Someone explain to me how cooking from scratch is cheaper

[Anonymous]

If you don't want to get it, you're not going to. Over time, unless you are going out to buy truffles and filet mignon for home consumption, generally cooking your own meals is going to save you money. Period. You will have basic ingredients in the house and a stocked pantry.

But if you're going to look at a single dish a single time and decide you're only going to do the gourmet version of it, then yes, something frozen is likely to be cheaper.

But I also don't get the sense that this is really about money. You're insecure and want people who don't know you and have no idea what you eat on a given day to not judge you for buying frozen food that they didn't know you bought to begin with. If you are happy eating frozen food, what difference does it make?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The difference in cost, for me, came when I threw out the cook books and stopped consulting epicurious for every day meals. I use recipes for special meals, not every day ones. What you need are techniques, not lists of ingredients. When you have techniques, you apply them to whatever ingredients you have that week, based on what was cheapest or freshest or whatever your criteria is when you shop. So shop once a week, and totally avoid the center aisles of the store (aside from frozen veggies). Buy two packages of meat (a package of chicken breasts and some ground beef, maybe) and three veggies (broccoli, kale, and cauliflower are good and inexpensive this time of year). And a box of eggs and some rice and pasta. When I do that, my week might look like:

Day 1 - stir fry chicken and broccoli
Day 2 - meatballs over rice with roasted cauliflower
Day 3 - Egg omelette or fritata with the left over stir fry inside
Day 4 - Pasta with kale and garlic
Day 5 - Rice pilaf (or risotto, if you bought that kind of rice) with left over meat from meatballs, and cauliflower and garlicky kale

With all these, the technique is the important part - you know how to stir fry, you know how to amp up a a pasta sauce based on pan brownings and pasta water, you know your "risotto" will taste fine for a weekday if you leave out the cheese. You don't buy ingredients based on what the recipe says you should do, and you don't go out for ingredients if you didn't buy something. You cook with that you have, and use basic techniques to make it really taste quite good.

This is the best post yet.

[Anonymous]

I make it a habit to "cook down" the food in my fridge/freezer/pantry occasionally. Like right now. I'm not shopping for anything but perishables until we eat through all the meat, cheese and other crap left over from the holidays.

Then we can start over. Cause it is easy to get stuck in a theme -- like Italian if you have a lot of pasta/tomatoes/cheese on hand.

We ate a LOT of Southwestern type dishes for awhile, because I had tortillas, black beans, chipotle, etc...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here, I guess I am guilty of being a food prima donna too. Maybe that's my problem. And also lack of planning seems to be my problem. I work full time, so the planning part is difficult. But I like good food and quality ingredients and I guess that's expensive. We do rarely eat meat though, so that helps a little I guess.

Actually once you get used to it planning makes your easier when you work full time. It is a pain at first but now I cannot imagine not doing it. We rarely eat out or do take out. It actually seems easier to eat n when it is all planned.

[Anonymous]

ok. Chopping herbs and tossing them in an ice cube? But when will I have time drag my snout through the ground looking for truffles or break the necks of my free range game birds that I keep in a coop on the roof of my Craftsman bungalow?

[Anonymous]

I make all of the meals on Sunday to use during the week. Then, we bought 2 plastic tubs to keep the veges fresh for the week. One has lettuce in it and the other has cut up carrots, radishes, celery, and baby tomatoes. Anyone can make their own salad.

For meals, my husband doesn't like chicken. So, I make:

- lasagna (lasts a long time for dinner and lunch)
-ground turkey meatballs
-ground turkey chili w/shredded cheese (we shred it to save $$)
-ground turkey meatloaf w/oats + bbq sauce
--tacos made with canned crab (easy to make w/ the cut up veges and shredded cheese
-hommade soup w/ veges and canned crab
- always have cooked pasta ready for hungry DH who works out 2 times a day
-steam fried canned crab with corn and carrots...yummy
-lots of veges for every meal
-we make our own desserts such as apple crisp or homemade cookies

-

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mac and cheese recipe (makes about 8 servings)

0.75 lb cheddar ($5)
1lb pasta ($1.50)
1 bag frozen peas ($2)
1 can salmon ($3.50)

misc amounts of milk, flour, breadcrumbs, butter, seasonings.

That's $1.50 per serving--so pretty economical, IMO!

But, there is nothing fresh here, and full of fat.

Not the original PP that posted the salmon mac and cheese recipe but to this poster, isn't that the definition of mac and cheese? It's pasta, cheese, milk, butter, spices, and breadcrumbs. It's really not that great for you, which is why I make it 1-2 times a year for a treat. You can always add a veggie too. It's cheaper to make on your own, and I think it tastes better too.

[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?

That was my thoughts too.

