No one can argue that part of living well means eating well. Food is a necessity but it can also be a creative joy or, if handled poorly, a financial hardship. It does not take a millionaire's salary to eat well but it does take effort, organization, knowledge and a lot of really amazing recipes.
The most wonderful thing about people is that there are no two in the world that have the exact same tastes, you might think beets are fabulous while your spouse pales at the very sight of them. If there was a generic recipe book that everyone could agree on then there wouldn't be millions of websites and blog posts out there dealing with food. You and your families tastes are unique and diverse so how do you feed them great tasting, healthy dishes while keeping your budget firmly in check?
The most wonderful thing about people is that there are no two in the world that have the exact same tastes, you might think beets are fabulous while your spouse pales at the very sight of them. If there was a generic recipe book that everyone could agree on then there wouldn't be millions of websites and blog posts out there dealing with food. You and your families tastes are unique and diverse so how do you feed them great tasting, healthy dishes while keeping your budget firmly in check?
Part of the problem of feeding a family is the never ending likes and dislikes, allergies and age appropriate foods. Your husband and you might have adored spicy garlic shrimp when you were on your own but there is no way you could feed that to your young children. This doesn't mean that you will be cooking one set of meals for yourself and another for your children but you might have to put a few spicy recipes on hold until your kids are a little older.
Children also go through food loves and hates. They might turn their noses up at broccoli for years and then not be able to eat enough of it and ask why you don't serve it more often. Part of getting your family to eat well is to set ground rules that no one is allowed to disrespect the food on the table by calling it yucky or any other disparaging term. They can tell you that it is not their favorite and leave it at that. Bad manners and bad behavior have no place at a dinner table.
You children might be fine and it could be that your spouse is the problem. There is nothing worse than an adult that is a picky eater unless it is an adult that is a picky eater who won't admit it. But remember that you are dealing with an adult and you should be able to have an adult conversation with no accusations, incrimination or anger.
It is difficult to make a drastic switch from one style of eating to another and you might have to slowly phase it in. Food likes and dislikes can really shrink your culinary horizons. If you want to eat healthy you have to eat fruits and vegetables. If this is a problem for you or a family member then the best course of action is just to have very small portions of a food group that isn't liked until either they acquire a taste for it or you find a recipe that everyone really enjoys. It might take you some time to find a series of recipes that are budget conscious, healthy and your family finds delicious.
While there are boxed food that is cheap and inexpensive to buy you are trading off the quality to eat food that has high calories, preservatives, coloring agents, and a mix bag of chemicals you can not pronounce. Though the food is cheap to begin with you and your family might be paying down the road in health costs and weight gain.
In putting together your cookbook you have to decide from the get go are you a tech type person that would love to have all their recipes on their home computer or would you prefer an old fashioned paper recipe book. This is strictly a personal preference. Do you have a scanner or a photo copier or will you be writing out your recipes by hand? My own personal recipe book is a three ring binder divided into several sections. Recipes from magazines or newspapers are pasted on three hole paper, and print outs from the computer or hand written recipes are hole punched. I find this fast and convenient. When I find a recipe and I can get it into my cook book with the minimum amount of fuss.
Which ever way you want to present your cook book you need different sections. I divide my cookbook with
I divided it up this way so I can check what is on sale in the weekly fliers and find a recipe very quickly for it.
From personal experience the one stumbling block that I use to have with new recipes is they sounded fabulous but they would have spices or seasonings that I was unfamiliar with or didn't have as a staple in my pantry. I found bulk food stores were excellent because I could buy very small amounts of spices and seasonings and if it didn't work out then I was not stuck with a spice that I probably wouldn't use again. I also would substitute powdered or dried herbs for fresh (like parsley or ginger) when the fresh was out of season and too expensive. I would substitute a plainer ingredient for a specialty ingredient, when a recipe would call for apple cider vinegar I would just use plain vinegar. If there is a ingredient that I don't recognize then I look it up.(For some odd reason Martha Stewart likes using the french names of very common ingredients, cornichons which are pickles and haricot vert which are green beans.)
