Cooking at home

[Stranger]

I want to be able to save money and cook at home more... Every time I go to the grocery store I don't know what to get. I can make some things but all of it gets old fast. Any tips for cooking at home and saving money? Also speed because sometimes I don't have time to prepare everything.

[phatch]

Plan a weekly menu. Include some meals that are fast. Pay attention to recycling leftovers into other meals. Take leftovers to work for lunch.

For example. Roast a chicken. Eat with a baked potato, salad or cooked vegie.

Leftover chicken can be made into sandwiches, enchiladas, additions to chef salads or into pot pies. If I make mashed potatoes and gravy for a meal, I often recycle the leftover vegies meat and gravy into individual pot pies/shepherds pies. These get frozen and used for lunches or quick meals. Save the carcass for soup--freeze it with other chicken parts until you have enough to make stock.

other quick ways to use leftovers is in salad, soup and fritattas. Leftover pasta and sauce work well in fritattas as do most cooked vegies.

Being able to freeze leftovers helps you not get tired of a meal but not waste it either.

[bluedogz]

Experiemnce from a non-chef but avid cook and still-a-broke-college-student at heart:

Always have:
Chicken breasts
Ground beef (leaner type unless you're gonna grill burgers)
(above can usually be caught on sale if you shop carefully enough)
onion
garlic
bell pepper
carrots
canned beans (I prefer black beans but you can use about any you like)
seasoning mix (I like Paul Prudhomme's "magic" mixes and E.'s "Essence" but try some and see what you like. $3 worth goes a long way.)
generic pasta- you can do about anything with a box of ziti or farfalle for 89 cents.
rice- I like Jasmine but anything that isn't Minute Rice will do
olive oil
milk
cheese of some sort that you like, pref. cheddar and/or parmesan
some sort of mixes you like- my wife occasionally begs for Zatarain's Dirty Rice mix, and few can resist the odd Hamburger Helper Cheesy Mac. Those are for the nights Mrs. Blue says, "Do you feel like cooking?" "Nope... you?" "Nope."
Dried herbs + spices- these tend to accumulate from here-and-there purchases, but I'd have cumin, coriander, oregano, thyme, and pepper.

With these in the fridge/freezer you have the freedom to say at noon "hmmmm- XXXXX is on sale." and run with ideas. Someone will undoubtedly jump in here and point out what I forgot, but I think you'll keep from starving and to a tight grocery budget with a list like that. If you keep your basics in the house at all times, shopping gets a lot quicker and cheaper...

[mredikop]

bluedogz pretty much nailed it.

I have to have Extra Virgin Olive Oil and butter. If either of those are missing I am out to the store.

Depending on how close you are to market certain must haves can be picked up daily as needed and cost very little like fresh herbs. Here is a partial list of
herbs/ingredients/etc. that are really great for cheap eats (bear in mind I am kind of partial to certain things);
Garlic
Basil
Onion
Red Bull (oops how'd that get in here?)
Parsley
Peppers (Green, Red, Yellow/Orange)
Tomato
Lettuce

From the dry spice category (these accumulate pretty darned fast if you start following recipes just like bluedogz said);
Salt
Pepper
Cumin
Red Pepper Flakes
Oregano
Soul Food Seasoning
Cajun Seasoning
Chicken/Beef/Tomato Bouillon Cubes (These make stocks for rice, soups etc.)

Canned offerings;
Whole Peeled Tomatos
Diced Tomatos
Corn (Whole of Creamed)
Mixed Vegetables
Tomato Sauce and Paste
Beans (Black)

Other notes;
Dairy like cheese and milk is expensive only buy what you need when you need it IMO
I prefer instant rices myself but they cost more per dish than if you buy a 5-10 lb bag of rice, whichever kind you like but I would hang on to some white, long grain, jasmine, basmati and arborio whenever possible. Tons of flexibility there and rice is very filling.

Here is a quick easy cheap recipe for Margherita Pizza

Pizza Margherita
Ingredients
2-3 Roma tomatos or whatever is available
Salt
2 tsp Extra virgin Olive Oil (approx.)
3-6 Cloves of Garlic (minced)
1/2-1 Cup of Fresh Basil (chopped)
1/2 lb sliced Mozzarella

13" Pizza Pan or cookie sheet works too
Collander

Preheat oven to 450

Slice tomatos thinly and place in collander in single layer if possible. Sprinkle salt generously over all tomatos, flip and doin it again and leave sit for about 5-10 minutes so the tamotos arent so wet.

Chop basil roughly or in slices and set aside

Drizzle Olive Oil into a pan and heat on medium, when hot add minced garlic and saute about 20 seconds. Make sure it doesn't burn or scorch. Remove from heat and from pan and set aside

Prepare crust based on directions on the package for instant or use a good crust recipe of your preference.

