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The Cyberspouse, January 2004
Frugal Cooking in the Foreign Service
Cooking in the Foreign Service is a challenge. Often the reality that "you're not in Kansas any more" truly sinks in the first time you try grocery shopping or preparing dinner at a new post. Those "quick and easy" recipes you've been relying on for years are no longer quick or easy when the ingredients are unavailable or have to be ordered from 3,000 miles away! Not only will the local selection of food be different, but the measurements and sizes will differ as well. Just try locating a "15 ½ ounce can of low-salt chicken broth" in Prague-trust the Cyberspouse, you won't find it!
Quite often your choices for stocking your Foreign Service pantry are:
1) buying American products at the Commissary (if there is one at post) at an exorbitant markup,
2) being organized enough to order the exact amounts you need with your consumables shipments (if your post allows for them),
3) ordering ingredients online from merchants such as NetGrocer,
4) learning to make local recipes and/or adapting local ingredients to your recipes or,
5) the best possible combination of all of the above.
There's another factor at play here: you may have just become a one-income family, possibly for the first time. As the stay-at-home spouse, you'll need to find ways to make up for your lost income by managing the family budget-in fact, this could be your major financial contribution to the family over the next few years. Groceries and other consumables are a budget category in which smart shopping and cooking can make a lot of difference over time.
The Cyberspouse has cooked and baked her way across four continents. When she followed her officer into the Foreign Service, at the tender age of 22, she could barely boil water. (And that was even more challenging at 12,500 feet above sea level in La Paz, her first post!) Fifteen years later, she is proud to report that cooking, creatively and frugally with almost any available ingredients, is one of the most useful skills she acquired during those years overseas.
Recently, the Cyberspouse's grandmother came to visit, and observed that the Cyberspouse's kitchen is very similar to her own of half a century ago, with canisters of bulk cooking supplies lined up on shelves and raw fruits and vegetables piled up on the counter. There were few, if any, convenience foods to be found. The Cyberspouse had never really thought of it before, but in fact, the best way to avoid overspending on groceries in the Foreign Service is to cook the way your grandma used to. And it isn't really all that inconvenient, either, if you let modern appliances do some of the work.
Here are some tips for saving money on groceries in the Foreign Service.
Learn to bake. Don't buy $5.00 boxes of cereal or Pop Tarts at the Commissary-bake up a batch of banana muffins instead! Or make whole wheat pancakes on the weekend, freeze short stacks of them in Ziploc bags, and microwave them for the kids during the week. Homemade cookies and other goodies are also a great idea-the Cyberspouse can attest that there are NO children in her neighborhood that prefer Keeblers to her chewy oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. Or your children can bake their own snacks-even the Cyberspouse's seven year old son can make basic chocolate-chip cookies with minimal supervision.
Banana Pancake recipe (adapted from the King Arthur Flour Cookbook.) Makes about 24 pancakes. Ingredients: Directions: 1.) Mix all the dry ingredients in a large bowl. |
Chewy Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe (from www.allrecipes.com). Ingredients: Directions: |
Learn to make bread. There are lots of cultures which just don't have a clue about proper bread, in the Cyberspouse's experience (never mind the ones where the protein content has been increased by the addition of baked bugs.) Even if decent local bread is available, you may not be able to find specialty items such as bagels or English muffins. But you don't have to do without. While it is true that bread machines aren't magic-you do have to have some breadmaking experience to really get it right-they can make the job a lot easier. You can probably find a breadmaking friend in the Foreign Service-lots of "old hands" have had to learn to bake bread at some point out of necessity. Ask him or her to teach you the ropes.
Once you get rolling, order large, inexpensive bags of flour in your consumables shipment or from online merchants, or buy them at a military base if you are lucky enough to have one nearby. Store flour and other baking supplies in airtight containers, or in the freezer. Splurge on a few gourmet baking ingredients to add pizzazz to your homemade creations. The Cyberspouse's family often enjoys dinner bread made with King Arthur Flour's Pesto Bread Base, for example.
