Things that are cheaper to make than buy?

simplydevine05

I love my breadmaker and regularly make pizza dough in it. Using 1/3 brown flour makes it filling enough to feed four people with no sides and I throw any topping that needs using up on it. The tomato sauce is just puree, oregano, basil and thyme. I reckon I probably do a pizza for under £2 and it is absolutely huge! Way cheaper than a supermarket equivalent and tastier, not to mention I know what is in it!
A firm favourite of ours (my four year old loves it) is this tomato soup recipe http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1133657/quick-tomato-soup-with-cheesy-garlic-dippers. Really quick and easy so perfect for a midweek, "get in from work and can't really be bothered", meal. Served with homemade bread without cheese it's about £2 (we used ordinary chopped tomatoes not cherry).
And last but not least, my favourite scone recipe. These last far longer than shop bought, and are cheaper. Using Tesco value ingredients (apart from the sugar), I make around 15 of these for £1.40 ish. Not as cheap as basics ranges but, as someone else said, value is not all about cost in my opinion, plus these last over a week in a cake tin, not barely 48 hours!

Kirsty

Adrift

Has anyone added the cost of electricity/gas to the total cost of making an item versus buying it?

valk_scot

I'm sitting here eating soup made from the boiled up carcass of the duck we had on Sunday, a packet of Value noodles (13p), a tin of Lidl sweetcorn (33p), a few snipped chives from the garden, the shreds of meat from the carcass and a shake of soy sauce. Under 50p for four big portions and it's delicious.

You can do the same with a chicken carcass or just use a spoonful of Tom Yam paste and put other odds and ends like sliced mushrooms, prawns, cubes of ham or peas in it. But the noodle+sweetcorn combo is my family's favourite.

thriftyniftyme

Adrift wrote: »

Has anyone added the cost of electricity/gas to the total cost of making an item versus buying it?

I for one am always conscious of this, but without going into the whole cake debate all over again, the cost of most home-made is cheaper than most ready-made, certainly if one compares like with like.

Rebelle

Only had a little browse but I already want to try the chicken, pepper & pesto plait (minus the chicken as I'm veggie) and the mushroom lasagne recipe you link to, will have a thorough read when I get time, but just wanted to say thanks for the link, I'll be bookmarking it & checking back so keep up the good work! :T

On topic: I agree with the consensus that HM cakes are waaay superior to shop-bought, there's just no comparison taste-wise, so even if it is slightly dearer to make your own than to buy Tesco value fairy cakes, I'd say it's always better to do HM, they're just so much nicer & you cut out all the nasty additives.

It always interests me when people say that HM pizza is cheaper than shop-bought though, because in my experience this is never true, unless you use leftovers as topping & scrimp a bit on the cheese. HM is definitely cheaper than takeaway, but I quite like some frozen pizzas from the supermarket (especially when on offer! :money:) & prefer to buy them rather than make my own - as once I've factored in the time & effort to make my own dough (I agree with Nigella that ready-made bases are vile!), then bought cheese & toppings to go on them, frozen ones are much cheaper & a lot more convenient & taste just as good as anything I can make myself. But maybe that's just me!

Rebelle

simplydevine05 wrote: »

And last but not least, my favourite scone recipe. These last far longer than shop bought, and are cheaper. Using Tesco value ingredients (apart from the sugar), I make around 15 of these for £1.40 ish. Not as cheap as basics ranges but, as someone else said, value is not all about cost in my opinion, plus these last over a week in a cake tin, not barely 48 hours!

If my maths is correct, this scone recipe http://www.cheap-family-recipes.org.uk/recipe-raisinscones.html?opt=rsnack works out at 48p for a batch of 24 small scones - I'll confess that whenever I've made it, I've done about 8 large ones out of the dough instead but I am a greedy girl & that's still amazing value!! Using butter instead of lard as given in the ingredients doesn't add much to the cost as you only need 80g - about 25-30p worth? - and makes them veggie-friendly too.

Saying that, I'm sure I've made these successfully using just veg oil & no lard/butter at all & they still came out lovely. There's a separate recipe on that site for savoury scones, but I tend to use this one minus the sugar & raisins & plus some cheese & a sprinkle of paprika & garlic/onion powder or mixed herbs - absolutely delicious & a great alternative for packed lunch if you're fed up of sarnies/wraps etc. The only problem is not eating them all while they're still warm from the oven!!

