Start cooking at home

[cptacek]

I not only cook from scratch, I bake from scratch too using sourdough starter. i don't even bother with a bread machine anymore. Just takes a while to get the hang of it.

I recommend a crock pot. You can make stew, chili, soups, roast, etc. while you are at work. when you come home, dinner is cooked. just put the ingredients in the crockpot in the morning and dinner will be done when you get home from work. takes a very small amount of planning. try it !

How do get started with starter? Can you make starter yourself, or do you have to get it from someone?

I tried making bread for a while. 8 bricks of dense blocks that could break your toe if you dropped it later, I quit. Don't know what was wrong...

[Granite]

starter: you can make it yourself. I did. it's just flour, water yeast, sugar. it will take awhile to actually "start"

google a recipe for it, it's really easy. I keep mine in a glass jar on counter and poked holes in the lid so it can breathe. everyone loves the bread i make. it's easy and cheap. you can use white or wheat flour or a combo.

Sourdough Bread I - All Recipes

i only use 5 cups of flour though.

[superdad1580]

My family and I save a small fortune by cooking at home. We take it a step farther because we have five kids. We buy in bulk, things like 25lbs of flour and sugar, large bags of noodles and large bottles of ketchup with a pump. I also cook enough for 14 instead of 7, then I food saver the left overs.

I end up cooking one week and warming up my bags of food in boiling water the next week. I also make large batches of sausage biscuits and then the kids just nuke them before school. It saves a lot of time and money.

[superdad1580]

Oh and don't forget all the money you can save by packing your kids and yourself a lunch instead of purchasing it.

[rob62521]

Is everyone on this post still cooking at home? I'm just curious about an update.

[isralexba]

nice to read such posts ...
actually eating at home not only saves money but is usually much more healthy, as you eat less processed food, with more natural ingridents ... so keep up the good work

[BlackDiamond]

Saturday, FI & I ate amazing steaks at home. It was a treat since we generally live off mac & cheese and ramen.

We had 2 ribeye steaks, 1LB each, 1 inch thick. It was $16 for the two steaks from the butcher shop. These steaks were tastier than any steak I have ever had at a restaurant. Hardly any fat on them. We both like our meat rare and most restaurants won't cook them the way we like. But I was able to get them perfectly charred on the outside and perfectly pink on the inside. We had a $15 bottle of wine. I got it on sale $3 off. It was wonderful. For sides, we had mashed potatoes & rice pilaf. The whole meal came to $32.00. $16 per person.

At a restaurant around here a 1lb ribeye steak w/ two sides is going to run you around in the upper 20's at a midrange restaurant. Add in a whole bottle of wine and you can tack $20 at least on the bill. If you want a quiet, private romantic atmosphere? Forget it! You'd have to go to a high end restaurant where that steak would be $40.

Cooking at home is the way to go.

[kristenintheislands]

I just started cooking at home also. I was good for a few nights a week eating fried bar food, plus the beer I needed to wash it down with. Not only was I spending too much money, it was really unhealthy.

I've committed myself to try new recipes each month. I found a new one today just by typing in the ingredients I had at home. Not only was it great, I didn't have to go shopping for any additional ingredients.

The hardest thing so far for me is stocking up my pantry with useful ingredients, but I think I'm almost there.

[JustRick]

Well I don't have many great recipes but just a comment. I really wanted to start cooking at home to eat healthier and save money and got discouraged thinking it had to be 7 nights a week. As a single father of a 12 year old boy who eats everything in sight I was nervous about the amount of planning it would take.

Something I learned after starting this was that you don't have to start out thinking you need to cook 2 or three meals a day for 7 days a week. I started out slow. Just 3 days a week to start out. Once I found the recipes that worked and were healthy it made it a lot easier.

After a few weeks of cooking and getting my son to help out we now have a pretty good system going not to mention the weight loss and money saved.

I guess my advice would be to pace yourself. Ease into it. Don't get overwhelmed thinking you have to cook every meal. Find what works best and build on it.

Good luck!!!

[zhuwh]

we can save the money by eating at home

Gernally speaking , we always have the meal at home due to the convenience , in the meanwhile, we can save lots of money by eating at home , i have to say that i can help us get our payment down .

[Debt Relief]

Well, this will not make you money, but you are going to save a fortune. I used to eat take outs at least 4 nights a week with my family. We have stopped that for the 3 month and saved $200!!!! Can you believe that? That's how much we spend on our monthly commute.

So in other words, our transportation is not costing us a penny.

Eating out is a big waste. 1) You put wear and tear and mileage on your car getting there. 2) You pay a premium to have someone else cook and serve you. and 3) The food usually isn't as good as you could make yourself (unless it is a really nice restaurant.

I used to go out to eat lunch every day with friends at work. We would spend typically around $20-25 each day for lunch by the time we ordered entrees and tipped the server (they always wanted to have nice lunches). That was about $400-500 per month on LUNCH!

Then a buddy of mine and myself broke off. We started doing our own thing. We started looking for places we could eat for under $10... The cheaper the better, while still having decent food. We would joke when we would discover a new "jewel" about adding that restaurant to our $10 rotation. We got to where we were spending about $40-50 per week on food instead of $100-125. Huge savings over a year.

If you save eating out for special occasions, it not only saves you money but it makes those meals even more special.

[rob62521]

A gal penned a book, "Not Eating out in NY" in which she tries to cook at home. She said it not only saved her major money, but also cut down on the waste of take out stuff and she felt like she ate healthier meals.