Making Much from Little

A comment that I often overhear is: "We can't afford to eat organic."
Since my general socioeconomic environment is fairly fortunate I can assure you that this comment is relayed from someone who is gainfully employed and supplied with the accepted accoutrements of both necessity and comfort. Eating well, to dodge euphemisms, has more to do with know-how than pocketbook power - athough frugality has been know to empower those same purses. A pall of post-holiday debt and mandated furlougs is settling on our twin villes, so I feel motivated to tackle some of the obstacles to justifying bringing the very best food to your homes.
Meat - is the number one hurdle for families that want off the industrial food supply. Local meat can be expensive. Store bought, especially organic is very pricy, and still dodgy if you ask me. So what to do?
1) Buy direct. Go to the market, meet the farmer and family/ employees. You start a crucial relationship and eliminate paying a markup.
2)Get a chest freezer. These start under $200. Fill it with food from the market bought in season.
But most importantly:
3)Learn how to cook inexpensive cuts of meat. Sure we treat ourselves to some steaks($7-$9/#), very rarly prime cuts (up to $18/#), but mostly we feast heartily on ground, sausage, and peasant cuts like top round, stew meat, pork shoulder, etc. These items are very versatile, very nutritious, and often on special. The Moore's for example are specialing ground pork at $2/# for 5 pounds. That's a steal for pasture raised heritage breed pork.

So, lets talk shop.
Braising- should be your number one tool for cooking cheap meats. Braising means 'to cook with liquid.' In a nutshell you slowly simmer the meat in water, broth, wine, you choose, until it is palateable. Crock pots do the same job and can be indespensable to busy, savvy eaters.
Lets consider stewing beef ( or lamb, or goat, for that matter). Here's what I would do:
Saturday afternoon while running to the basement for more TP I hop over to the freezer and pull out three 1# packages of beef stew meat. These I toss unceremoniously into the sink to thaw while I forget about them. Before bed I put the packages into a container and refrigerate them.
Sunday afternoon I cook. Open the packages, rinse and pat dry the cubes. Season them with S&P. Get an ovensafe pan with straight walls and heat some oil. Turn your oven on to 325-400 depending on how fast you need it to be done. Slower is better. When the oil is hot, add the cubes. Don't over crowd the pan - cook in batches if necessary. Brown ( this means what it sounds like) the cubes on their sides, and moderate the heat as necessary. When all the meat is seared off, add enough liquid to the pan to cover the 'shoulders' of the pieces. Don't let 'em swim. Add seasonings as you see fit, mire poix, bay leaf, fennel etc, bring the whole thing to a simmer and then transfer it to the oven and just let it cook as slowly as you can allow, but figure a minimum of 3 hours.
When fork tender, the meat is done.. It serves as the perfect base for beef stew, pan roasts, or soup. Or, drain the meat & reserve the broth and then cook up some onions with latin spices, add the shredded meat, some beans, and a little tomato for real tacos or great chili.
Remembe the important technique is braising the beef. What you do with it during the week is limitless. Between the nutrition, versatility, and production of both bef and broth, this is a very resourceful delicacy at $4.50/#.