Leftovers Are Like Finding Money When You Cook On a Budget

Cooking everyday at home is a great way to cook on a budget. But sometimes, the habits I want you to enjoy cooking at home by examining basic cooking methods and perhaps taking cooking classes online to further your journey in your cooking. My goal is to help you pay for these cooking classes by saving you at least that much in your food budget everyday.

Previously, we’ve talked about saving food in purchasing, storing, and portioning to get the greatest effect if you’re cooking on a budget. But, many of these skills take time to develop and perfect. If you’re not cooking like a chef at home yet, the likelihood is that you have some over-purchasing, over-cooking, or over-portioning that has lead to leftovers.

How you use your leftovers can make a great impact on your everyday cooking budget, but there are few recipes that you can find dealing specifically with leftovers when cooking at home.

Here’s where you need basic cooking methods to be able to create something regardless of what the ingredients are. Our online cooking classes concentrate on the basic methods behind cooking that will empower you to create great meals from any of the ingredients you have on hand. This is especially useful when preparing something from the result of your everyday cooking leftovers.

For the best use of leftovers, try to keep ingredients separate before presentation. For example, cook a chicken breast and then top it with sauce, one plate at a time. This way, if you have leftover chicken, it doesn’t have tomato sauce on it and can be made into chicken salad for lunch the next day. Or, it can be shredded and rolled into a tortilla for a burrito, but it won’t taste like last night’s chicken.

You can even plan your leftovers in advance. Using the knowledge of your family’s portions, let’s say you purposely cook ½ pound of shrimp more than you need for tonight’s dinner. You set this over-cooking aside, prepared to make shrimp salad or shrimp tacos tomorrow evening. This not only saves time, but money also by making two satisfying meals, rather than one over-portioned meal and some leftovers that are discarded later.

When you’re cooking at home everyday and you’re left with leftovers, or have even planned for leftovers, HOW you treat the food afterward can double your savings and protect your cooking budget.

Frugal Dinner Ideas

What’s For Dinner?

You shouldn’t have to break the piggy bank just to put food on the table, but sometimes it sure feels that way.  Especially with the price of food going up these days…

Here are some tips on how to have a frugal dinner any night of the week:

1.  Cut down on the meat.  If a recipe calls for a pound of ground beef, use 3/4 or even 1/2 pound instead.  I generally will buy ground beef in bulk (especially when it’s on sale), and then will partition it into 1/2 and 3/4 pound portions.  Thanks to my trusty food saver, the ground beef stays fresh for much longer.

2.  Eat more veggies.  Watch for veggies that are in season, on sale or you can use frozen veggies.  I actually like cooking with frozen vegetables better than fresh veggies for certain recipes.

3.  Cook in bulk and freeze the leftovers.  I can’t tell you how much time and money we have saved since I bought my food saver and started cooking more bulk meals.  My family actually looks forward to leftovers now because they stay much fresher with the food saver.  And it’s much easier to plan meals when I’ve got full meals and several side dishes tucked away in the freezer.

4.  Use more pasta, rice and potatoes in your meals.  These are all cheap ingredients that can go a long way in a recipe.  And you can create countless of your own homemade skillet meals with these ingredients (instead of using a box mix).

5.  Make your own spice mixes.  Those packets of taco, chili and other seasonings can get pretty expensive.  Thankfully, many recipes for taco seasoning and other seasonings can be found online, using spices that you probably already have on hand, so it’s very easy to create your own spice mixes instead of spending a dollar or more on one envelope that will last for just one meal.

These are just a few ideas on how to have a frugal dinner.  Please share your own ways to save money on dinner!

Meal Planning for Busy Moms

A Simple Step-By-Step Guide To Meal Planning

If you’re ready make some big changes in the way you get dinner on the table, then you need to learn how to plan your meals.

My friend Cara of The Household Helper has created a new resource that gives you a step-by-step formula for meal planning.

Here’s What You’ll Learn:

* A simple method to save time and money
* How to plan according to your schedule
* Write a grocery list that works
* Learn how to navigate the grocery store
* How to organize your food once you get it home
* Discover how to make simple, quick meals
* Easy cure for leftovers: how to use them to make a whole new meal
* The no lose way to bulk cooking
* The correct way to store and reheat foods
* But that’s not all; this ebook also includes recipes

What are you waiting for? Start meal planning today, and start bringing your family to the table for a stress-free, enjoyable meal every day of the week!