# Cooking Schedule



## Tea_mama (Nov 7, 2012)

Hi all - I'm a lurker more than contributor these days, but trying to have more of an online presence. 

We are about to make some drastic life changes in the new year which will decrease our monthly income by quite a lot. As is the theme with lots of people, I'm continually astounded by the price of groceries and consequently, looking for ideas/schedules/anything to inspire me to decrease our monthly outgo as well as provide better food for the family. For example, I know buying sandwich bread is costly, and to get anything of any type of quality, I'm lucky to get it for $4-$5/loaf. I know i can make it cheaper at home. What are some other items people have found are cheaper/better to make at home? Breads? Mayonnaise? Cream cheese? Butter.....throw it all at me.

Time is not unlimited for me (as with everyone) as I work fulltime, however I'm a teacher and have more flexibility than the typical 50+ hour/work week including large chunks of time off (looking at a three week break coming up in a few weeks). 

Those of you who avoid buying a lot of those items - how often are you making your own? Do you do a large batch and freeze? or is it weekly/biweekly? 

TIA!


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## jwal10 (Jun 5, 2010)

The things we eat all the time we make regularly to keep it fresh. Other wise as we find ingredients or in season. We are off grid so not a lot of room in our small freezer. We can things plain so we can use the same jar for several meals, take tomatoes, we can make chili, spaghetti or salsa from the same jar of diced tomatoes. We don't buy much, we have nearly everything here on the place. Chickens, rabbits and milk goats, nice garden and a small greenhouse....James


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## Laura Zone 5 (Jan 13, 2010)

How many people are you feeding?
Adults? Babies? Teens? Boys (lol)....
What was your weekly grocery bill and what will it be now?
Are you rural where your only shopping options are small, more expensive mom and pops? OR are you close to a super market?

Do you have a freezer (not attached to your fridge, but a free standing freezer)?


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## Tea_mama (Nov 7, 2012)

Laura Zone 5 said:


> How many people are you feeding?
> Adults? Babies? Teens? Boys (lol)....
> What was your weekly grocery bill and what will it be now?
> Are you rural where your only shopping options are small, more expensive mom and pops? OR are you close to a super market?
> ...


There are two adults (DH and myself) plus a 17 year old boy (basically another 1.5 adults haha) and a 3 year old girl. Occasionally we have the 19 year old boy and the 22 year old boy too.

We live in a semi-rural area, but large grocery stores are within an hour. Right now we are spending close to $250/week on groceries and household products and it's WAY too much. Yes, I have a free standing freezer. I actually have a full fridge and a full freezer that stand side by side. I have food saver, lots of canning supplies, meat grinder.....hmmm I'll think of more


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## Laura Zone 5 (Jan 13, 2010)

Tea_mama said:


> There are two adults (DH and myself) plus a 17 year old boy (basically another 1.5 adults haha) and a 3 year old girl. Occasionally we have the 19 year old boy and the 22 year old boy too.


I am assuming you have advanced warning when you will be feeding the 19 and 22 year old? 



> We live in a semi-rural area, but large grocery stores are within an hour. Right now we are spending close to $250/week on groceries and household products and it's WAY too much. Yes, I have a free standing freezer. I actually have a full fridge and a full freezer that stand side by side. I have food saver, lots of canning supplies, meat grinder.....hmmm I'll think of more


This is what worked for me.

Sundays, I would sit down with my grocery sales flyers.
If ribs were not on sale, it didn't go on the menu.

We played the "make a menu" game.
7 dinners.
Example
Monday: Chili, cornbread, apple crisp
Tuesday: Spag. Bolognese, Garlic bread, Salad
Wednesday: Fried chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, biscuits, apple sauce
Thursday: Steak / Chicken salad, rolls
Friday: Chicken Parm, pasta, salad, breadsticks.
Saturday: Potato Pizza
Sunday: orange chicken, rice, stirfry veggies

I would shop 2 or 3 different grocery stores (all in the same mile) for the best deal.

When I bought meat on sale, I bought enough for 2-3 meals.
I had 2 freezers, and the freezer connect to my fridge.

I used coupons, at one point, I had a 6 month supply of food for a family of 5 by using my sales flyers, and coupons. The coupons were more for laundry detergent, dishwashing soap, stuff like that.
I didn't buy frozen meals, meals in a box or can or junk (chips cookies, etc).

I cooked and baked, my oldest cooked and baked. 

I grew a huge garden, canned tomatoes, jammed grapes and raspberries, apples and pears.
I did bake my own bread, (had a grinder, and made it from wheat berries) but everyone whined and moaned that it didn't taste like the bread they were used too.........(insert huge eye roll) so I baked bread every once in a while for special meals.Then they would eat it.

I am a chronic label reader, so I bought cheese in brick/blocks and we shredded it. Pre-shredded cheese has celouse (wood) in it, and well, I'm not a wood chuck so......lol.