Salad is much better quality and less expensive to make at home. I put fresh fruit and nuts on top besides chicken breasts or salmon. That would cost a lot more in a restaurant or Whole Foods.

However if I cook a 5-dish dinner for guests, it costs more than taking them out.

I'm the complete opposite. I make taco salad, empanadas, and salsa and it costs like $20 max for 4-6 adults. However, I buy the huge brick of Tillamook, three pack of romaine, and canned tomato sauce at Costco. The initial cost is high but the costs are much lower per dish.

At the end of the day, it matters what you are making from scratch. If you make ALL your ingredients it can be less. If you are buying expensive artisan fresh made breads and pastas then it will be more expensive. Mac and cheese is an outlier example; dairy is very expensive, if you can buy bulk it will bring your costs down.

[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?

16 servings from a single box of pasta??? You are either feeding very young kids or delusional. Teenagers can eat a half box at a sitting.

[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?

16 servings from a single box of pasta??? You are either feeding very young kids or delusional. Teenagers can eat a half box at a sitting.

I think the PP meant you can get about 16 servings from a 32-ounce brick of Velveeta cheese. One would need 4 boxes of pasta, though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are comparing apples to oranges. Or actually apples to chips.

TJ's boxed mac and cheese isnt' made with three types of expensive cheese.

Apples aren't the same thing as chips. Apples are a lot cheaper than the packaged apple chips.

Well, you've got me there. There are actually FOUR real cheeses (not processed cheese food like Velveeta) in the TJs frozen mac and cheese.

For all you mocking TJs as "crap," too processed, not real, equivalent to Velveeta or powdered Kraft--the ingredients list, direct from the box I made last night: cooked elbow macaroni, milk, cheddar cheese, havarti cheese, imported gouda cheese, imported swiss cheese, unbleached flour, butter, rice starch, salt, and spices. (And for those of you who say, "but those cheeses still have sub-ingredients!" of course, you're right. They are (combined, since most were the same): cow's milk, cheese cultures, salt, rennet, enzymes, calcium chloride (another type of salt), annatto (color), and carotene (color) -- the exact same things you find in blocks of cheese at the grocery store. Not Velveeta.)

I make "fancy" homemade mac and cheese all the time (well, probably once a month) (http://www.cookistry.com/2011/03/crock-pot-mac-and-cheese.html ). Yet I also make TJ's mac and cheese, sometimes as often as twice a week. It is seriously good stuff, and way more convenient. If you haven't tried it, you've got no business knocking it. (And since I *know* someone is going to ask me why I ever bother with homemade if I love TJs so much, it has a distinctly different flavor. TJs is great for quick dinners with just me and my toddler. Homemade is easier to cook for large groups and has a more gourmet flavor, and at that scale, it may well be cheaper.)

I was just going to post something similar. The TJ Mac and cheese is delicious! And the ingredients aren't crap. After spending $60 on Mac and cheese last year, I actually considered serving TJ Mac and cheese for Thanksgiving. We ended up with the Alton Brown recipe that others posted - it's very good.

[Anonymous]

Now I really want to try Tasman and cheese. What are we talking about? In a box? Fridge? Frozen. It sounds awesome!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Now I really want to try Tasman and cheese. What are we talking about? In a box? Fridge? Frozen. It sounds awesome!!

Sorry that was suppose to be Tj Mac and cheese

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mac and cheese recipe (makes about 8 servings)

0.75 lb cheddar ($5)
1lb pasta ($1.50)
1 bag frozen peas ($2)
1 can salmon ($3.50)

misc amounts of milk, flour, breadcrumbs, butter, seasonings.

That's $1.50 per serving--so pretty economical, IMO!

But, there is nothing fresh here, and full of fat.

Spinach is great in Mac and cheese. I make a recipe similar to this + about 3 cups of fresh spinach. The spinach is chopped finely. My kids don't mind spinach this way and gobble it up.

[Anonymous]

For people knocking dried herbs -- try Penzey's. I find the difference in quality pretty striking compared to the grocery store dried herbs.

The key here is planning. If you buy a ton of weird ingredients for one dish and never plan for another one, then of COURSE they are going to rot.

And if you don't plan your meals ahead and grocery shop accordingly, then you should improvise with what's on hand. I often end up playing the "what's going to rot next? better use it today" method. But I also try to make sure I have produce that I know will last a whole week too (like kale tends to keep longer than other leafy greens, acorn or butternut squash can stay out on the counter almost forever, etc)

I always wanted to be a cook who repurposes one meal and transforms it for the next, but I've never had the knack for that. I do often create huge batches of something on the weekend, freeze some of it in individual portions, and supply lots of lunches that way. Like I make my own meat sauce for spaghetti in the crockpot, or a huge batch of gumbo, or a big pot of chicken soup. These all freeze very well.

If you don't like what you have to work with though, then you're SOL.