Showdown: Store-bought vs. Homemade Broth or Stock

Time for another Homemade vs Store-bought showdown! This time we're going to look at broth and stock.

I spent time gathering data on both broth and stock. You'll notice I'm using these terms interchangeably, but they are not exactly the same thing. Broth is made by boiling meat and vegetables in water without bones. Stock is made by boiling meat, bones, and vegetables. I always make stock rather than broth. It has a higher nutritional content and better flavor.

I found some things out that really surprised me. For instance, did you know that it costs 2/3 more to buy broth than it does to make it at home? Yep. I have specific numbers under the cut.

And now, the showdown.

Depression Cooking

Right around when I got married to Mr. Scrimp, I found a video channel on YouTube called "Depression Cooking With Clara." It was one of the things that ultimately inspired Scrimpalicious.

Clara is a 94-year-old great-grandmother whose grandson decided to help her make some instructional cooking videos for family use. He put them on YouTube, and it just took off--they're now into a second season and have released a cookbook and DVD.

Equal parts memoir and cooking show, Depression Cooking With Clara includes reminisces about the Great Depression, and cheap family recipes (averaging about $1/serving). Go here to watch it. I really recommend it.

More Food Pondering

It's been a lovely weekend. Mr. Scrimp and I just celebrated our first wedding anniversary! That's right, we've been married for a whole year, which is next to no time at all to those of you who have been married for a while, and an eternity to those of you who think marriage is terrifying.

All in all, I gotta say I'm pretty happy with the deal I got, by which I mean that Mr. Scrimp is the best and I wouldn't trade being married to him for anything in the world.

I was mulling over things I could talk about on the blog today, and then I drifted into daydreams about our lovely anniversary picnic yesterday (we went to the beach. There was grass! There was sand! There was water! There was a picnic!). So I figured I'd talk to you a bit about food, which you know is a favorite topic of mine.

How much do you spend on food each week?

CSA

It's cold here in Ohio, so things grow slowly... but, at long last, today is the first delivery for our CSA (community supported agriculture) program! I won't be picking it up till about 4:30 this afternoon--nevertheless, I am so excited!

We got an email with a list of what we'll be receiving, so I'm going to share it with you in the hope that it will inspire you to look into a CSA in your city, too.

Free Stuff

Mr. Scrimp and I are making moves towards doing some container gardening (we're running late, honestly--we should have already started). In our quest to make that happen, I've been looking around for cheap sources of pots and clean soil. I'm also on the lookout for some old/scrap windows to use for a decorating project idea, a filing cabinet, and some bookshelves. And a mandolin.

Which brings me to the subject I wanted to discuss today.

When you're trying to be frugal, but also trying to do things in your home that require you to obtain things that traditionally cost money... what do you do?