Sprinkle minced sauteed garlic evenly over the crust then add tomato slices evenly distributed. Next lay the basil over top of the tomatos. Cover with mozzarella slices.

Put into center rack in oven and cook as per directed and/or until cheese is melted and slightly golden. Let stand for a few minutes before slicing so the cheese doesn't do that yucky stretchy thing, unless you like that.

And that's about it.

[MikeLM]

Stranger-
You can't just grope your way into cooking, even with a few responses to general questions on the 'net.

Study and learn:

Get yourself a copy of The Joy of Cooking - preferably an old edition, circa about 1970; get Beard's American Cookery; subscribe to "Cook's Illustrated" and/or its companion magazine "Country Cooking."

You may be able to find an old edition of Joy on Amazon or Ebay. The reason I say this is most commentators say the recent editions have been simplified and cut back so they're not nearly as informative as the earlier ones. Mine is from 1967 and no, I'm not gonna sell it.

A couple of weeks with these sources and you won't have any problems when you go shopping.

Bon appetit.

MIke

[Jzone]

I am of the same school as phatch and do my planning once a week and get the majority of my ingredients on the weekend. The only thing to add to phatchs suggestions are the weekend large pot cooking method. I make huge batches of chili, pasta sauce, soups, stews, curries, potstickers etc. and freeze em for lunches, super fast meals etc.

As for ideas I just serf the net and read cookbooks. To my own substantial surprise I have acutally found Rachel Rays 30 minute meal books to be a great starting point for fast meals. I don't necesarily follow the recipes completely but she actually has some well thought out "fast" meal plans.

Common themes for us are pastas, soups and sandwich, tacos/fajitas, stirfrys and fish (which takes about 5 mins to cook)

Good luck. This is exactly how I learned to cook in the first place too and its been a lot of fun :-)

[eugene]

Nice. What you wrote is exactly the products I have, also from cost concerns.
I also always have celery, cream, cabbage, potatoes, canned mushrooms, flour and eggs.

I also don't advice getting cheese because its a lot of money.

[Mezzaluna]

My advice (and I'm a home cook) is to find four or five simple dishes you like and learn how to make them. For instance, if you can learn to saute thin slices of chicken breast, you can make many dishes using them as a base (chicken piccata, chicken marsala, chicken parmesan....). Learn to braise and you can make great meals using cheap cuts of meat and, it'll go a long way. For instance, if you make a pot roast out of beef chuck, you can shred the leftovers and add some BBQ sauce; make vegetable beef soup; sauce it up with taco seasononings....

Many good home cooks have a repertoire of, say, 10 dishes they make in rotation with a few new ones thrown in now and then for variety. That makes it easy to keep basic stuff available in your pantry to have on hand.

Keep it simple and you'll feel comfortable branching out to try new things.

[Suzanne]

Start looking at some of the many magazines devoted to food. Doesn't have to be Gourmet or Bon Appetit -- one of my favorites is Fine Cooking which, in addition to having fancyish recipes, has tons of simple stuff and a wonderful way of teaching you. But Family Circle, Woman's Day, Woman's World, Taste of Home, Everyday Food (Martha Stewart's magazine) -- all of these have good advice for people starting out to cook who want simple, wholesome recipes. And you can buy most of them at the supermarket for a lot less than a whole cookbook. Get one, try some dishes from it, and if you don't like that, next time get another and start again.

When you're ready, do try to get the new (just out) edition of Joy of Cooking, or the Good Housekeeping cookbook. Both of these are written with beginning cooks in mind, and both are a great way to learn.

[Myplaceoryours]

Originally Posted by Stranger

I want to be able to save money and cook at home more... Every time I go to the grocery store I don't know what to get. I can make some things but all of it gets old fast. Any tips for cooking at home and saving money? Also speed because sometimes I don't have time to prepare everything.

On not knowing what to get:
See "On saving money"
On saving money:
Every newspaper contains weekly ads. Try going through the ads and selecting sale items that you can combine to make a tasty meal. The direct recommendations previously listed in this thread that speak to the many and varied uses of certain items (e.g. chicken breasts, etc.) will expand the possibilities for you.
On speed:
Thinner cuts of meat cook more quickly than their thicker counterparts.
Most vegetables will cook to the al dente stage within ten minutes and you can prepare rice or noodles in about the same length of time. cook up some noodles, drain, toss them in a saute pan with a tablespoon of butter and grate some parmessan or romano cheese over them, stir and serve. A few spears of asparagus and a pork cutlet might complete the dish.
Speed can also be increased by using certain appliances (e.g. a George Foreman grill) that does some of the cooking while you focus on other items on the menu. Using the pork cutlet example again, a cutlet seasoned with salt, pepper and sage on both sides with bread crumbs sprinkled over and pressed in cooks up deliciously in a Foreman grill in fifteen minutes or less.
Oh!!! and I LOVE the left overs ideas. I was raised on left overs. In fact, my initial cooking experiences involved creating things (not always the best tasting things ) out of left overs. It's an excellent way to spark the creative culinary imagination.

