Comments on: Blunders in Frugality

By: If I had a Million Dollars (Linkified)

If I had a Million Dollars (Linkified) — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 12:57:31 +0000

[...] Dinner But we would eat Kraft Dinner – Of course we would, weâ€™d just eat more And buy really expensive ketchups with it – Thatâ€™s right, all the fanciest ke… dijon ketchups! Mmmmmm, [...]

By: JvW

JvW — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 20:08:23 +0000

If you are short on room in the freezer, you can freeze it flat in baggies and save space that way. I freeze my liquids like that so I can fit a bunch more in my freezer.

By: Joy Smith

Joy Smith — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 16:43:23 +0000

Freeze it as many have suggested or you can make your own ketchup with it.

By: Tricia

Tricia — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 15:32:50 +0000

Hehe…ketchup in a can may seem weird, but both my husband and I have worked in food service. Ketchup came in bulk in cans, so we never questioned it. Now I’m curious if Walmart sells ketchup in a can at all, so I’ll have to look next time we go

By: Coupon Fetcher

Coupon Fetcher — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 21:45:03 +0000

Funny story. Although ketchup in a can should have been your first clue.

Makes great speghetti sauce though, add some fresh mushrooms, italian seasoning and cut up some chuck roast and you are good to go!

By: Brooke (Dollar Frugal)

Brooke (Dollar Frugal) — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 10:13:48 +0000

These types of “I Love Lucy” follies always happen to me! Just when I think I’ve got the “perfect plan” to fix a problem…WHAM! I get the smack-down.

It looks like your readers have given you lots of good ideas. I’m sure you’ll use one of them!

By: Ryan S.

Ryan S. — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 06:08:22 +0000

Tricia,

That is indeed a funny story. I hope you can figure out enough tomato sauce using dishes to consume it all before it goes bad!
-
Ryan
http://uncommon-cents.net/

By: Canadian Saver

Canadian Saver — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 00:07:34 +0000

That is too funny!

I once bought 20 bottles of ketchen when it was on sale for 99cents each… Thought I’d have enough for years (well a few months) but it turns out we ran out before they put it back on sale at that price……………… big ketchup eaters here too!

I’ve also successfully frozen tomato sauce in the past.

Good luck!

By: Mrs. Micah

Mrs. Micah — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 23:57:15 +0000

Chicken Caccatori (sp?) uses a fair amount of tomato sauce, I think. Just one yummy place to use it. Good luck!

By: stacey

stacey — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 19:20:43 +0000

I make soups and stews frequently from scratch. Tomato sauce is one of my “wonder” ingredients: “Wonder how I can make it thicker”, etc. It helps thicken a little, helps the spices disperse more evenly and adds a bit of tastiness. Or so my family and I think.

By: Matt

Matt — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 18:00:12 +0000

Oh I’ve done that before though never with something that large. I guess there will be a lot of pizza over the next little while.

Maybe you can sell some Pizza’s during your next garage sale?

By: dcsmith

dcsmith — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 17:35:43 +0000

I second the suggestion to make ketchup. Type “homemade ketchup” into google and you’ll get more recipes than you could ever want. You can even healthify it if you want because you can control the type and quantity of sweetener (ketchup normally contains tons of processed sweetener like corn syrup).

By: Jen

Jen — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 15:00:36 +0000

Hehe… I did something similar. A while back I bought a large jar of spaghetti sauce. I was on a pasta kick and figured it’d be economical to buy a larger jar. Well, I ended up not eating pasta for a while, until this weekend. I pulled down the jar, opened it, warmed up some sauce. Then, I noticed the expiration date: 1/24/2008! Doh! I’ve got a lot of pasta to eat before next Thursday…. Although, after reading the comments here, I can try to freeze it.

By: Mar

Mar — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 14:09:12 +0000

Chili isn’t hard. My favorite is vegetarian where you sautee any veggies you have that you like in a little bit of oil (I use celery, green pepper, onions, red pepper, and carrots, but you could add squash, left-over green beans, corn, etc.) Toss in some chili spice, some hot peppers (if you like them – our chili is usually milder), and other seasonings that you like (some garlic, salt, pepper, whatever), add tomato sauce and beans, and heat until it’s thickened and cooked to your liking.

You can also make beef vegetable soup with the tomato sauce in the base. I made it a couple weeks ago in the crock pot. I first browned some relatively cheap beef on the stove just to get rid of most of the fat and then tossed everything in the crock pot – the meat, beef broth, water, tomato sauce, corn, barley, carrots, celery, and green beans. A few hours on low and it was fabulous. You can use whatever pasta or grain you have on hand and it’s a good way to use up small amounts of this and that. It doesn’t take that much beef since it’s soup and you could even leave it out if you wanted to do so.

Six pounds of tomato sauce will make a lot of whatever you want to make – good luck!

By: tlange

tlange — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 13:39:04 +0000

I did not think that ketchup was sold by the can?

You can buy ketchup by the case. Years ago, when I was much younger and used ketchup a lot, my dad purchased it by the case, much cheaper that way.

By: Kim L.

Kim L. — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 13:27:57 +0000

I was going to suggest spaghetti sauce too. Weight Watchers has a great recipe for it and I always end up freezing the leftovers. We use it as pizza sauce too.

By: jaye

jaye — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 12:43:10 +0000

When I’m inspired to cook for the future, I like to make chili and spaghetti sauce at the same time as they both need many of the same ingredients (garlic, onions, tomato sauce, ground meat, etc.) If you set aside a few hours, you could make a ton of meals with that sauce. You can use the spaghetti sauce for your pizza, too, if you like.

Both can be frozen for a good, long time. Can you make room in the freezer?

Here’s an easy idea. Put the chili, spaghetti sauce or tomato sauce into gallon-sized zip-locs. If you freeze them flat (lying down), they’ll barely take up any room! You can just stack them up and pull them out when you need a quick dinner! Don’t forget to label them, though.

Do you need a good, easy recipe for chili?

By: 20 Something Lady

20 Something Lady — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 09:09:03 +0000

That is so funny how we do these things sometimes when trying to save money. Its always worth a laugh though. Glad you and your hubby are on the same page.

By: The Shopping Sherpa

The Shopping Sherpa — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 06:59:58 +0000

Boil it down and turn it into ketchup?

By: Tricia

Tricia — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 05:20:53 +0000

Patti – thanks for the suggestion of freezing it! I wasn’t sure if you could do it, and we only have the freezer on top of our fridge (we unplugged our old big freezer a while ago). But I bet we could fit at least two or three pizza making serving in the freezer.

Jen – with the cold weather, chili sounds good! I’ve never made it from scratch, though..so it could be interesting

By: Jen

Jen — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 05:17:01 +0000

ooohhh that sucks.

you can make chili!

By: Patti

Patti — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 05:13:58 +0000

Freeze it in smaller containers instead of larger ones – that way you can thaw as needed and you may only need a small amount for some recipes, but you can absolutely preserve it in the freezer.