Lets talk about freezer meals. Freezer meals have become very popular as a way of de stressing meal time, Th dinner is in a bag in the freezer and all you have tondo is remember to take it out
and put it in the fridge the night before. The next morning you place ot on the crockpot and of you remember to turn the crockpot on, you have dinner ready when dinner time comes.
Some professional lady had a concern that vegetables were being mixed with raw meat. They are all being cooked to temp for a long time. But, she may know something I don't. - prolly so. My feeling are that you are taking freezer space with items that don't need to be frozen. I went to a class many years ago on freezer meals.
They are a great help of the main cook in th house is going to be gone. They would keep the meals on the table with little effort.
I think you could get sick of freezer meals day after day. The other concern is it is not for the faint at heart. It takes standing and cooking for an entire day to make meals for a month. Shop one day, prep the next, and cook and assemble the third day. I can see it working for some people, especially if you have real help-- that four year old storing isn't it.
I adapted the concept to cooking the meat of that is aooropriate. That saves a lot of time. Prepping on one day a week for the meal plans helps too. The meat is the thing that usually takes the longest time to cook when making a meal. If it's already made, dinner can be together in no time.
Hamburger or ground turkey can be
- Meat balls
- Crumbles ready for pasta sauce or pizza.
- Taco meat.
- Meat loaf- we usually eat that the day of cooking.
Chicken can be
- Cooked whole and separated into, the dark meat, the breasts - split and the circus for soup.
- Chicken breasts - with ribs can be de-boned and packed into freezer bags, saving the rib section for soup stock.
- A package of chicken thighs can be cooked and shredded for tacos, or enchiladas.
A pork loin can de cut into a roast and pork chops. I is I ally don't cook those before I freeze them.
The key to keeping on a four dollar a day budget is to average two dollars a pound for meat. That, obviously doesn't leave much room for steak or lobster . LOL . But, here whole Foster farms chicken can be found for about a dollar or less a pound as well as solid chicken breast. 7 percent hambirger is often 3.18 a pound and sausage at Costco in a chub is about 2.35. A pork loin is often less than two dollars. Factor in a few meatless meals using eggs, cheese, and beans and it works.
Groceries on the cheap is looking at the Put Dinner On The Table meal train from a different
Persphective . The emphasis is on purchasing good food( shelf- stabll/ freezer staples )at the lowest possible cost and purchasing enough to last you until it goes on sale again -- Keeping a controlled non-perishable stock of the things you use on a regular basis. It means that when you shop, rather than purchasing just what you need for a day or a week, you buy a loss leader protein, produce you will get
need on sale, a stock item if it's a RBP, and dairy instead. This allows you to put well balanced meals
on the table consistently for a four dollar a day budget per person. You spend more time on the
planning and shopping end of the meal train and less on the cooking end by cooking efficiently.
Four dollars a day is the target amount for people on snap. My premise is that of you can do it on four dollars a day, spending more isn't hard. You still get more bang for your buck.
Sausage - bulk (Costco)
- Crumbles for pizza, breakfast casseroles, or in souls or pasta sauce
- Patties for breakfast
All of these can be made onto a dish in the slow cooker or pressure cooker for an easy dinner.
It really easy to put some ground meat on to fry while you do the dishes. Just watch it and stir every now and then. A potato masher makes a good tool to break it up if you are making taco meat or something that doesn't call for clumps.
Chicken breast can be cut up for casseroles or chicken pot pie, or enchiladas. Chicken thighs and drumsticks and wings can be reheated eith BBQ sauce in the oven.
Buying good quality meat and buying at a price close to two dollars a pound is a way to keep your dinners at less than five dollars - ( a target price for the proverbial family of fouu to stay within 4 dollars a day guidelines) . This is an average figure. Here, it is hard to stay there without averaging-- a chicken or chicken breast with the ribs in can be found for between .87 and a dollar. Good 7 percent hamburger around 3.18. Sausage is about 2.50 in a chub at Costco (jimmy dean). When you add cheese
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