Reducing Expenses
"I never feel as extravagant as I do in spring-time," Mrs. Thorne said
as she hovered over asparagus, tiny new potatoes, fresh peas and
strawberries in the market one May morning. "Everything is so tempting,
and we are tired of winter vegetables, and yet we will run up dreadful
accounts if we attempt to have any of these goodies. Come right along,
Dolly; don't linger a moment longer, or I am lost."
"You could really have bought a spring vegetable or two," remonstrated
her sister as they walked home. "We are ahead on our money, I know,
because I rattled the bank this morning, and it was nearly full. I do
not see why you did not get something nice and springy if you wanted
to."
"Because now for a week or two I mean to reduce expenses. I want to give
three small luncheons and have everything as nice and pretty as
possible, and you know we used up our savings of two months on our
dinner-parties. The rattling of the bank meant only pennies, my dear; I
know, for I peeked. So we must cut down vigorously."
"That is an absolute impossibility," said Dolly with decision. "We do
not waste a single crumb now, not a potato paring, not a bone nor even
an egg-shell. We can't save a cent's worth."
"Oh, yes, we can; we can save a lot if we try. And there is a suggestion
for to-day's lesson; it will be on Retrenchment."
Dolly still looked unconvinced when she sat down with book and pencil,
but Mary was complacent.
"Of course we do not waste anything," she began, as she took her seat in
the sitting-room after the entire apartment was in immaculate order and
lunch under way, "and as you suggest, we have cheap meats and vegetables
right along. But we can still find some things that are cheaper
still,--because you always can, whatever you have. So if we cut down on
those to begin with, and have desserts for a week made without butter or
eggs, and abandon fruit altogether for the time, I am sure we can have
quite a surplus presently.
"To begin with meat, because you know my theory that that is always the
expensive point in housekeeping, you know I said veal was cheap in the
spring. So it is, but instead of using the ordinary cuts, you can have
something less expensive. There is a calf's heart, for one thing. A
country butcher would probably give that away--and incidentally inquire
what on earth you wanted it for. Here in town I suppose we must pay
something for it, but it will not be much; only a few cents. You have no
idea what a delicious meat that is, so delicate and tender. You wash it
well and make a bread-crumbs stuffing for it with a good deal of
seasoning, and after you cut out the strings and wipe it dry in the
middle you stuff it. Bake it in a covered pan for two hours, basting it
well frequently, then make a gravy and pour over it. You really should
have cooked onions, browned in this gravy, to go with the dish, because
they are the accepted thing with the heart, but you need not if you do
not want to, for it will be good without them. Then the next day you
will have enough left over for a dish of baked hash, or a cottage loaf.
And all for, say, ten cents or less! Isn't that a stroke of economy?
"Then there is boiled calf's head. That, too, you could get for a song
in the country. Have the butcher clean it well and let you have both the
brain and the tongue; be sure and make him understand that. Wash and
parboil both of these in separate saucepans. The brains taste exactly
like sweetbreads, and if you chop them and make them up into croquettes,
no one will suspect that they are not what they seem. It is strange that
so many people are prejudiced against using brains, for they are the
cleanest possible meat. They are kept shut up in a little bone box where
nothing can soil or hurt them, and as a calf has little intelligence,
they never grow tough from use! So have the brains for one meal. Then
when the tongue is tender, take it up and peel it and braise it with
minced vegetables; that is, cook it in the oven in a covered pan,
smothered in vegetables. Have this as it is, as a roast, and what is
left over make up into a loaf exactly as you do with chopped veal or
beef; or dice, cream and bake it for a second dinner. If you have any
tiny bits still left, put those through the meat chopper and spread them
on toast; put an egg on each and serve for breakfast or luncheon.
"Then the head proper. This you had better have the butcher keep for you
till you have used up the other things, or you will have too much meat
on hand to use economically. When he sends it, tell him to split it
open, as this must be done and you probably could not do it yourself.