I worked 4 - 5 nights a week so I had to do a lot of the prep and my oldest would finish or I would crock pot. 
If I was off, I would make chicken noodles, chili and then whatever we were having for dinner that night, that way 2 nights worth of dinners were in the fridge and just needed to be heated up.

I spent between 123-150.00 a week.


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## Tea_mama (Nov 7, 2012)

Yes, we get warning when the older boys show up 

That sounds similar to what I try to do. At one point I was doing monthly meal planning and shopping weekly/bi-weekly for milk and fresh produce but then I would get frustrated because life would happen and the late month meals wouldn't fit what was going on (weather, sports, FFA, etc). 

So couponing worked for you? I find that it's challenging in CA as there aren't a lot of places that double coupons which is (from my understanding) how you can really save and make it worthwhile.

As for the bread - YES! That's a huge issue! The family loves the homemade bread as a side, but when it comes to using it for sandwiches, it isn't as popular which is frustrating. My husband eats a lot of English Muffins an the oldest is a bagel fiend so I suppose I need to work on getting some good, solid recipes. I have made both in the past but need to get better at it lol.


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## Laura Zone 5 (Jan 13, 2010)

I shop at 2 grocery stores, and have their 'rewards' cards.
I go online and load coupons to the card, so that when I zip the rewards card the coupons are there.

Example. Tide will go on sale for 5.99 (reg 8.99)
I will have a coupon online for 2.00 off.
I will have 2 paper coupons for 1.00 each
So I will buy (4) Tides, each at 4.99 saving 16.00 (sale and coupon included)

I did everything when the kids were at home.
Shopped, cooked, cleaned, home educated, paid bills, etc....and work 4-5 nights a week.
When my oldest was old enough to do dinner she helped cook and the other 2 kids cleaned. 
This was an ENORMOUS help.

I do weekly because when I tried to do monthly I simply could not see that far into my crystal ball!!


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## Tea_mama (Nov 7, 2012)

Ah yes, that dang crystal ball. Sure would come in handy 

As far as homemade stuff, you said you make bread occasionally....what about butter or cheese (cream cheese, etc) or other things? Vanilla extract? I'm trying to figure out what is cheaper for me to make at home.. I'm thinking butter isn't cost effective by the time you buy the cream, but the taste may be superior I suppose....


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## Goats Galore (Aug 28, 2012)

My aunt had 10 children and had life totally organized. Her meals were delicious and house clean. The smoothness of her daily routine was amazing. She had her menu down pat...serving the same meals every day, every week. On Tuesday (every Tuesday) she prepared spaghetti and meatballs with fresh baked French bread. To avoid boredom, she replaced one meal with a new menu item at the first of the month. The kids could suggest and vote on the change. She baked her own breads, desserts, etc. There was always a selection of homemade cookies in the freezer. Now think about it; her grocery lists were all prepared. She could buy in bulk and her daily tasks were set. The kids had assigned cooking and cleaning responsibilities on a rolling basis. I often think of her when my life gets out of whack! I do remember that she always had time for the children. Hope this gives you some ideas about how to simplify.


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## Tea_mama (Nov 7, 2012)

Goats Galore said:


> My aunt had 10 children and had life totally organized. Her meals were delicious and house clean. The smoothness of her daily routine was amazing. She had her menu down pat...serving the same meals every day, every week. On Tuesday (every Tuesday) she prepared spaghetti and meatballs with fresh baked French bread. To avoid boredom, she replaced one meal with a new menu item at the first of the month. The kids could suggest and vote on the change. She baked her own breads, desserts, etc. There was always a selection of homemade cookies in the freezer. Now think about it; her grocery lists were all prepared. She could buy in bulk and her daily tasks were set. The kids had assigned cooking and cleaning responsibilities on a rolling basis. I often think of her when my life gets out of whack! I do remember that she always had time for the children. Hope this gives you some ideas about how to simplify.


That's amazing! And a great idea! I love the idea of incorporating a new meal each month. That's key I think. I'm going to have to think on this. I really like it. I really think something like this would a.) help stay on budget and b.) help me feel more organized. THank you!


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## Bellyman (Jul 6, 2013)

Lots of good advice above. I understand completely when you mention what you're spending at the grocery store. A few years back, I had sticker shock when I started trying to figure out where all of our money was going. The "grocery store", which included many non-grocery things, was our single biggest expense, even bigger than the mortgage payment. OUCH!

One thing you could do is to save your receipts, mostly just to be able to look back and see what items on there are costing you the most and thinking about what could reduce those outlays. It may not be possible. You may not be able to make your own butter and cheese, no shame in that. But it might give you a feel for where some of the larger items are soaking dollars out of the budget.

