Popcorn - Frugal Snack Ideas

With school being out, kids tend to be hungry all the time. Many often bring hungry little friends with them. So how can you feed these little guys something somewhat healthy, without breaking the piggy bank?


How about buying a bag of popcorn. You know the old fashioned kind. You could make it in the pan on the stove.


Too hard you say?

Make your own microwave popcorn.

Just put 1/4 c. unpopped popcorn kernals and butter into a paper bag. Put the butter on the side flap of the bag and microwave with the buttered side up.

TipNut gives a full tutorial and there are also recipes for making gourmet flavored popcorns.


We bought a large bag of unpopped corn from Sam's years ago. I was going to grind it up to make cornmeal, but I then found that two of us are allergic to popcorn, so I made a lot of popcorn/gourmet flavor gift baskets for Christmas that year.


We still had some popcorn left that started to go stale. How do you know when popcorn is going stale? There are more unpopped kernals left at the bottom of the bag. This is because the kernal is drying out on the inside. You can add new life to your popcorn by mixing:

1/4 c. popcorn and 1/4 tsp. water together in a jar. Shake it so that the water can get on all the kernals, then store in the fridge for two days.


And to keep your popcorn from drying out, you should store it in a jar in the fridge, anyway.


What kind of frugal snacks are you coming up with?

Dehydrating Potatoes

With all the events going on lately, I have heard that each family should try to stockpile several weeks or months worth of food. Several times our electric has went out and I was glad we had some things made up.

There are also busy days, when I so wish that I could just fix a box of Hamburger Helper or something quick, but when living with food allergies, this just isn't possible.

Although, I do can lots of garden produce each year, I am going to try my new pressure canner on some yummy, healthy soup recipes. I have been searching online and other resources to find ways of storing up healthy, from scratch mixes, too.

One thing that our family eats alot of is potatoes. As of yesterday, our local Aldi carries a 10 lb. bag of potatoes for $2.49. Now, I know we should eat organic, but at this point, we are doing ok with these.

It's easy to dehydrate potatoes. First, peel them, wash them and cut into slices like you would for making fried potatoes. Next blanch them in boiling water for 8 minutes. Pour off the water and run ice cold water on them and let them sit in this for 15 minutes. Put slices on a clean dishtowel to dry. I then put mine on cookie racks or screen. Put in turned down on low oven or other heat source. *I read somewhere where they used solar heat to do this. Mine dried out in just under 3 hours.

Here are further instructions and some mixes using dehydrated potatoes that are comparable to those Betty Crocker potatoes in the box.


I have personally dehydrated the potato slices. Currently I am trying to make dehydrated mashed potato flakes using the same method, but crumbling the potatoes and drying on a screen.