Cooking Once a Month (Carole)

The title says it all.   This is a method of cooking that I've done off and on over the years.  It can also be done on a weekly basis quite successfully.

List out 28 meals that your family likes and that you're comfortable cooking.  Make up a shopping list so you make sure you have all your ingredients.  Then spend most of one day getting each main dish as close to the cooking stage as you can:

1.  All basic/raw ingredients mixed together and frozen in the baking dish
2.  All canned and/or dry ingredients assembled in a ziplock bag ready to be quickly assembled on the day you need them.
3.  A combination of #1 and #2

Take some time and figure out how much of each recipe can safely be prepared ahead of time, so that on the day you want to fix it, most of the work is done.  The goal is to have 28 recipes READY TO GO.  Just like last week's meal idea, this system allows you to buy items in bulk and use them up quickly.

Try doing it with a week's worth of recipes first, to get the hang of it.  I remember the first time I did this, it took me about 7 hours to assemble everything for one month's worth of meals.  The second time (using the exact same recipes), I did it in a little over 2 hours.  You do get the hang of it, and you'll figure out some speedy tricks.  I also simplified many of the recipes.

If choosing  your own month's worth of recipes seems like too much effort, you can get the book, Once-a-Month Cooking, that gives you all the info you need -- that's what I did in the beginning.  She has good recipes and many good tips.

Check to see if your library has it in stock.  I bet they do!  You'll love yourself night after night when you quickly feed your family another healthy, home cooked meal.

Neighborhood Meal Group (Carole)

I have two really easy and fun ideas for saving both time and money on your family dinners.  Today I'll tell you about one of them.  Next Monday, I'll post the 2nd.

Find 3 - 4 friends who have similar sized families (and similar cooking styles, I might add).  Make up a plan for each of you to make dinner for all of the other families once a week.  You will take Monday, Brittany takes Tuesday, Cheri takes Wednesday. . .  every week.  This is SO EASY.  On Monday you cook all afternoon making dinner for yourself and the other families, but all the other days of the week dinner magically arrives at your door while you never stepped into your kitchen.  Wow.

A few guidelines are helpful:
1.  Set a standard time when dinner will be delivered
2.  Dinner should include 1 main dish and 2 side dishes
3.  MINIMAL  or no cooking should be required when the food arrives at your house.  It should basically be ready to set on the table.
4.  We bought matching sets of storage containers to transport food in, so you never had to return anything.
5.  No weird foods
6.  No Pizza Hut because you were too busy/tired to cook on your day-- you are expected to deliver a home cooked meal on your assigned day.

Just a few of the benefits:
*The $ savings at the grocery store is incredible.  When you're only buying supplies for one meal during the week (even though it's to feed 4 or 5 families) you buy a whole lot less stuff.  And you can buy the big bulk size, knowing you will use it all up.
*Nearly every week you'll have enough leftovers so you won't have to cook on Saturday or Sunday either.
*You don't have to plan a week's menu anymore.  Freedom!!
*You'll never run the kids to McDonalds for dinner ever again.
*Your children will be exposed to food you've never served before.

I was involved with a group for about a year and it was probably the happiest time in my cooking life!  I know there are groups out there who have stayed together for a decade or more, so it is possible.  Our group fell apart because of differing cooking styles (we had one member who was very gourmet and delivered odd things that some children refused to eat, another family tended cook very cheaply and that bothered some -- so pay attention to those kinds of issues when putting your group together).  Now with just one child at home, I don't feel the need, but when I had a houseful of children and a very busy after school schedule, it was a god-send.

Saving Tips for Travel (Carole)

This week we're going to respond to the request by Diana Banana to tell our favorite tips for saving money while traveling.

First, I've already written about how we fly free with Southwest Airlines by using their credit card through our office.  That is probably the biggest money saver we've ever done.  Check it out and see if it could work for you.