As mentioned above, buying larger blocks of cheese can be considerably cheaper than buying small ones or grated cheese. I will admit I'm a bit of a cheese snob and in the area I'm in currently, I tend to use Cabot cheddar more than most others. Walmart has the best price around here, and also have the larger blocks where other stores only seem to have the small ones, for not a whole lot less money. (I'd love to be able to get Tillamook but around here, it's tiny blocks at ridiculous prices.)

As for non-food items, it's not uncommon to find larger quantities of things like bars of soap to be cheaper than buying them one or two at a time. Paper towels are way cheaper in the great big packages than one at a time. Laundry soap is expensive. We've been making ours for several years now for under $1/gal, I forget exactly what, but it's cheap. And it works fine. There are lots of YouTube videos on how to make it. (I make up little sandwich baggies of the dry ingredients all put together in the amounts and proportions needed to make about 3 quarts or laundry detergent, which is about the size of the last bottle of laundry detergent I bought back in 2012, I think. It just keeps getting used over and over again.)

Gardening has already been mentioned. It can help if you can eat what you grow and grow what you eat. I've found that things that used to be cheap food may not be as cheap as I used to think of them. I like red potatoes. They're not so cheap in the grocery store. But $5 worth of seed potatoes can grow what would be $500 worth of potatoes if you bought them in the grocery store a 5# bag at a time. Squash used to be a give-away kind of thing where you had to lock your doors when you went to church, otherwise, you'd come back out and find your back seat full of squash and cucumbers. Not so much anymore. If you've tried to buy decent squash or cukes in the grocery store lately, they're not cheap anymore. We cut squash into rounds, blanch them and put them in the freezer in quart bags. It always seems like we have plenty during the heat of the summer but they never seem to last until next year's squash come in. Haven't found a good solution for cukes.

I do bake bread. I'm kind of a bread snob, too, and I really do not like the number of ingredients in a loaf of bread these days. (My recipe has a whopping 8 ingredients, total, including water.) I make four large loaves at a time, cut them in half, put them in the freezer and get them out 1/2 a loaf at a time. The loaves are a little larger than the standard sandwich loaf from the store but we use them for sandwiches all the time. It took a little time to figure out how to keep it from being so crumbly but it's pretty good texture, awesome flavor. I hardly even like store-bought bread anymore. 

Desserts from the grocery store are often sucker prices and you really can make most of them at home, from scratch, for way less money. A nice looking apple pie from the store is likely $8. You can make an even better one at home for probably under $2. 

Something new that I discovered in the area I'm in right now is a wholesale produce auction. They sell a lot of things in larger quantities than I want to buy but they also do sell some "smaller" lots. About a month ago, I saw 100 heads of broccoli, in one big box (size of a pallet) that went for $5. The whole box. A nickel a head. You can't grow it for that. (They had already sold a couple of dozen of these same sized boxes and no one really wanted it. It was decent stuff. And someone got a bargain.) It would have been great for someone who wanted to put it in the freezer. I managed to get about a dozen very large heads of cauliflower two weeks ago for $0.50 a head, not a huge bargain, but way less than grocery store prices. Most of them are in the freezer. Not sure if there is anything close to you or not but maybe worth having a look if you can't grow it yourself.

Not sure if any of that helps or not. Best of luck! I'm enjoying reading through others' responses.


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## Tea_mama (Nov 7, 2012)

Gardening is something we want to do more of. We just moved to our house this past May and it has NOTHING established in the way of garden. We had a pretty good thing going before. However, we don't want to get overwhelmed. I think my first order of business is planting some trees and things that take a while to establish (blueberries, asparagus - yum!!). I do enjoy canning as well but this past summer didn't get to do as much as I normally would, and consequently, we are suffering now. 

It's a good reminder to buy block cheese then grate/slice yourself. I'm a Tillamook fan myself and around here I can get a 2# block of sharp for around $10 at Sam's Club. 

However....you mentioned a good bread. Would you be willing to share that recipe? Like I mentioned before, the family loves the homemade bread, but making that into sandwiches often proves a problem due to the crumbly nature. 

Thank you for all the advice!! This is actually very helpful for me to realize I'm not too far off with some of what I have been doing already, and knowing I'm on the right track for some others.


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## Declan (Jan 18, 2015)

Tea_mama said:


> Hi all - I'm a lurker more than contributor these days, but trying to have more of an online presence.
> 
> We are about to make some drastic life changes in the new year which will decrease our monthly income by quite a lot. As is the theme with lots of people, I'm continually astounded by the price of groceries and consequently, looking for ideas/schedules/anything to inspire me to decrease our monthly outgo as well as provide better food for the family. For example, I know buying sandwich bread is costly, and to get anything of any type of quality, I'm lucky to get it for $4-$5/loaf. I know i can make it cheaper at home. What are some other items people have found are cheaper/better to make at home? Breads? Mayonnaise? Cream cheese? Butter.....throw it all at me.
> 
> ...


