Someone explain to me how cooking from scratch is cheaper

[Anonymous]

The key for me has been moving away from recipes (with lots of ingredients I may or may not already have) to just cooking with what is on hand -- or if using a recipe, substituting ingredients for what I already have (there's no way I'd go get three kinds of cheese for a Mac and Cheese recipe unless I was serving it to company - i'd just use whatever we had in the fridge). Obviously, you kind of have to get to a point where your cooking skills make it possible to throw a bunch of ingredients together and come out with something that tastes okay, but once you can do so, things get a lot less expensive.

If I try a new recipe that requires me to buy certain things (e.g. fresh ginger) I'll plan to use leftovers of whatever that is for other improvised meals the rest of the week (stir fry with whatever is on hand, marinade for whatever chunk of frozen meat is in the fridge). At this point, our pantry is pretty well stocked with grains (rice, quinoa, tortillas etc), legumes, and condiments and spices. Our freezer has fish and meat bought in bulk at Costco and some veggies and fruit that are just as good frozen as fresh. My grocery bill each week is predominantly for fresh produce (pricey, but I stick mostly to things on sale) and eggs and dairy. We eat a lot of meatless meals.

I only grocery shop once a week which is a big money saver. I used to run out to get whatever I needed for a particular dish, but I stopped doing that and find we can get through the week just fine if I get creative -- plus it's made me a better cook!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ok, well, since you talked about Mac and Cheese:

A box of elbow macaroni costs less than $2 at the store and probably contains enough to make three or four dishes.

A 32-ounce box of Velveeta costs about $9 and can probably make the same three or four dishes.

So, $11 for four dishes is under $3. To serve three or four people.

You don't put a bunch of fancy cheeses in Mac and Cheese anyway.

As for spending $3 a pack for frozen mac & cheese at TJs, how many servings is that?

OP here, Ok no offense but I would never use Velveeta. LOL. I only use real cheese. Two boxes of mac and cheese at TJs serves about 4 people. BUt what about the milk and cream you also have to add to the Mac and Cheese? I dont just cook noodles and melt cheese on top, there is more to making mac and cheese than that! Am I just too fancy???

Kinda. Try this recipe: no Velveeta, but no "three cheeses plus milk and cream" either. http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/stove-top-mac-n-cheese-recipe/index.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hear you op about the garlic head and ginger and herbs and chorizo and heavy cream and .... You waste a lot if you don't make dishes calling for rosemary for 5 consecutive nights!

Which brings me to my point: totally depends on WHAT you're cooking, doesn't it?

exactly, like I made lentil soup with ginger, garlic, onions but then did not cook anything with those ingredients for the next week or so and they all went bad. Or the other day, I made stuffing with fresh rosemary and thyme and then did not cook anything else that required those herbs and they all went bad. I wasted so much money! but I love fresh herbs. I guess I need to freeze a lot more stuff and plan meals that contain the same ingredients in a row????

Yup. You can also grow herbs really easily -- a pot of the herbs you use most frequently (say, rosemary, thyme, parsley, chives, etc) will save you a ton. Remember, you can also chop fresh herbs, throw them in an ice cube tray with a bit of water, and freeze them for future use.

[Anonymous]

Here are some suggestions:

Buy some of your herbs dried or frozen. I buy Dorot cubes of frozen garlic (Available at TJ's) to have on hand. Almost as good as fresh, no chopping needed and it doesn't go bad. Dorot also makes basil frozen in similar package. I use a lot of dried herbs when I don't have fresh. Dried rosemary, thyme, tarragon, etc. They are really pretty decent for flavor. As others mentioned, ginger can be frozen and used as needed.

Produce is a challenge due to spoilage issue, but I generally get a week to 10 days out of things like cliantro, parsley and most veggies and fruits. Are you storing them in your vegetable drawer of refrigerator? They keep longer this way. I buy in smaller quantities and buy the fresh stuff more often (at least once a week).

