Cook And Eat At Home? No Problem
Be healthy and save money.
I cook dinner 7 days a week. Well, almost 7 but I will touch on that later. Cooking at home is easy, healthy and saves money. For our family, restaurant meals are reserved for special occasions. What can I say? I grew up this way and I like to cook. It has been this way for years and during the pandemic, our home meals haven’t skipped a beat.
You can have a home cooking habit too. Here’s how.
1. Shop one store, once a week.
I don’t shop for bargains. I still save money and time compared to eating out or getting take out a few times a week. I clip the store’s digital coupons or buy their BOGO deals, only if it is an item I will use. If I did bargain shop, well….
I still buy brands I like. I buy beer, wine, fresh produce (we are primarily vegetarians, which means fresh produce every night), healthy snacks, pharmacy items, paper goods and cleaning products. Surprisingly, less meat has not made a difference in the weekly receipt. Produce is expensive.
I don’t buy soft drinks, chips, candy, cookies, desserts or other sugary snacks. Aren’t we all watching our weight? It’s a national pastime.
2. Invest in a recipe/menu app
I use Cozi app, but there are many others you can check out. Many of them are free. Check out these:
I like Cozi because it is easy to use. It has a base of recipes and it is simple to upload recipes you find on the internet. Once uploaded you can add it to your menu on a calendar and add the ingredients to your grocery list. You can also add your own needed items to the grocery list. My husband and son have the app on their phone so they can add what they want to the list. My son’s additions always make me smile. He uses creative spelling like “bor-ee-toes” (burritos) and “mouf warsh” (mouth wash).
3. Plan for the week
If you already have recipes you like, put them in the rotation. Taco Tuesday is a win-win. Routine is welcome and how I get my night off (see below). Try new recipes. If you like them, add them to your rotation.
Try substitutions for ingredients you don’t like. No cilantro crosses the threshold of my house. We won’t even broach the subject of English peas (thank you traumatic childhood event!). Since we are mainly vegetarians, I am always making substitutions. Don’t be afraid to try new foods for ingredients. (That’s how I know I don’t like cilantro.) If I can't find an ingredient in the store when I am shopping, I will use my phone to look up possible substitutions, like mushrooms for eggplant.
4. Choose easy recipes.
Read a recipe all the way through before you decide to use it. Read the ingredients and the instructions. The recipe may give you an estimated prep time, but don’t trust it. Unless you chop like a sous chef, it will take you longer.
I opt for recipes with 10 or fewer ingredients and do not require a lot of prep. I have a full-time job outside of the home and even though I like to cook, I don’t want to spend an hour prepping to cook. Even if I work in my home, I wouldn’t gain cooking time. Let’s face it whether you are working virtually from your home office or you are busy parenting as work, you don’t need to spend hours cooking to feed your family a great meal.
5. Use your leftovers.
If you know a meal will yield enough leftovers for another meal, freeze for another week and put it on the weekly menu. Or eat it a night or two after it was cooked and bump the other nightly menu items forward a day.
I planned my usual 7 meals this week. On Sunday I cooked a vegetarian shepherd’s pie that was enough to feed 6. Since there are only 3 of us, guess what we will have with a salad on Tuesday! The soup I planned for Tuesday will move to Wednesday.
6. Stick to your plan.
Stick to the shopping list and stick to the menu. I shop once a week and if something is not on the list, we don’t have it unless someone else is going out to get it. Can you tell I was the disciplinarian between my husband and I? I guess it’s the teacher in me.
Have you provided healthy home-cooked meals for six days?
Then treat yourself. Take a night off. At our house, Friday night is pizza night. Every Friday. It’s frozen pizza. It was on my grocery list. I deserve a night off.
We could order out pizza, but that requires a phone call or online order. It also requires someone to answer the door for the delivery and herd my dachshunds away from the door to get the pizza. If I have to do that, it’s not a night off.
We have eaten healthy and saved money.
My grocery receipt this week was $360.00 for 3 adults to eat easy, healthy meals. Two or three meals a day, per person. Do the math.
If I worked a little harder at bargain shopping, the total could have been even less. But I wanted to have time for a glass of $20 wine with my frozen pizza.
Bon appetit!
