Easy Food to Cook from Scratchby Mary Ann Romans | More from this Blogger 19 May 2009 05:57 AM If you want to get the best bang for your buck when it comes to cooking from scratch, go after those items that are over inflated at the grocery store. A few simple ingredients, and you can shave 50 percent or more off of the cost of making these meals and food items. Concentrate your effort here to reap the biggest rewards in savings. Cream Soups Store-bought cream soups are usually laden with all sorts of extra salt, fat, preservatives and chemical flavor enhancers. Homemade cream soups are easy to make, better tasting and cheaper than the store bought brands. Making a cream soup is just a matter of cooking together butter, milk and salt, and then adding other ingredients to make the particular kind of cream soup, such as chicken stock for cream of chicken soup or chopped mushrooms for cream of mushroom soup. Rotisserie Chicken These store bought already cooked chickens are so convenient that many magazines suggest purchasing, shredding the meat and using it in recipes. But you will pay for all of that convenience. A better bet is to purchase a roasting chicken on sale (79-99 cents a pound), season it and pop it in the oven. It takes about five minutes to do this. You'll get a lot more chicken for your money. Bread and Pizza Dough A bread machine makes it easy to produce loaf after loaf of fresh bread, sans preservatives. Or make more than one loaf at a time the old fashioned way. You can expect to spend under a dollar for a home made loaf as opposed to three or even four dollars for a store bought loaf. Some bread machines will allow you to make dough for pizza or rolls as well. Breakfast Foods Cereal seems to be worth it weight in gold, almost literally. For a few ounces that lasts about one morning in my house and still leaves everyone hungry by mid morning, you can expect to pay $4. Make your own healthy breakfast for at least a third of the cost, and this adds up over the course of a month. Oatmeal (or baked oatmeal), eggs, pancakes, muffins and more all cost less than cereal, pop tarts and other convenience breakfast foods. Mary Ann Romans writes about everything related to saving money in the Frugal Blog, creating a home in the Home Blog, caring for little ones in the Baby Blog and now relationships in the Marriage Blog. You can read more of her articles by clicking here or subscribe to the blog using the subscription box on the right. Favorite Deal Websites: Related Articles: Things to Know About Your Freezer Flattening Your Freezer Cooking Incorporating Freezer Cooking into Your Life Making Your Freezer and Crock Pot Work Together Things to Do with Expired Coupons A Guide to Salvage Grocery Shopping A Guide to Salvage Grocery Shopping 2 Five Little Grocery Shopping Tricks: Shelf Placement Coping with the Grocery Shrink Ray Adjusting Your Price Book with Escalating Grocery Costs Coping with No More Coupon Inserts New Grocery Shopping Techniques Five Little Grocery Shopping Tricks: Hide and Seek Learn more about Mary Ann Romans  Mary Ann Romans is a freelance writer, wife and mother of three children. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband, the kids and a 16-pound cat. Relevantfrugal tags User Comments  ups477 (54) 19 May 2009 11:09 AMI bake my own chickens & make my own stocks. This has saved me lots of money over the years. I have to admit I do still buy bread at Aldi's or the bread outlet store for my husband's lunches but for dinner bread, I make it myself. I have yet tried making my own cream soups but want to soon. I love your blogs and look forward to the new ones every day!!!  Mary Ann Romans (26886) 20 May 2009 03:57 AMit is so nice to hear from you UPS. There is no comparison to homemade chicken stock is there? I encourage you to try the cream soup. It sounds intimidated, but it is so quick and easy that I make my cream soups to throw into my crockpot for dinner recipes. ups477 (54) 20 May 2009 06:45 AMOh that sounds like a great way to do it... Do you have any good recipes that you can share? I have none and can't seem to find one basic that would work for all of them. Mary Ann Romans (26886) 20 May 2009 08:35 AMHere is the basic recipe I follow: 2 Tbs butter 2 Tbs flour 1/4 tsp salt (optional) 1 cup milk Melt the butter and stir in the flour. After about three minutes, whisk in the milk. Sometimes I will add just a tiny dash of pepper, especially if I am making a cream of potato soup. For cream of chicken, use half milk and half stock or broth. Add grated cheese for a cheese soup. For mushroom or celery, saute about 1/4 cup of the chopped ingredient and add to the soup once it is heated. Hope this helps! ups477 (54) 20 May 2009 03:06 PMThank you very much. I will try it to see how well it works for me... Mary Ann Romans (26886) 22 May 2009 04:24 AMYes, please let me know how you find it. Also, if you have any trouble combining for a smooth soup, you can try either warming up the milk and broth before adding them. Discuss this article
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