Food And The Art Of Saving

As someone who does a lot of cooking, and enjoys it, I'm also someone who typically watches things like the price of food. As the cost of almost everything goes up, it's a real challenge sometimes to try to serve healthy, tasty meals without breaking your budget. There are a few things that you'll want to pay attention to in order to make your grocery dollar go further. I learned most of them at my mother's knee growing up, but every now and again I go back and talk to her so that I can figure out how to save another few cents on the dollar. My mom's practice has made her the master, so here are some of the lessons I've learned from the best.

The first thing almost everyone who goes grocery shopping should know is seasons. Like any other product, there's a cycle to food supplies, and it all depends on where the food is coming from. Food that is in season costs less, invariably. The quality of the food is also generally better when you're getting first-string, in-season foods from areas they are naturally grown. Right now strawberries are just starting to come back into season, so you can plan to see prices go down, while the product will also be better, since they aren't being shipped as far.

In addition to produce seasons, learn to predict what the rest of the world is about to do. Lamb and ham both get expensive right before Easter, turkey does the same before Thanksgiving, and all three skyrocket in price around Christmas. If it's something you can buy frozen, do it about a month ahead, you'll save a pretty penny on it. The same foods tend to go on sale again right afterward, so New Years Turkey And Ham could become an inexpensive tradition for your family if you're shopping smart, instead of watching the commercials and doing what the stores tell you to do.

Finally, it's important to know how to save food that you make at home. If you plan on being busy next week with overtime at the office, then you want to cook things this week that you can pull out and heat up, saving more than ordering from your local pizza place every month. I've found things like pot roast, chili and soups are always a safe bet. Those lamb shanks you catch on sale after Easter time? Cook them up slowly, in large numbers, and then you've got gourmet food in the freezer that takes no time to serve. If you're buying fruit when it comes in season, make jams out of berries, and learn to can things like tomatoes yourself.

Boxed meals and prepared foods look delicious sitting on the shelf at the grocery store, and it's tempting to see things like "Meal ready in ten minutes!" and start thinking about how much time you don't have in a day. The reality is though that these foods are never going to be as good, as healthy or as inexpensive as anything you make yourself. When you're putting the ingredients together, you aren't paying for convenience, and you aren't buying the brand name on the box. The trick is to do your cooking when you have the time, rather than feeling like you have to set aside an hour before dinner as your window of opportunity.

When you have a weekend day that you're planning on spending on the couch, it's not a lot of trouble to take twenty minutes to make bread. When you've got a pot of chicken simmering into stock on the stove, you only have to check it about once an hour to make sure it's got enough water in it. These things are going to make it easier for you to make foods from scratch. If you just don't have the time in the evening to make things from start to finish, start finding the times that you can put in a half hour to make sauce or soup. You can always reheat it the next night in the microwave or on the stove.

If you've gotten to the point where you're making and canning applesauce and peach halves as they come on sale, you may have a few neighbors that think you're going a bit overboard. I promise you, they're just jealous of the money you now have to spend elsewhere!