Living Almost Large did a great post on meal strategies and asks if premade foods are cheap or expensive.
For me, expensive. That’s because I do everything from scratch.
But in a pinch, they’d be cheaper than going out.
I thought this’d be a good post to do on meal strategies because it’s nice to hear what other people are doing and it’s nice to see what I could do to improve the situation I’m in.
Currently, we cook 2 batches of food. One for lunches all week, the other for meals at night, and on the weekends, we switch it up with ‘special’ meals on Saturday and Sunday. (I say “we”, but I really mean “BF” in this case haha)
I eat the same thing all week for lunch, with different fruits to make it a bit more interesting, and I eat the same thing all week for dinner.
Although BF has a way of making it so that he can eat rice with whatever meat or veggie combination he makes, and he makes pasta especially for me to use the same combination.
It’s just that he prefers rice and I’m more into pasta, but cooking twice is silliness, so he cooks once for the meat + veggies, and twice for the sides. It doesn’t always work, but it does most of the time.
Everything we eat is made from scratch except for pizza dough, which we buy in its raw, already pounded form, from an Italian grocery store. We even make our own sauces (not soy sauce of course), but pasta sauces, etc….
We don’t ever buy pre-made sauces, meats or pre-marinated items. Everything is done at home, and for much, much cheaper. Plus, we enjoy cooking so it isn’t a chore.
Just a girl trying to find a balance between being a Shopaholic and a Saver.
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We used to cook a lot more from scratch. But since I took over we do less of it. Not a huge deal. Just something that happened.
Still cheaper than eating out.
i love your blog and i’ve taken to reading it almost daily. i was wondering if you could do a post about some of the things you eat and the recipes you use for things like sauces. i try to make my own but they always end up costing as much if not more than the store bought ones so i’m looking for some tips if you have them. keep the good advice coming!
There are some pre-mades I buy – frozen veggies like broccoli and green beans, tomato sauce that I add herbs to, and stuffed pastas. I never buy dinner rolls, roll-pop biscuits, or other basic bread because they are far too easy and delicious to make. Plus they freeze so well! Same with cookie dough. For quick and easy meals we keep pasta around, as well as tortillas and taco seasoning. Ground meat thaws in the microwave better than any other meat. Any meal I can make a lot of – stew, chili, lasagna, I try to freeze at least half of for other quick meal options.
i love that you blog, and prolifically, every day!
i can always count on your daily inspirations.
=)
Its great that you make all your meals from scratch. It’s a lot healthier and cheaper.
Cooking from scratch is definitely cheaper! And it's not that hard if you start simple.
My husband and I try to avoid buying a lot of premade and/or processed stuff. When shopping, I try to buy "one ingredient" items. That is to say, if it even has an ingredients list, there's only one thing on it. For example, our peanut butter has one ingredient: peanuts. No salt, honey, HFCS, nothing. True, I didn't roast or grind the peanuts myself, but I think it's close enough ; ) I figure, if I really wanted, I could add salt or sweetener.
Somethings we do buy premade like an organic ketchup that we love and locally made jelly. However, I usually make my own salad dressings, dips, sauces, etc. And my husband makes awesome sweet & spicy BBQ sauce when he slow cooks ribs.
I also try to buy fresh, whole foods as much as possible. Canned generally has too many added preservatives for my taste, especially salt. Frozen is alright, but it still doesn't compare to the flavor and especially texture of fresh, imho.
My husband and I don't really feel like the "cooking" types. We don't really try a lot of complex recipes or anything. We have a bread machine that we use to make our bread, but that's about as much baking as we usually do. Generally, we just keep things simple. Our meals mostly consist of sandwiches, stir fries, steamed vegetables, scrambled eggs, grilled steak, etc. And for snacks, we mostly munch on fresh veggies, fruits, and maybe some slices of cheese.
Of course, we don't eat always eat healthy. My husband has his stash of goodies and he's not a big fan of veggies. And we do eat out occasionally — in which case I almost always have dessert 😀
I used to eat potatoes, bread, and/or rice pretty much daily, but I recently found out that I may be insulin resistant. So… I'm eating a lot less of those high GI foods and trying to cut back on carbs in general. It's been a change, but not really a bad one. I had been gaining weight even though everyone around me said that I didn't eat that much and that what I ate always seemed so healthy. Now, I'm losing weight and have a lot more energy 😀
i really really admire you! it’s basically my dream to be like you and cook everything from scratch but i don’t have enough time!
A compromise between take out/restaurant and totally from scratch is a food prep store. Pick your meals from a menu ahead of time, go to the store where they have shopped, pre-chopped all the meat and veggies and all you have to is assemble the meals. Go home and fill your freezer! In Ontario there is Supperworks dot com.
I’ve taken to buying a pre-roasted chicken and when I get home from the grocery cut it all up right away. The chicken can usually make three dishes. The dishes will make roughly 4-6 servings per dish depending on what we make. I have found bagged stir fry veggies at the store when cooked are great and the variety is wonderful. That is pretty cheap so I add fresh veggies to bulk it up cause I love veggies.
I have found Sandra Lee’s Semi-Homemade cooking a real help. I would live to cook everything from scratch but don’t have the time and money.
Great point! I too think if you have no time and are going to eat out, instead make sure you have a couple quick meals in the freezer!