Second, because we live in a big city (and it happens to be a vacation destination) we have often headed downtown to a local hotel for a couple of days -- this works especially well for anniversaries.  Saves us both time and gasoline.  It's kinda' fun to play tourist in your own hometown.  Also, we can usually get a deal on a hotel and many shows because we are locals.  I don't know if that translates to other states, but it would be worth checking into.  Nevada residents can save up to 50% on many shows and hotels.  We also use personal contacts to get reduced hotel room prices or free upgrades and free show tickets.  We've seen Blue Man Group, Lord of the Dance, Mystere, Celine Dion, Lance Burton, Hans Klok, Donny and Marie Osmond, and Penn and Teller all for free because we knew someone who works behind the scenes.  These people usually get a few free tickets every month -- if you ask, they can be yours.

Lastly, the most typical way we save money while traveling, is to eat lunch and dinner from the grocery store rather than at a restaurant.  We have a typical menu for both breakfast and lunch that includes cold cereal, milk, yogurt, bananas, sandwich fixings, chips, juice and cookies.  (All of the perishables are kept cold either in the hotel fridge or in a garbage can filled with ice kept covered in the tub.)  Saving the total cost of both breakfast and lunch each day makes going out for dinner not seem so expensive.  And since we could never be mistaken for "foodies," we tend to choose reasonable establishments for our late meals.

How do stretch your travel dollars??

Cooking With a Crock Pot (Merrick)

I ran across an article on Brokelyn.com last week. It was about cooking cheaply with a crock pot -- you can find the full article here.

Basically the article just talks about this guy that started using his crock pot to make one big meal that would last him a week. His crock pot creations started out pretty bad, but he soon discovered quite a few great recipes that he could make very inexpensively and that would last all week. His food savings were huge because he was only making one meal a week, but also his time savings were pretty big. And as we all know, time is money.

This got me thinking about cooking using the crock pot. I love the idea of spending $15 a week on food -- we certainly spend more than that -- but I don't love the idea of eating the same thing every day for lunch and dinner for seven days straight. So I'd like to think of this in the sense that time is money, so we're saving money by saving time. If you've ever cooked with a crock pot, you know how easy it is. It's my favorite Sunday meal because I can throw everything in before we leave for church, and then come home to a delicious smelling house and have dinner on the table in less than ten minutes. But really this is pretty much the extent of my crock pot use.

Then, a few months ago, I ran across a recipe that was for dessert made in the crock pot, and this opened up an entire new world of adventurous cooking. I realized I could use this great tool to make more than just a Sunday dinner roast. I could make soup, pasta dishes, rice dishes, fondue, caramel dip, cake, and a million other categories of food. Oh, the things I've been missing out on, like all these amazing sounding desserts! Who knew you could use a crock pot to make all of those? Think of all the time you could save by making a four course meal all in the crock pot (that is, if you had four crock pots...).

So, are you crock pot users? Are you adventurous and make a wide variety of food in the crock pot? Or, like me, do you mostly just use it for roasts? Do tell...and share your recipes if you're so inclined.

Substitutes (Merrick)

I think I would consider myself an adventurous cook. I'm not one of those people that tries a new recipe every night, but I do like to experiment every once in a while. Many times, these recipes call for ingredients that I don't typically use, and then, unfortunately, don't use again. For example, I tried some new recipe recently that called for cake flour. I bought a small-ish box, use a cup or two for the recipe, and since that time that box has sat in my pantry, untouched. Bad news.

Well if I'd been smart, I would have searched online for cake flour substitutes, because I would have found out that I could use all-purpose flour and cornstarch instead.

Although I don't spend a lot of money on ingredients that I'll never use again, I do spend some occasionally and looking back I feel like it's wasted money. Especially if there is a perfectly good substitute.

I have several cookbooks that have a page or two in the back dedicated to ingredient substitutions. I'm sure you do too. So next time you have a recipe that calls for some unusual recipe, don't waste your money; use a substitute.

Eating On a Dollar A Day (Carole & Janssen)

I'm out in Boston with Janssen and her sweet new baby.  Plus her little family is days away from a move across the country.  We're a bit busy, to say the least!  So, rather than writing a post today, we're sharing a very interesting Time Magazine article, and the accompanying  blog, about 2 people who are feeding themselves on $1 per day.  Maybe a bit extreme, but it will get you thinking about your own food budget in a whole new way!

