Grocery Shopping on a Budget

[Kathryn41 3,205]

Make sure all of the ice particles are gone or tiny sized before you use it. It will thaw out in the fridge just fine.

[The Mean Lady 604]

yah i figured id toss it in the fridge the day before i want cereal.

i defrost my meat on the counter but defrosting milk on the counter? no way lol

[JoBri 545]

try making your own sausage with inexpensive pork. And eggs are always good to have on hand. Make pancakes and bread from scratch. Chinese food and rice you cook goes a long ways. I have great recipes for sesame chicken, chicken curry, honey chicken... And potatoes, potatoes, potatoes...... We make our tea to drink, not buy it pre-made. I even grow our own herbs for tea to supplement.

Edited January 11, 2013 by Brijo

[The Mean Lady 604]

Idk you guys... I looked at the frozen milk today and it's not white anymore.

Now it's sort of an off-white yellowish color.

Is this normal?

[N-o-l-a 7,167]

Idk you guys... I looked at the frozen milk today and it's not white anymore.

Now it's sort of an off-white yellowish color.

Is this normal?

Yeppers, check out this post http://tippopotamus.blogspot.dk/2009/04/freeze-fresh-milk-to-always-have-it-at.html

[The Mean Lady 604]

Yeppers, check out this post http://tippopotamus.blogspot.dk/2009/04/freeze-fresh-milk-to-always-have-it-at.html

TY.

It looks disgusting btw.

[The Mean Lady 604]

payday is on tuesday which means more shopping.

there is a ton of great stuff on sale his week.

with a sale and coupon ill get honey bunches of oats for 1.25!

what would romaine hearts be good for?

can i do anything fun w em instead of just salad?

[indiana_sweetie 120]

payday is on tuesday which means more shopping.

there is a ton of great stuff on sale his week.

with a sale and coupon ill get honey bunches of oats for 1.25!

what would romaine hearts be good for?

can i do anything fun w em instead of just salad?

Great price on the cereal! As for romaine hearts----fun? food fight?

[The Mean Lady 604]

Great price on the cereal! As for romaine hearts----fun? food fight?

no i mean like some kind of lettuce boats

like lettuce wraps but they dont wrap so well heehee

[EminTX 131]

I like romaine hearts for salads--I cut off sections with the kitchen scissors to make it easy. They are also good for "lettuce tacos" when you are trying to reduce your naughty-food intake (the corn/flour tortillas that wrap tacos).

Cereal can be a big money-eater. We pretty much never buy any because of the crazy pricing. You did good at that price. If you can find a recipe that you like, you might try mixing your own. I have one that I make up but it is pretty serious and a cup will fill your stomach up for a good while--very unlike commercial cereals.

One of the best methods I have learned and use is the "dinner is in the freezer" method. Everything you cook, plan to cook double so that you spend the time and oven/stove/cleaning energy once for double the outcome. Example: You wanna make a nice pot of chili or stew. Make double. Portion off half and cool it. Put that in a ZipLock freezer baggie and then lay it flat to freeze. Once it is solid, you can stand it up like a book on a shelf. When I worked 2 jobs, I would take a day and make several things up and then cool and freeze them up. Selecting what we wanted for the next day's dinner was easy with them on display like that and we always knew that we had SOMEthing that was yummy waiting for us. We'd just take one out the night before and drop it in the fridge to thaw for the next evening.

If you cook up 3 or 4 times the amount of SOMEthing once or twice a week, you will quickly have a freezer full of options to choose from. Lasagna, spagetti sauce, almost ANY sauces, caseroles, and enchiladas are all super winners. If you make your lasagna deep, you can easily get enough out of that to have it once a week for a good 2 or 3 months. We did that once for a party and had enough left over for 6 months. Seriously.

Another big bonus with this is that if someone is sick or out of sorts for whatever reason, you can take them some easy and quick homemade love in a flash to give some genuine comfort.

