add your coated tomatoes to the pan.

Frying green tomatoes

Let them fry for a few minutes, then check to see how they are coming along. Once they are golden brown on each side, remove from the pan and put them on a paper towel-lined plate to get rid of some of the extra oil.

Checking the green tomatoes

Let the tomatoes cool for a few minutes, then serve.

Because tomatoes are naturally juicy, they will become a little soggy and tender, but they still are delicious. You may also find that you’ll need to add extra salt once they are on your plate.

YUM.

Have you ever had fried green tomatoes? Did you like them? And what is your favorite method of frying them up?

Just your basic hummus

This is another post in the Frugal Eats series, meant to help you save money in the kitchen.

First off, a confession – I am not a big fan of hummus. But more specifically, I am not a fan of bland hummus. It has to have flavor, preferably through the incorporation of lots of fresh garlic, and it has to be as smooth as possible, meaning it should spend some quality time in the food processor. Hummus overall, though, has grown on me over the last year or two. It used to be that I disliked it entirely, but my husband has made some good batches, and I’m learning how to improve it each time I make it, too.

Even though I still have to perfect hummus, I can tell you that if you’re looking for a good base recipe, this is it. It is also super cheap to make, which is a bonus for both hummus lovers and recession haters alike. The most expensive ingredient is tahini (if you use it – there are hummus recipes out there that do not use tahini), and olive oil which is optional.

Basic Hummus
This recipe makes about four cups of hummus. If thinned, it will yield a larger batch.

• 2 cups dried chickpeas or garbanzos (this is the same thing)
• Lemon juice from 1 or 2 lemons
• 2 tablespoons tahini
• 2-4 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
• 2 teaspoons salt or to taste
• Paprika (optional)
• Olive oil (optional)

Sort and rinse the dried chickpeas, and place in a large pan and cover with water about an inch or inch and a half above the chickpeas.

Chickpeas, also known as garbanzos

Boil on the stove for approximately two minutes, then turn off the heat and let it sit for two hours. (Alternatively, you can soak the chickpeas overnight. Boiling just speeds up the process if you want to make a batch the same day that you use them in a recipe or meal.)

Boiling chickpeas for two minutes

After the two hours is up, drain and rinse the chickpeas, then put them back on the stove and cover with about an inch of water and let simmer for two or two and a half hours on low to medium heat. You will want to check it periodically to see if you need to add more water, but if you keep a lid on your pan your water should not boil away as fast. Alternatively, if you have a slow cooker, you can put the chickpeas in there and let them simmer for two and a half hours on high.

Cooking the chickpeas or garbanzos in a slow cooker

Once the chickpeas are finished cooking they should be tender. Drain and rinse them and put them into a food processor and start to blend.

Starting to blend the chickpeas

You’ll want to blend for a couple of minutes, but it will be difficult to get everything well blended at this point. Add in the juice of one or two lemons, and blend again.

Adding in lemon juice

Add the tahini and salt, and blend some more.

In case you have never used sesame tahini before, it resembles peanut butter, but I’ll warn you – it is very bitter, so I wouldn’t recommend using it on its own outside of recipes. Unless you like bitter. A lot.

Sesame tahini

Add in the fresh garlic and blend until smooth.

Adding some garlic to the food processor

You’ll find that the hummus is quite thick at this point, so I would advise taste testing and determining if you should add more lemon juice. You may also want to add just ordinary water to thin it out, but I wouldn’t do more than a few tablespoons at a time. You don’t want the hummus to be runny, but neither do you want it to be too thick.

I would also recommend dividing this into a couple of batches and playing around with adding spices and other flavors. Of course, if you like just plain hummus then you can serve with a little paprika and olive oil on top, and provide raw vegetables, chips or pita to dip. You can also use hummus as an alternative to vegan mayonnaise on sandwiches.

Fresh hummus served with paprika and olive oil

Like I said in the beginning of this post, this is very inexpensive to make. If you find that you rely on store-bought hummus you will discover that you will save yourself a lot of money if you make your own. Not convinced? Let’s price it out. (Note that I am using grocery store prices from stores which list their prices online. You won’t necessarily pay the same price for the hummus you purchase, so this should be used as a general guide for how much money you may be able to save if you were to make your own hummus. My apologies if my math is wrong. I was the kid who cried in math class because it just didn’t make sense to me.)

