Arlo turns four!
5 years ago
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
To Cook or Not To Cook!
I have to confess that this question is pretty daunting in my life! It is the great debate for this wife! Michael and I are eating out constantly. Not only is this not the best thing for our figures...it's not the greatest thing for our bank account either! ....or is it? I cannot figure out if spending tons of money on groceries or eating out is more cost efficient. I know you are thinking..."of course, groceries." Well, I have a husband who is veeerrrrryyyy picky! If it were up to him we'd eat cereal every night which seems so cheap...but I cannot eat cereal for dinner every night. I'm pretty much the opposite when it comes to food. I'll eat anything and I love variety! Anyway, I sat down last night with some cookbooks and recipe cards to make a shopping list of things I can cook in the next few weeks. My list was so long...I'm sure that trip to the store would probably be $200 or more! Geez...what is the answer to this dilemma? We are really busy and we don't do leftovers well. I'm really up for suggestions. I want to cook, not just for Michael and I, but I need to be able to cook when we have a family! Eating out for 2 may be ok, but when our family gets larger, this will be a very expensive habit. I am asking for HELP! If you have simple, fast recipes that you enjoy please share!!! If you have money saving tips for grocery store adventures...please share! Hopefully I will find an answer to my question: to cook or not to cook?!
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4 comments:
I am in the exact same dilemma. Coby and I are home at different times of the night and so it is very hard to cook when we never know who will be home or at what times. Have you tried the frozen stuff at Sam's? That is real easy to cook or stick in the oven. Try crock put recipes too. I will send some to you if you want. But again I am with you!!! I need to change our eating habits as well! Let me know if you get any other advice!
I agree with Jenn...Start with pre-made frozen meals. I don't cook from scratch often because it's a lot of work. Maybe find about 8 meals Michael likes and rotate them. Just add sides you like to give you variety! :)
Call me and I'll go shopping with you! We are leaving town again this weekend, but we need to get together soon!
Hey Mel,
Of course I will let you hold Cadence all the time! :o)
About the groceries thing. It really is cheaper to buy groceries and healthier for the both of you too. We usually spend about $150.00 a week on groceries for the three of us. If we went out to eat every day for lunch and dinner (saying fast food) we would be spending close to $30.00 a day, which is about $210.00 a week (and that's saying we just eat fast food). What we do is buy the cheap brands of food (except for milk because of the hormone in the cheap walmart milk that isn't good for you: We found that you can get cheaply priced non-generic milk at Walgreens). Anyway, we buy things like frozen foods we can heat up/cook in the oven/grill/fry like chicken fingers, hamburger patties, pizza's, pizza rolls, chicken patties, chicken breasts, bacon, steak (sometimes), InnovAsian brand foods like general tso's chicken and orange chicken, spagetti o's, pasta sides (you just have to add water, milk and butter in a pot and you get noodles, asian sides like terriaki noodles, campbells soups has tons of different soups that you can do things with that also have recipes on the backs of, fish filets, frozen vegetables, lunch meat for sandwiches, canned fruits, spagetti, mac & cheese, frozen garlic breads you just have to heat up in the oven...so many things. Those are the sorts of things we buy because we don't have much time to cook with a baby on the way and taking care of Keira too. If I were you, I would make easy things with easy sides that you just have to heat up like the frozen vegies and the fruit or garlic bread or something..and then like once or twice a week make a big dinner and take the left-overs to work the next day. I love being able to take home-made leftovers to work on a Monday. It makes my day a lot better knowing I have something awesome to eat instead of pizza rolls or a sandwich. haha That's what we do. Anyway, I hope that helps. BTW: Ask Kev for some awesome easy recipes. He's a fantabulous cook and could really help you both out with some great food that's easy to make.
Okay coming from the girl who got burnt out on box dinners in the first 2 years of marriage!! My favorite place to go is www.kraftfoods.com You can actually sign up to get a free recipe magazine like 4 times a year!! I have made my own little cook book from those magazines. It's been the best thing EVER! My whole family is in complete shock that I'm always wanting to cook now! Not only dinner, but now I have to have appetizer and dessert with it!! CRAZY I know! You can also get recipies from the website. It allows you to put in 3 ingredients that you have to cook with and then it comes up with a variety of meals to make. Then they have a "bag" of meals. You go to the grocery store and get 1 bag of groceries and it will give you a whole weeks worth of meals!! I love this website!!! It's affordable (I don't always get the name brands) but they are all very quick meals and you can figure which ones you want to cook for how many in your family!! I hope this helps!
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