If you live near a Kroger Store, here are some great specials this week.
5lbs. potatoes- 97 cents.
1/2 gal. milk- 99 cents.
Avocadoes 4/$3.00.
One of the problems is that no one knows how to cook anymore. We’re too used to prepared stuff. There is a vast array of things available to us on the outer edges of the store...but everyone heads for the things that don’t require effort.
The prepared stuff costs more money.
Really, we are so blessed. A fine mist descends on our wide selection of produce for Heaven’s sake.
I’m from the midwest...where casseroles are an artform.
Fried rice. Soup with lots of beans, rice, and potatoes. Ramen noodles. taco bell cheesy beef burritos(89cents)
I bought a Food Saver last year and it has saved me a lot of money. I buy Walmart brand vacuum sealing rolls and even re-use them at times.
I cook huge batches of lasagna, chili, soups, etc. and freeze them in individual servings and eat them at work for lunch.
I use the store brand (Publix) containers to freeze the soups in, then pop the soup out and vacuum them with the Food Saver.
I look for sale items and take advantage (especially chicken). I’ll cook whole chickens on the rotisserie on my grill then halve them and vacuum them and freeze them. I ate one the other night that was from last July and it tasted as good as if I had prepared it that evening.
Get a Food Saver!
OK Foodie nerd time..
Study heritage foods, the foods of the common folk.. generally, these are the best tasting foods (and becoming the ‘in’ things in high end restaurants), use low cost ingredients, and are meant to feed a large group of people. Everyone should know how to make:
Cajun Gumbo
Brazilian Feijoada
French Cassoulet
Chinese Hong Sho Rou (Red Cooked Pork Stew)
Mexico Manudo
The key with a lot of these dishes is using the scraps or cheaper cuts and stretching them out. Have fun with frugal cooking..
Shop an Aldi store, if there’s one near you. Cheaper than WalMart. You can’t get everything you need, but what you can get is cheap.
Dried beans and legumes are really cheap and can make delicious meals.
Buy a freezer (chest freezers are relatively cheap and use very little electricity), then stock up on things that are on sale. Chickens this week were 79 cents a lb. at our local store, definitely worth stocking up on.
I’ve been doing the frugal thing all my life, but I’ve noticed that the dollar menu items at fast food places are getting hard to beat.
We buy watermelon and it’s not half bad. I had some tonight, yummy.
I forgot one other trick from the Italians, buy a big bottle of cheap vodka and a lot of lemons. In mason jars, fill them about half way up with sliced lemons, pour in simple syrup, then finish filling with vodka. It is a cheap way to make limoncello and you will have preserved lemons which will be great for cooking with. It doesn’t taste near as good as real limoncello, but it is a decent flavored vodka which has a lot of uses.
Found a good blog entry from Michael Ruhlman on what you should stock in your pantry. Some of the items are crazy, but they all serve a purpose.
http://blog.ruhlman.com/ruhlmancom/2009/01/the-freezer-pan.html
For 6 years I developed and wrote simple meals recipes for a living. If written properly almost any one can cook from “scratch”.
Restaurant chains and processed food manufacturers have convinced a generation of families that cooking is an expensive undesirable chore.
There are some really great tips in this thread for saving money and time.
Here are a few off the top of my head:
Don’t buy boneless cuts of meat. The bone(s) can be used to flavor a second meal.
Freeze bread. To serve, just leave it on the counter for a few minutes before serving. Or pop whole thawed loaves in the oven for a few minutes. By-the-way this is exactly how most restaurants and some bakeries do it. You wont throw away stale or moldy bread again.
Cook extra plain rice, potatoes or pasta they can be turned into a myriad of cold and hot meals in minutes.
Popcorn is a very cheap snack
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