My downstairs upright freezer has crates from the dollar store that organizes foods by category. Its easy to find what you are looking for if people put things away properly. LOL. The side by side upstairs has four drawers. I labeled the drawers : Chicken, beef, pork , fish. The fish drawer gets to share with vegetables. The door has vegetables and pizza 🍕 toppings and sauce.
Separating meats into drawers makes it easy to check at a glance if I need to replenish our stock.
Last month I have :
- End of November with the last Safeways twenty percent off basket coupon, I purchased 2.99 sirloin roasts. That made them 2.40. I cut some for stew meat and ground the rest for hamburger in my food processer. It took about 20 seconds a batch. I put stew meat into 1/2 pound bags (2 lb total) and ground 10 bags of 1 cup each of hamburger that I cooked.
- This week, I purchased boneless , skinless chicken breast (foster farms) for 1.77 a lb. I spent 6.07. I put the breasts (about 1/2 lb a piece ) in individual bags and put the bags in a gallon bag that I labeled with a date. I had some split chicken breast from before, or I would have bought a second mega pack. If split chicken breasts are cheaper, I cut the ribs off, cook the ribs with water in the slow cooker overnight (add a few pieces of onion and carrot, celery) and bag the boneless, skinless chicken breast in quart bags, then a gallon bag. In the morning , you have chicken stock, and you can pick the bones for more meat—just right for chicken salad, a casserole, or Soup.
- Next week, (Saturday) pork loins are .99 at Fred Meyers. I will probably make stew, roasts, and pork chops out of one. About 7 lbs or so.
- Sausage , cheese, beans, and fish are other rotation proteins. Pinto beans are cheapest at the DT- 1.5 lbs or a dollar. They are non gmo and grown in USA.
- Sausage has gotten pricey, I have made my own, but you can still get it on sale and there are coupons.
- Cheese has also been pricey lately—as much as six dollars a lb. I want to pay closer to two dollars a pound. I have been able to do that so far.
- There are always coupons for pepperoni.
Rotating protein allows you the luxury of purchasing your protein at a RBP and always having food in the house. Buying bulk and sometimes butchering and/or cooking it in mass saves time and money. With already cooked hamburger, you can make tacos, or taco salad , or spaghetti w meat sauce in minutes. The insta pot makes cooking meat from frozen in minutes.