Put it into cold water and put it on the fire till it comes to the
boiling point. Take it off and plunge it into cold water to blanch it,
rub it all over with half a lemon, and then put it into boiling water,
only just enough to cover it, and add a tablespoonful of vinegar, a
small onion, chopped, a carrot and a sprig of parsley. If you have a bay
leaf, put that in too. Cover the pot and gently simmer it for two
hours, or till the meat is ready to drop from the bones. Take it up
then, take out all the bones, skin, and gristle, and put the meat in an
even pile; cover it with bread crumbs and brown it in the oven. In cool
weather this will make two good dinners, and you will find it as good as
the tongue. In summer, divide the meat and have only one dinner baked.
Put the other half into a mould and fill it up with the stock it was
boiled in, after you have cooked this down and strained it; it is so
full of gelatine that it will set at once and you will have a fine dish
of ice-cold meat set in a clear aspic, and what better could any one
wish for? If there is more stock than you need, keep out part for the
basis of a soup; it is so strong that it will make you an extra good
one, with perhaps tomatoes added to it. Now when you consider that one
calf's head will make at the very least four dinners for a small family,
do you not think by having it you will materially reduce expenses?"
"Having a mind open to conviction, I do."
"Well, then! To go on to another sort of meat, here is another
suggestion of cheapness. You know what a shin of beef is, don't you? The
lower part of the leg, where the meat is apt to be stringy and tough;
most people think it is good only for soup. Get the butcher to cut you
two rounds from that, right through the bone. Perhaps you may need
three, if he cuts low down, or possibly only one high up; you must
watch him and judge how many you will need. Take this, put it in a
casserole or stew-pan with hot water enough to cover it and put it on
the very back of the stove, where it cannot boil, and let it stand there
for three hours; then try it, and if it is tender, cover it with chopped
vegetables, carrots, a little onion, parsley, and turnips and peas if
you happen to have them at hand. Let it simmer now for an hour. Take up
the meat, drain the vegetables and put them around it, thicken and brown
the gravy and put it over all, and you would never guess you were dining
off 'soup meat.'
"Or, here is another way to cook the same cut. Get a good large piece,
say one weighing two and a half pounds. Brown it in a hot saucepan all
over with a spoonful of drippings; when it is all a good color, pour
enough water on to just cover it, and put in the vegetables as you did
before and add six cloves. Simmer the whole under a cover for four hours
and serve just as it is, in a hot dish.
"Still a third way to manage, is to cut the meat from the bone and dice
it. Simmer this with the vegetables and the bone till it is very tender.
Take up the meat and put it in a baking-dish, and strain and thicken the
gravy and pour this over; then put a crust on top, either one of pastry
or a mashed potato crust with an egg beaten in it to make it light, and
bake the whole. Put a little butter on top to brown it if you use the
potato. Now, no one who ate those three or four dishes would think they
were related; but when you have them, do not serve them one after
another, but let a week go by between, just to have a change of meat.
"Then there is calf's liver. That in town even in spring costs more than
it did some years ago, but even here a little goes so far that I call it
a cheap meat, too; there is not a particle of waste about it, you see.
Get a pound and a half some time and lard it; that is, stick narrow
strips of salt pork in it. If you cannot do that, lay two slices on top
of the whole. Bake it in a covered pan and baste it often, and serve
with a brown gravy. There will be one dinner off this roast to begin
with. For a second, chop it up and either make a mock terrapin by a
cook-book rule, or else cut it in dice, cream and bake it. If any bits
are left over have those on toast for luncheon."
"Mary, you told me in the most solemn manner that I was never to have
meat for either luncheon or breakfast."
"Did I say never? I did not quite mean that, because sometimes you have
a very little bit of something you can economically utilize in that way.
