The Frugal Foodie

With Christmas just two weeks away, I'm busy preparing for the holidays and planning my final gifts.

While I can't tell you what I'm buying people, I will tell you that a majority of our gifts for friends and the extended family are edible. I love cooking, and my friends and family love eating. (OK, I love eating too.)

I also enjoy knowing that edible gifts are inexpensive to make, which means that I can spread more holiday cheer on a small budget. It's a win-win situation for everyone.

It's fall, and you know what that means cold and flu season.

I felt my first cold of the season coming on a few days ago, so I did what any reasonable person would do I took a chicken out of the freezer, roasted it for dinner, and made chicken soup with the leftovers.

It's getting chilly outside at night, and the days are getting shorter. Fall is here. It's time to make soup!

I may be rushing the seasons, but I love homemade soup. It fills our house with wonderful smells. It's warm and filling, and I can work on other things while the soup simmers away. I can also prepare most soups with leftover ingredients that I already have in the house making it a true frugal food, too.

As the days and nights become cooler, we've begun preparing our garden for fall. The summer crops are in, our late-summer crops are plentiful, and we've begun planning for next year's planting.

I've always considered gardening a great hobby. It's fairly frugal I rarely spend more than $25 for a year's worth of seeds and plants. How else can you stretch $25 into an entire summer of entertainment? I find nothing more rewarding than digging in the dirt, weeding, and harvesting the food that we've grown.