“It’s been a long time since you shared a recipe at Get Rich Slowly,” I told Kris last week. “What about that pot roast recipe?” she asked. “You love that.” “Yes. Yes, I do,” I said. This guest post from my wife may be the best thing I’ve ever shared at Get Rich Slowly. It’s certainly the tastiest.
I’m usually a from-scratch kind of cook, and the sort of “semi-homemade” ingredients for this pot roast make me cringe a bit. But although I’ve tried other recipes and other methods, this one beats them all hands-down. I got the recipe from an old friend after enjoying it at her house a couple of times and wondering why my pot roast was never as good as Kim’s pot roast.
This recipe has one cardinal rule: You must start with good beef. Otherwise why bother? We use a roast from the beef we buy in bulk; it’s pasture-fed on [...]

Every month, my wife and I track how much time and money we spend growing food. This is the report for October 2009. (Here are the results for 2008.)
As those of you who follow me on Twitter already know, it’s been a l-o-n-g Saturday filled with all sorts of misadventures. Murphy’s Law has been in full effect this Halloween. I’d meant to post this month-end garden summary around noon, but now will have to do. In fact, there wouldn’t be a summary at all except that my wife sat down and wrote it for me. Here’s what Kris has to say about the month of October…
October arrived with the typical cold and damp, bringing Portland’s garden season to a close. During the fall and winter we’ll enjoy the hearty foods we’ve packed away from this year’s crops, until by early spring we’re ready to begin anew. We’ve been eating fresh fruit and vegetables from our garden [...]

Every month, my wife and I track how much time and money we spend growing food. This is the report for September 2009. (Here are the results for 2008.)
After a long productive summer, our September in the garden was kind of anticlimactic. Sure, we continued to harvest our home-grown food, but neither of us was particularly “in” to the garden this month. It was a chore instead of an obsession. September can be that way sometimes.
Still, there’s always something happening with our home food production. This month:

We’ve been harvesting lots of apples and plums. It took four or five years, but our Jonathan apple tree has finally turned productive. We pulled down nearly 40 pounds of apples this year! And the plum tree was loaded.

The blackberries are still producing, but we’re sick of them. I can hardly believe I’m saying that (blackberries are my favorite), but I’ve had enough berries. And besides, they’re not very [...]

The October 2009 issue of Consumer Reports contains an article extolling the virtues of generic store-brand products. While shoppers used to sacrifice quality when choosing generic, that’s no longer the case. From the article:
If concern about taste has kept you from trying store-brand foods, hesitate no more. In blind tests, our trained tasters compared a big national brand with a store brand in 29 food categories. Store and national brands tasted about equally good 19 times. Four times, the store brand won; six times, the national brand won.
In other words, store brands offer roughly the same quality as national brands, but at a much-reduced cost. How much reduced? Consumer Reports says that the store brands they tested cost an average of 27 percent less than the name brand equivalents.
How much can you save?
Sometimes theory is one thing and reality another. It’s nice that Consumer Reports can score great deals on store brands. But could I? [...]

Every month, my wife and I track how much time and money we spend growing food. This is the report for August 2009. (Here are the results for 2008.)
After late July’s blistering heat, August has been relatively cool around Portland. Our fruits and vegetables have been producing excellent crops. Kris is constantly busy in the kitchen, canning and preserving food. We’re eating fresh salsa all the time. And hard as it is to believe, I’m almost sick of blackberries.
Fresh berries in a bowl of cereal == a great breakfast! Photo by Kris.

This is actually the best year we’ve had for blackberries. They started producing at the end of July, and there’s been a non-stop flood ever since. Sometimes — in mid-winter — I think I want to plant more blackberries. But during the month of August, I’m reminded that this is a silly idea.
The blackberries aren’t the only prolific producers this year. Our young plum [...]

This is a guest post from Karawynn, who writes about personal finance at Pocketmint. Karawynn is a potential Staff Writer for Get Rich Slowly. Karawynn has been blogging since before “blogging” was a word.

About a mile from my house there’s a slightly shabby strip mall housing a Dollar Store, a Ross Dress for Less, and something called a ‘Grocery Outlet’. For two years I’ve driven past that sign — on my way to Costco, Fred Meyer, and Trader Joe’s — without ever giving it a second thought. I’ll pick through thrift-store racks for clothes, sure, but I’m a snob about food, and ‘Grocery Outlet’ smacked of discards and dregs.
After six months of only part-time employment and a pared-down budget, though, I start eyeing the sign more speculatively. One day I gather up my cloth bags and my determination and head over to expand my grocery comfort zone.
Inside the Grocery Outlet
The building is [...]