One of the things I love about regular meal planning is that I’m never stuck at 5:00 wondering, “What am I going to make for dinner?” And then when I can’t come up with anything to cook, I order in. That’s a terrible way to live frugally.
Instead, by thinking ahead to the week and preparing meals based on how busy (or not busy) our nights are, or shopping and cooking based on what’s on sale at the grocery store that week, we are able to eat together as a family nearly every night, and I’m able to stick to our budget much easier.
They say that it takes at least 21 days to make a new habit stick. It’s long past 21 days since I started meal planning, which is why it feels like second nature these days to start defrosting something for dinner when most people are pouring their second cup of coffee.
Yesterday morning that involved taking chicken breasts out of the freezer. The night before? A pork loin that I’d frozen in teriyaki marinade after getting a great deal on a gigantic pork loin–more like a pork thigh–at BJs before Christmas. Half of that loin fed our entire extended family on Christmas day. I split the remaining parts of the loin into quarters, and stored them in freezer-safe containers filled with marinade. We still have two pieces left, which I’ll probably serve for dinner some time next week.
Tonight, I didn’t need to defrost anything since we were having quesadillas. I just had to doublecheck that I had all of the supplies needed. Tortillas? Check. Cheese? Check. Cheese grater? Check.
Why cheese grater? Because on our way to frugal living, I discovered that the one meal-planning convenience that was busting our budget was buying cheese that’s already grated.
A friend of mine was astonished that I would even consider not buying a hunk of cheese and grating it myself. “Have you ever compared the prices?” she asked. And I had to admit that while I’d compared prices on different brands of grated cheese, I’d never compared prices of block cheese to grated cheese.
Of course, the supermarket doesn’t make comparing cheese prices an easy thing to do. The bags of grated cheese are in one section of the refrigerated aisle, blocks of mozzarella are way down by the ricotta cheese, and blocks of cheddar cheese are way on the other side of the aisle, near the eggs. I’m sure this arranging is all done on purpose so that shoppers in a hurry grab the grated cheese (the most expensive option) and go.
While cheese itself isn’t cheap, until you’ve compared the per-pound price of cheese in its various forms, you probably have no idea how different the prices can be. Recently at the store, the unit price of an 8-ounce bag of finely shredded mozzarella cheese was $7. The unit price for a block of mozzarella cheese was $4. The block was 16-ounces, meaning for only $.50 more than the bag of shredded mozzarella, I got twice as much cheese.
That’s why this week I’m giving the cheese grater my Suddenly Frugal Seal of Approval. One of my resolutions for 2008 was to end my reliance on shredded cheese so that I could save money in the long run. With a cheese grater in hand, that’s been an easy resolution to keep.
Here’s a postscript to tonight’s meal: It didn’t take me very long to grate the mozzarella cheese. And I’ve discovered another kitchen tool that helps me get the most bang for my cheese buck, like the cheese grater does. It’s my George Foreman Lean Mean Fat-Reducing Grilling Machine, the G5 version, which my husband bought me for my birthday. Before I got this as a gift, I would fry up the quesadillas in a stovetop pan, and it would take a lot of cheese to fill each tortilla. With this new Foreman Machine, which acts like a panini press, it takes very little cheese before all of that ooey-gooey-goodness starts to ooze out from the tortilla. That means that I can make more quesadillas using less cheese, which provides another kind of savings I’d never anticipated.
READ LEAH ON HOME GOES STRONG
We also have a well used grater. It’s also used for grating carrots for salads and other things.
What we all need to realize is that when we buy for “convenience” we are paying for the labor of others to process whatever we are buying into the form that we are buying it in.
Bread is just a few simple ingredients and you can bake your own, if you desire, that is just as good or better than store bought, for a lot less.
The money that you are saving is the manufacturer’s cost of plant, equipment, wages and profit.
In other words, time=money.
Along the cheese grater line, I’ve found that having one excellent quality knife is a great money saver. For an article a few years ago, I took a “knife skills” class where I learned how to use one knife to cut all kinds of vegetables. When I inherited one from my grandparents (with sharpener of course), I stopped buying any pre-sliced vegetables. It saves tons of money and, especially when buying fresh in season, the veggies taste so much better when you cut them yourself. I served a veggie platter at a holiday party, and my cousin, who was devouring the veggies, said to me “you cut these yourself, didn’t you? I can taste the difference in how fresh they are.”
I still remember my reaction the first time I had a just farmed carrot this summer. I’d been eating pre-cut baby carrots so long that I forgot what a real carrot tasted like.
This blog hits home. I try to meal plan. But alas, all my meats are frozen today, so I’m considered making up a new menu with the food we have on hand for the next 2 weeks. I still haven’t hit the three-weeks-makes-a-habit stride yet with meal-planning. I get on a roll, and then head off to Africa for work!
A recent article in the New York Times mentioned the must-have block of parmesan cheese for 2009. Requires a grater. Though I must say, I like the microplane for my parm. Stays good a LONG time in the fridge, and then throw the leftover rinds into the freezer until you need them to make a broth or soup. Yum! Hunks of cheddar cheese are invaluable in our home too.