I bake bread some but to be honest, I have more or less done away with bread as a regular staple. Eating a burger/hotdog whatever just on a plate is good enough for me. I can get bread for a buck at Aldi's if I need to scrimp and need bread. When I do need bread for a sandwich, it is open face. Even eating out, I have done away with the top of the bun/slice of bread

I have also reduced my meat consumption, not that it is a money motivated decision. I just eat smaller quantities. Adding a little meat is about as good as adding a lot of meat for me. I also make more soups/stews in which I can just put whatever suits me veg wise and only token amounts of meat. I also have no problem dice up a couple tomatoes and tossing them in with an onion, olive oil, etc and using that as pasta sauce.

We have an independent grocery that has a lot of cheap sauce mixes so I use those a lot as well for gravies. Works well for smaller quantities. Can whip up a brown, country, or turkey gravy in a couple minutes for pocket change if it suits me.


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## Bellyman (Jul 6, 2013)

Tea_mama said:


> Gardening is something we want to do more of. We just moved to our house this past May and it has NOTHING established in the way of garden. We had a pretty good thing going before. However, we don't want to get overwhelmed. I think my first order of business is planting some trees and things that take a while to establish (blueberries, asparagus - yum!!). I do enjoy canning as well but this past summer didn't get to do as much as I normally would, and consequently, we are suffering now.
> 
> It's a good reminder to buy block cheese then grate/slice yourself. I'm a Tillamook fan myself and around here I can get a 2# block of sharp for around $10 at Sam's Club.
> 
> ...


It's kinda simple but I don't know how duplicatable it is. I start with grinding my own wheat which is not something most people do. I've been thinking I should make a YouTube video of the whole thing one of these days. It would probably be more helpful for someone to actually see it than hear me tell about it.


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## cfuhrer (Jun 11, 2013)

Do a menu, weekly works best for us.
Shop with a list and a budget, cash works best for us.
Keep an eye on the sale flyers *while* your building your menu. Clip coupons, watch the store's e-flyers and coupons attached to the reward card.

Look into something like Zaycon foods. https://www.zayconfresh.com/
We love to shop at Cash and Carry. They are a restaraunt supply house open to the public with wholesale prices on bulk sizes. In N.Cali you should have one nearby. We do better there than just about anywhere else for food. 

Where we differ is I only do one protein in a week. The first night I cook I do a GINORMOUS amount of one meat (pork loin, chicken breast, beef roast, turkey, etc.) and use it the whole rest of the week. Exactly which protein- and therefore which menu - were determined by what was on sale that week.

IE: kroger has whole pork loin, boneless, bagged on sale.
Sunday- pork loin roast, mashed potatoes and corn
Monday- shredded pork tacos
Tuesday- bbq pork sandwhiches
Wednesday- shredded pork calzone with spinach, corn, cheese.
Thursday- spicy Italian pork stew
Friday- leftovers
Saturday- grocery shopping and dinner out.

When I worked full time (and a second part-time gig) I kept the menu posted on the fridge and pre-prepped as much as I could. It was not uncommon for us to run the slow cooker two or three nights a week. My husband was usually home a half-hour before I was so he started finishing dinner most nights. I prepped the next night after dinner the night before so I didn't have to get up so early.

I also kept posted on the fridge the list of housework that needed doing and tried to do one or two things each evening.

Every weekend I did things like bake bread, bake a dessert item or two, make yogurt, boil down stock, etc.

We also participated in Bountiful Baskets. http://www.bountifulbaskets.org/ And I spent "basket weekends" slicing,dicing,canning,pickling and jamming what came in the baskets.

To your specific question about dairy. Unless you have a dairy animal that you are milking (or a 4-Her that needs a project) it rarely makes financial sense to make your own "value added" dairy products. It feels good, it tastes better, but financially it's just not there.

Milk may be cheaper than cheese but when you add up the milk, the utensils and pots and thermometers, the cultures and starters and rennets, the cheesecloth and presses, AND the time you'll spend standing over the stove, and the learning curve. Just buy it. Buy it smart, but just buy it.

I do yogurt at home and can do cottage cheese and mozzarella fairly economically but beyond that we couldn't do it for what the bulk price was. And for our situation at this time it doesn't make financial sense to do things like butter and cream cheese (especially this time of year - baking season). The exception would be if you can get cream off the "discount" rack (I want to be clear that discount is not the same as on sale, discount is the if-we-don-get-it-sold-then-we-have-to-send-it-back-to-the-dairy-at-a-loss, fifty to seventy-five percent off, special sticker over the bar code situation). When I see cream on discount I buy all I can afford and freeze it for later. Then I'll make butter, sour cream and cream cheese until it's all used up.


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## Tea_mama (Nov 7, 2012)

cfuhrer said:


> Do a menu, weekly works best for us.
> Shop with a list and a budget, cash works best for us.
> Keep an eye on the sale flyers *while* your building your menu. Clip coupons, watch the store's e-flyers and coupons attached to the reward card.
> 
> ...


