The cost of cooking

Iona_Penny

I find with some mels it is possible to part cook them or at least start them off in the microwave while the oven is heating up. It certainly makes me feel like I have the oven on for less but get the same 'nice' baked finish.

Jacket potatoes are a good example, soften in a microwave and then bake the skins off in the oven. I find that I do it with so many things now, even todays roast chicken had 6 mins first so it wasn't going in cold.

Am I deluding myself that I'm saving money? Oh and I find that doing double quantities in the slow cooker results in the food going FURTHER! If one lot then the four of us eat it, but somehow portions are less when there is a huge amount and so I often find that I can serve a meal 4 4, freeze a meal 4 4 and then plate a meal for son when he needs to eat at different times to the rest of us.

Andy_Spoo_2

Thanks guys :-)

You've been very helpful. The idea of making extra quatities was simple, but great. And I should think that the microwave idea does save quite a bit, especially over a year.


Andy
- xx -

elona

Savvy Sue

I had the same problem that you did with everything being eaten but someone suggested that I remove a portion or two before I serve the dish (So that I have already saved it)

If I do not do this DH offers to "finish it up for me" and wonders why I am never grateful for the offer

maryb

My DH intones 'I feel it my duty...' as he helps himself to what would have been a single person portion had it actually made it to the freezer

Waste not want not is all very well but...!!!

Ticklemouse

This is true of a lots of OH's, me thinks

Mr TM will often 'use things up' - ie all the eggs on the days I was going to bake, that last slice of ham which i had saved for DS1's butty and the other night, I found him drinking Cointreau, with lemonade, cos it was disgusting, but all the same he was still drinking it :mad:

I often just fill the SC or the oven up and make as much as I can - it all gets eaten sooner or later (usually sooner too )

nabowla

Ticklemouse wrote:

I found him drinking Cointreau, with lemonade, cos it was disgusting, but all the same he was still drinking it :mad:

Men!!! Seriously, if you have Cointreau in the house and don't particularly enjoy drinking it, try adding a bit to a HM fruit salad at the same time that you add the fruit juice. It gives the fruit salad a bit of a kick and works well if you mix with orange juice. Whenever I serve fruit salad to guests they're always demanding the 'recipe' because it tastes fab but they can't work out what I've done to make it taste so good