Once you stock up your kitchen with the basics you need for a lot of meals you'll discover there's always enough items on hand to throw together a decent meal. I keep some frozen veggies, pasta, jarred sauce, tortillas, cheese, eggs, etc on hand for quick meals. None of these items cost a lot and can be combined in many ways.

[Anonymous]

I freeze chopped meat and chicken breasts in individual size portions, then defrost just what I need for a particular meal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ok, well, since you talked about Mac and Cheese:

A box of elbow macaroni costs less than $2 at the store and probably contains enough to make three or four dishes.

A 32-ounce box of Velveeta costs about $9 and can probably make the same three or four dishes.

So, $11 for four dishes is under $3. To serve three or four people.

You don't put a bunch of fancy cheeses in Mac and Cheese anyway.

As for spending $3 a pack for frozen mac & cheese at TJs, how many servings is that?

Speak for yourself. I prefer a good strong cheddar, gruyere and swiss in my homemade mac and cheese. I don't make it very often because yes, the cheese is expensive and it is loaded with fat anyway.

OP, the mac and cheese example is a bad one. In many other instances cooking at home is much cheaper. Ordered a steak at a restaurant recently? You're telling me you can't buy good steak cheaper than that at the store? But beyond that if you plan well you can make lots of things (especially vegetarian recipes) for insanely cheaper than you could ever find them in a restaurant. Then there's the health factor - everything in a restaurant tastes better b/c it is loaded with fat and salt. I could go on but won't. I have a feeling you know your argument doesn't hold water and that you are just venting.

[Anonymous]

Comparing a microwave dinner tray of mac and cheese with homemade gourmet mac and cheese is like saying that it's cheaper to buy Hungry Man salisbury steak than to buy and make steaks on the grill.

A more apt comparison is if you get a block of cheddar cheese and a block of monterey jack cheese (probably about $2-3 each), a box of macaroni (about $1.50), milk, flour, butter and spices (depends on what you have, but you'll only need probably $1-2 worth of these combined) you can make a good mac and cheese that is better than any frozen premade processed mac and cheese. You'll make a pound of macaroni plus cheese for about $7-9 which will be the equivalent of about 4-5 of those frozen mac and cheese meals at $3 each. So, yes, you can make $7-9 worth of mac and cheese for less than $12-15 worth of trays.

And for basic mac and cheese (not Velveeta), you cook the pasta. Shred the cheese on a box grater. Make a roux of butter, and flour. Add milk to loosen. Add in cheese slowly so it melts into the sauce. Add spice/flavors to taste. Add the macaroni. You can serve it stove-top style (ala boxed mac and cheese) or you can put it into a dish and add bread crumb s (two slices of bread, toasted and then crumbled into a bread topping) and bake.

As for your other concern, if you only cook once in a while and have to buy the extra components, then yes, cooking gets expensive. If you cook regularly and have those components on hand, then it gets less expensive. Just like buying in bulk, buying one ginger root that can be used for 3-4 recipes before it goes bad is cheaper. If you are going to be cooking infrequently, then you should not be looking at fancy recipes that have specialized ingredients. You want to make recipes that have ingredients that you either have, or that you can purchase and have a shelf-life or can be stored so that they'll be usable the next time. As has been pointed out, that includes items such as ginger and garlic. Ginger can be frozen and garlic can be minced and then coated in a little olive oil and refrigerated and will last a few weeks (you just want enough oil to coat it so that it isn't exposed to the air). When you have reusable ingredients, then the cost of cooking goes down.

[Anonymous]

OP the economic difference is that you are cooking for scratch for one dish while people who cook from scratch do it for everything and practice meal planning. I'm not a cook from scratch person and my experience is the same as yours, when I decide to do it for a dish it costs a lot. I think people who cook from scratch also cook in particular styles. They are not making asian ginger inspired dishes one night and 4 choose ravioli the next night. If you stay within the same ethnic range, you will have diversity but re-use many of the same spices and staples.

