One Hundred Dollars a Month - Page 1556 of 2143 - I am your typical housewife living in high maintenance suburbia. I have a handsome husband, 2 kids and a flock of pet chickens. I try and feed my family with $100 a month. With the help of coupons, gardening and bartering I am able to squeeze the most out of our grocery budget and still manage to have a little fun along the way.

Food Waste In America – What Should I Do with Kiwis and Red Bananas?

The links in the post below may be affiliate links. Read the full disclosure
By Mavis Butterfield on June 18, 2013 · 27 Comments

Last week I hit the motherload of free produce. It was nuts! You can definitely tell when things start to pick up in the produce section and people start to buy more fruit.

Although the free produce boxes from Mr. Produce Guy were overflowing again this week, the pickings were kind of slim when compared to last weeks findings.

There were lots of bruised pears, a few apples and one lonely banana as well.

Wrinkled avocados. 🙁

Squishy unwrapped watermelon. Good for chickens, not so good for people.

Red bananas? I don’t think I’ve ever had a red banana before. Do they taste any different than the yellow ones? Does anyone know?

After everything was picked over, this is what we saved to eat ourselves. Not to shabby if you ask me. I have no idea what we are going to do with all those kiwis or red bananas, but I’m not complaining. Free is free, no matter how you look at it.

I’m just happy I’ve been able to save my family thousands of dollars over the past 14 months from the reclaimed produce boxes we pick up each week.

If you have any great kiwi recipes, please leave me your recipe {or a link} in the comment section below.

Peace Out Girl Scouts,

~Mavis

Would you like to see what else we have brought home over the past year?

Head on over HERE to read all the past stories and to see all the pictures.

If you have just stumbled upon this series and are wondering how I got all this food for free, you’ll want to read this story first.

To read more on the topic of food waste. Check out the book Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal By Tristram Stuart.

This post may contain affiliate links. These affiliate links help support this site. For more information, please see my disclosure policy. Thank you for supporting One Hundred Dollars a Month.

A Lighter Version of General Tso’s Chicken

The links in the post below may be affiliate links. Read the full disclosure
By Mavis Butterfield on June 17, 2013 · 5 Comments

I like the taste of General Tso’s chicken, but I don’t like my chicken battered in flour so I prepare our General Tso’s chicken a little differently. I also like to jack up the vegetables quite a bit. The sauce is the same, but this version is a little lighter {and happier}.

I hope you like it, we sure do.

Ingredients

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1-inch pieces {I use Zaycon chicken}
1 pound sugar snap peas, trimmed
1 carrot, sliced thin
1 onion, chopped
1 green pepper, sliced
1 head broccoli, chopped
1 can water chestnuts, sliced and drained
1/2 cup water
4 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 teaspoon dried ginger
3 tablespoons light-brown sugar
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon red-pepper flakes
2 tablespoons sesame oil

Directions

In a small bowl whisk together the water, soy sauce, corn starch, brown sugar, red pepper flakes, ginger and garlic and set aside.

In a large nonstick skillet or Wok heat 1 tablespoon sesame oil over medium heat. Cook the chicken until it’s cooked thoroughly and lightly browned. Transfer the chicken to a plate.

Add the last tablespoon of sesame oil to the skillet, add vegetables and saute for 3-4 minutes. Return the chicken to

Add snow-pea mixture to skillet. Cover; cook until snow peas are tender and sauce has thickened, 3 to 5 minutes until the vegetables are tender. Add the chicken back to the skillet add the soy sauce mixture. Toss to coat, saute another minute and serve over a bed of rice.

Looking for a new stir fry pan? Jamie Oliver has the highest rated stir fry pan on Amazon.

This post may contain affiliate links. These affiliate links help support this site. For more information, please see my disclosure policy. Thank you for supporting One Hundred Dollars a Month.

Square Foot Gardening – The Big Harvest

The links in the post below may be affiliate links. Read the full disclosure
By Mavis Butterfield on June 17, 2013 · 4 Comments

In this episode of how the square foot garden turns…

Mavis harvests a giant head of broccoli, picks some peas and checks in on her lettuce plants.

Ha! Having a big garden that’s broken up into small sections really is like living in a little soap opera, isn’t it?

Well this week was a great one in our 4×8 square foot garden. For starters, we harvested sugar snap peas and snow peas 3 times. Although there wasn’t enough for a meal from the tiny little garden bed, there was enough for Lucy and I to snack on, that’s for sure.

The oak leaf lettuce we cut a few weeks ago is growing back nicely and I think it will be ready to harvest next week.

The kale is doing pretty awesome too {of course it is!}. My parents were over yesterday and my Mom went home with 5 giant leaves for smoothies and I picked a few this morning as well. Madam Chow left me her recipe for sauteed kale a few weeks ago and I’m going to try it tonight. I’ll post the recipe tomorrow if it all works out. No pressure Madam Chow… no pressure. 😉

Carrots, check.

Tomato blossoms, double check. I planted 3 of my favorite Black Trifle tomato plants in the square foot garden and they are just now starting to blossom. With a little luck, we should have tomatoes in about 6 weeks.

And check out this giant head of broccoli. Ain’t she pretty? I chopped her up into bits and made a delicious stir fry {I’ll post the recipe later today}. That’s what’s growing in my square foot garden, what’s growing in yours?

I’d love to know.

~Mavis

2013 Square Foot Garden Harvest: 2 pounds 7 ounces

Broccoli 11 ounces
Kale 13 ounces
Lettuce 2 ounces
Peas 5 ounces
Radishes 10 ounces

Read more about my adventures in Square Foot Gardening.

Are you thinking about putting together a Square foot garden? See the how I built a square foot garden grid HERE.

For more information, check out All New Square Foot Gardening. It is an amazon bestseller and the author, Mel Bartholomew is basically the king of square foot gardening.

This post may contain affiliate links. These affiliate links help support this site. For more information, please see my disclosure policy. Thank you for supporting One Hundred Dollars a Month.

How to Make a Concrete Planter

The links in the post below may be affiliate links. Read the full disclosure
By Mavis Butterfield on June 17, 2013 · 21 Comments

The HH and I were cleaning the garage out the other day and came across 2 bags of concrete {left over from when we built the chicken run last summer}. I thought it would be fun to use the extra concrete to make a couple of unique concrete planters for the backyard.

If you’ve never made your on concrete containers before, it’s SUPER easy to do.

First, choose two containers to use as a mold. You’ll need a smaller and a larger one, so that one can nest inside the other. I found these flexible plastic containers at my local garden center.

Now, use a paintbrush to coat the inside of your larger container with cooking oil.

Next, oil the outside of your smaller container, using the same method as above.

Now, grab some garden gloves and mix your concrete. Fill the larger mold up to about 1 inch from the top. Shake the container to allow the concrete to settle and get rid of air bubbles.

Press the small mold into the large mold. Don’t press it too deep, remember, you need enough concrete to have bottom to your planter.

Next put a rock or some other weight inside the smaller mold and let the concrete set for 24-48 hours.

Finally, gently remove the molds. You may want to smooth the rough edges with a stone or a file.

That’s it, easy peasy!

Want more ideas on concrete projects? Amazon has Concrete Garden Projects and it is getting great reviews.

This post may contain affiliate links. These affiliate links help support this site. For more information, please see my disclosure policy. Thank you for supporting One Hundred Dollars a Month.