Kitchen management

When we were in school , home Ec was a required subject.   Now, I am hearing that it is not. There used to be an extension service where you could call and find out answers to food related questions.
Now, we have the Internet.  

There is a whole generation of people that have grown up in generational welfare homes, where if their mothers didn't know how to make end meet and still have nutritious food, and they don't know either.    It's not just a low income issue: many working mothers took to prepackaged food and fast food to bridge the gap and make their time count.    There are only so many hours on a day and this is especially true of single parents.  

Enter kitchen management and efficient cooking.    I did our kitchen management today and thought I would take you on for the ride with bullet  points.  

• First, I did the dishes and opened up a clean sink, counters and drainer.   
• I have already cooked the hamburger and sausage I got on sale after I came home from the store.  It can be cooking while you are putting away the food.   Start it on low on the biggest pan you have or put it on high in a slow cooker.   
• I took everything out of the fridge and washed the shelves, and arranged like things together on the condiment, shelf.  Mayo, pickles, whip cream cans and anything else that needs to be on a tall shelf.   The soy sauce gets its place.    
• We have an abundance of eggs since I got them for .79 at Alberways.    I placed  the oldest in a muffin tin and baked them for 30 minutes at 350 degrees.   
• While they were baking, I started in the vegetable bin and the green boxes of fruit.   
• I fixed a bowl of vinegar water and dumped the radishes, carrots,potatoes , and cauliflower we are going to have oven roasted for dinner tonight.   
• I cut up the strawberries that were still good.   Seems strawberries are at the end of the season and have to be eaten the day you buy them.  I placed the strawberries in a saucepan and cooked them a little, extracting some  juice, drained them , catching the juice into a bowl.  Poured the juice back into the pan and thickened it with a cornstarch slurry.   
• While the strawberries were cooking, I washed the veggies with my specified ladybug brush  and trimmed and cut them for dinner and put them in quart deli cartons .   
• I took mental inventory of the bakery basket and decided we could have strawberries on the angel food cake that was left for dinner.    We still have cookies and odd and ends, so I will put off baking until tomorrow.    
• By this time, the eggs were done, and oiplaced them in an ice bath in the sink.    After they cooked, I ate one for breakfast and placed the others in a quart deli carton in the fridge.    
• I washed the plastics from cleaning out the fridge and I was done.    
• Total time, less than an hour.   When the children were babies, I used nap time to get these things done.   One summer, I hired a sixth grader to be a mothers helper and play with the children so I could do things like clean the oven and paint etc.    she got money, and her working mother didn't have to lay for daycare the child wouldn't have wanted to go to.    Win-win situation.     When my daughter was that age I paid for her to be an aid at a preschool.   She would up getting four years of college and two degrees to be a preschool teacher with special Ed training. 

Basically. We are prepped for dinner and beyond.   Dinners will be easy to cook and take little time when it's the hectic dinner time. 

I took a quick break and went through a dozen inserts my friend gave me and pulled two coupons worth their weight in gold......puffs tissue I can find at the dollar tree, and blue bunny ice cream.   

Groceries on the cheap is looking at the "put the meal on the table train" from  a different perspectives. 

The emphasis is on purchasing good shelf stable or frozen food  for a RBP in quantity - enough to last you until it goes on sale again or to keep a controlled non-perishable stock of the things you  use  on a weekly basis. 

This means that instead of shopping daily or weekly for just the things you need to cook your meals for the week. You go to two stores and buy :
1) a protein that is a RBP - enough to make that meal for x number of days. (I.e.: if you eat it once a week, buy enough for 4 meals.)
2) produce and dairy you will need to fill in the meals for the week. 
3) a stock item, if you need to and it is on a RBP - enough to fill in to your self imposed stock level. 

You often are paying 1/2 price for your food.   This allows you to put well-balanced meals on the table consistently on a four dollar a day per person budget.   You spend more time on the locomotive ( planning and shopping ) end of the train, and less time in the caboose ( kitchen j) by cooking more efficiently. 

 Four dollars a day is the target amount for people on snap.   My premise is that of you can do it on 4 dollars a day, spending more is not difficult and you still get more nutrition for your buck.