We live in a world of season-less produce but when food is locally grown and in-season it tends to be much less expensive. You need to recognize what seasonal fruits and vegetables are inexpensive in your area and how the best way to store them. It doesn't do you any good to buy a 50 pound bag of potatoes it they end up rotting. Really study the best ways of storing your food. Potatoes should be kept in a cool dark area away from onions. If this just is not possible for you then buy small amounts of potatoes when they are sale and use them up as fast as possible.
There has to be a million and a half ways to cook a potato and there are dozens of varieties of potatoes available in grocery stores, more at farmers markets. If potatoes are one of the items that inexpensive in your area and that you love to eat start building a recipe sections for them so your family won't get tired of them.
If you have to use potatoes as a seasonal items them build your section for rice and sides. Rice and pasta keep very well as long as they are in air tight bags or containers. A good quality long grain rice is needed if you are featuring it but you can use a less expensive sticky rice if you are serving a sauce on top of it of adding it as an ingredient to another dish. Asian noodles, couscous and other exotic sides are simple and inexpensive to cook. If you have a large grocery store then look in the ethnic section, if you don't try to seek out a Asian food store. Be open minded, what you at first might consider to be strange or different could be your next favorite food.
You can start searching for recipes using cuts of meat that you are familiar with. If you don't have much cooking skill start with easy recipes such as spaghetti and meatballs using on sale ground beef (Inexpensive ground beef can be fatty and you might have to drain the fat from it once it is browned before you continue with your recipe). As your confidence builds you can buy other cuts of meat that are on sale and ask the butcher for advice and look up recipes on the internet. Inexpensive cuts of meat tend to taste better if they are slow cooked. If you don't have a slow cooker you can start your next meal when you finish dinner and let it cook through out the evening and then finish it off the next day (this is great if you are making a stew with a tougher cut of beef).
Salads don't have to be boring, there are countless variety of salads especially when you chose from different salad dressing. Salad dressing does not have to come from a jar, you can make simple and complex dressing at home from the base of a good oil and vinegar.
Do you have a freezer? You can use this to stock pile meats and vegetable when they are on sale and save your self time and money. It also only takes a few minutes to double a recipe and freeze half of it to be used at a latter date.
There are great recipe sites out there but you might have to do some digging to find ones that have the same tastes as you. Ones that I use often include MarthaStewart.com, Food Network Canada.ca, Cooks.com and All Recipes.com. Once you start looking you will find sites and chiefs that you tend to follow.
If you are a beginning cook and just want to some ideas I have listed some simple recipes that you could get started with.
Some ideas for
Chicken
Chicken Parmesan
Chicken Burgers
Chicken Curry
Ground Beef
Meatloaf
Shepherd's Pie
Sloppy Joes
Beef
Stew (I use a regular thick bottomed pot to make stew)
Goulash
Roast Beef (bought on sale of course)
Italian
Spaghetti and Meatballs
Shrimp Linguini
Penne with Basil Presto
Mexican
Fajita Seasoning Mix (which I use for tacos, burrittos, and fahittas)
Chili
Fajitas
Tacos
Vegetables
Many plain vegetables can be served as a side with no more effort than just cutting them into bit sized pieces and maybe seasoning them with a bit of salt and pepper, these would include
Tomatoes
Cucumbers
Carrots
Simply steamed or boiled in water vegetables would include
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Green Beans
Peas
Carrots
Corn on the Cob
Roasted Vegetables would include
Squash
Carrots
Turnips
If you are buying rice, couscous, or Asian noodles make sure that they have cooking instructions printed on the side of the packaging that you can understand if you are unfamiliar with them.
Soups and sandwiches make great meals especially in the cold weather. Soup is surprisingly easy and inexpensive to make from scratch and all recipe sites have many different recipes you can try.
While it would be nice to have a instant cook book that would have all the best and cheapest recipes for you to use you will have to take some time and effort to build your ultimate budget cookbook. The pay off is that you will be able to keep your food bill in line will enjoying great meals with your family.
