This is the second anniversary of my breaking my hip. It's still not well. It happened in a split second. It's just a reminder that life has its hiccups. And stocking a pantry makes it easier to keep home fires burning when you are away or not able to do things yourself.
That's where stocking and having some freezer meals ready saves the day. Take out is usually not the best nutrition and its expensive and can get old in a hurry. Pre cooking saves money and gives a lot of piece of mind in the process.
I really can't see how some of the freezer meals help - the ones that just take meat and add a can of this and a can of that. It only takes a few minutes to add a few cans of something to a pot. It doesn't make sense to take something that is taking pantry space and put it on the freezer. Our freezer space is more limited. Now, the things that take a lot of chopping is a different matter. This works especially if you piggy back some recipes that take the same meat ( you can buy bulk) and the same basic ingredients. Use your food processor or a mandolin to bulk chop vegetables. Make double batches of anything you know your family will like. I wouldn't make huge batches of a new recipe.
I went to a class on cooking for a day and making a months worth of meals a few decades ago. It doesn't make sense to me. It is an exhausting task, and freezer meals could get old after a while. That being said, different people have different obstacles to overcome. If the main cook is away at dinner time because of work or school, it would make more sense to have a crockpot at the ready for family to eat when you aren't there.
It would have been handy if I had known I was going to break my hip and land in rehab for a month. As it was, my daughter stepped up to the plate and cooked for the month. She made things like chilli that would last a couple of days. Since we have been retired, my husband has helped me dump things in the slow cooker. He could probably do it himself.
There is a lady on Pinterest that posted a lot of freezer meals. Some are even vegetarian.
http://www.livingrichwithcoupons.com/2015/10/slow-cooker-freezer-meals-20-meals-for-under-120.html
Some of these are really looking good. Some, not so much. A lot take a chicken breast, cubed. An easy task with boneless chicken breasts ( made from chicken split breasts) . That keeps the chicken at about a dollar for a whole large breast. The quantity may be enough to make more than one meal.
My budget on the seventies for protein at a meal was two dollars for two adults and a small child. The prices have skyrocketed since then. I could get hambirger for .69 , Tuna was .28, chicken parts could be as low as .10. I still use two dollars as a guideline. We have two adults and a small child eating meat. Our daughter is a vegetarian and eats more of the vegetables. The difference is that we eat less meat (more healthy) and we eat different cuts of meat and supplement vegetarian two nights a week.
The best advice I could give someone that has to make a life change is to learn to roll with the punches. Pick yourself up, and put your big person pants on and be creative. I can't bend at the waist after hip surgery. You would really be surprised what one can do with their toes-- the dustpan on a stick from the dollar tree helps too. LOL.
I once cooked a huge package of chicken necks amd pulled the meat off of them. They were .10 a pound and I spent .35. I added white sauce and chopped mushrooms and filled home made manicotti aka pasta rolls. A little nutmeg and parsley goes a long ways.
In the 70s liver was supposed to be good for you. You could get a cottage cheese sized container for .35. My mother always made it with tomato and green pepper and braised it. You could cut it with a fork. My sister used to make chicken gizzard speghetti. There so a lot you can do when you are just plain under water on your budget.
Thankfully, there were times when being frugal with the budget was a game and not something I just had to do. And, I have a bit more money so we can eat better and normal food on a really limited budget. Last year my average was 68.00 a week. This year so far it has been 63.00 a week. That's a compilation of a years worth of food divided by 52 weeks. That does not include beverages other than coffee and tea, and it doesn't count the few times we went out to dinner- that's the entertainment budget. That feeds the two of us and supplements daughter and granddaughter. To benchmark. The USDA stats for my husband and I is almost a hundred dollars a week. They consider food eaten at home, that doesn't include keeping a stockpile. Our pantry is full and the freezers are pretty full too. I have restocked a lot since the freezer quit. That bumped up our grocery totals a lot as well as buying ten pounds of oatmeal amd twenty-five pounds of rice, amd a big jar of popcorn. Two batches of hamburger and two packages of chicken breast.
Winco had chicken quarters for .39 a pound. I was hesitant and didn't buy them because we don't like dark meat that well and I don't know where it has been. I am a chicken snob. I will only buy chicken grown and processed in the PNW. ( Idaho and California are OK in a pinch. ) I have reasons I won't discuss here.
On another note, the FDA has come out with the same guidelines for raw flour as for raw meat. Don't eat raw dough, wash the utensils and cutting boards or counters thorally after baking. I always disinfect the counter tops. I use a spray bottle with dishwashing soap, water, and hydrogen peroxide. Best to wear an old apron because like bleach, it will bleach your clothes. Hydrogen peroxide is really cheap. You can get a big bottle at the dollar tree- aka the tree. They also have spray bottles and 100 percent cotton t shirts. I wear them whenever I'm doing anything nasty in the
house. It's so much less traumatic of you ruin a dollar t shirt than ruining a expensive well liked top.
Dollar tree is supposed to, according to u tubers that do dollar tree hauls, have grab bags for 2/1. They sold for a lot more. They fit across the sides of the grocery cart and hold your food. They have done studies on the basket where you put your purse and the bottom of the grocery cart. It often has feces germs on it. We are putting our veggies in that cart and then transferring them to the conveyor belt. Regardless of wanting to save the planet, put your veggies in plastic bags. Your families health comes first. E. coli is just plain nasty. Having the bags keeps your food off the bottom of the cart.
Just a note. I once got a hamburger from Burger King . It was not cooked thorally. I discovered ot two bites in when I got a mushy bite. I spit it out. Regardless , I was so sick. I would never like to go through that again. I haven't been back to Burger King since.
There is a lot of listeria and E. coli recalls lately. Cook things thorally . Wash your veggies with vinegar water. Clean your counters often, and use new rags often. I get school bus yellow rags from the automotive department at Costco. Their cheap and I use several during my cooking sessions. Another reason to batch cook. Meat is cooked, batched, and put in the freezer. You don't have raw meat hanging around several days -just one cooking session.
