We all know basic ways to save on our food bills: Eat out less, brown-bag it more, and whatever you do, make your own coffee at home! But Beth Moncel took it way further.
Read more: http://www.retailmenot.com/blog/budget-bytes-easy-affordable-recipes.html#ixzz30CuMZ1R0
As a broke 20-something looking to cut costs without sacrificing taste or health, Beth, a nutritional scientist by training, tackled budget eating.
The result: her popular blog, Budget Bytes, and her brand-new cookbook, "Budget Bytes: Over 100 Easy, Delicious Recipes to Slash Your Grocery Bill in Half" ($12.76 at Books-A-Million).
I spoke with Beth, who is based in New Orleans, to learn easy ways to cook meals that cost about $1 a serving.
Congratulations on the book, which just came out February 4. How’s it going?
It’s going well. I’m getting really good feedback. I’m really relieved; it was a tough project!
How did you first decide to cut costs, beyond the obvious, like shop on sale or use coupons?
I have a nutritional science degree, and I started thinking about things that food-service operations use to keep costs under control. A huge one is reducing waste. I think people don’t think about that for the home kitchen.
It’s been reported that 40% of our food goes uneaten! Can you give an example of how you reduce waste?
I always take inventory before I go shopping. I call it “shopping my pantry.” I see what I have on hand, and I take note. I might see that I have half a pound of pasta left, so I’ll come up with recipes based on that. I’ll also look at my freezer to see what I have there.
What else?
I am always repurposing leftovers and using them in a new recipe, which is what professional kitchens do. Waste is going to be one of your biggest expenses.
Besides shopping your pantry and not wasting food, what else has saved you the most?
What really changed how I cooked in my kitchen is being open to leftovers. They are really great, and if you cook one big meal a week, you are going to cut down on your kitchen time and have grab-and-go lunches. I cook four to six servings, and then I pre-portion everything. I stick a few [portions] in the freezer, too, so I always have a microwave meal on hand. Those things are the biggest game changers.
What really adds to your grocery bill?
Ingredients like nuts, cheese, sun-dried tomatoes … those flavorful foods are expensive! But you can go a lot lighter on them and still get all the flavor without going overboard on your budget. I have this thing where I play with the ration of the cheeses and nuts, and I tweak the ration so you have a really big volume meal and still enough flavor, because just using 1/4 cup of nuts might still be your most expensive ingredient!
How else do you add taste without spending a fortune?
You’d be surprised how much flavor you can get out of dried herbs and spices, and those don’t cost a lot. I also buy fresh cilantro and parsley on a regular basis. They are very inexpensive, so I’ll buy a bunch each week and use them. Even if I don’t use the whole bunch, I am only losing 50 cents. They add freshness and offer a lot of flavor and visual appeal, and parsley can be a bulking ingredient in your recipe. I have grown fresh basil and done really well with it. You can buy the plant for $2.50.
How does one entertain on a budget?
I don’t get to entertain often because I live in a small space, but I threw a dinner party recently, and one thing I did is I made my own bread. Bread making intimidates people, but it’s not hard, and it’s like $1.50 to make a whole batch of rolls! There are a lot of no-knead recipes, and fresh bread adds something special to the meal. [Editors’ note: Here is Beth’s recipe for focaccia rolls, which only cost 10 cents each to make.]
I employed all my usual tricks like using [affordable ingredients such as] beans and pasta. I made a salad, and though salad can be expensive, I chose kale, a less expensive green, to keep the cost down. I used shrimp, which is expensive, but I was able to feed eight people on about $25.
Sometimes food in the frozen food aisle seems more affordable. Is it cheaper to cook lasagna from scratch or just buy it?
One reason [frozen] is sometimes less expensive is that when you buy frozen meals, they use the expensive ingredients sparingly. If you make lasagna at home, the tendency is to use a lot of meat and cheese. But it’s not always cheaper to cook at home. You have to feel it out and do what is going to work for you. It’s a balance between time, money, convenience and health.
How do you make sure you are eating well?
Your health is really important; you can’t wait until it’s bad to pay attention to it. I happen to really like vegetables. People think you can’t use fresh veggies [if you want to save money]. You have to use the produce in your area, depending on how close you are to where it’s grown will impact the price, as will using heartier produce instead of stuff that wilts and gets damaged easily.
So for me, I tend to use a lot of sweet potatoes and kale, but stay away from asparagus that is $4 per pound. And frozen vegetables are so cheap. Frozen broccoli and spinach are great options. You can add them to anything, and the prep work of chopping and blanching is already done for you. I use frozen fruit when I make smoothies, but it’s kind of expensive. It’s a lot of looking and learning.
So for those who haven’t done any real budgeting at the grocery store before, how should they get started?
There is a learning curve, so start with the small stuff. Just bulk things up, then later on, you can move on to calculating costs in your head. It gets easier in the store [the more you look at prices], and it takes experimentation, but hopefully my blog and cookbook have taken that work out for people.
For recipes like Easy Pad Thai, Beef & Bean Taquitos and Iced Orange-Cranberry Scones, pick up Budget Bytes: Over 100 Easy, Delicious Recipes to Slash Your Grocery Bill in Half ($12.76 at Books-A-Million).
This post originally appeared at RetailMeNot's The Real Deal. Copyright 2014. Follow RetailMeNot's The Real Deal on Twitter.
Read more: http://www.retailmenot.com/blog/budget-bytes-easy-affordable-recipes.html#ixzz30CuMZ1R0
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