So let’s say that you typically purchase either an 8-ounce container of plain or classic hummus or a larger 16-ounce container. You could be spending anywhere from $3.99 for the small to $8.99 for the large, and if you buy some of the other flavors, the price could fluctuate. But instead, you decide to purchase a 16-ounce bag of dried chickpeas for $1.65, and a 16-ounce jar of tahini for $11.15. You also choose to purchase lemons which can run for about $0.33 a piece. We’ll assume that you already have olive oil, salt and paprika on hand, and I won’t include the price of garlic since it is typically inexpensive. How much could you save if you made it instead of purchasing it at the store?

In this particular price breakdown you are spending 495% more for 16 ounces and 418% more for 8 ounces if you purchase it at the store vs. making it at home. Add up how frequently you purchase hummus and you’ll see how beneficial making it at home could be for your budget. I admit that we still purchase hummus from time to time, so we still pay more than we ought to, but if we have the time and the ingredients we almost always prefer to make it ourselves.

Do you make your own hummus? Do you have a favorite way of making it?

This is yet another post in my series of how to save money in the kitchen. I haven’t priced out how much this costs this time, because this is more about making do with what you have. If you have these few ingredients on hand or others (like grapes or other berries of some kind), it can be very inexpensive to make. Cheers!

Last weekend was our first official hot weekend of Spring. It was the kind of weekend where the air was sticky and warm, and where we wished that we had gone ahead and put in the air conditioners (no central AC for us). It was also a weekend where we thanked ourselves for having all the right ingredients to create a drink that was exactly what we needed: cool and refreshing.

I have to give my husband credit for this drink, because he had made it a few days prior (thanks for the idea, husband!).

Strawberry Lemonade

• 1 lemon, juiced
• 1 lime, juiced
• 6 – 10 strawberries, trimmed and sliced
• Agave nectar and/or stevia
• Water, cold
• Ice

Put ice into a pitcher. I filled our pitcher with probably about two or two and a half cups of ice.

Juice your lemon and lime straight into the pitcher.

Add the chopped strawberries to the pitcher.

Add sweetener to taste. My husband prefers to use stevia, which is a natural sweetener sans the sugar. You can purchase stevia as a powder or as an extract like this:

As you can see in the next picture, there are 1,440 servings in this little bottle, but we like our drinks sweet so we tend to use more than two drops a serving.

In this recipe I probably put about two full droppers of stevia liquid in the pitcher.

Next fill up the rest of the pitcher with water, and then stir everything together.

Let your pitcher of water sit for about 10 or 15 minutes prior to serving to let the flavor of the strawberries seep into the drink. You can also omit the ice if you won’t be serving immediately and let it sit for a few hours in your refrigerator. It will gradually turn a pinkish color and the strawberry flavor will be more pronounced.

The lovely thing about this drink, besides the fact that it’s refreshing, is that you can get really inventive with it and use really any type of fruit you have on hand. Either time we’ve made it we had strawberries, lemons and limes, but really, you could do most any fruit and it would turn out just as well.

Also, if you have an upcoming picnic, consider serving this in bell jars – it can be a nod to the eventual strawberry jam to come.

So if it’s hot, humid and you have no air conditioning make yourself some strawberry lemonade stat!

This is the third post in a series focusing on how to save money by making foods that you would normally buy already made. Not only is it cost-effective to make a lot of your own food, it’s just so much more satisfying and rewarding.

With Mexican being one of my husband’s favorite foods to eat, we nearly always have tortillas or tortilla chips in the house. We’ve kept saying that we should try to make tortillas instead of buying them since it would probably save us money, but we never have done it. With my recent foray into trying to make more things from scratch, however (like pita bread, for example), I decided to just go ahead and do it. I tried a couple of recipes, but while the first was decent, I found it to be too dry. The second recipe I found is a keeper, though, and I’ve already made two or three batches of tortillas using this recipe. It’s now been weeks since we’ve purchased tortillas at the store.