I recently read that the price per shredded cheese and whole hunks was the same, but I too, have noticed that this is NOT true! Goes to show, you can’t believe everything you read. Good blog post!
I am definitely guilty of buying the shredded cheese. On thing I had planned to do this year was buy the cheese in large bags at Costco, and freeze in smaller portions. I have a friend who has done this for years. But, I do have a cheese grater . . .
Wow, I’d love to take a knife skills class.
As far as tasty carrots go, even just buying the organic kind at the supermarket–big carrots, not the baby ones–lends for a tastier nibble.
I used to buy grated mozzarella and other cheeses at Costco and throw them into the freezer when I lived in California. Sometimes you have to pound on the frozen cheese to get it to separate, or if you are more organized you can freeze it in one cup portions. The cost used to be cheaper than ungrated.I know, I checked. Here in Merida, it’s still cheaper to buy grated in Costco than ungrated in the supermarket. But those are all imported cheeses here.
Maybe the difference is that the Costco bags are huge?
Another nifty tool is a mandolin, you cannot cut slices as thin with a knife as you can with a mandolin. Also you can make crinkle cuts and other fancy cuts easily.
If you forget to thaw meat, it’s perfect for stir fry! Half thawed meat slices paperthin, and cooks up very quickly!
regards,
Theresa
Cheese tastes better when you grate it from fresh, too. That’s coming from Wisconsin, where cheese is King. Or Queen, depending on your perspective.
Essential tools indeed! I also second the mandolin and good knife set!
Do you grate it all at once and store it or do you only grate what you need? I confess I buy the grated cheese because it’s so convenient. I never even thought of using the box grater for carrots! Duh! I am totally going to do that now!
I usually grate it as I need it. However, last night I was down to the last little bit of the block of mozzarella. So I grated the rest, and stored it in a small Tupperware container in the fridge. Tonight, we were having breakfast for dinner, and I was making breakfast “pizza” that required cheese. So I used up the grated cheese from last night, and it worked out just fine.
Leah – Very true! That’s what I’ve been eating since November when the market closed for the year.
I very rarely eat cheese, but I’ve read that you can also grate cheese in a Cuisinart food processor (with grating attachment) and that it helps to first spray the attachment disk with non-stick spray. Now that is convenient! I’ve also read that many pre-shredded cheeses have cellulose powder and other anti-caking agents (some of which contain gluten, if that’s a concern).
I use my Cuisinart + grating attachment weekly to shred carrots and apples (add lemon juice and extra virgin olive oil for a fabulous salad), zucchini for muffins and quickbreads, or potatoes for the occasional latkes! Everything is so fresh, it’s a breeze to clean (dishwasher-safe), and a huge time-saver (and knuckle saver) over the box grater!
Keep up the great tips!
I have grated carrots for years for salads. Another way to get vegetables into kids and husbands……grated carrots in salads….tossed, potato salad, pasta salad, etc. We usually have a tossed salad every night so I grate enough carrots for 2 nights storing them in a small Tupperware bowl. Sometimes I grate the whole block of cheese, whatever I don’t use in a week goes into the freezer. I have never had a problem with it.
[...] (for this we buy two balls of dough from the local pizzeria, at $2 a pop, and use our own sauce and shredded cheese for the toppings. It’s probably cheaper to make our own pizza dough, but the stuff from the [...]
[...] read that some people put the soap in a food processor to get it into tiny bits; I just got out my cheese grater and put it to [...]
Growing Your Own carrots would be a revelation in taste as well.
They can be grown in almost any container as big as say, a stew pot. Think 5 gallon nursery container. Make sure the container is clean and has several holes in the bottom for draining away excess water. Your container will need at least 6-8 hours of full sunlight to produce.
Get fresh seed, and soak overnight in clean water. Blot on paper towel before sowing.
Using some good pre-moistened bagged potting soil or sifted compost, fill your container to within 2″ of the top. Lightly press down the soil with something flat (pie-pan, tupperware, etc) and lighly sprinkle carrot seeds about 1/2″ apart over the soil.
Press seed onto the surface lightly. Sift soil over the top of seeds (I use a stainless steel mesh veggie colander) to cover about 1/8″. press again and water lightly with a fine spray to moisten the soil. Water as often as necessary to keep soil moist so the seed will germinate (about 10 days).
As the carrots produce their ferny tops, thin to about 3″ apart if needed. Carrots are ready to pick (depending on variety) in about 6 to 8 weeks.
Start a new container about every 3 weeks in spring and fall for a succession of crops.
So tasty and rewarding–get the kids in on starting to grwo some of their own food. It’s a skill that will give them self-confidence and self-reliance.
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[...] shredded our own mozzarella. As I wrote in a long-ago blog posting on my cheese grater, buying whole blocks of cheese (versus the shredded kind in a bag) can be a huge cost savings for [...]