Cooking vital in a recession
By BECKY BROOKS
Enterprise Editor
Age is a wonderful thing in some ways. At age 16, no one can tell you anything.
Then at 25, you are amazed at how much more you know than when you were a teen - but you still know everything.
Then when you start eyeballing the half century mark, you understand how much you've learned, how often you've been wrong, and that there is so much new yet to learn.
Between 25 and 50, there is another age young adults hit that greatly worries me. Thanks to the great State of Ohio and people in my generation, the current generation of young parents do not seem to know how to survive on a tight budget.
Before Christmas, I had a vacation day left and my sister drafted me to visit Second Harvest Food Bank in Toledo. She made a pick up for her church food pantry. When I was 25 and working at my first daily newspaper - I scraped by on a very tight budget. I learned to cook from scratch.
After work, I would make a huge batch of chicken noodle soup - buying a whole chicken. It saved me 10 cents a pound to cut it up myself. I made noodles or rivels from eggs and flour for pennies. The chicken broth was nearly free except for the chopped onion, celery stalk and diced carrot I threw in for flavor. I had a couple hours of effort, but had multiple meals in the freezer even after a dinner with friends.
I had chili, soups, stews and casseroles on hand in the freezer on days there was no money to spend on food. I had learned to invest in basics and key spices. Some of us learned from parents, 4-H and home economics.
In high school, I believed home economics was a waste of time - I was wrong. Back to the food pantry visit. I found items that would be helpful for scratch cooking, but my sister told me items like flour, corn meal, and plain pasta often just sat on the shelf at their church pantry. She said people don't cook.
The State of Ohio has not been any smarter than I was at 25. New state education CORE curriculum requirements emphasize adding more mathematics and science in middle school and high school.
It will cost Ohio and taxpayers millions to implement - yet we have no required education program to teach teens how to stretch a dime and feed themselves in a recession. Luckily, the state is pouring more money - usually through grants - into breakfast and lunch programs for kids at schools like Clyde-Green Springs. But I worry that those food dollars will dry up - remember the 1970s. Our family and friends got through because my grandmother (who worked full-time) and my mom cooked hearty scratch meals. We also had a summer vegetable garden. Yep, Mom canned.
All that knowledge is slipping away when it is so clear there are many young families who could benefit from those old skills.
I am sharing a main dish that is great for freezer leftovers. A secret to this dish is you can make it easier by blanching bell peppers - in season, and throw them in a freezer bag.
When you are ready to make them, pullout a bag, thaw, stuff and bake them. Then refreeze the leftovers. It only makes sense to freeze veggies in season or when they are cheapest in the stores.
Stuffed Green Peppers
2 lbs ground beef
6 slices white bread cubed
32 oz. jar spaghetti sauce
10-12 lg. green bell peppers
1 cup water or more
Slice tops off peppers, clean out seeds and core. Blanche peppers and tops in boiling water until almost tender or the peppers have turned a dull green (3-5 minutes). Mix meat, bread and 1/2 cup of spaghetti sauce. Stuff a handful of meat mixture into each bell pepper. Put top back on the pepper and repeat until all peppers are full. Place filled peppers in a 5-quart casserole dish. Pour sauce over top of peppers. Add water until liquid covers the peppers. Bake at 350 degrees in a preheated over for 1 hour.
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