As your confidence grows in the kitchen you will find that you will start making up your own inexpensive recipes. The photo of the lunch at the beginning of this article is simply BBQ'd chicken, cut into strips and placed on a bed of Romaine lettuce with mushrooms and mini tomatoes, then drizzled with salad dressing.
If you have a particularly great recipe made from scratch, cook book that you love, or website that has great ideas, I would love to hear about it.
Photography and Content
Copyright Ingrid Talpak 2010
Morestylethancash
Children also go through food loves and hates. They might turn their noses up at broccoli for years and then not be able to eat enough of it and ask why you don't serve it more often. Part of getting your family to eat well is to set ground rules that no one is allowed to disrespect the food on the table by calling it yucky or any other disparaging term. They can tell you that it is not their favorite and leave it at that. Bad manners and bad behavior have no place at a dinner table.
You children might be fine and it could be that your spouse is the problem. There is nothing worse than an adult that is a picky eater unless it is an adult that is a picky eater who won't admit it. But remember that you are dealing with an adult and you should be able to have an adult conversation with no accusations, incrimination or anger.
It is difficult to make a drastic switch from one style of eating to another and you might have to slowly phase it in. Food likes and dislikes can really shrink your culinary horizons. If you want to eat healthy you have to eat fruits and vegetables. If this is a problem for you or a family member then the best course of action is just to have very small portions of a food group that isn't liked until either they acquire a taste for it or you find a recipe that everyone really enjoys. It might take you some time to find a series of recipes that are budget conscious, healthy and your family finds delicious.
While there are boxed food that is cheap and inexpensive to buy you are trading off the quality to eat food that has high calories, preservatives, coloring agents, and a mix bag of chemicals you can not pronounce. Though the food is cheap to begin with you and your family might be paying down the road in health costs and weight gain.
In putting together your cookbook you have to decide from the get go are you a tech type person that would love to have all their recipes on their home computer or would you prefer an old fashioned paper recipe book. This is strictly a personal preference. Do you have a scanner or a photo copier or will you be writing out your recipes by hand? My own personal recipe book is a three ring binder divided into several sections. Recipes from magazines or newspapers are pasted on three hole paper, and print outs from the computer or hand written recipes are hole punched. I find this fast and convenient. When I find a recipe and I can get it into my cook book with the minimum amount of fuss.
Which ever way you want to present your cook book you need different sections. I divide my cookbook with
- Ham
- Chicken/Turkey
- Fish
- Pork
- Beef
- Eggs
- Pasta/Italian/Mexican
- Vegetables/Salads
- Potato/Rice/Sides
- Breads
- Soups
I divided it up this way so I can check what is on sale in the weekly fliers and find a recipe very quickly for it.
From personal experience the one stumbling block that I use to have with new recipes is they sounded fabulous but they would have spices or seasonings that I was unfamiliar with or didn't have as a staple in my pantry. I found bulk food stores were excellent because I could buy very small amounts of spices and seasonings and if it didn't work out then I was not stuck with a spice that I probably wouldn't use again. I also would substitute powdered or dried herbs for fresh (like parsley or ginger) when the fresh was out of season and too expensive. I would substitute a plainer ingredient for a specialty ingredient, when a recipe would call for apple cider vinegar I would just use plain vinegar. If there is a ingredient that I don't recognize then I look it up.(For some odd reason Martha Stewart likes using the french names of very common ingredients, cornichons which are pickles and haricot vert which are green beans.)
We live in a world of season-less produce but when food is locally grown and in-season it tends to be much less expensive. You need to recognize what seasonal fruits and vegetables are inexpensive in your area and how the best way to store them. It doesn't do you any good to buy a 50 pound bag of potatoes it they end up rotting. Really study the best ways of storing your food. Potatoes should be kept in a cool dark area away from onions. If this just is not possible for you then buy small amounts of potatoes when they are sale and use them up as fast as possible.
There has to be a million and a half ways to cook a potato and there are dozens of varieties of potatoes available in grocery stores, more at farmers markets. If potatoes are one of the items that inexpensive in your area and that you love to eat start building a recipe sections for them so your family won't get tired of them.
