Recap. Part 3

Part three is cooking

• If you haven't already, take the time to learn the basics.  There is a show on PBS with Martha Stewart, the chew, and any number of shows on tv.  Basic books from the library, and there is always a mom o r grandmother, aunt or cousin.  
• There are some recipes that take no more time to cook from scratch than their boxed counterparts.  Hamburger meal boxes and cooked pudding come  to mind.
• Sometimes it is cheaper to grate your own cheese than to buy grated cheese. Sometimes not.  Costco Business is cheaper.  I want to pay 2.50 a pound. Two dollars is better.  This is where a food processor comes in handy.  It is a very versatile  tool.  It can grate cheese, make bread crumbs, mix a cake, chop onions, carrot, and other veggies, make pesto.....and on
• NEVER buy bread crumbs,  you are paying exorbitant prices for someone else's dry bread.   Put the heel of the bread or an extra bun or piece of artisan bread in the cold oven on the broiler pan or a rack in a sheet pan to dry.  When you have enough, process it.  n a pinch, you can use a blender.  
• Batch cooking meats when you are more relaxed gives you the time to defat your ground meats and saves a lot of time at the more  hectic dinner time.  
• Having a few really fast and easy meals up your sleeve, really takes stress away when you are on a time crunch and you would be tempted to eat out.  Tacos and hot sandwiches come to mind here. My husband calls it cheap and dirty.  LOl
• Chopping any veggie that goes on a pizza when you are already chopping it for another meal and putting them on a bag in the freezer door makes for almost free pizza.  Time free..just make the dough in your food processor and layer things up.  An older child can help layer the toppings and the starter looks like a science experiment.  The kids love it.  Recipe on a older blog.  you can use the zip locks over and over.  
• Take advantage of ready mades  when you can get them for free.  My daughter gets home really late sometimes.  She is a supervisor at a day care/preschool and some parents don't seem to have a clock.  Not so LOL.  Having some FREE ready mades can put dinner on the table quickly when everyone is starving.  I made omelette, biscuits I got for free, and fruit I had cleaned the night before.  All in the 13 minutes that the biscuits were cooking.  
•  slow cooker meals make life easier when you know it's going to be a hard day.  
• Formula for "is it worth it scratch cooking. Or "is it worth my time.  

1. Cost out the ready made. 
2.  Cost out the scratch dish
3.   Time  How long it takes  you to make it from scratch.  
4. find the net cost between the ready made  and he scratch item. 
5.  Find the percentage of an hour that you spent actually cooking and times it by the savings.   

Essentially you are calculating how much you are being PAID for cooking the item.  If it is a few cents it is not worth it.

• Ie. if 7 percent hamburger is 4.00 a pound and round steak is 3.00 a pound, the difference is a 1.00 a pound.  if you grind your own hamburger and take 10 minutes to grind it, for 5 pounds of meat you are saving 5.00.  10 minutes is 1/6 of an hour,  if 1/6 is 5.00 then 6/6 is 30.00 .That is 30.00 an hour.  A very good wage in my book.  

• If a recipe calls for a very expensive ingredient, either consider a splurge or think of a substitute.  In other words, don't throw the baby out wit the bathwater.  Often you can come up with another o ingredient that is the same texture and bulk.  Celery for water chestnuts, green beans for asparagus.  Food substitutions is a good book to have.  I have used kidney beans for hamburger in a pinch.

Thanks for stopping by.

Jane

Four plus one equals five 

better cheaper faster

Cut your food bills in half