Tag: Cooking

Cooking is your secret money-maker!

Last week, someone in the Twittersphere asked people to share their best money-making tip.

Mine was simple – cook at home more.

I’ve never hidden the fact that I consider my kitchen to be a magic money-maker. A few hours each week in the kitchen means that I’m not spending money on over-sized portions of food that might not be as healthy for me as the marketers would like me to believe. I have the benefit of eating whatever I want, and who wouldn’t love that?

At the same time, groceries are cheaper than eating out. Going to the grocery store instead of a restaurant or drive-thru window means that I can put more of my disposable income towards making my dreams a reality. Achieving the goals I’ve set for my finances while still eating well… that’s two birds with one stone, as far as I’m concerned.

So today, I’m sharing some of my favorite recipe sources with you. (Sadly, I can’t share all of them since I don’t want this to be 10,000 word blog post.) Put yourself into the mood to save some money by feeding yourself, then click on the links that follow.

First off, I have to mention Dinner Then Dessert. This is one of my favorite recipe websites. Lots of pictures – many useful tips – suggested recipes that are equally delicious! Most importantly of all, this blogger doesn’t waste your eyeball energy on scrolling through some back-story for her recipes. You can get right to it and start cooking!

If memory serves, Smitten Kitchen was one of the very first websites I started following for recipes. I liked the name because it rhymed a little bit, and because it featured desserts that reminded me of childhood. I’m still looking for one of my very favorite Bavarian apple tart recipes, but this one from SK’s website has very much piqued my interest.

Pinch of Yum is also a familiar favorite that I enjoy going back to time and again. The recipes on this website are packed full of vegetables so the dishes are colorful and drool-worthy. I always feel like these recipes deliver on all my daily mineral and vitamin requirements, which is something that is very, very important.

YouTube is a treasure trove of cooking tutorials. I have spent many an hour watching cooks, chefs, and everyone in between creating some of the most delicious things I’ve ever eaten. One of my newly discovered channels is called Cooking With Claudia. I followed her recipe for creamy garlic butter chicken and potatoes… The extra exercise is well worth the added calories of this dish. It’s divine and makes for very tasty leftovers the next day!

A couple of weeks back, I tried to make some pie dough… It did not go well. And while I managed to flatten it into a disc for the freezer, I’m sure I’ll have to doctor it with some more water and flour when I go to actually make a pie. I wish I’d found this video from Nana’s Cookery before I’d started my Pie Dough Project. Although, truth be told, I’ve lived long enough to realize that either you’re born with pie-hands or you’re not. There isn’t a “no-fail pie crust” in the world that has worked in my kitchen.

Fear not, Gentle Reader! I will continue to try my hand at making pie dough because, although my pie crusts aren’t perfect, they’re still very tasty.

Now another great video channel I absolutely adore is Babish Culinary Universe. This gentleman has in incredibly soothing voice. Watching his video about cinnamon rolls was a treat for the eyes. And I’m not embarrassed to admit that I was drooling as I watched his video about sticky buns. When the pandemic is over, I’m going to get together with several friends so that we can grow larger together while devouring these delicious delights. Not even I can justify eating 12 cinnamon or sticky buns by myself… and I haven’t yet found a recipe for making just one!

Maybe you’re a fan of carbs. (And who isn’t, really?) If so, then check out Savor Easy… where they bake up all kinds of delicious breads. One of my favorite aspects of this channel is that there’s very little talking. It’s all music and visuals…and delicious things for your tummy. Soft and fluffy condensed milk bread, anyone?

You need to eat. I suggest you eat well. It’s something you should be doing several times a day so it’s in your best interest to enjoy it. Get the maximum enjoyment of your food while stretching your dollars as far as possible! Start by cooking and baking for yourself.

We’re still in a pandemic, and it’s not always fun to eat alone as a Single One. I get it. Believe me when I say that I understand. Where I live, dining in restaurants is currently not an option. However, I have access to screens in my house. There’s always the option of a videochat over a nice meal. It’s definitely not the same, but it is way better than the drive-thru.

And look on the bright side. We are so very much closer to the day when the pandemic is in the rearview mirror than we were just a few short months ago. And I’m willing to get that you’ll agree with my prognostication that there will be an extraordinary level of socializing when we finally reach herd immunity. Use your pandemic-time to learn how to cook & bake. I promise that you’re going to love sharing all the recipes you’ve mastered with those nearest and dearest to your heart when the pandemic is finally over.