Of course you could have it in a soufflé for dinner if you had a small
cupful, but if you had only half as much, you could not; then put it on
toast and add plenty of gravy, and have it for breakfast with a clear
conscience. Only do not have anything which would do for dinner; that is
all I meant by my 'never.' The same thing applies to lunch. If you have
just a little meat you are sure is useless elsewhere, mix it with boiled
rice and lots of seasoning, and bake it in a mould in a pan of water and
turn it out hot; that makes a very good and economical dish for once."
"It does seem strange, when one thinks that we are eating scrag of
mutton and beef stew right along, to buy things cheaper still for
dinner, doesn't it?"
"Oh, we have not had those things right along! We had chicken last week,
once, and the week before we had a pot-roast which I recall with
pleasure this minute. But I admit the accusation in part, for you know
we have had the dinner-parties to make up for. Ordinarily, I do not
manage quite so closely. But if for a week or two you have calf's head
once, and a dinner or two of beef shin and such things, you will cut
down wonderfully on your meat bill. You can have also a dinner of one
Frenched tenderloin, and another of scrag of mutton with barley, and a
third of half a pound of chopped beef made up into meat cakes with a
brown gravy. If you eke out with odds and ends of things in croquettes,
with heavy soup before it, I should think you could save nearly two
dollars in the one item of meat, and no one the wiser. Then once have a
main course of salt codfish, freshened and creamed and baked with
crumbs, in place of meat, and another time have baked beans, just for a
change. If it is summer-time you can have a very good dinner dish of an
eggplant. Cut it in two sidewise, take out the centre and salt it, and
put it under a weight to extract the juice. After an hour or so take it
up and chop it and mix it with an equal quantity of seasoned bread
crumbs and a small cup of chopped nuts. Heap this in the shell and bake
it with a covering of crumbs and butter. It is just as nourishing as
meat and not so heavy, though it is a distinctly substantial dish. Of
course you must be careful to get a very cheap eggplant, or you save
nothing, but I am supposing now you live where gardens are plenty;
perhaps you can walk out and pick one in your own.
"To go with the meats, possibly we can find some spring vegetables that
cost no more than winter ones would. Naturally we cannot buy asparagus,
nor yet new peas, but I fancy we may pick up some cheap new beets or
carrots. If not, we will just go on having winter ones, but we will try
and serve them in vegetable croquettes, or cream them and bake them with
crumbs for a change. And then we can certainly have greens of ever so
many kinds, and nothing is more wholesome in the spring than greens."
"I simply despise them," said Dolly with a sniff of disdain.
"You will not despise mine, my child; I learned how to cook them in
Paris and they are good enough for an epicure. Write down my words of
wisdom on this subject. Take any sort of green thing you can get,
beet-tops, spinach, sorrel, lettuce, escarole or cress; wash them well
in several waters, and do not drain them very dry; put them in a covered
saucepan without water, and turn and press them well from time to time
till the juice flows. Take them up then and put them twice through the
meat-chopper; never try and chop them in a bowl or they will not be
good, but instead, coarse and stringy. After they are a smooth pulp, put
them on the fire, and add seasoning generously: salt, pepper, lemon
juice or a very little vinegar, and a little cream if you have it. With
sorrel, which is the very best of all greens, do not put in any acid;
with spinach, add a little nutmeg. Then, when the whole has cooked for
five minutes, take it up, put it in a very hot dish, and serve at once;
you will have a new dish you will certainly like."
"How about potatoes?" inquired Dolly after she had written this down and
marked it with a star as "extra good." "No new potatoes for us, I
suppose?"
"Unluckily, no. I hate to keep on using old ones, but I always do until
that happy day when I find the price is exactly the same for new or old;
then I change over. But do not have potatoes all the time; boiled rice
is cheaper when you are cutting down expenses. And when you can buy some
vegetable cheaper than potatoes, have neither, but have two fresh
vegetables instead. That makes a good change in spring and summer."
"And how about salads?"