A lot of times when I am trying to find a good recipe, I often look for videos that walk you through the process. I found the following video, which I found to be interesting because instead of using shortening or oil, they use walnuts to make their tortillas. I decided to try it and we really like this recipe.

Whole Wheat Tortillas
This recipe makes about 16 8- to 10-inch tortillas

• 2 cups hot water
• 1 cup rolled oats
• 1/2 cup walnuts I think you could probably also use pecans
• 1 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups white flour
• 2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

Blend together the hot water, rolled oats, walnuts and salt for a couple of minutes. If you have a high power blender you can probably get away with less time, but lower powered blenders probably need a full two or three minutes.

While your liquid mixture is blending, stir together the white and whole wheat flours in a large mixing bowl.

Pour your liquid mixture into the flour and mix.

I like to stir it by hand first…

…then use an electric mixer to knead.

Once the tortilla dough is done mixing it will be soft.

Cover the mixing bowl with a damp towel or with plastic wrap, and let the dough rest for about thirty minutes.

After the dough has finished resting, flour a clean surface and take a piece of dough about the size of a ping pong ball or golf ball and roll it out to your desired thickness.

You may find that it’s challenging to make it perfectly round, but with practice you’ll find that it gets easier. You could also use a tortilla press, but it’s not necessary.

Heat a large skillet or pancake griddle over high heat. Place a tortilla on the skillet. Watch it closely, and once you see small bubbles forming turn it over.

It should continue to form larger bubbles.

Wait about 15 to 20 seconds, then turn it over again and let it go for about 10 seconds.

Repeat the process until all tortillas have been made.

These tortillas have a really nice flavor, and you can’t taste the walnuts at all. They can be used for burritos and wraps, or torn up and used for dipping.

They also are pretty cheap to make. Let’s look at the cost difference.

Looking up a random grocery store’s prices on the internet, we can see that a package of whole wheat tortillas (a count of six tortillas) costs $2.89, while a package of eight 8-inch white flour tortillas costs $3.19.

When looking at our ingredients list, the most expensive is the walnuts which is $6.03/pound. There are four cups of walnuts in a one pound bag. Next, the rolled oats comes in at $5.29/42-ounce canister. In this size, there are 15 cups of oats. The whole wheat flour is $3.19/5-pound bag, and the white flour is $3.69/5-pound bag. A 5-pound bag of flour contains 20 cups.

Based upon the above we can see that it costs us 300% more per tortilla if we were to buy the whole wheat version at the store or 233% more per tortilla if we were to buy the white flour version. That’s just crazy how much you can save by making your own! Sure, it can be a little time consuming, and a bit of a workout if you roll each out by hand, but believe me, it’s completely worth it. They taste great, and they keep well in the fridge for about a week, if you’ll let them last that long. :)

Do you have a favorite tortilla recipe?

This is another post in a series focused on how to be more frugal in the kitchen. Recession or not, it’s a great feeling to know that you can create good homemade food for less.

I love pocket pita. I love dipping it in baba ghanoush or hummus, and I love cutting it in half and filling it with avocado and sprouts for a simple, yet delicious sandwich. I usually buy pita at the store, but lately I’ve decided to start making my own to save money. Not only that, it’s actually kind of fun to make pita because of how interesting it looks as it puffs up in the oven.

This is so easy that you’ll probably wonder why you haven’t gotten around to making it at home yourself. Sure, not every single pita puffs up the way you may hope, but it’s fresh and still tastes really nice.

The recipe I’ve been using comes from The Fresh Loaf, and has extra info and pictures that you may find helpful. I’ve replaced the non-vegan ingredients with vegan ones.

Pita Bread
This recipe makes 8 pitas

• 3 cups flour (white or whole wheat, or a mixture of the two is fine)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 tablespoon sugar or agave nectar
• 1 packet yeast (or, if from bulk, 2 teaspoons yeast)
• 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups water, roughly at room temperature
• 2 tablespoons olive oil, vegetable oil, vegan butter, or shortening

If you are using active dry yeast, follow the instructions on the packet to activate it. Otherwise, mix the yeast in with the flour, salt, and sugar.

