Feeding my family

My friend Mallory started a blog giving fabulous hair tips. When she asked for frugal meal tips I knew that I owed her one for all the knowledge she's given me.

I grew up as the daughter of a couponer. Every Sunday night my Mom planned her grocery list and clipped her coupons from the Sunday paper. My sister and I would be handed a coupon at the store and sent off to find the product for Mom.

Fast forward to my now life - mother of a 1.5 year old with a healthy appetite and a husband who is an excellent cook, but has no time to cook. So I have become the grocery shopper and meal maker. Almost five years after we got married I have to say that my cooking skills have greatly improved. I am no longer scared of big knives, cutting/buying meat, or trying a new recipe. Whenever I make a new meal I tell Candler that I want honest feedback. If there is a way to make it taste better or if it just isn't one that we want to repeat I want to know. No hurt feelings, just trying to make a tasty meal.

So here are my tricks that I use to feed my family as easily and as frugally as possible:

1. Have go-to recipes: I have a binder with all the recipes that I like to make broken out by category. If the recipe was on a blog or in a cookbook I will print/copy the recipe and put it in the binder. I also have pockets in the binder categories that I place recipes that I want to try and have online recipes marked as favorites to try. I even wrote down taco night, chicken noodle soup and grilled cheese just so that I remember these as dinner options.

2. Plan your menu: Sundays is my couponing and meal planning evening. I typically try one or two new recipes a week just so I keep growing my cookbook. I map out meals through the following Sunday using meals that are in my freezer, food storage, and my go-to recipes. I have a sheet hanging on the fridge that lists each day and the meal I have planned. Do I deviate from the plan, yes. But, I know that I have a guaranteed 7 meals that I can make with the items in my house.

3. Shop the sales: Meat and produce are items that are difficult to get a good deal on if you have to buy them the moment you need them. When chicken and ground beef is on sale for less than $2/lb I stock up. I also stack coupons with sale prices on pantry items to get an even better deal. There are a multitude of blogs that let you know the grocery deals each week. My current favorites are http://happyhomemakercindy.com/ and http://moneysavingmom.com/ which focus not only on coupons, but cooking frugally. I also shop at a local salvage grocery store called Dings N Dents. Here I am able to get staple items often cheaper than I can get with coupons. I follow them on Facebook and only go when they get in a fresh load.

4. Freeze meals and meats: I had a girls night at my house a couple weeks ago and we all swapped freezer meal recipes and ideas. There are many ways to cook for freezer meals, but I use the simplest approach. When I make a meal I typically cook more than Candler and I can eat. I will then place at least one serving in the fridge for lunch the next day and then freeze the rest, labeling with the item and use by date. I also do this with cooking meats. When browning ground beef I'll throw in onions and green pepper and then freeze it on a baking tray for an hour. Once frozen I'll put it in a ziploc bag and freeze for later use. I will then use it as meat for lasagna, spaghetti, taco soup, or sloppy joes. Same thing with Chicken. I'll throw a bunch in the crock pot with water and some seasonings for a couple hours. Shred the chicken and then freeze in meal sized containers. I'll then use it for chicken enchiladas, chicken salad, chicken noodle soup, chicken burritos, stuffed shells, and casseroles. Makes for an easy dinner. Also, next baby I plan to make more meals and freeze them ahead of time so that I don't even have to worry about the assembly, just pop in the oven.

Example from last night's dinner: I bought a pork loin on sale at Meijer for $1.79/lb for $12. I then cut it into three pieces. One hunk I froze to use later for pulled pork sandwiches. One hunk I cut into 5 pork chops and wrapped in saran wrap and placed in a bag. The last hunk I placed in the crock pot to make pork carnitas. I served them with left over re-fried beans from Sunday's dinner of bean burritos and some spanish rice featuring tomatoes from the garden. The pork carnitas were delicious, but we didn't eat them all. So I saved half of the left overs for dinner for Thursday night and froze the other half. So out of 1/3 (or $4 worth of pork) we got three meals. I expect close to the same for the pork sandwiches and pork chops so approximately 8-10 main dishes for $12.

So those are some of my tips. Hope they help you out!