Home cooking - Is it cheaper?

Emily_Rachel

Home-made pizza is great. I love to have dough-balls in the freezer in readiness. Well usually quite a few! The work and time is all in the making of the dough-balls, so I make loads every couple of months, coat them lightly in oil and freeze them. Great for quick evening meals, you just get one out 4 hours before you need it, or defrost the morning/night before in the fridge. You can make them the size you want for the kind of pizza you like. Freshly baked home-made pizza topped with fresh vegetables and a little cheese just can't be beaten! And it's fast and very cheap to cook too.

camNolliesMUMMY

I highly recommend an Asian market for herbs an spices I've picked up spices for 100g at around 59p or 500g at £1.89. Something are more expensive like saffron but I bought the essence in their baking isle and asked about using it instead of the proper stuff and they advised they use it in thir home cooking as it is cheaper at 49p a bottle or £4 a small bag.
I Almost have every spice and herb, as well as having balsamic vinegar, white wine vinegar, fish sauce, soy sauce, oyster sauce etc so if I find a recipe I like I know il have everything I need. I also make our own fakeaways, and have saved us £100's.
I've found the having all this stuff is an investment, as it did cost a little bit o build a stock but I have it all now and i can cook almost anything.

Michelle63x

I have to say homemade is always best! I havent bought any takeaway curries for nearly 2 years since I found a recipe for quick, cheap, easy and very tasty Chicken korma (but can easily be hotter if you wish). Tonight we had Chicken and Chickpea Tikka with Cachumber, Turmeric Rice & Flatbreads. All home made and about £2 per person and I have enough leftover for lunch at work tomorrow.

Michelle63x

Can we have the dough ball recipe Emily?

bud1950

i used to buy bigger joints when on offer, cut into 2 or 3 then freeze. my sis told me to cook the whole joint or leg of lamb. you only have to use your oven once, instead of 2 or 3 times. slice all the meat up, divide out into portions to suit your family needs. cover with your homemade gravy, then freeze.

Michelle63x

Bud, I buy big joints when on offer and do exactly this. Co-op do really good pork joints on offer at times. I seal on the hob then bung in my slo cooker. Then slice and freeze. Defrost and reheat in a nice thick onion gravy. Really good and nice and cheap.

HappyMJ

Michelle63x wrote: »

Can we have the dough ball recipe Emily?

Flour, salt, sugar, yeast, olive oil...etc.. make it just like bread. Whatever you do make sure you use the best quality olive oil possible.

Tryingtobethrify

Just thought I'd say well done for making the change! Exactly when I did it to as I wanted my lo to be baby led weaned on our food. I now have two little monsters and they only eat mummy's homemade goodness! Always stack the freezer with small pots for them or larger ones to feed all four of us. I would recommend the baby led weaning book by gill rapley even if you just use the recipes as they are wholesome and tasty! On the cost front I have a budget of £50 per week to feed four of us homemade lunch and dinners for the week - I used to spend double that when I used jars etc!

aliama

Mrs_CB wrote: »

Loads of good advice already given on this subject, wouldn't expect anything else.;)
I suggest buying a book called Economy Gastronomy, it gives 'bedrock' recipes which you then build on. Cook once, eat twice sort of system. Very good recipe for basic mince, very tasty.

That recipe in Economy Gastronomy is my go-to recipe for Spag Bol; it's delicious, and I've been meaning to make a batch for a while.

But for those 'leftover' recipes, I prefer a book called 'Kitchen Revolution', which I've been using quite a bit recently. It uses a similar basis to the bedrock recipes in Economy Gastronomy. For every week of the year there's one big recipe (a roast or similar), two recipes for leftovers, a seasonal recipe, a recipe from storecupboard ingredients and a batch cooking recipe, half of which can be frozen.

It's not perfect (what recipe book is?) -- some of the recipes can be a bit of faff (too many pots and pans), and the ingredients aren't always the cheapest (lots of herbs), but for the sheer number of recipes it can't be beat, and you can get around expensive ingredients if you're willing to adapt recipes.

They publish the recipes for the current week online if anyone's interested in trying it out.

http://www.thekitchenrevolution.co.uk/index.asp

(Not sure if I can post links yet, but google Kitchen Revolution and the site should come up.)

joedenise

Thanks for the link to the kitchen revolution - looks a really good site. Might get the book if it isn't too expensive.

Denise