Add the olive oil and 1 1/4 cup water and stir together with a spoon.

All of the ingredients should form a ball. If some of the flour will not stick to the ball, add more water (I had to add an extra 1/4 cup).

Once all of the ingredients form a ball, place the ball on a work surface, such as a cutting board, and knead the dough for approximately 10 minutes (or until your hands get tired). If you are using an electric mixer, mix it at low speed for 10 minutes.

(The purpose of kneading is to thoroughly combine the ingredients and to break down the flour so that the dough will become stretchy and elastic and rise well in the oven. A simple hand kneading technique is to firmly press down on the dough with the palm of your hand, fold the dough in half toward you like you are closing an envelope, rotate the dough 90 degrees and then repeat these steps, but whatever technique you are comfortable using should work.)

When you are done kneading the dough, place it in a bowl that has been lightly coated with oil. Form a ball out of the dough and place it into the bowl, rolling the ball of dough around in the bowl so that it has a light coat of oil on all sides. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a damp kitchen towel and set aside to rise until it has doubled in size, approximately 90 minutes.

Here you can see that it has approximately doubled in size.

When it has doubled in size, punch the dough down to release some of the trapped gases and divide it into 8 pieces. Roll each piece into a ball, cover the balls with a damp kitchen towel, and let them rest for 20 minutes. This step allows the dough to relax so that it’ll be easier to shape.

While the dough is resting, preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. If you have a baking stone, put it in the oven to preheat as well. If you do not have a baking stone, turn a cookie sheet upside down and place it on the middle rack of the oven while you are preheating the oven. This will be the surface on which you bake your pitas.

After the dough has relaxed for 20 minutes, spread a light coating of flour on a work surface and place one of the balls of dough there. Sprinkle a little bit of flour on top of the dough and use a rolling pin or your hands to stretch and flatten the dough.

You should be able to roll it out to between 1/8 and 1/4 inch thick. If the dough does not stretch sufficiently you can cover it with the damp towel and let it rest 5 to 10 minutes before trying again.

Open the oven and place as many pitas as you can fit on the hot baking surface. They should be baked through and puffy after 3 minutes.

It should start forming bubbles after about a minute of baking.

This one has awkwardly puffed up, so this one will likely be used for dipping in hummus.

This one has puffed up perfectly. I can cut this one in half and use it to make a sandwich by filling it up with hummus, avocado and sprouts.

If you want your pitas to be crispy and brown you can bake them for an additional 3 to 5 minutes, but it isn’t necessary.

Let’s figure out how much I’ve saved by making this at home.

I’ve grabbed all the following prices off of a random grocery store’s website I’ve found online. The final price may vary for you, but this should give you a general idea of how much you can save.

In my calculations below I am only including the cost of the flour and the yeast. The other ingredients are so minimal that it would be hard to figure out exactly how much they add to the cost of individual pitas. If you think it would be more accurate you could add on a few cents.

A package of store-bought pita costs $2.39 for six pitas, effectively making each pita cost $0.40.

One five-pound bag of flour contains 20 cups (thanks Google!). Whole wheat flour costs $3.19/five-pound bag (I believe it actually costs more than this at my local grocery store, but I don’t think it’s gone beyond the $4 mark yet), and all-purpose white flour costs $3.69/five-pound bag. So to figure out the cost of one cup of flour, you’d do $3.19/20=$0.16. A packet of yeast, which contains three sections of yeast, costs $2.59. Each section costs $0.86 ($2.59/3). I used one section in this recipe.

This recipe ultimately costs $1.36 for eight, but let’s compare the cost of a package of six pitas to the cost of six homemade pitas (assuming that we’ve used the same recipe to make six larger pitas as opposed to eight smaller pitas). I’ll show how much this would cost depending on a few different flour mixtures.

It’s amazing how much you can save by making your own pita at home (and you may be able to reduce the price even further by using natural yeast). The first time or two is a little time consuming, but once you’re used to making them it can go really fast. The thing to keep in mind is that you will need to make sure that you have time to make these since it does have rise time, plus the time it takes to bake them. I can usually bake two at a time, but since it only takes three minutes to bake them, the entire baking time is less than 20 minutes.