"Just as soon as you find young dandelion leaves and cress and cheap
lettuce, cut off soups and have those instead. But do not buy them
unless you can really save money by doing so; there is a danger you may
not think of. Usually soups are cheaper."
"And desserts?"
"Eggs are cheap just now, so depend somewhat on them. That is, make a
sweet omelet of two, for one night, and for another have prune puff. For
that you take the white of one egg, sweeten it and mix with the pulp of
half a dozen cooked prunes; chill this and serve it in glasses. Or, put
it in small brown baking-dishes and put it in the oven for five minutes,
and serve it hot in the same dishes.
"Have a sweet soufflé sometimes, too. Beat the white of two eggs light,
fold in a little powdered sugar, and put it in a buttered dish with
spoonfuls of jam or orange marmalade dropped in here and there. Set
this in a hot oven as you go to dinner, and it will be just ready when
it is time for dessert.
"The next night after you have had either of these, have baked custard.
Mix the slightly beaten egg yolks with a little milk and sugar, and put
them in cups or small moulds and bake them in a pan of water. You can
vary them by putting in jam or by making the sugar into caramel, or
adding a little bit of rice. Or, use up the yolks by having them
scrambled with milk for breakfast.
"And if you live in the country, Dolly, have lots of rhubarb for spring
desserts. You can serve it one day in a deep tart with pie-crust on top,
and little tartlets made from the left-overs. On another you stew it in
a little water, and put in the sugar as it is just done, because it does
not take as much then as if it went in at first. Then, while it is hot,
add enough dissolved gelatine to set the whole and pour it into a mould.
Serve with part of the juice as a sauce, which you kept out on purpose.
"Speaking of this jelly suggests also coffee jelly and prune jelly and
things of that kind, for they do not take butter or eggs; but I rather
think I told you of those when we were studying desserts. However, I can
remind you of them now, can't I?
"When strawberries are cheap, get one boxful and divide it. Serve part
the first one night with a plain soft corn-starch pudding. The second
night, slightly crush the rest and sweeten them. Make just a little bit
of baking-powder biscuit dough and mould several rather thin biscuits;
bake these, split them, and put in the berries between two layers, and
you have nice individual shortcakes. In that way one box will make two
desserts, while otherwise you might not find it enough. Of course if you
had a garden you could go out and pick some berries and serve them in
their natural state, but I am telling you how to manage if you have not
such luxuries as home-grown fruit.
"When we speak of cheap desserts, our mind naturally reverts to bread
pudding, and we have already had that once. But to cut down its expense,
serve it in small moulds instead of in one large one; individual dishes
are a great economy for any sort of thing. And try having boiled rice
croquettes with raisins in them; and have farina croquettes, too, cooked
rather brown, and if possible covered with scraped maple sugar. Don't
you think we might leave desserts now? I told you so much about them
when we went over the subject."
"Yes, you may go on to breakfasts and luncheons if you have finished
dinners. Can you really economize on those? It seems to me we have
reduced them to their lowest terms already."
"Well, we have, just about. But for breakfasts I should cut out fruit
altogether for a time, and make a breakfast of hot cereal, coffee and
toast, or some good sort of muffin that did not take too many eggs. In
winter you can have a hearty meal of fried corn-meal mush; you can
either make that the day before you want it and slice and fry it in the
morning, or you can stir it up and boil it freshly just before breakfast
and fry spoonfuls of it while it is soft. I like it best that way
myself, but you can try both ways. In summer you can have an excellent
breakfast of cold cereals."
"They sound horrid."
"They are not horrid at all, but very good; we will begin to have them
ourselves as soon as it gets warm enough. And besides cereals, I should
see if I could not have some cheap hot breakfast dish to alternate with
them; I suppose milk toast, or if you live where milk is plenty, cream
toast, and codfish in lots of ways, especially in baked potatoes, or
mixed with mashed potato in small dishes. Sometimes I should have
codfish in fritters; brown puffy fritters, not flat greasy cakes. And I
should have clams in that way, too, if they were cheap."
