what is cheaper to cook than buy? 6 April 2011 at 11:58AM in How much have you saved? 19 replies 4.7K views

tumptyteapot

I am sure this has been discussed before but I can't find it.
I make ricotta and bread and I think both of them are cheaper to make than buy - the bread is certainly nicer.
What else makes sense to cook from scratch?

Kazipoo

I make lots of stuff.... nip down to your local morrisons or asda for the reduced fruit and you can make several jars of jams or lemon curd for a fraction of the price..... I mix and match the fruit and sometimes add spice and have had nothing but compliments.... I even gave them out as presents last Christmas (large hamper full of homemade goodies). Irish Cream is another one that is cheaper to make than buy and tastes soooo much better than the shop bought version, in fact when we gifted that at Christmas the mother in law kept sticking her finger in the top of the bottle (she was meant to be saving it for Christmas day) then poured herself a glass. I also do my own wraps, chapati's and naan breads and make my own riaita (sp) dip and we all definitely prefer my homemade korma and jalfrezi to the shop bought ones, and it costs much less than buying them in.

tumptyteapot

is it cheaper to make jam than buy it - not the expensive one but we have been eating value jam and it is fine. Love the Irish Cream idea! How do you make wraps?

Kazipoo

tumptyteapot wrote: »

is it cheaper to make jam than buy it - not the expensive one but we have been eating value jam and it is fine. Love the Irish Cream idea! How do you make wraps?

If you get the fruit very cheap yes I do believe it is.... I have regularly bought a large punnet of strawberries for around 15p from asda and morrisons (although it is hit and miss), I already have jam sugar in, but its just over £1 for a bag, I use probably a cupful for each recipe, I probably get a good 6 - 8 recipes per bag, each recipe can yield 3 - 4 full sized jars of scrummyumptious jam, so my initial £1 for the sugar divided by 6 - 8 works out at around 15p ish per recipe, plus 15p for the fruit and that makes 3 - 4 jars so 30p total (on average) per recipe, means the most delish jam (that would retail at probably around the £2 mark, has cost you 10p per jar to make.

Lemon curd can be a little bit more expensive, I generally do it with reduced eggs and lemons, but that recipe calls for butter (I use stork though), so for the 4 jars I could probably get that to around £1.50, so just under 40p a jar, but the taste is heavenly :A

The recipe for wraps I got from a kindly member from this website, I think the recipe is for Piadines (sp) an italian flat bread. I find that if you roll them thinner it is a wrap, thicker and its a chapati lol, or you can get wholewheat flour for a change.

For the irish cream, the initial outlay seems steep (you must get a good quality whiskey), although it only cost £12 for mine in the before Christmas offers at asda, I made 4 full sized (wine bottle size) bottles and still have half a bottle of whiskey left, ready to make more in the coming year.

Kazipoo

Plus I keep, sterilize and reuse old jars so that we never run out, and friends and family send them back to me once they are finished (although its usually for a refill). My most popular jam so far has to be strawberry and nectarine with a dash of lemon juice and vanilla.... its very sweet and if you're going to attempt one it should be that (and I don't even like nectarines).

tumptyteapot

Brill, thanks for all that, we have a market that sells trays of fruit for a few quid, I've made cheap mango chutney from it before but I've never worked out the actual cost of sugar and everything. I caught Seville organges in January for the first time ever and made some fantastic marmalade with rum! I also hoard jam jars:-)
I'm still amazed how cheap it is to make bread, the flour for each loaf I made last time was 20p and if you add the yeast, oil and oven heat it can't be over 50p for a proper posh artisan loaf.

Kazipoo

I must admit, you can get bags of fruit from Leeds market, I completely forget about them to be honest as I rarely go into Leeds itself, the quality of the fruit is far superior and probably much fresher than the supermarket stuff.... when I do go, I usually spend a fiver and end up with around 3 carriers full of fruit and veg.... Incidentally I also use reduced fruit for homemade muffins.... all the lads at the hubbys work are mad for them (they take it in turns to take the goodies in) I do plum and ginger, triple choc chunk, banana and chocolate, strawberry and vanilla, cherry and coconut and blueberry, I batch bake and shove them in the freezer so they are nice and fresh when he takes them into work.... kids have them in their pack ups too. I have worked them out to around £1 for a 12 batch, so three times cheaper than in the supermarkets.

tumptyteapot

Ohhhhhhhhh muffins! Fantastic idea! Plum and ginger sounds amazing!

xnatalie81x

ryvita (rye flour/yeast/water and rolled really thin) - so nice!!

pasta (semolina flour/water/herbs) although now value pasta is 9p a pack i doubt it is cheaper anymore

Pasta Sauce

bread (buy bread flour in makro really cheap or mix half n half with plain flour)

stock (chicken bones/water)

cakes and biscuits (flour n sugar n butter/ eggs/vanilla)

laundry gloop (didnt say just food)

dishcloths (old schl t shirts)

Sweet n Sour sauce/cheese sauce/white sauce for potatoes

Pot noodles (egg noodles/soy sauce/herbs)

Stuffing

Breaded anything (fish etc - so yummy with HM bread!!!)

There is more but i have a wriggly baby on my lap

tumptyteapot

what is laundry gloop? :-) I can sort of imagine but not quite

Zara_Mari

tumptyteapot wrote: »

I am sure this has been discussed before but I can't find it.
I make ricotta and bread and I think both of them are cheaper to make than buy - the bread is certainly nicer.
What else makes sense to cook from scratch?

It depends. If you're living alone, I think it is cheaper to buy but if you have your family around, it is better to cook.

As for the easy to prepare food, I'd still go for pesto. It's healthy, easy to cook and delicious!