Do you make pita? Do you make it any differently? And how do you eat it?

When I was a kid I remember my mom growing a copious amount of alfalfa sprouts. She’d pack them in my lunches for school, and at lunchtime my classmates would make fun of me for eating worms. I liked the sprouts, though, and so much so that I grew sprouts for a school science fair (I believe I even won something). I showed them at different stages of growth, from humble seed to full grown sprout.

It’s been years since I’ve grown sprouts on a regular basis, but I’ve recently taken it up again. It’s an extraordinarily easy process, and it’s much more affordable to grow them than to purchase them fully grown at the store. The options are pretty limitless, as well. Typically people are used to seeing mung bean sprouts, alfalfa sprouts or wheat grass in stores or little cafes, but there are many many other beans, grains, nuts and seeds that can be sprouted. Some of them need to be cooked after sprouting, as they are not digestible raw (pinto beans is one example), but a lot of them can be eaten without any sort of preparation.

Sprouts are also very nutritious. According to the International Sprout Growers Association, clover sprouts are great for fighting cancer, alfalfa sprouts are good for women’s health, and many sprouts have a significant amount of protein and vitamins. Of course, all sprouts are low in calories.

The process of growing sprouts is essentially the same for anything you aim to sprout. First is soaking. This gives whatever you’re sprouting a jump start, and you’ll often have little tiny sprouts poking out on the first or second day. Secondly, you have to make sure you rinse your seeds on a daily basis (I aim for once in the morning and once in the evening). Finally, you get to harvest and then store your sprouts.

Where to Buy Sprouting Supplies

There are also a lot of online stores that you can purchase sprouting supplies from, like Sprout People (my personal favorite) or Handy Pantry Sprouting, however you can usually also find some basic sprout supplies at your local health food store. If you are going to sprout beans, you can grab those from pretty much any grocery store. If they don’t have what you need or want, you can ask to see if they will do a special order for you.

Sprouting Equipment

As far as equipment is concerned, there are several different containers that you can get. So far I’ve tried three different types.

Sprout Master

I tried this for the first time recently, and still have to decide if I like this way of growing sprouts or not.

Pros – The version we got has three trays, and each has a removable divider, so we could probably grow six types of sprouts at once. It has holes on the bottom of each tray, so water can easily drain out (drainage is extremely important – you don’t want your sprouts to be sitting in water, which can make them go bad). It doesn’t take up a lot of space, which is nice if you have a smaller kitchen. It’s also dishwasher safe.

Cons – You can’t soak your seeds in the trays. While the drainage is pretty good, I have found that I need to spend a little extra time shaking the water out, because there will be a little extra water sitting in the trays if you don’t take an extra 30 seconds. Once your sprouts grow to above the top of the tray, it’s harder to stack the trays, so you may have to spread the trays out to a single layer level. Finally, these are more of a pain to clean. If you are growing sprouts like alfalfa, which has smaller seeds, they will get caught in the holes, and you’ll need to poke the holes out with something like a paper clip to make sure they get clean.

Easy Sprout Sprouter – I got this one a few years ago, and while it works I don’t prefer it.

Pros – You can soak your seeds in this sprouter, which means less dirty dishes. This one has good drainage, and is pretty easy to clean and is dishwasher safe.

Cons – There are too many parts, which means it’s easier to lose something you need to maximize your sprout growing experience. It’s also designed in a way that can make drainage and air flow more difficult if you accidentally don’t line up a couple of the pieces correctly.

Wide-Mouth Mason Jars with Screen Lids

So far this is my preferred method and the way my mom did it, however I’m still not fully convinced this could be the best way to grow sprouts.

Pros – If you already have wide-mouthed mason jars on hand, all you need to do is buy the screens which can be an economical solution. If you don’t already have the jars, they aren’t too expensive and you only really need one or two to get started. Drainage is good, but you do need a dish rack or something similar so it can drain well. It’s also very easy to clean, is dishwasher safe, and you can soak what you are growing in the jars.

Cons – Once your sprouts are a couple of days old, air flow is not as good and humidity can build up in the jar, making it easier for your sprouts to go bad faster. It’s important to rinse very well because of this. It can also take up more space if you have to purchase a dish rack for drainage.