Money in Your Kitchen

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. There is money in your kitchen! The room of your home where you keep your fridge and your stove, your pots and your pans, your cutlery and your crockery is a treasure of stored value.

The way to find this money is to use your kitchen for …(drum roll please!) …COOKING!

Yes, I know this is a novel idea. And yes, cooking results in dirty dishes. I’m even willing to admit that you might not even know how to cook!

I don’t care. I want you to learn to feed yourself, and to save money while you do it.

Gentle Reader, there is nothing quite so satisfying as a delicious meal that has been prepared with your own hands. I say this a person who often socialized with my friends at restaurants in the Before Times. Steak – sushi – Thai – Greek – Italian – chain restaurant – bistros, cafes, and holes-in-the-wall! I loved them all, and I freely spent money on food prepared for me by others.

That said, very few meals – save for everything I ate in Italy – have been as sumptuous as the ones I’ve made for myself. If you eat out a lot, then you’ll understand me when I say the following. After a while, it all starts to taste the same.

Treats are special when they’re rare

We all know this. If you only eat out once every three months, then it’s a treat. It happens 4 times a year! It’s rare and that rarity makes it special. You might get dressed up. Possibly, you turn it into a special occasion. Dining out becomes an event and you anticipate it. You might savour each bite because you know it’ll be another 89 days before you eat out again.

But when you eat out everyday, it becomes part of your routine. It’s as mundane as brushing your teeth but exponentially more costly! When was the last time that you truly and deeply savoured the meal you picked up at the drive-thru window? Or had delivered to your home in an insulated carrier bag?

Get into your kitchen and cook for yourself. Turn those restaurant meals back into a treat! In the process, the money in your kitchen can stay in your wallet.

This week, I was lamenting to my sibling that I needed a new recipe for the extra lean ground beef that I’d taken out for dinner that evening. Trust me when I say that COVID19 has robbed me of my love for my own spaghetti and my homemade hamburgers. I’ve made them too often since the pandemic was declared and I don’t want to make them anymore! Though younger and much taller than me, my sibling is very wise in the ways of the kitchen. My younger relative suggested that I make Korean Beef.

Taking the suggestion to heart, I went to the World Wide Web and typed in the words “Korean beef recipe”. A plethora of results instantly appeared on my screen. I chose the following recipe from Damn Delicious, and I was not at all disappointed. What I love about this website is that so many people leave comments, tips, and insights into how to tweak the recipe. (I readily admit that the recipes can be made as-is and are still very, very tasty!) One such commenter suggested adding julienned carrots to the dish.

At first, I was afraid – I was petrified. I’d never julienned a carrot in my whole entire life!

(Apologies to Gloria Gaynor!)

However, there’s another marvelous invention in our universe called YouTube. It’s almost as good as the local library when it comes to a free resource for learning how to do stuff. I went to YouTube, searched for “how to julienne carrots”, and happily julienned my first carrot a few minutes later.

Another commenter mentioned that his family liked a lot of sauce, so he’d doubled that portion of the recipe. Guess what? I like lots of sauce too! So I followed his lead and doubled the sauce for my dish. No regrets! Doubling the sauce was a simple, easy, foolproof tweak that would increase my enjoyment of my own cooking.

So I made the recipe, doubled the sauce, and added my julienned carrot… and I wound up with this…

Then I added a little extra something….

Together, they produced the following…

And it was delicious! As another very wise friend would describe it, I served myself a meal that was yummy-yummy-in-my-tummy! There were enough leftovers for lunches and dinners the following days.

While I’m quite certain I could’ve ordered a pizza for $9.99 from a well-known chain, I’m equally certain that the pizza would not have tasted nearly as good as my homemade Korean Beef. Yes, I had to do dishes but it was a small price to pay for having a wonderful meal at home. And I received the added benefit of keeping the money I found in my kitchen. :-}

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Weekly Tip: Start an automated transfer to a savings account. The last time I checked, EQ Bank was paying 1.70% on deposits. I’m as un-impressed with that rate of return as you are. The point is to automate your money so that it’s there when you need it. The money siphoned off via automatic transfer is to plump up your emergency fund. If you’ve already got one that’s nice and fat, then use this automated transfer to save up money for your annual expenses: insurance premiums, property taxes, professional dues, etc…

Maybe you like to invest in big chunks. Fine. Set up the automatic transfer. Every time the account hits your pre-determined amount, transfer the money to your investments and then keep your mitts off it until you retire. Automatic transfers reinforce the savings habit so, if you haven’t already done so, set up your automatic transfer today.