Thank you for your reply! I like that idea of doing a protein/week...That seems like it could also be really easy and cost effective depending on what is on sale. For example, a few days ago I was at Save Mart and they have the bone in turkey breasts on sale since they were close to expiration date...and I got 4 of them at 6-7# each for $3 or less! Total score! And we will have turkey in the freezer!

You're right about the dairy. Aside from the "feel good" aspect, I can't really see how it would be completely cost effective. Perhaps, instead, to be used as a treat when it goes on sale. I like to make my own ice cream too in the summer. Speaking of, when you freeze your cream, do you have problems with it separating once it's thawed?


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## cfuhrer (Jun 11, 2013)

Tea_mama said:


> Speaking of, when you freeze your cream, do you have problems with it separating once it's thawed?


It does, but I'm usually cooking with it so it's not a big deal.


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## MO_cows (Aug 14, 2010)

Until you get the baking bread thing down, find a bakery outlet store. Also bread freezes very well, just allow plenty of time to thaw so the moisture redistributes evenly. 

Some of the things I make from scratch and never have to add to the grocery list: Bisquick baking mix. Makes pancakes, waffles, biscuits, dumplings, pot pies, impossible pies, coffee cakes, etc. One of the handiest "multi taskers" to have around.
6 cups flour (I use 1 whole wheat, 5 AP)
1/2 cup shortening (I use lard)
3 Tbsp baking powder
1 Tbsp salt

Combine dry ingredients, then cut in shortening until no big chunks are left. Pea size or smaller. If you have a big enough food processor, let it do the work. I don't so I use the good old pastry cutter and get an arm workout. I store mine in the frig because of the lard but with shortening it is shelf stable.

Salad dressing - haven't bought bottled dressing for years. We like Dorothy Lynch, ranch, and Italian or viniagrette. All are easy to make and have a decent storage life in the frig.

Pickles/relish - learned how to make a bread n butter type sweet pickle, dill pickles, and zucchini relish that I use in place of sweet pickle relish. A couple of days canning, we're set until the next year's growing season. Not a huge savings but sure is a convenience.

Spanish rice/Mexican rice - easier to make from scratch than read the directions on the box. Take a 2 cup measuring cup and add around 1/3 cup salsa. Fill with water to 2 cups, stir and add to pan. Sprinkle in some cumin and chili powder. Bring to boil, add 1 cup raw rice, cover and cook on low for 20 mins. 

$250 per week is a LOT just for groceries. I'm sure you can cut your budget down. Might want to read the tightwad thread up in the Families forum for some good tips and strategies. 

Good luck!


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## Txsteader (Aug 22, 2005)

Here's my recipe for homemade bread (ETA: not my own recipe, but the recipe I use). It's relatively fool-proof, turns out just like the picture and tastes delicious! Perfect sandwich bread.

http://www.recipegirl.com/2012/10/10/honey-whole-wheat-bread/

Also, couponing! There are lots of couponing sites that show the best match-up deals. Don't overlook printable coupons. Dollar General has digital coupons on their site that, many times, match their sales making for really good deals. 

Save money on cleaning supplies by using simple things like vinegar and baking soda. Lots of folks make their own laundry detergent but I just look for great sales/coupons on store-bought and stock up.


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## TerriLynn (Oct 10, 2009)

I glanced through the responses you already got, so I apologize in advance if any of my suggestions have been suggested already.

1. Discount food stores. I shop Aldi, and Sav-A-Lot (but mostly Aldi) We also have 2 other discount food stores in our area that I will go to if I am near them. I also buy our bread at a discount grocery store. I like homemade better but I cannot beat the prices there. Another store to look for is a Resturaunt Supply store. We have one here called Gordons Food Service. You have to watch and know your prices but I can get cheese slices, shredded cheese, cottage cheese, whipping cream, and deli lunchmeat much cheaper here than anywhere else, you do have to buy large quantites but you can freeze what you don't use right away.

2. I also bought a bread machine at an estate sale for $5 which is wonderful if I run out of bread (I usually buy a dozen loaves at the discount store and freeze them) or I just use the dough setting. I use the dough for homemade pizza crusts, One batch of dough fills up my jelly roll pan nicely, and makes a nice thick crust. I make tradtional pizza and save bits of bacon, cubed ham, leftover sausage in the freezer for toppings. I also make a bbq chicken pizza....bbq sauce, leftover cooked chicken and cheese, and a breakfast pizza where I top the crust with sausage gravy, cooked scrambled eggs, ham, bacon, and cheese. You can mix up the toppings to whatever you have in the house or need to use up. I also use the dough to make homemade hot pockets. For fillings I do ham and cheese, sausage and cheese, hamburger with spaghetti sauce and mozz cheese, these are a good way to use up leftovers. The ham and cheese ones I freeze individually and the kids use them for school lunches. They like them room temp. One batch of dough makes 12 hot pockets.