There are other types of sprouters including electric sprouters that do a lot of the work for you, as well as hemp bags that are supposed to be really effective (you just have to find a place to hang them).

Growing Sprouts

Now, to the actual growing.

Here I am growing fenugreek sprouts, red clover sprouts and an Italian seed sprout mix (all of which I purchased directly from www.sproutpeople.com).

Day One – Soak

I measured out about 3 tablespoons of fenugreek seeds, and about 1 tablespoon each of red clover and the Italian seed mix (normally if I was going to do a larger batch I would have done 2 tablespoons each). The fenugreek seeds I put straight into a mason jar, and the other seeds I put into two small glass bowls.

I covered all the seeds with enough water to soak.

About eight hours or so later, the seeds had soaked for long enough and their water was a bit cloudy.

When I first started rinsing the water was a bit foamy at the top – this is normal. You want to rinse until the water is clear and no longer has bubbles.

After rinsing my fenugreek sprouts, I placed the jar upside down and at an angle on a dish rack on my counter to make sure it drained. It’s interesting, because you’d think that putting the jar straight up and down would still allow the sprouts to drain, but if you try this, you’ll see it’s not nearly as effective as when the jar is at an angle.

I drained the other sprout seeds straight into the Sprout Master, and rinsed them well. I also shook the container a little bit to make sure the excess water drained out. I then covered it with it’s own lid and left it on the kitchen counter overnight.

Day 2

In the morning I could already see my seeds were sprouting. Yay!

I gave them a good rinse in the morning just before leaving for work, and then again that night before going to bed.

Day 3

My sprouts are really doing well, but still a bit early to harvest. Another good rinse/drain for all my sprouts in the morning, and then again in the evening.

Day 4 – Almost there

My sprouts were doing really well at this point, and I could have gone ahead and eaten some. I think I held off, though, and just did my two rinses/drains (once in the morning, once in the evening).

Day 5 – Harvest

After giving my sprouts a final rinse, I let them dry off for most of the day, and that evening I put them in the refrigerator. You can store sprouts by putting them in a plastic bag with a paper towel (draws the moisture off the sprouts), or in another container with a paper towel on the bottom. You should eat your sprouts within a few days, however, otherwise they may grow mold.

The fenugreek sprouts were very firm and crunchy, and a bit bitter, however I found that they got less bitter the longer I grew them.

The red clover sprouts were very mild, and reminded me a bit of alfalfa sprouts. The Italian mix was also very mild and tasted only slightly different from the red clover sprouts.

How to Use Sprouts

Sprouts can be used in a variety of ways, but one of my favorite ways is on a sandwich with hummus or avocado. You can also add them to salads, or eat them by themselves. For other ways of eating them, I’d recommend Sproutman’s Kitchen Garden Cookbook, filled with vegan and gluten-free recipes. I still have to try many of them out myself, but it’s hard to not be impressed by the variety of ways you can consume sprouts.

Cost of Growing Sprouts vs. Store-Bought Sprouts

So is the time and effort worth the cost? I crunched the numbers (with the help of my husband), and while this probably isn’t entirely accurate I’d say it’s a good estimate of the money saved.

The cost is based upon how much I paid for each one-pound bag from Sprout People. This doesn’t include shipping costs or potential taxes, which are definitely things to consider. We found, with the help of Google, that one pound has 73 tablespoons. This, of course, can vary, so some bags may have less and some may have more. The harvest cost is based upon how many tablespoons were used to get two cups of sprouts. In the case of the fenugreek I used about three tablespoons, and I used about two tablespoons each of the other two kinds of sprout seeds.

Finally, I looked up online the cost of organic alfalfa sprouts available at a random grocery store. The store I looked up had the price as $1.99 for four ounces. Four ounces is equal to 1/2 cup, therefore if I were to buy the same amount of sprouts I could grow myself, then it would cost me $7.96 for two cups, a.k.a. four packages. Since two cups could be grown from two tablespoons of alfalfa seeds, I divided $7.96 in half to get $3.95 per tablespoon.

