tsk, tsk. I make my own chicken broth & freeze it in recycled cardboard dairy product containers. (Bag & freeze skin, excess fat trimmed from chicken. Once you have a good sized quanity, boil it for broth. Skim fat & freeze the broth.)
My mother-in-law did something similar. She placed her chicken and beef roasts in a hot oven, 450 degrees or so, for the first 10 or 15 minutes ('til the roast sizzled a while). Then she turned the oven down to 350 degrees.
Roaster chickens are the best. There’s 4 good meals in one for me and my kids. Roast chicken, with stuffing, mashed, etc on one night, chicken sandwiches for lunch, chicken with pasta for the next dinnner, and once it’s pretty well picked, chicken and rice soup. It’s nt hard to get a good 4 meals for less than $10.
If I an grilling for a crowd, I love to buy whole roaster chickens and cut them up. at $0.79 a lb, I can feed a hell of a lot more people than if I am buying cut up chicken at 2 1/2 bcks a pound, and there’s more selection. It’s generally much better tasting, too.
Purdue! Everything else isn’t as good.
Kitchen Ping!!!
Now imagine she simply takes a chicken out of the freezer in the morning and puts it in the fridge. When she gets home (earlier, because she didn't stop at KFC), she tosses it in the oven. Then she has time to go get comfy, get some things done, etc. She doesn't have to call the kids to come eat, the chicken will. When they come in the kitchen, lured there by the smell and their empty stomachs, she can give them chores, like set the table, empty the dishwasher, etc. It is nothing to whip up a few sides. Dinner is eaten right after it is cooked, when it tastes best.
I'd like to know where this is - anywhere in SE PA or MD the melons are $2 or more per. Not even the Amish sell them for less.
Use leftover mashed potatoes for potato soup. Refrigerate mashed potatoes, lightly brown some finely chopped onions in butter, add finely chopped carrots and celery cook until softened slightly... add the mashed potatoes..stir cook a few minutes and then add 2C warmed milk. Season with salt, pepper and a little rosemary. Simmer a few minutes...enjoy. A 75+ year old family recipe.
She totally blew it at the end when she added a can of chicken broth to the gravy. If she’d just bothered to boil the bones from the previously roasted chicken and packaged it into serving sized containers for the freezer, she’d have saved $ on store bought broth.
It not only saves you money, it can save you pounds as well.
Last fall we started making home made soups and freezing them in individual serving sizes for me to take to work as lunches.
Chili, beef vegetable soup, and chicken noodle soup.
Now keep in mind, a burger, chips, and a drink costs on the order of $6 to $7 dollars at the cafeteria.
Since starting to bring these soups, and saltine crakcers, for my lunch and drinking water with them I've lost a total of 25 lbs.
It costs about $13 to make a pot of soup that creates about 10 to 12 individual servings.
5 lunches at the cafeteria = $30 X 2 weeks = $60.
One pot of soup = $13 = good for 2 weeks.
$60 - $13 = a savings of $47 every two weeks>
$94 a month X 9 months = $846 in my pocket. Let's even take out $47 for crackers. $800 in my pocket in 9 months.
Save money, lose weight, and tastes better.
How can you lose?
Two words: Crock Pot.
I prefer to take my cooking tips from Giada DeLaruentis-yummy!
Food prices are going up. Thanks for a thoughtful post.
Why would anyone want to burden themselves with seven children? I do not understand. I have two and that is freakin work. God bless vasectomies.
“I can’t help but wonder who buys precut fruit at these prices.”
A John Edwards staffer? They stop at the Pic-N-Save for cut up fruit right after they do his errands at Wal-Mart.
*SMIRK*
We live on 7.5 acres that are zoned agricultural, and every other year I raise an Angus steer for meat, and every year (sometimes every other year) we raise a hog. The cattle are free ranging, the hogs are too, but we supplement them with table scraps. One of my best friends is a meat cutter with a local grocery chain, and has his own equipment. He comes to my place for a couple days every winter and butchers the livestock. He charges me in meat, so it benefits us both. I've had to buy another freezer though.
We also raise about a dozen laying hens for eggs, and after about two years (when their laying falls off) they become stewers. We raise a couple dozen fryers too. All of the birds are free range.
We also have two Nubian goats that we milk daily. Goat milk is better for you than cow's milk since goats are not succeptible to the diseases that can taint milk and cause it to go bad. We think it tastes better too. We also make our own butter, it takes alittle longer than with cow's milk, but it has a smoother texture and is sweeter.
I raise about a dozen rabbits every year too, they are self replacing and their droppings are about the best thing for the vegetable garden.
Speaking of the garden, I usually plant 1/4 acre of sweet corn, and large patches of beans, winter and summer squash, cantaloupes, peas, lettuce, cabbage, onions, garlic, carrots, turnips, radishes, and assorted herbs. I also take a deer or two from my garden every year (a side benefit), and also get an occasional wild turkey. Canada geese mob my fields and I get a few of them every year too.
My wife buys grain in bulk and mills her own flour for bread, cakes, etc... That is a LOT better for you than the stuff that passes for bread or flour in the stores (that has about 90% of the nutrients removed). I also use some of the grain to make my own beer. I put in some grapevines about three years ago, and should be able to start making our own wine next year.
There are only three of us at home; my wife, my 5yr old son, and me, and I have a day job as well. This is purely subsistence farming, and since the homeschool group that we are a part of has several kids involved in 4-H we have ample volunteers to care for the animals when we want to go somewhere. I guess you could say that we are pretty self sufficient. Granted not everyone can do this, but with a little planning and prioritizing it is very rewarding, but it is hard work. Something that is lost on a lot of Americans.
After all of this you might think that we live in a rural area, but we are only 15 minutes from downtown Richmond, VA.
Now if I could only strike oil on my property.....
Never add cold milk or cream to the potatoes - it tends to make them gummy. Always heat the liquid first ( I nuke it for about 30 seconds) and the potatoes will be light and fluffy.
Another tip for keeping mashed potatoes as white as snow is to add a teaspoon of baking powder to the mixture.
Older dry mealy Idahos make the best mashed potatoes (as well as baked potatoes). Other varieties tend to be a bit on the gummy or pasty side.
Great thread. It’s a keeper for anyone not wanting to be dependent on finding food in restaurants.
I love food threads bump for later read