3. I try to make it from scratch, I never buy baked goods. I make granola from scratch its cheap and easy.....I don't add anything into mine, just coat the oats and bake...its plain jane but my kids like it mixed into vanilla yogurt (bought by the quart and dished up into bowls) or with milk poured over. We rarely if ever buy boxed cold cereal. I also make my own instant oatmeal, and keep it in an ice cream tub with the measuring cup needed stored right inside to serve as the scoop. Something else I do to cut down on our butter use (we eliminated margarine and oleo, so only use real butter on toast or bagels etc.) is to buy a brick of cream cheese, and let it soften to room temp, then mix in some jam of your choice....much cheaper than butter and very good on toast, bread, bagels, english muffins, etc.

4.If you have a pressure canner you can buy meat on sale and can it. I am horrible with menu planning and find for me that having a very well stocked pantry serves me better. I can make most any thing I am hungry for from what I have stocked in the house. I watch for sales and when I see a good price I buy a case and keep it in the pantry. For meat I can pork and beef roasts. I buy hamburger, and brown it up, then pack it into a jar with NO added liquid, then process in pressure canner. Any recipe I have that calls for cooked browned burger, all I have to do is open the jar. I try to buy burger in bulk for this when it is on sale, then cook it in my electric turkey roaster. When its done I drain it and pack it into jars. I also buy turkeys on sale at Thanksgiving and Christmas and roast in my largest turkey roaster completely covered in water with seasonings until the bird is falling apart. Then remove the meat from the bone and cover with broth and can. I also can any leftover broth as well. A weekend turkey cooking project can lend to months worth of easy meals. I also use beef roast or canning meat and fill a quart jar about 1/4 full, then I add peeled potatoes, carrots, and onions, and add a little salt then process in pressure canner. We call this pot roast in a jar, and add a few slices of bread and butter and a big glass of milk and you have one fed and full teenage boy.

Something else I did one year when I had an overabundance of broccoli in my garden was to can it. I didn't have room in my freezer for all of it. I canned it in chicken broth and while it is very mushy...it makes the best broccoli soup I have ever had. Broccoli cheese soup, or cheesy broccoli potato soup, and I have dumped it into gravies and sauces and used it in casseroles where the flavor was more important than having big identifiable chunks of vegetable.

I have lots more canning tricks if your interested. I have 5 boys at home and have learned a lot in my efforts to keep them fed and not go broke!


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## Declan (Jan 18, 2015)

Menus do not work for me. I am a little too moody for those. I really like variety of ingredients over the course of a week. I definitely do not like to eat the same protein all week.


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## Bellyman (Jul 6, 2013)

Declan said:


> Menus do not work for me. I am a little too moody for those. I really like variety of ingredients over the course of a week. I definitely do not like to eat the same protein all week.


Some ingredients can lend themselves to a number of different dishes. For instance, a head of cabbage. It can be used for cole slaw. It can be used as boiled cabbage. It can be used for cabbage rolls. It can be one of many ingredients in soups or stews. It can be grilled in slabs (with a little salt and maybe a touch of oil, rather tasty). I have a 5 gallon crock of sauerkraut fermenting as I write this. Lots of possibilities from just a lowly head of cabbage. 

Potatoes... boiled, fried, mashed, french fried, hash browns, potato cakes / latkes, scalloped, or baked. 

And that's just two lowly veggies. 

It's nice to have a good selection of ingredients to pick from, whether dried, fresh, frozen or canned. 

 

(You'd think I was hungry... LOL!)


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## Declan (Jan 18, 2015)

Bellyman said:


> Some ingredients can lend themselves to a number of different dishes. For instance, a head of cabbage. It can be used for cole slaw. It can be used as boiled cabbage. It can be used for cabbage rolls. It can be one of many ingredients in soups or stews. It can be grilled in slabs (with a little salt and maybe a touch of oil, rather tasty). I have a 5 gallon crock of sauerkraut fermenting as I write this. Lots of possibilities from just a lowly head of cabbage.
> 
> Potatoes... boiled, fried, mashed, french fried, hash browns, potato cakes / latkes, scalloped, or baked.
> 
> ...


 It isn't that I am unaware of how far things can stretch. I just don't like eating the same thing two days in a row. It is unappetizing for me. Maybe I am getting acid reflux or something. I will go without eating a proper meal these days before I will eat most leftovers from even the previous day.


