Tonight - it's peasant food again! This is my everyday go-to standard beef stew, that I throw in the pot and ignore for a while. It uses some ingredients that I call 'by-product' ingredients: bacon fat, ketchup swish (more on that later), and beef stock.
Ok, beef stock may not be a by-product to everyone, but I found a great cookbook at a garage sale, called "Hazel Meyer's Freezer Cookbook". This is an excellent book for learning to extend the table, so to speak, or to cut back on grocery bills. Hazel says in her book that pretty much everything can be frozen; just fried hamburger in the pan? Well, add a cup or so of water to the 'empty' pan, give it a stir, and you've got stock! This works if you're browning or roasting anything - leftover gravy also makes an excellent base for stock. Put it in a container or freezer bag, and thaw it out next time you need a bit of stock. Ketchup swish is the same idea. It's about a 1/4 cup of water swished around in a nearly empty ketchup bottle. Perfect for this recipe, and lots of other things!
We're all tight for money these days. Groceries are an easy way to help cut back on living expenses, and using ingredients you don't have to buy makes it even easier. Next year I think I'm going to start scavenging for food, although scavenging food for a beef stew could be a bit challenging. I'll keep you posted anyway :)