"How about luncheons, now? Did you say you could or could not cut down
on those?"
"I think we cannot do much better than we have done, but I should keep
trying all the time. I should have fried bread with jelly to eat on it,
and baked beans, and farina cakes, and minced vegetables, hot or in
salad. And in summer I should have creamed corn or peas on toast, and
lots of salads of plain cooked vegetables. But be very careful not to
try and cut down on your luncheons by doing without substantial dishes.
No woman who does her own work can long keep up on bread and tea at noon
without getting sallow and thin and anaemic; you simply must not try and
economize on nourishing food, even though you cut down on everything
expensive. Starvation is poor management."
"Well, leaving meals for a moment, do you try and cut down on other
things, such as coffee, for example? Do you have a poorer quality to
save money?"
"Never. I must have good coffee at any rate. But I will tell you what I
do right along. I go to a very good grocery, one of the largest and most
expensive sort, and there I ask for a good kind of coffee which is not
as expensive as their highest grades. You will be astonished to find
that all such places make a specialty of coffee which actually costs
less than you can buy it for at your regular grocery, and it is
infinitely better, too. One famous place keeps coffee for thirty-five
and forty cents a pound and even more, and at the same time recommends
what they call their 'best' coffee, at nineteen cents! It seems absurd,
but that is a fact. I always use it, and it is the best I can buy. Never
use cheap coffee, Dolly; it is horrid, just as bad butter is, or bad
tea, or bad eggs. Go without, or have them good."
"Mary, did you ever think what you would do if you had to live on just a
few cents a day? I have often wondered whether I could manage or not.
Suppose for a time you had practically nothing at all, how would you
manage then?"
"I suppose I should plan to have things to eat that would give the
maximum of nourishment for the minimum of cost. Let me see. I should
have corn-meal mush for one breakfast, because that contains fat and is
very nourishing. For another, I should have boiled rice, I think. For
luncheons I should have split pea purée, or a thick bean soup. For
dinner I should have a dish of creamed codfish, let us say; or, I should
have whole wheat bread and a baked apple instead of the fish. And I
should have macaroni and cheese, too. I know people who have tried these
things say you can live easily on beans and lentils and whole wheat
bread and a certain amount of fruit, apples or bananas or figs, and I
can quite believe it. Of course, if only one could have plenty of milk,
the rest would be easy."
"Easy, but not pleasant. I should hate to have to have such monotonous
food, so I hope Fred's income will never be less. I like a pretty dinner
table and a dainty dinner. Cereals may be all very well as to
nourishment for the body, but I think the spirit suffers. I don't mean
spirit, either, exactly. But you get the idea, don't you?"
"The general poetry of life, I suppose you have in mind. The dinner
table with candles and china and glass and good things to eat gives an
air of refinement to life. Well, I agree with you that they are worth
having, too. We can economize in the food, but we cannot dispense with
the graces of the dinner."
"If we cut down too much, you see I am afraid things will not be quite
as nice as I like to have them."
"I don't believe in doing it all at once, but in cutting down a trifle
here and another there, day by day, till you can afford better things. I
am sure it would give one a most uncomfortable moral jar to suddenly
drop from very comfortable living to lentils, or to anything
corresponding with your idea of the 'scrags of mutton' which you are
perpetually holding up as the very embodiment of inelegance! Better not
go in for too much luxury any one day; have things economically nice
right along and save a little margin so you will not have to cut down at
all. Unless, indeed, you cut for entertaining, as we are doing now; then
do it imperceptibly, and don't tell of it, and all will go well.
"And now that is my last word. I find reducing expenses has a most
exhausting effect on me. Let's go down-town and lark a bit and refresh
our jaded spirits, and when we feel equal to it, we will come back and
cook up a dinner that will not cost half as much as it will seem to
cost, judging by its looks and taste."