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## Tea_mama (Nov 7, 2012)

All these recipes and ideas are making me hungry! AND making me want to stay home and can and homestead all day long rather than head to work :grin: 

Thank you all for your input! I love seeing how other households run things. I find that I take a little from each one and try to incorporate into mine. I think if I can start to slowly replace items from the grocery store with homemade, it won't be as daunting. My problem is that I read all this inspirational stuff and come down on myself for not being better, when in reality, I'm not doing too bad (case in point, I made a huge pot of pinto beans last night and Mexican rice, as well as a bunch of taco meat to freeze for a later date AND homemade flour tortillas which were TO DIE FOR).


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## crazydave (Feb 14, 2015)

Bellman - would you care to share your 8 ingredient bread recipe? Really got me interested! Thanks


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## Bellyman (Jul 6, 2013)

Ok... here it is. I still think I should try to do a YouTube, but until then...

I've been doing this one for several years now. Played with various types of wheat and also used to add some extra vital wheat gluten until I decided to leave it out one time to see what it would do, and I couldn't tell the difference in the bread. 

I've thought numerous times that I should weigh things out so I could make my measurements in weight, especially flour. If I could get the flour by weight, it might translate better into a recipe that would work reliably in a Bosch or KitchenAid type machine. But I haven't yet. Honestly, I don't spend that much time kneading.

Anyway, if you try it, good luck! Hope it turns out well for you.  

Without further ado,

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Whole Wheat Bread
Makes four large (~2 pound) loaves

6 cups of water plus about 2 TBSP 
3-3/4 TBSP of saf-instant yeast (about, I just eyeball)
1/3 cup honey
1/3 cup blackstrap molasses 
2 TBSP olive oil
2 TBSP salt
2/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
19 cups of flour &#8211; give or take a little

Instructions: Heat water to 110 degrees. Add honey and/or molasses (any combination you like totaling 2/3 cup, I like it about half of each) and yeast. Stir until yeast is dissolved and honey/molasses is well mixed in. It will look like mud puddle water if you use molasses. Let sit 10 minutes. If the yeast is good, it will get a nice head on it.
Add salt, olive oil, applesauce and about 6 cups of flour. Stir until well mixed, a large spoon works well. Add about 10 more cups of flour, ditch the spoon and mix / kneed by hand. Add flour as needed to get the dough to a consistency that starts to come together but seems just a little wet. That&#8217;s about right. If it won&#8217;t stick to your hands anymore, it&#8217;s probably a little too dry. (Dry dough = dry bread.) My flour is ground right before baking so it may work differently for flour from the store. Once kneaded, cover in your mixing bowl to double in size.
When your dough has doubled in size, separate into four balls of dough of equal size. A scale helps if you have one. Knead the individual pieces of dough briefly and set them apart on your counter, a cutting board or a cookie sheet (they&#8217;ll grow in size) and cover. Let them double in size again.
After rising the second time, knead them thoroughly a final time and attempt to make sure there are not air pockets in the dough. (Air pockets now will be larger holes in the finished loaf.) It&#8217;s ok to be rough and to slap it around. I&#8217;ve known of one bread maker that even gets out the rolling pin, I don&#8217;t go that far. Form into loaves and place in well-greased bread pans. (I like using coconut oil. It sticks to the sides of the pan better when it&#8217;s not too hot.) Allow to rise until near the size of your finished loaf size. A little less is ok but it won&#8217;t rise a whole lot in the oven. (Some recipes rise more in the oven, this one tends not to, at least for me.)
Have your oven preheated to 375 degrees before putting your loaves into the oven. (I often turn mine on when I put the loaves into the bread pans.) Then, when you put the loaves into the oven, turn the temperature down to 350 degrees. 
Bake for about 30 to 32 minutes. My preferred time is 31 minutes. I arrived at that time by attempting to figure out just how long it took for the oven that I use to bake the loaves to an internal temperature of 190 degrees, in case you wondered. 31 minutes just happened to be what worked just about perfect for me. 
Take out of the oven and allow to cool for 6 or 7 minutes. That&#8217;s about how long it takes for me to be able to handle the pans without getting burned. It seems like the bread slips out of the pans a little easier if I let them cool a little. Place the bread on a cooling rack and cover. 
Cutting bread right out of the oven is difficult but a little often gets sliced here anyway. After all, who can resist bread right out of the oven?! Once cooled, you can bag it and freeze it if you&#8217;d like. (I cut our loaves in half before putting in the freezer so I can easily get a half loaf out at a time.) I do not like keeping it in the refrigerator, though, as it seems like the texture isn&#8217;t as nice once it&#8217;s refrigerated. 
That&#8217;s about all I can think of. It probably took me longer to type this all out than it would to do it, minus the time waiting for the dough to rise. Hope it works for you, too, or at least gives some ideas on where to start for making your own recipe. Nothing wrong with experimenting. This is just what is working for me. 
P.S. The wheat I&#8217;m using is 2/3 hard white wheat and 1/3 hard red wheat. White wheat will give a lighter, fluffier loaf but not as much flavor. Hard red wheat will give lots of flavor but usually a very dense loaf. If you grind your own, you can play with it and see whether you like something else better.
P.P.S. The applesauce is only a replacement for oil. You can use all applesauce or no applesauce. Just adjust the amount of oil you put in if you change the amount of applesauce. I&#8217;d substitute it 1 for 1 but have never altered the recipe much. 
Happy baking!