If you have to use potatoes as a seasonal items them build your section for rice and sides. Rice and pasta keep very well as long as they are in air tight bags or containers. A good quality long grain rice is needed if you are featuring it but you can use a less expensive sticky rice if you are serving a sauce on top of it of adding it as an ingredient to another dish. Asian noodles, couscous and other exotic sides are simple and inexpensive to cook. If you have a large grocery store then look in the ethnic section, if you don't try to seek out a Asian food store. Be open minded, what you at first might consider to be strange or different could be your next favorite food.
You can start searching for recipes using cuts of meat that you are familiar with. If you don't have much cooking skill start with easy recipes such as spaghetti and meatballs using on sale ground beef (Inexpensive ground beef can be fatty and you might have to drain the fat from it once it is browned before you continue with your recipe). As your confidence builds you can buy other cuts of meat that are on sale and ask the butcher for advice and look up recipes on the internet. Inexpensive cuts of meat tend to taste better if they are slow cooked. If you don't have a slow cooker you can start your next meal when you finish dinner and let it cook through out the evening and then finish it off the next day (this is great if you are making a stew with a tougher cut of beef).
Salads don't have to be boring, there are countless variety of salads especially when you chose from different salad dressing. Salad dressing does not have to come from a jar, you can make simple and complex dressing at home from the base of a good oil and vinegar.
Do you have a freezer? You can use this to stock pile meats and vegetable when they are on sale and save your self time and money. It also only takes a few minutes to double a recipe and freeze half of it to be used at a latter date.
There are great recipe sites out there but you might have to do some digging to find ones that have the same tastes as you. Ones that I use often include MarthaStewart.com, Food Network Canada.ca, Cooks.com and All Recipes.com. Once you start looking you will find sites and chiefs that you tend to follow.
If you are a beginning cook and just want to some ideas I have listed some simple recipes that you could get started with.
Some ideas for
Chicken
Chicken Parmesan
Chicken Burgers
Chicken Curry
Ground Beef
Meatloaf
Shepherd's Pie
Sloppy Joes
Beef
Stew (I use a regular thick bottomed pot to make stew)
Goulash
Roast Beef (bought on sale of course)
Italian
Spaghetti and Meatballs
Shrimp Linguini
Penne with Basil Presto
Mexican
Fajita Seasoning Mix (which I use for tacos, burrittos, and fahittas)
Chili
Fajitas
Tacos
Vegetables
Many plain vegetables can be served as a side with no more effort than just cutting them into bit sized pieces and maybe seasoning them with a bit of salt and pepper, these would include
Tomatoes
Cucumbers
Carrots
Simply steamed or boiled in water vegetables would include
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Green Beans
Peas
Carrots
Corn on the Cob
Roasted Vegetables would include
Squash
Carrots
Turnips
If you are buying rice, couscous, or Asian noodles make sure that they have cooking instructions printed on the side of the packaging that you can understand if you are unfamiliar with them.
Soups and sandwiches make great meals especially in the cold weather. Soup is surprisingly easy and inexpensive to make from scratch and all recipe sites have many different recipes you can try.
While it would be nice to have a instant cook book that would have all the best and cheapest recipes for you to use you will have to take some time and effort to build your ultimate budget cookbook. The pay off is that you will be able to keep your food bill in line will enjoying great meals with your family.
As your confidence grows in the kitchen you will find that you will start making up your own inexpensive recipes. The photo of the lunch at the beginning of this article is simply BBQ'd chicken, cut into strips and placed on a bed of Romaine lettuce with mushrooms and mini tomatoes, then drizzled with salad dressing.
If you have a particularly great recipe made from scratch, cook book that you love, or website that has great ideas, I would love to hear about it.
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Have you read?
Secrets on Saving Money and Buying Food like a Caterer
Every Bit Counts - Using up Your Food Scraps
Cheap, Easy and Healthy School Lunches
Every Bit Counts - Using up Your Food Scraps
Cheap, Easy and Healthy School Lunches
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Photography and Content
Copyright Ingrid Talpak 2010
Morestylethancash
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