Stay Home – Save Money!

The entire world is facing the COVID19 pandemic right now. There is nowhere to hide, and there is currently no vaccine from this disease. However, each of us has the power to slow its spread. We should all do what we can to stay home!!!

It’s very simple: stay inside your own home.

The coronavirus that causes COVID19 is a respiratory virus. It is spread through droplets in the air when people are around each other. To slow its spread, each of us must stay home. And if we must go out for essentials, then we should practice social distancing by remaining atleast 6 feet away from others.

If you stay home and if you practice social distancing when not at home, you will be doing your part to limit the spread of COVID19.

Tackle your to-do list!

Stay home! Use the time to do those things that you always say you’re going to do but don’t actually do. For example, is there a closet that needs to be cleaned out? Have you sorted that catch-all drawer that drives you crazy each time you open it? Weren’t you thinking of writing a book or starting a blog?

If you’re not good at it, learn to cook. The internet has countless websites that will teach you the long-forgotten art of cooking for yourself. Start at the All Recipes website and work your way around the world wide web. Since you’re staying home anyway, you have the time to simmer and braise and boil and bake and sauté and dice and julienne and all those other magnificent things that cooks do in the kitchen. Feeding yourself is one of the easiest things to do in cutting down on your expenses.

Since the pandemic was declared, I’ve spent a lot of time in my kitchen. I’ve made lasagna, meatballs, spaghetti sauce, and chicken. I’ve baked a cake and a batch of cookies. My freezer is filled with pre-portioned packages of chicken marinating in lovely sauces that I made myself. Thankfully, I’m back to hitting my daily target of 10,000 steps per day! This weekend, the plan is to make a delightful dish called Chicken, Sausage, Peppers & Potatoes. It’s simple and tasty, and it also creates absolutely delicious leftovers.

If you’re still employed, be grateful.

The economy is very volatile right now. Millions of people have applied for employment insurance because their jobs have disappeared for an indeterminate amount of time. They don’t know if they’ll have jobs to go back to when this is over. Through no fault of their own, their economic lifeline has been cut and they’re working through the process of figuring out how to pay for their lives.

There are other millions of people who haven’t lost their jobs. If you can count yourself among those who are still employed, then it’s time to start trimming the fat from your budget. The emergency fund needs some love right now. Right now, the focus of your money needs to be on food, shelter and transportation. Everything else can wait. Books can come from the library – you can get the Libby or Overdrive app for your device if your physical branch is closed.

Find other ways to save money right now. I’m not an economist, nor am I a financial planner. It’s just my gut that is telling me that the macro economic situation is going to be challenging for the vast majority of us for a while yet. If you have a paycheque coming in, then you should strive to make it last as long as possible. Stop living paycheque-to-paycheque! Put a portion into your emergency fund. Pay your bill on time, yet ensure that you have as few bills as possible. Do not take on any new debt right now. If you can’t pay for it in full (whether cash or debit), then you can’t afford it right now. Save up your money and buy it later.

COVID19 is not going to last forever. This pandemic is definitely a huge challenge and it will continue to cause grief until such time as vaccine is found. The good news is that as each day passes, we are that much closer to finding one.

Stay healthy – stay safe – stay home!

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Weekly tip: Track all of your expenses so you know where you spend every dollar.

The Money-Saving Magic of my Kitchen

I have to admit that it sometimes takes me a very long time to learn lessons that should be obvious. One of those lessons is how the kitchen can be used to significantly cut food costs. Today’s lesson, Gentle Reader, is about the money-saving magic of my kitchen.

At the end of last week, I found myself in the very happy position of having some extra money in my bank account. Hurray! Being the money nerd that I am, I promptly started reviewing my outstanding credit card charges and my surplus funds went to paying them off.

But I had to ask myself – where did that extra money come from? I’m almost always wondering how to stretch my remaining money at this point in my paycheque cycle. If my bank account were a gas tank, I’d characterize this point of the cycle as “running on financial fumes.” It’s not fun, but I’d also believed it was unavoidable.

I was wrong.

