These 'shorts' videos are all the rage now but I enjoy the more comprehensive talks. I remember Chef Tod talked about 'frozen money in the pantry' in a video about six years ago and I still think about it every time I go shopping for recipes.
This is a skill anyone who works for any brief period of time in a kitchen picks up because when you prepare meal for your staff you work with what ya got hahah
The first thing I do before going shopping is to make a list of food we have on hand, then make a rough menu plan using at least half from the freezer/pantry. Then I might make a larger beef roast or cook extra chicken etc, for another meal. It has made our cooking more efficient and cost effective. Also always remember-the most expensive you buy is the food you throw away! Not suggesting eating spoiled food but food wasted is money wasted and its disrespectful to the farmers, ranchers, even those who carried the food and sold it to us, to throw away. So I try to be mindful of my food budget and menu plan.
Some things I do to keep food costs down (besides cooking at home and keep food waste to a minimum) - bulk-buying certain items when they are on discount (items that can keep in the pantry for years and which I use fairly regularly, such as pasta, tomato passata etc.) - frozen vegetables are great and last a long time (I always have a bag of frozen peas in the freezer, they are so versatile) - cooking large batches and freezing a few portions - have very cheap (yet delicious) meals some days of the week to balance out more expensive meals. (steamed / peeled potatoes and sour cream with chives and onions are one of my favorite dishes and are cheap as hell) - buying seasonal fruits and veggies and learning what to do with them. Especially in the latter half of the cycle they are thrown at you for almost nothing usually which is the perfect time to indulge.
This is such good advice. Keep your pantry empty. It will also declutter your mind. If you have to buy something that is going to take a lot of meals to use up, then multiply the other ingredients in the recipe and just cook up a big batch, then store it in the freezer for ready made meals.
Food cost and time cost are both controlable issues. I reduced both expensis by cooking food in bulk quantities from scratch, then freezing the meals for future use. Making this work took study, planing plus an investment in kitchen equipment. Foods can be prepared with a knife and a cutting board but having the proper equipment saves hours of preparation time. The cost in equipment was initially high but quickly paid for itself by eleminating eating in restaurants. An example I can give is how I make tomato based sauces. Instead of using expensive canned tomatoes, I use fresh tomatoes that I purchase in quantities of 50 to 100 tomatoes at a time. Allowing a few days to ripen greatly reduces the accidity. The addition of several bunches of fresh basil plus a finely minced mirepoix adds sweetness to the sauce without adding sugar. Due to the quantites involved, preparing a finely minced mirepoix with a knife and cutting board took too much prep time. Finely mincing a 5 pound bag of onions, a bag of carrots, a pound of jalepeno peppers, a full stalk of celery plus several bunches of cilentro and parsely took several hours with a knife and cutting board. . My Buffalo Chopper minces the mirepoix in a matter of minutes. Finely mincing 5 pounds of onions is done in less than 10 seconds in the Buffalo Chopper. Once the ingredients are prepared, I cook the sauce in a large turkey roaster. The yield is 4 to 5 gallons of tomato sauce placed in smaller airtight containers then stored in a freezer and thawed out for future use. This video shows how I make a mirepoix: ua-cam.com/video/5JZz3S7RRb8/v-deo.html
These 'shorts' videos are all the rage now but I enjoy the more comprehensive talks. I remember Chef Tod talked about 'frozen money in the pantry' in a video about six years ago and I still think about it every time I go shopping for recipes.
Short 3 min videos that get right to the point. You got me subscribed.
This is a skill anyone who works for any brief period of time in a kitchen picks up because when you prepare meal for your staff you work with what ya got hahah
The first thing I do before going shopping is to make a list of food we have on hand, then make a rough menu plan using at least half from the freezer/pantry. Then I might make a larger beef roast or cook extra chicken etc, for another meal. It has made our cooking more efficient and cost effective.
Also always remember-the most expensive you buy is the food you throw away!
Not suggesting eating spoiled food but food wasted is money wasted and its disrespectful to the farmers, ranchers, even those who carried the food and sold it to us, to throw away. So I try to be mindful of my food budget and menu plan.
This is so true and great advice. I love it when I come across a recipe where I already own all except one or two of the ingredients. Dirt cheap!
Some things I do to keep food costs down (besides cooking at home and keep food waste to a minimum)
- bulk-buying certain items when they are on discount (items that can keep in the pantry for years and which I use fairly regularly, such as pasta, tomato passata etc.)
- frozen vegetables are great and last a long time (I always have a bag of frozen peas in the freezer, they are so versatile)
- cooking large batches and freezing a few portions
- have very cheap (yet delicious) meals some days of the week to balance out more expensive meals. (steamed / peeled potatoes and sour cream with chives and onions are one of my favorite dishes and are cheap as hell)
- buying seasonal fruits and veggies and learning what to do with them. Especially in the latter half of the cycle they are thrown at you for almost nothing usually which is the perfect time to indulge.
This is such good advice. Keep your pantry empty. It will also declutter your mind. If you have to buy something that is going to take a lot of meals to use up, then multiply the other ingredients in the recipe and just cook up a big batch, then store it in the freezer for ready made meals.
Great video.
Chef Todd, hellow from the Dominican Republic.
Hola Jose´!
So true. I've been thinking about this very topic. Time to give it a go!
Food cost and time cost are both controlable issues. I reduced both expensis by cooking food in bulk quantities from scratch, then freezing the meals for future use. Making this work took study, planing plus an investment in kitchen equipment. Foods can be prepared with a knife and a cutting board but having the proper equipment saves hours of preparation time. The cost in equipment was initially high but quickly paid for itself by eleminating eating in restaurants. An example I can give is how I make tomato based sauces. Instead of using expensive canned tomatoes, I use fresh tomatoes that I purchase in quantities of 50 to 100 tomatoes at a time. Allowing a few days to ripen greatly reduces the accidity. The addition of several bunches of fresh basil plus a finely minced mirepoix adds sweetness to the sauce without adding sugar. Due to the quantites involved, preparing a finely minced mirepoix with a knife and cutting board took too much prep time. Finely mincing a 5 pound bag of onions, a bag of carrots, a pound of jalepeno peppers, a full stalk of celery plus several bunches of cilentro and parsely took several hours with a knife and cutting board. . My Buffalo Chopper minces the mirepoix in a matter of minutes. Finely mincing 5 pounds of onions is done in less than 10 seconds in the Buffalo Chopper. Once the ingredients are prepared, I cook the sauce in a large turkey roaster. The yield is 4 to 5 gallons of tomato sauce placed in smaller airtight containers then stored in a freezer and thawed out for future use.
This video shows how I make a mirepoix: ua-cam.com/video/5JZz3S7RRb8/v-deo.html
A reminder for me to deal with some celery.
recipes are training wheels for cooking.
I save so much money now that I am on the Carnivore Diet. I dont need to throw out fruits, vegetables or breads that have gone bad.