Cook from scratch people also can buy in bulk and freeze things. It would be cheaper for me to buy chicken breasts at Costco but it take us a year to get around to cooking them so when we cook chicken we buy just what we need at the grocery store which is must more costly. On produce, cook from scratch people also probably have more recipes and can work with whatever is in season which is much, much cheaper.

[Anonymous]

pp here: The reason I used Velveeta was it seemed like an apples to apples comparison to the TJ's processed crap.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ok, well, since you talked about Mac and Cheese:

A box of elbow macaroni costs less than $2 at the store and probably contains enough to make three or four dishes.

A 32-ounce box of Velveeta costs about $9 and can probably make the same three or four dishes.

So, $11 for four dishes is under $3. To serve three or four people.

You don't put a bunch of fancy cheeses in Mac and Cheese anyway.

As for spending $3 a pack for frozen mac & cheese at TJs, how many servings is that?

OP here, Ok no offense but I would never use Velveeta. LOL. I only use real cheese. Two boxes of mac and cheese at TJs serves about 4 people. BUt what about the milk and cream you also have to add to the Mac and Cheese? I dont just cook noodles and melt cheese on top, there is more to making mac and cheese than that! Am I just too fancy???

Kinda. Try this recipe: no Velveeta, but no "three cheeses plus milk and cream" either. http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/stove-top-mac-n-cheese-recipe/index.html

I second this recipe -- I use it all the time. It's so easy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hear you op about the garlic head and ginger and herbs and chorizo and heavy cream and .... You waste a lot if you don't make dishes calling for rosemary for 5 consecutive nights!

Which brings me to my point: totally depends on WHAT you're cooking, doesn't it?

exactly, like I made lentil soup with ginger, garlic, onions but then did not cook anything with those ingredients for the next week or so and they all went bad. Or the other day, I made stuffing with fresh rosemary and thyme and then did not cook anything else that required those herbs and they all went bad. I wasted so much money! but I love fresh herbs. I guess I need to freeze a lot more stuff and plan meals that contain the same ingredients in a row????

Yup. You can also grow herbs really easily -- a pot of the herbs you use most frequently (say, rosemary, thyme, parsley, chives, etc) will save you a ton. Remember, you can also chop fresh herbs, throw them in an ice cube tray with a bit of water, and freeze them for future hat use.

I'm not disagreeing, and I'm trying not to be combative (really!) but I have found that these suggestions are not acceptable to me personally. Living in DC (vs Los angeles), potted herbs don't taste good in October - march 15 when grown on my indoor windowsill. Frozen herbs taste frozen ('cept basil) to me. I am cursed by my palate and let the perfect be the enemy of the good ...

And then, if I know my dish is going to taste frozen-y / windowsill-y / out-of-season-y (tomatoes, ie) ANYway, I get weak and order out or grab a frozen TJs marinaded salmon piece.

[Anonymous]

Sometimes when we get take out, I think, "I could never have made this from scratch for what we paid for this meal." Makes me want to gut my kitchen and never cook again!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP the economic difference is that you are cooking for scratch for one dish while people who cook from scratch do it for everything and practice meal planning. I'm not a cook from scratch person and my experience is the same as yours, when I decide to do it for a dish it costs a lot. I think people who cook from scratch also cook in particular styles. They are not making asian ginger inspired dishes one night and 4 choose ravioli the next night. If you stay within the same ethnic range, you will have diversity but re-use many of the same spices and staples.

Cook from scratch people also can buy in bulk and freeze things. It would be cheaper for me to buy chicken breasts at Costco but it take us a year to get around to cooking them so when we cook chicken we buy just what we need at the grocery store which is must more costly. On produce, cook from scratch people also probably have more recipes and can work with whatever is in season which is much, much cheaper.

I agree with this.

[Anonymous]

I think the point is that people are cooking with fresh veggies and fresh meat and not making the equivalent of boxed mac and cheese. You can make a $100 meal out for about $20 at home.

[Anonymous]

Real macaroni and cheese is one of the most expensive dishes that I serve at my parties. More than any of the meat based dishes. It is a completely different entity than boxed crap. Of course boxed plastic is cheaper!