A good helpful tip that I learned from a nutritionist years ago is to boil of your hamburger meat. I am talking about like 5 to 10 pounds at once. This way, you strain off the liquid grease/water mixture (doggy heaven!) and then rinse the meat again. You don't loose the flavor or nutrition of the meat but still get rid of the majority of the fat plus once it is cooked, it is ready for a variety of whatever you want to fix quickly. I portion those into 1/2 or 1 cup portions in small ZipLocks and then put all them together into a big baggie and pull them out as wanted for whatever--great in a dip, for nachos, quick spagetti, fake-stroganoff (noodles with mushroom soup and cooked hamburger), tacos, or kymali (something I learned to make as a kid--cooked burger with carmalized onions, parsley, and scrambled eggs. Throw in a jalapeno and you have a very happy crowd pleaser.)

My husband's country doesn't use the freezer for anything but ice cream from what I can see and he is learning to appreciate the ability to freeze up extra sale meats and such.

Edited to add: I don't own a deep freezer or chest freezer. I always used the one that is part of my normal 'fridge'. It really doesn't take that much room as long as you aren't wasting space with colorful boxes. I did put a small shelf in my old 'fridge' to make and upper and lower level--the under was where I laid the flat bags to freeze and the upper was the "bookshelf".

Edited January 13, 2013 by EminTX

[aaydrian 479]

What I do for new recipes is snatch those I see linked on Yahoo/MSN. I go through what they have and only choose the ones that prep easy and cook in less than 30 mins. These are usually the recipes that to cost less to prepare and hard to botch.

Oh for some recipes I substitute heavily with what I have in my kitchen to the point of creating things completely different than what the original recipe called for. That's what really saves me money.

[The Mean Lady 604]

i like the idea of freezing meals but im also realistic.

iv had 6 huge portions of my MILs lasagna in my freezer for 3 months

i might only actually eat it when we're completely out of food

though i dont think it helps that i dont like it that much... needs more sauce

Edited January 13, 2013 by KDH

[The Mean Lady 604]

Alright, I'm throwing the freezer milk away.

My bowl of cereal this morning tastes disgusting.

Something about this milk is VERY off.

[EminTX 131]

Personally, I like my cereal with milk with the ice chips in it. Don't throw the milk away--use it for cooking--biscuits, breads, muffins corn bread, cupcakes, whatever. Make extras and freeze those. Take them out of the freezer as needed about 4 or 5 hours before consuming (or throw them into the lunch bag frozen for an afternoon snack at work). When baking, making more than one item at a time will also save you in the energy costs since it is the same for one batch of whatever as for others. Here, where we use AC for most of the year, you never want to heat up your house more than necessary.

When freezing milk, it is important to do it right away. I, personally, don't freeze milk unless we find an incredible deal. We simply don't use up so much now that the original Mini-me has moved away.

[The Mean Lady 604]

Personally, I like my cereal with milk with the ice chips in it. Don't throw the milk away--use it for cooking--biscuits, breads, muffins corn bread, cupcakes, whatever. Make extras and freeze those. Take them out of the freezer as needed about 4 or 5 hours before consuming (or throw them into the lunch bag frozen for an afternoon snack at work). When baking, making more than one item at a time will also save you in the energy costs since it is the same for one batch of whatever as for others. Here, where we use AC for most of the year, you never want to heat up your house more than necessary.

When freezing milk, it is important to do it right away. I, personally, don't freeze milk unless we find an incredible deal. We simply don't use up so much now that the original Mini-me has moved away.

I don't bake.

The frozen milk is for my cereal.

I take it out the morning before and keep it in the fridge to defrost until the next morning.

They're in individual baggies.

The taste is atrocious.

It doesn't taste sour, just GROSS.

I have NEVER frozen milk, but I happen to have a lot left by accident and didn't want to dispose of it.

The first bag that I unfroze was FINE, but this one? DISGUSTING.

I did finish the bowl of cereal though.

Hope I don't get sick.