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Croutons are a wonderful accompaniment to your home-grown salad greens this summer. And what better way to save money than to make them yourself?

This basic recipe for salad croutons is an easy and quick way to make them. Remember you can add or substitute ingredients to suit your taste. Since we are all about saving money here, I am going to follow the recipe and use the dried herbs. Fresh rosemary and/or fresh thyme would be a great addition but I don’t have any in the garden. If you have some growing on a windowsill this would be a great way to use it. Mental note: grow thyme and rosemary in my AeroGarden when I start it up again in the fall!

• 3 tablespoons olive oil | $0.48 (1 pint @ $5.11)
• 2 teaspoons garlic powder | $0.08 (1 pound @ $9.91)
• 2 tablespoons Parsley flakes | $0.34 (1 pound @ $45.20)
• 1/2 bag of bread | $0.50 (1 bag @ $0.99)
• 1 teaspoon of salt (or to taste) | $0.007 (1 pound @ $0.55)

TOTAL COST: $1.41

You just cut the crust off of the bread and then cut up the bread into pieces. I like 1 inch cubes but you could do whatever size you like. Then put the bread into a bowl along with all the other ingredients. Mix it around. Spread on a cookie sheet and bake in the oven at 325 for about 10 minutes until golden brown or try popping them under the broiler for about 2-3 minutes. I prefer the 325 degree method during the summer so the kitchen doesn’t get so hot!

Makes about 12 ounces of croutons.

Cost Comparison: 5 ounces of garlic croutons from Fresh Express: $1.25

Verdict: Making your own croutons saves you about 1/2 off the price of store-bought, seasoned croutons.

Note: All prices are from Safeway.com, lowest-priced item

I am really psyched about this dish if you can’t tell…The other day I mentioned the dinners I had planned for the week. Tonight’s was the Red Beans and Rice recipe from Epicurious. I had never made this dish before tonight, and in fact had only just found it on Epicurious because I had some left over dried red beans and leftover wild rice to use up.

Well, let me tell you, those 72 commenters on there were on to something! Personally I can’t believe a single recipe that uses red beans and rice could even garner that many comments, but I guess people get passionate about their food. (And here I am writing a whole post on the dish so apparently I have become one of these types!)

Anyway, this is definitely a dish you should try out if you want something cheap, delicious, and healthy all at once. The only downside is that I had to start the cooking at 2:00 with dinner scheduled at 6:00. That’s because I was using dried beans instead of canned - they take about 2.5 to 3 hours to soak and cook. The wild rice takes an hour to cook. Then you put the beans, stock, onion, garlic, and sausage together for another good 45 minutes of cooking. So it does take a long time. But you do get A LOT of food out of this. I think we’ll be eating it for days on end actually.

I’ve looked up the cost of the meal using the Safeway.com site and here’s the breakdown:

• 2 tablespoons of olive oil | $0.32 (1 pint @ $5.11)
• 1 pound sausage | $1.33 (Hormel Pork Sausage)
• 1 onion | $0.67
• 4 garlic cloves | $0.20 (1 head @ $0.50)
• 3 14/5 oz cans of kidney beans | $4.50 (1 can @ $1.50)
• 1 cup chicken broth | $0.40 (49.5 oz @ $2.39)
• 1 teaspoon Cajun seasoning | $0.14 (3.18 oz @ $2.87)
• 3 cups cooked rice | $0.26 (white long-grain rice @ $0.62/pd)

TOTAL COST: $7.82 !!!

COST PER SERVING: $1.30

Now, the recipe says that it makes 6 servings and that is what I base the “cost per serving” off of (7.82/6) BUT for our family I would say this recipe makes more like 10 servings which would make the cost per serving $0.78.

Note: all prices shown are the lowest prices that I found for those items at Safeway. If you buy fancy rice or sausage the cost will go up but I still think it would wind up being a relatively cheap meal.

We all tooled over to our friends house yesterday since it is summer vacation around here now and the kids are home from school for a while until they hit the camps/daycare rounds starting next week. Anyway, these particular friends have an absolutely beautiful home right on the ocean with amazing views. It helped that the sun was out and it was warm enough to eat our lunch outside. The house is not huge but amazing nonetheless (4 bedrooms and a rec room so not too shabby).

On the drive home, as we rounded the corner into our own neighborhood I couldn’t help but experience a twinge of regret that our home is not as lovely. I do like to live here, and trust me I am not complaining, but it seems to me that everyone ought to be able to live in a nice house on the ocean. What an idyllic lifestyle my children could lead under such circumstances! I thought it might be good to note, however, that even with such obvious wealth coming in, that family still shops at CostCo, TJMaxx, Target, and the other discount stores. Isn’t that something?!

At any rate, their family circumstances are much different than ours (the father is never around and he is MUCH older than we are), but we certainly aim to strive for that kind of lifestyle. I honestly would not mind spending my money on such a home - it would definitely be worth it.

It was really nice to see my post on the cost of lunch salads featured in the 125th Festival of Frugality! One of the other posts featured on there, The Top Five Frugalicious Desserts was really great too! I would only add to it that homemade ice cream is really easy and cheap as well. I’ll put that down on my list as a topic for a future post.