Here’s a handy little table that lays this all out.

Of course, let me know if I’ve miscalculated (it’s so completely possible – I’m not a very good numbers person!).

Do you grow sprouts? If not, and if you are considering it, I would suggest starting out small. Get a one-pound bag of alfalfa and one of the less expensive sprouting containers and see if you even like it. If you don’t wind up enjoying it or growing them on a regular basis then you will have at least not spent that much money.

If you do grow sprouts, what do you like growing, what equipment do you use, and how do you like eating them? I’m also curious to know if anyone grows sprouts in hemp bags and how you like it. I’m tempted to try it out for myself, but it seems that they would be a pain to clean. Do share!

Back when my husband and I tried the raw food diet for a month we wound up making a lot of food from scratch that we might have normally purchased at a store. One of those things was almond milk. At first making this sort of thing was truly intimidating, but once done we realized how easy it could be. Prep time is minutes, although twiddling your thumbs takes hours.

I was reminded of our foray into non-dairy milk making when I was on VeganYumYum a few weeks ago. She made her own soy milk, which, if you have ever done it, is both labor-intensive and time-consuming. She wasn’t exactly happy with the end results, either.

Inspired by her post, I decided to start making milk again, and am I glad I did. This batch turned out wonderfully. It was creamy, mostly smooth (mostly!), and didn’t even last a full week because we just couldn’t help ourselves.

Raw Homemade Almond Milk

• 1 cup raw almonds
• 7 – 8 cups water
• Agave nectar or another sweetener (optional)

Put your almonds into a good-sized bowl and fill the bowl up with water until they are covered well.

Cover with a towel and let sit in a cool place for about 24 – 48 hours (honestly, you could probably get away with less time, but I haven’t tried it). Rinse the almonds once a day, and if you are soaking for more than one day cover the almonds with water again.

Once they are finished soaking they will have become plump.

The difference is pretty amazing.

Pour off the water from the almonds and rinse well. Place the rinsed almonds into a blender (we use a VitaMix, but any blender should work fine), add the 7 – 8 cups of water, and blend for a few minutes or until well blended. At this stage you can add a sweetener if you want, but I left it out myself. Since the milk can potentially be used in a variety of ways it seems that you may want to leave the sweetener out.

When it is done blending it will look something like this…

…and it will have a lot of froth on top.

Strain the almond milk through a bag strainer (probably best), or through a fine sieve into your original bowl or another large container. We used to have a bag strainer, but found it hard to clean, so I used our small sieve.

If I am going to be making this on a regular basis I need to get a good sized sieve.

As you are straining it you will be getting a lot of almond meal. It is up to you if you want to conserve this or throw it out. You can do a variety of things with it – i.e. dehydrate it, turn it into a flour, mix it into some bread, etc.

After you have finished straining it, strain it again into your final pitcher or container. This will ensure that it is as smooth as possible. You can strain even further, but it is up to you.

The final result – about a half gallon of good and easy almond milk. Store in the refrigerator and try to use within a week. You will need to stir the almond milk every time you bring it out of the refrigerator to use since it does settle.

In thinking about making your own milk there are a couple of things to consider. Firstly, it amazes me how many ingredients are in commercial vegan milks. There’s usually a lot of sugar, not many ingredients I even recognize, and some are just plain unnecessary.

Secondly, the actual price of the product in the store compared to the price of making it at home is definitely less (of course this depends on how much you pay for almonds). If you pay $3.99 for 64 ounces of Silk Soymilk, then it is about $0.49/cup. If you pay $1.59 for rice milk, then it is about $0.40/cup. If you pay $5.79/pound for almonds, and of that use one cup of almonds to make eight cups of almond milk, then your price will come to about $0.27/cup or $1.09 for 4 cups (32 ounces) or $2.17 for eight cups (64 ounces).

Bottom line, it’s worth it.

If you are allergic to tree nuts you can make other milks in similar ways, like sunflower seed milk. I made that this past weekend and it wasn’t quite as good as the almond milk, but it still turned out fine. Difference was the soaking time (about four hours).

Overall, this is a very easy, cost effective, and delicious way to get homemade vegan milk.