Cost-effective pantry staples

There's an interesting article on Slate this week. Jennifer Reese makes bagels, cream cheese, yogurt, jam, and granola from scratch to see if they are cheaper than their store-bought counterparts. The results: bagels and yogurt, cheaper and tastier; cream cheese, more expensive and less tasty; jam, tastier, cost varies; granola, more expensive, tastier. For the most part, she's using the cheapest possible raw ingredients (generic sugar, not organic dried cane juice) and comparing her results to the cheapest grocery store products.

More often than not, I've been cooking and baking with high-quality ingredients lately (organic whole-grain flour and vegetables, local honey, etc., etc.). Not exclusively, but I try to avoid the "dirty dozen" and refined flour. I'm pretty sure that my homemade foods are more expensive than cheap grocery store versions, but less expensive than upscale grocery store versions. It's a dilemma. Ingredients like maple syrup and organic flour are extraordinarily expensive, and I'm finding it hard to cut my grocery budget down really low. But we're eating better than ever. The sad truth is that upscale grocery store items are sometimes kind of mediocre, or stale, or oily. (Whole Foods deli counter, I'm looking at you.) That's the worst bummer, spending big bucks on so-so upscale chow. And I'm exceedingly happy to avoid vegetarian freezer items—Morningstar Farms veggie burgers and the like. They are expensive, high in sodium, and have ingredient lists as long as your arm.

I've never made homemade bagels, but I'm going to try this soon.