Molly41

Out,_Vile_Jelly wrote: »

I grew tomatoes in my garden this summer, but didn't really think about what I was going to do with them- it was more the excitement of being a green-fingered nurturer of life. I ended up with a load of green ones that very slowly and begrudgingly turned red with the aid of a couple of bananas. I ate some of them in sandwiches, but to be honest they were pretty tasteless. I then decided to make soup, which involved further expenditure (2 tins of value kidney beans and a jar of chilli powder). The resulting product looks distressingly like cat sick. It tastes ok, but not great, and certainly not as nice as the lovely fresh soups in the supermarket.

I think I'll grow something else next year.

Here is my recipe for Cream of Tomato Soup that puts Mr H to shame.
We made a huge pan full with our tomato glut, freezed it in individual portions and just heat it from frozen for lunch....

Cream of Tomato Soup:
Ingredients:
1 onion
25g butter
½ teaspoon easy garlic (jar in fridge)
Half a teaspoon paprika
Tablespoon tomato puree
BIG Squirt of tomato sauce
1000g tomatoes chopped (all the tomatoes in the fridge} - I always get on offer or glut
2 teaspoon of sugar
600 ml vegetable stock (marigold make up 4 teaspoon per litre)
Half a tub of cream (optional)

Method:
Fry onion in butter for 10 mins until soft.
Stir in garlic
Add puree and tomato sauce
Add tomatoes, paprika, sugar and veg stock.
Bring to the boil then simmer for 20 mins
Blend the soup with blender
Push through a sieve to remove seeds and skin and return liquid to pan (washed)
Stir in most of cream and reheat very slowly

Popperwell

Adrift wrote: »

Has anyone added the cost of electricity/gas to the total cost of making an item versus buying it?

That has always been my concern...

thriftyniftyme

I do agree that the cost of gas/electricity has to be figured in. The variation in prices of fuels, the types of fuels and the consumption of appliances is too broad to be included in the costings in the same way that different people will pay different prices for different foods. It is something to be aware of but pinpointing a cost can be hard even when you have the figures to hand.

My electricity price is 21.25p per unit :eek: for the first however many per quarter then 10.68p after that. So even working out my own usage is problematic! But as we do always use all of the primary units and then some (OH breeds lizards), I tend to think of the stuff I have no control over as using the primary units so I use the 10.68p as my 'working' figure.

Now, I have an electric cooker which is horrendously expensive. I'd love to use a different fuel but we rent and the landlord won't let us. My cooker is 3kw, so in theory it uses 32.04p per hour :eek: But, it is only burning electricity constantly while it is warming up. While it is at temperature, the heat element goes on and off to maintain it. And the oven will stay hot for a little while after it is turned off as well.
In practice, the solution is to have cooking 'sessions' where you only have to heat the oven up once, then cook in batches to freeze, then warm up later if necessary. I steer clear of recipes that need long cooking times unless I can do some 'pre-cooking' in the microwave or use a slow cooker.

Appliances such as breadmakers, remoskas, slow-cookers, halogen ovens and microwaves definitely help. They are far more efficient. My microwave is 750w, so uses as little as 7p per hour - and when have you ever used you microwave for a full hour?

I used one of those energy monitors on my breadmaker once and it uses 2 units to cook a standard loaf, and about 1.5 on a 'quick' loaf. At the moment I make my dough in the breadmaker then bake bread rolls when I am using the oven for other things. I doubt it uses so much as one unit of electricity to make the dough itself.

I don't have a remoska or halogen oven yet but I will do by the end of this winter!

lally666young

If you go to Morrisons you can get a beero cook book for 98p in the baking isle on the top shelf. And lots of the recipies are very cheap to make and even look fancy. I make my own pasta, yes the intial outlay is expensive, but it tastes better and it looks better and you have the satisifaction of knowing you made that. For instance I made a 9 portion quiche yesterday for £1.50 and 9 jumbo cookies for the kids for 99p! As the mixes were on offer. I prefer to make my own