The reason for my unexpected largesse was the money-saving magic of my kitchen.

Clarification please, Blue Lobster – what in the hell are you talking about?

My kitchen is home to my fridge, an old-fashioned upright refrigerator with a handy-dandy freezer at the top. The weekend before last, I went grocery-shopping and purchased a bulk pack of chicken. I decided to cook several pieces for lunch. The rest of the chicken was rubbed in a lovely marinade, portioned into freezer bags, and set inside my freezer. I took my lunch to work with me four days last week, saving myself atleast $80 in the process.

In addition to my magnificent refrigerator and its freezer, my kitchen is also home to a working oven & stovetop. Again, I cooked some of the chicken and I also prepared some saffron rice for myself. After dinner, I portioned out the chicken and rice into several reusable containers. They were stacked in the fridge and I simply tossed one into my lunch-bag each morning before I left to catch my bus. No more scrambling to make a tasty lunch in the morning. I didn’t have to figure out which of the it-all-tastes-the-same-to-me dining establishments would have the privilege of serving me their food.

As I’ve written before, cooking at home is a money-saver. It’s healthier and often tastier than whatever you can buy at a restaurant or fast-food outlet. For the most part, you control the amount of sugar, fat and salt that goes into the food you cook because you get to adjust the recipe to suit your tastes. The cherry on the sundae is that your wallet stays heavy as you eat your own homemade food.

The beauty of using the freezer along with my range is that I minimized the amount of cooking and grocery-shopping that I have to do. For as much as I love eating good food, I really hate shopping for groceries. In my family, I’m an oddity. Both my mother and my brother love grocery-shopping. I chalk it up to them both being Pisces…

After a long day in the office, I’m not exactly excited to get into the kitchen and create a lovely meal from scratch. I’m far more likely to eat Triscuits with cheese, or enjoy a lovely bowl of breakfast cereal. These aren’t good meal options!

The awesome appliances in my kitchen minimize the drudgery of cooking every single day!!! I cook on Sundays, then – maybe – again on Thursday or Friday night. The marinated meat that I’d stashed in my freezer is ready to be put into the oven after having been safely thawed in the fridge. It doesn’t take long to cook some rice, to boil some potatoes, or to make some pasta to go with my meat. Add in a bag of salad or some veggies and voila! Dinner is ready to go relatively quickly. Again, there is no need to cook every day – make enough rice/potatoes/pasta/whatever-side-you-prefer to last for a few days.

No Fail Marinade Recipes

If you’re a fan of sweet-and-spicy, try this recipe for sriracha brown sugar chicken. It’s absolute delicious! I wish I could say that I created this recipe but I did not. It’s from the website Dinner then Dessert, one of my favorite places to find new recipes. I’m already salivating as I sit here thinking about how tasty my lunches are going to be this week!

Here’s another magnificent recipe for honey garlic chicken. Again, I can’t take credit for this recipe. I found it at Chef Savvy. What I can take credit for is creating a honey garlic marinade for the two packages of chicken thighs that are currently sitting in my freezer. They will be utterly scrumptious when I cook them for lunch in the future.

This particular recipe for sheet pan chicken tinga bowls has been on my mind since I first saw it on my Instagram feed. Again, the credit for this recipe has to go to the website called Pinch of Yum. Technically, this is a make-ahead meal but I think you could make the sauce, let it cool, pour it over the chicken, then freeze it until you’re ready to eat it.

So far, I’ve only used chicken with my marinades. This is because I love chicken in all forms, except feet & liver. Chicken liver = yucky! That said, I’m not adverse to finding marinade recipes for other meats. Ideally, I’d like to find an equally delightful marinade for pork chops that can be baked in the oven.

Learn it, live it!

I have learned my lesson. There is no way around my deep-seated fondness for eating. However, I do have the capacity to find recipes that will make my tummy happier. I’m smart enough to cook without starting fires. The internet is filled with recipes and You Tube is bursting with videos of people making those recipes.

I’ve learned my lesson – cooking once a week is grand. Marinating my meat in advance will save me trips to the grocery store and will save me some prep time during the week. My range & my freezer are my friends. I can eat well without whipping out my wallet on workdays.

Let me say it again – I love the money-saving magic of my kitchen! I have the tools at my disposal to create fabulous meals for myself while saving a boatload of money at the same time. When it comes to food, what could be better than that?