trombonish (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
trombonish) wrote2013-11-18 02:45 pm
trombonish) wrote2013-11-18 02:45 pm
Eating down the pantry
I am vigorously reading one of my favorite blogs, Good Cheap Eats (link when I get home). She has MANY good ideas about eating good, for cheap (hence the name).
Things she promotes that I am getting into: Freezer cooking (yay!), stocking up (buying things in bulk when they are cheap, and not buying them when they are expensive. yay!), and, Eating Down The Pantry (hmmm).
Freezer cooking: I love this! The premise is so simple: it is less than twice the work to double a recipe. When you cook, cook a big batch! Then freeze the extra so there is some night(s) you don't have to cook at all! This works especially well with a big freezer. And with buying things in bulk.
Stocking up. I have two catagories, one of which is what she means and one of which is mine. Hers, which I am starting on, is when you have nonperishable grocery staples, that you know you will use, and when they go on Really Good Sale, you buy a lot. For instance, last week cereal was on sale for $1.25/lb. My "must buy below" price is $2.00/lb (ie, I avoid buying cereal at all if it's oover $2:00/lb.) $1.25/lb was a "buy the max the coupon will let you" price. So now we have cereal for a month.
Catagory 2 is my Local Buying thing. When I want to eat local tomatoes/applesauce/other produce, you HAVE to stock up. Because local tomatoes are a limited time offer type thing. So those I bought a year's worth (200 lb) at a very low price in September ($0.40/lb). Now I have a years worth dried tomatoes, tomato sauce, tomato paste, diced tomatoes. Also applies to things like buying half a cow (and taking an age to eat it up).
Eating down the pantry: Well this would be the next logical step. We have lots of food. We must resort to increasingly complicated freezer tetris to get the door to close (plus set a heavy toolbox on top). But it is actually pretty hard! Once I get in the habit of freezer cooking it is hard to not. I don't really know *how* to cook for 2. And we don't actually eat that much.
For instance, we needed to make freezer space for the work turkey and ham. I found a bag of prepped personal pizza crusts. "Aha!", thought I. "I can make these into pizza and remove a bulky thing from the freezer!". But then I thought, "If I'm going to cook pizzas, let's cook LOTS of pizzas! Let's cook another batch of crusts, and make lots of pizzas!" 32 pizzas later, I am once again stumped by a full freezer. And several weeks worth of pizza.
So I guess this post is to say, freezer cooking is awesome. Stocking up is awesome. And eating down the stored food is awesome, but I need to figure how to do so without making it multiply. It may involve me banning myself from the kitchen - even though I have a bunch of meals planned! Like tonight's gallon of chicken noodle soup with biscuits. *sigh*
On the other hand, it's a nice problem to have.
Things she promotes that I am getting into: Freezer cooking (yay!), stocking up (buying things in bulk when they are cheap, and not buying them when they are expensive. yay!), and, Eating Down The Pantry (hmmm).
Freezer cooking: I love this! The premise is so simple: it is less than twice the work to double a recipe. When you cook, cook a big batch! Then freeze the extra so there is some night(s) you don't have to cook at all! This works especially well with a big freezer. And with buying things in bulk.
Stocking up. I have two catagories, one of which is what she means and one of which is mine. Hers, which I am starting on, is when you have nonperishable grocery staples, that you know you will use, and when they go on Really Good Sale, you buy a lot. For instance, last week cereal was on sale for $1.25/lb. My "must buy below" price is $2.00/lb (ie, I avoid buying cereal at all if it's oover $2:00/lb.) $1.25/lb was a "buy the max the coupon will let you" price. So now we have cereal for a month.
Catagory 2 is my Local Buying thing. When I want to eat local tomatoes/applesauce/other produce, you HAVE to stock up. Because local tomatoes are a limited time offer type thing. So those I bought a year's worth (200 lb) at a very low price in September ($0.40/lb). Now I have a years worth dried tomatoes, tomato sauce, tomato paste, diced tomatoes. Also applies to things like buying half a cow (and taking an age to eat it up).
Eating down the pantry: Well this would be the next logical step. We have lots of food. We must resort to increasingly complicated freezer tetris to get the door to close (plus set a heavy toolbox on top). But it is actually pretty hard! Once I get in the habit of freezer cooking it is hard to not. I don't really know *how* to cook for 2. And we don't actually eat that much.
For instance, we needed to make freezer space for the work turkey and ham. I found a bag of prepped personal pizza crusts. "Aha!", thought I. "I can make these into pizza and remove a bulky thing from the freezer!". But then I thought, "If I'm going to cook pizzas, let's cook LOTS of pizzas! Let's cook another batch of crusts, and make lots of pizzas!" 32 pizzas later, I am once again stumped by a full freezer. And several weeks worth of pizza.
So I guess this post is to say, freezer cooking is awesome. Stocking up is awesome. And eating down the stored food is awesome, but I need to figure how to do so without making it multiply. It may involve me banning myself from the kitchen - even though I have a bunch of meals planned! Like tonight's gallon of chicken noodle soup with biscuits. *sigh*
On the other hand, it's a nice problem to have.