You'll quickly notice that they eat vegan.  

Time Magazine Article
http://www.dollaradaybook.com/blog 


Hope you're having a happy, happy day!!

Time Well Spent (Carole)

We've all heard the saying, "Time is Money."  When it comes to saving money, nothing could be more true.  This is just a short little post to remind you that -

the faster you're living your life, the more money you're probably spending

Because it takes some time to:
 *  Write up a budget
 *  Plan a menu
 *  Cook your own  meals
 *  Look for and use coupons
 *  Become familiar with the usual prices of things
*   Comparison shop
*   Do your homework on the best brands
*   Shop at more than one grocery store
*   Try a DIY project
*   Home repairs

Are you living your life too fast to be frugal??

It's difficult to remove yourself from the frenzied pace of modern life.  But try to slow it down, think things through, consider your options before you buy something, take a few deep breaths and spend your hard-earned money wisely.  Your savings can be enormous.


Photo courtesy of FreeFoto.com  

Making a Menu (Janssen)

When I sit down to make the menu for the week, I ask myself a few questions:

• What do I need to use up? I poke through my fridge to remind myself what I have that hasn't been used yet - half a bag of spinach, perhaps or two leftover chicken thighs in the freezer or ricotta cheese or buttermilk. The internet is brilliant for this kind of thing. There is no use buying a bunch of new food and throwing away your perfectly good food from last week.
• What is on sale? I will admit right here how deeply pathetic I am and say that Wednesday, the day the grocery store fliers come, is - I kid you not - a highlight of my week. I look through to see what's on sale and see if I can work those into my menu.
• What will we actually eat? Haley commented on my last post that she doesn't like to buy ho-hum foods just because they are on sale, or she'll be tempted to go out to eat instead. I absolutely agree - I never ever buy something just because it's on sale. I really enjoy cooking, so making new interesting things is a big part of my motivation to get dinner on the table and having it be something appealing is vital as well. We're not eating hot dogs just because they are on sale or I have a coupon (although, at nine months pregnant, I have to say hot dogs appeal to me in a way they never have before. . . .).

As I mentioned before, I use Google Docs to make my menu. I like it because it's free, it's accessible, and I have a running record of my menu. I can also copy and paste them each week into a new menu and reuse any meals I didn't get around to making. You can see below my running list of menus for the last six weeks or so (and my favorite document of all, "Dishes to Try").

Every week, my menu looks like this: one main dish, and two side dishes for seven nights of the week.

At the end of the week, as I'm making a new menu, I go to the previous week's menu and choose "Make a Copy" and save it with the dates for the coming week:

 
Then I delete the dinners I made, leaving any that I haven't made and still plan to and start filling the new one in:

And now I can start thinking about what to fill in with. If ground turkey is on sale, we might have meatloaf or spaghetti pie. If I have leftover croissants in the freezer, we might do some sort of sandwich. I check out my "Dishes to Try" document and see what's there that I've been wanting to make. I ask Bart if he has any requests. I Google recipes that use feta or artichokes or whatever ingredients are nearing death in the fridge.

And I make my grocery list as I choose meals, so I know that I have all the ingredients for every meal. 

The days of the week I have a meal for aren't necessarily very firm - I might make what it says on Tuesday on Friday, but if I do have an item that needs to be used up ASAP, I will generally put that early in the week so I think about it sooner, or if there is a day that I know will be particularly crazy, I will put an easy or crockpot meal on that day.

I also do very easy side dishes - I buy a lot of lettuce and we have salads many nights (as you will notice). I throw whatever vegetables or fruit we have sitting around in with it and make a salad dressing to go along. I often will write on my grocery list "Fruit" or "Vegetable" and then choose one of each off the reduced produce section (when I bought 6 oranges for $1.29 a few weeks ago, we had. . .a lot of oranges that week) depending on what's available.

Any suggestions? How do you do your menu planning?