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## crazydave (Feb 14, 2015)

Thank you very much ! I really appreciate the time and effort you took ! And yes, I'm gonna try it.


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## Bellyman (Jul 6, 2013)

crazydave said:


> Thank you very much ! I really appreciate the time and effort you took ! And yes, I'm gonna try it.


You're welcome, Dave.  

I saw a video (sorry I can't post it) a few years ago where a lady did pretty much what I do. Started with the wheat, ground it in her electric mill (I have a NutriMill, would rather have a nicer one but this one still works.) She made smaller loaves and I was using larger loaf pans so my first batch was nice bread, but not very tall loaves. 

It's pretty easy to divide or multiply the recipe even for as little as one loaf. For years, I only made 2 loaves at a time since all I had was an RV oven and that's all that would fit in at one time. 

One of these days, I think I may try taking one loaf's worth of dough at the stage before putting it into the bread pan, pinching it into small pieces and rolling those pieces in cinnamon and sugar, and then either putting them into a loaf pan for "monkey bread" or maybe putting them into a couple of flatter pie plate sized pans and maybe having the beginnings of some sticky buns. Haven't tried it yet but maybe soon. After all, the holidays are upon us. LOL!! (Not that I need an excuse. LOL!)

Happy baking!


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## donrae (Nov 13, 2015)

I've tried to make peace over the years between budget and time and effort. It's always in flux, seems like. 

Currently we have 5 in our household. My husband eats low carb, so lots of meat there. Three teenage boys (18, 17 and 15) so lots of everything there. And then me, too much of good things lol. Most months I'm right at 1,000 for groceries/household. 

One of our biggest savings is raising our own pork. I see you're kind of local-ish, and I've noticed locker beef is going pretty cheap on CL right now (Medford). Any chance of picking up a half, or even a quarter? That would be a big help right there. Not sure how available pork is right now. 

Sometimes I menu plan, sometimes not so much. My freezers and pantry are well stocked all the time, so while I do shop sales, we don't necessarily eat the sales that week. We do like a variety and have big appetites, so having stock on hand works well for us. 

I do bulk cooking. Double up just about anything you cook or bake. Especially things like lasagna, enchiladas, quick breads, etc. Just as easy to make two as one. 

Filling up boys......that's a challenge. Chili, heavy on the beans and lighter on the meat, is a good way to go. Any soup, with bread. Quick breads, zucchini and banana are favorites here. Add a handful of chocolate chips and they'll eat pretty much anything. Muffins, I make some sweet and some savory (sausage and cheddar are good). Fruit goes over well if it's easy. Pork and beans. Breakfast burritos. Nachos--pretty much any meat or beans, over tortilla chips, with some shredded cheese and salsa. 

I don't think doing your own dairy products is going to save you any money, unless you have a source for the milk and use a crapton of butter and cream cheese. My Locusts eat cream cheese on their bagel sammiches, and we still only go through maybe 3 of the tubs a month. So say $5 total? Just not worth it, IMO. 

I bake quick breads, muffins, bread sticks, things like that. But for sammiches, we prefer bagels, rolls or English muffins. I'm just not interested in making all those. We have a Franz bakery outlet I hit every week or so. I spend about $10 (gets me one free product) and we're good for the week. The Locusts love the onion bagels, I like the Aussie toaster biscuits, I can get burger buns, plain sammich bread if we want, "good" twigs and seeds bread, they have quite a variety. Yes, I could make it cheaper, but for the price and my time, this is what works for me. At the moment, anyway.....

This was my week, for example....
I actually did a menu this week. 
M-cabbage and sausage
T-lasagna
W- pork roast with carrots
Th-chicken something
F-Tamale pie. 

So, that was the plan, anyway. Monday worked, Tuesday things fell apart and we did Papa Murphy's pizza. Wed was lasagna, Thurs was the pork roast and tonight will be the tamale pie. 

I found 10lbs ground beef on sale on Monday. Made a meatloaf for the freezer. Made a batch of meatballs for the freezer. Cooked the rest into three batches--2 Mexican seasoned and 1 Italian. The Italian got used for the lasagna. One Mexican was used as munchies over the week by The Locusts. Last Mexican is in Tamale pie tonight. 

Today I'm also making potato chowder and some type of biscuit/bread. I pulled a loaf of banana bread from the freezer (we're having an extra boy for the next 2 days). If I've got the oven going, I might do some dessert, I'll have to look and see what inspires me!


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## Txsteader (Aug 22, 2005)

The Locusts. :hysterical:

Will have to remember that next time my grandsons come over.


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