(Note: sometimes American bread machines will not bake properly on local voltage, but if that is the case, you can still use it for bread kneading and rising. Just set it for the dough cycle, take it out after the buzzer sounds, shape it into a loaf, let it rise one more time, and bake the bread in a standard oven.)
Basic Whole Wheat Bread for the Bread Machine 1 cup milk (OR 1/3 cup dry milk plus one cup water) Directions 2.) Let the dough rest for a couple of minutes while you oil your bread pan or cookie sheet. Knead a few times, shape into a loaf, and let rise in a draft-free place until doubled (cover with a damp cloth in dry weather.) 3.) Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F (200 C) and bake the bread for about 25 minutes, or until the loaf sounds hollow when you tap it on the bottom. Remove from the pan and let cool on a rack for a few minutes before slicing. |
Learn to make pizza. A bread machine makes creating the dough a snap. You will soon be very popular in the local American community! Pizza crusts can be made up ahead of time and stored in the refrigerator for up to three days-just add toppings and bake. Talk about convenience food! And so very inexpensive, especially if you make up the pizza sauce yourself!
Pizza Crust Recipe for the Bread Machine Makes one large pizza or two "personal pan pizzas." Ingredients: Directions: |
Get a crockpot (also known as a slow cooker). Nothing softens up tough local beef or chicken like a few hours in the crockpot. Most crockpot recipes are based around very plain ingredients as well-- meat, beans, potatoes, carrots, onions-that can be found locally. The Cyberspouse acquired her crockpot about two years ago, and since then has spent much less on imported Perdue chicken breasts because she can buy inexpensive whole local chickens and cook them to falling-off-the-bone tenderness in the crockpot. Chicken can be eaten straight out of the crockpot, or cooked chicken can be used in enchiladas, as a pizza topping, in soup or curries, and more. Tough local beef, as well as inexpensive cuts of American beef, can actually be quite edible when cooked in this way.
No more expensive, imported cans of beans in this kitchen either-the Cyberspouse buys local dry lentils, or inexpensive Goya red beans, black beans and garbanzos at the military commissary in bags and cooks them up in the crockpot too. (Dry beans could also easily be mail-ordered much less expensively than canned beans.) Throw them in the crockpot after breakfast and they are ready for any recipe by dinnertime. Extra beans can be frozen in Ziploc bags and thawed for good eating later.
Basic Crockpot Chicken Cut up one medium-sized chicken, removing any parts that you don't want to eat. Place one large onion, cut into wedges, in the bottom of the crockpot. Add a couple of cloves of garlic if desired. Put the chicken pieces, largest first, in the crockpot. Pour one cup of chicken stock (or bouillon) over everything. Cover, turn the crockpot to "low" and cook for 7-8 hours, or until juices run clear. (Tip: don't open the crockpot until the chicken appears to be done, as this will let the heat out and slow down the cooking process.) |
Basic Crockpot Beans Rinse and drain one bag (usually 12-16 ounces) of any kind of dry beans. Pour beans into the crockpot and pour 5 cups of boiling-hot water over them. Cover, and cook for 6-8 hours or until done. (Smaller beans, such as lentils, will cook faster than larger ones.) Use immediately, or drain and freeze in Ziploc bags for later use. |
Make your own convenience foods. Take chicken broth or stock for example: there is simply no need to buy this in cans. You can always use bouillon cubes, either local or mail-ordered, or make your own stock. Just save the backs, wings, and other unwanted parts of the chicken in a plastic bag in the freezer. When you have about 3 pounds worth, make up a batch of chicken stock. This can be deep-frozen in jars or plastic containers for months and thawed for use in recipes. (A good rule of thumb is to bring the stock to a rolling boil after it is thawed and let it simmer for ten minutes to ensure that it is safe to eat.)
Basic Chicken Stock Recipe Makes about 2 quarts. Ingredients Directions: |
No need to buy bread crumbs, either--just make your own using stale bread. You can freeze bits and pieces of bread until you have enough to bother. Dry out the bread in an oven on low heat, then put it in small chunks into the blender to make crumbs. Store the bread crumbs in the freezer-season them with Italian seasoning first if you want them to taste just like Progresso. Croutons can be easily made by cutting bread into cubes, drizzling with olive oil and herbs, then toasting in the oven.