[Mezzaluna]

I was raised on left overs

Same here!

I made a nice soup with some leftover meat loaf last night:

2 ribs celery, chopped
1/2 of a medium onion, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
Saute these in some olive (or vegetable) oil; add a few pinches of herbs (I used sage, oregano and rosemary)

Then add:
Cubed meat loaf (I had 3 slices left)
4 cups broth
14.5 ounce can diced tomatoes (or whole ones you smoosh up a bit)
16 ounce can drained and rinsed kidney beans (or beans you like)

Simmer for a while; taste for seasoning. Then add 1 cup uncooked pasta (I used whole wheat shells).

I had part of a ball of fresh mozzarella leftover so I put that in the soup bowl and ladled the soup over that. Now I'll have a nice lunch ready to go for several days.

[gonefishin]

Originally Posted by Stranger

I want to be able to save money and cook at home more... Every time I go to the grocery store I don't know what to get. I can make some things but all of it gets old fast. Any tips for cooking at home and saving money? Also speed because sometimes I don't have time to prepare everything.

Hi Stranger,

Don't forget. Spring is just a few months away. If a small garden is an option for you...start planning now. Don't go hog wild at first. Make it small and easy.

have fun,
dan

[blisstone]

Although I feel I can cook anything from a recipe, I am terrible with leftovers.

Call it a lack of imagination, or as my honey says "you're just not an associative thinker", but I cannot put two and two together. I wish sometimes there was a good cookbook, or better yet a web site, that took a linear approach. Ie: Roast a chicken and then make this that and the other thing. The way Phatch did, but with a scholastic approach as well.

I mean, restaurants must have a certain pattern to certain foods, such as chicken? It starts out here and the smaller and smaller "reductions" go these ways. How is this for other foods?

To the experienced cook this must seem obtuse, I know, but I have undisciplined skills when it comes to food...what can I say. I like the hand holding.

Bliss

[mredikop]

Originally Posted by blisstone

Although I feel I can cook anything from a recipe, I am terrible with leftovers.

Call it a lack of imagination, or as my honey says "you're just not an associative thinker", but I cannot put two and two together. I wish sometimes there was a good cookbook, or better yet a web site, that took a linear approach. Ie: Roast a chicken and then make this that and the other thing. The way Phatch did, but with a scholastic approach as well.

I mean, restaurants must have a certain pattern to certain foods, such as chicken? It starts out here and the smaller and smaller "reductions" go these ways. How is this for other foods?

To the experienced cook this must seem obtuse, I know, but I have undisciplined skills when it comes to food...what can I say. I like the hand holding.

Bliss

You can think of it in a linear way.

1) Make full pound of pasta and sauce
2) Refrigerate left over noodles with some sauce mixed in.
3) If any sauce is still left refrigerate that also.
4) Permutations for leftover include Pasta Bake Pie and Mini-Pizzas

4a) For yummy treat take refrigerated pasta and noodles out of fridge, cover bottom of pie pan with bread crumb and butter mixture, dump in pasta and sauce to 1/4 to 1/2 inch below rim of pan. Snip basil leaves and slice some fresh tomato, cover top of pasta with basil then tomato then ricotta and cover with sliced mozzarella and sprinkle with oregano and parmesan. Bake at around 350 until cheese is melted and golden brown.

4b) For additional tasty treat slice crusty italian bread, drizzle cookie sheet with Extra Virgin Olive Oil, dredge bread in the oil on the sheet a little then cover top of slices with leftover sauce (above) sliced tomato, basil, genoa salami or pepperoni then cover with a slice of mozzarella. Bake at 350 until cheese is melted and outside of the bread is a little crunchy. Sprinkle with red pepper flakes, oregano and salt.

-Or-

1) Prepare pulled pork for Po' Boy Sandwiches
2) Refrigerate left over pulled pork meat and sauce
3) Prepare delightful creations using left over meat.

3a) Toss into salad with greens, squash, sprouts and roma tomato. Dress with Blue Cheese or Ranch.

3b) Use leftover meat in a stir fry with minced ginger, garlic, baby corn, water chestnut with wok oil and soy sauce. Serve over Jasmine rice.

I am not much of an associative thinker either. I have to stop and really think about this stuff.

[blisstone]

yes that is helpful!

I am also glad to hear that I'm not the only person that can "freeze up" (no pun intended) when it comes to leftovers and imagination.

And your mini pizza idea reminded me of my childhood, when my French dad would make us croque-monsieur. Diferent flavors and all, but your voice spoke to me. I'll have to unearth that old recipe. I've never done it 'cause I'd forgotten.

thanks for your time.

Bliss

p.s. My family and I Looooove Firefly and Serenity... I do not understand what the networks were thinking, cancelling that show...Dadgummit!!