It has been a long time since the Cyberspouse bought a jar of pasta sauce. Instead, she stocks up on canned tomatoes and tomato paste at the nearby military commissary and cooks up triple batches of sauce on the stovetop or in the crockpot. Extra sauce can be frozen and thawed out for a quick-dare she say "convenient?"-dinner later.
Chop up vegetables and store them in the freezer to throw into soups and sauces later on. This is a great way to save vegetables that are on the verge of spoiling, and it can also "stretch the season" at posts where not everything is available all year. In Prague, for example, the Cyberspouse spots a bunch of celery about once every three months. It just isn't very common here. So she buys it, chops it up and stores it in the freezer to have on hand when a recipe calls for "one stalk of celery, diced." Almost any vegetable can be stored this way-even zucchini can be grated and stored for use in breads, sauces, etc.
Look for older recipes. You may find that older cookbooks contain recipes are more suited to your frugal Foreign Service pantry than modern ones. The last twenty years in particular have seen an explosion of prepackaged convenience foods at the same time that most families have had less time to devote to cooking. Newer cookbooks reflect this trend, with a reliance on canned sauces, for example, that you may not have available to you at post. Check eBay for older cookbooks, or search vegetarian or healthy eating websites for recipes using raw ingredients. Or just ask your grandmother for her favorite recipes!
Organizing recipes from all these different sources can be difficult, but there is a modern way to go about it. There are a plethora of software options available. Browse all of them at amazon.com, or check out the Cyberspouse's personal favorite, Mastercook. This program is not fancy, but it is relatively easy to use, and thanks to a lively community of Mastercook users, there are thousands of recipes available online in Mastercook format--even entire cookbooks!
All this sounds like a lot of work, you might say. It is more work to cook this way, but it costs a great deal less. In general, the typical American shopping cart is filled by a family with two incomes and no time to cook. The opposite is true of most Foreign Service families. The fact is, as a spouse, at some posts you may not be able to work, or you may need a hobby to occupy your time! The Cyberspouse and her husband learned more about cooking during their two years in isolated Lusaka, Zambia, for example, than at any other time in their lives. It's amazing how creative you can be when you are hundreds of miles away from the nearest pizza joint or bagel bakery.
Cooking overseas can be a chore, or it can be a creative adventure made even more interesting by the challenges of adapting to the local supply. It's your choice!
The Cyberspouse's Favorite Cookbooks for Foreign Service Cooks
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King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion: The All-Purpose Baking Cookbook
The
King Arthur Flour 200th Anniversary Cookbook/Dedicated to the Pure Joy
of Baking
King Arthur specializes in recipes "from scratch" and accompanied
by well-written, step-by-step instructions for new and experienced bakers.
Moosewood
Restaurant Cooks at Home: Fast and Easy Recipes for Any Day
The
New Moosewood Cookbook
Despite a few "specialty" ingredients that may be difficult
to find overseas, Moosewood cookbooks primarily use raw ingredients and
are therefore not only healthy, but entirely suitable for the Foreign
Service kitchen.
The
Complete Guide to Bread Machine Baking
From Better Homes and Gardens: a great bread machine cookbook.
The
Best Pizza Is Made at Home (A Nitty Gritty Cookbook)
The title says it all.
Useful websites
General Recipe Sites (these will have also have recipes under "crockpot"
or "slow cooker")
http://www.allrecipes.com
http://www.recipesource.com
http://www.recipezaar.com
Vegetarian/Health Conscious Cooking
http://www.molliekatzen.com/
http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/
Bread and Pizza Recipes
http://www.bread-bakers.com/index.html
http://www.kingarthurflour.com
Recipe Organization Software
Mastercook by Valusoft is available at Amazon.com or at Valusoft's website.
The Cyberspouse is contributed by Kelly Bembry Midura, website designer, freelance writer, stay-at-home parent, and veteran Foreign Service Spouse. She is currently working on a book about frugal living for families in the Washington, DC area. Click here to read more "Cyberspouse" columns. Email Kelly at kelly@aafsw.org.