Freezer Cooking for the Lunch Box

Yesterday, I shared some general ideas for saving money on school lunches. To take it to the next step, let’s talk about preparing lunches ahead of time and freezing them. Not only will this make preparing school lunches so convenient, but it will also make them even cheaper. You can use items that are on sale or inexpensive and take advantage of low prices. Plus, you can create these lunches from scratch, making the cost per lunch go way down. Here are some of my favorite freezer cooking ideas for the school (or work) lunch box. Homemade hot pockets These … Continue reading

Our Frugal Monday Night Dinner

One of my goals this year is to spend even more time in the kitchen doing some cooking from scratch. While this does take time, it reaps many benefits. I can serve my family good healthy food with minimal preservatives, and for a price that we can afford. Since I do most of the cooking for our family of five, I need to find filling meals that will stretch. The cost of food seems to be growing weekly, and the stores have more and more rules that make saving money with coupons not as easy as it used to be. … Continue reading

More Ham Freezer Cooking

Today I woke up knowing that I had to do some freezer cooking. Remember all of that inexpensive ham I have been telling you about? Well, it was time turn the last ham deals into some freezer meals. I’m still in the process of finishing up actually. In the oven now, excuse me when the timer beeps, are the second batch of ham and cheese hot pockets. These will be great for quick out-the-door lunches or take-to-work lunches. I tried a new dough recipe this time. The previous one, using bread flour and a pizza dough recipe seemed to make … Continue reading

My Turkey Freezer Session 2

This is another day of creating some freezer meals to use up leftover turkey from a large bird. Yesterday, I got a lot accomplished, although my kitchen looks like “Mount Dishmore.” That is one of the downsides to cooking in large batches. I try to clean up as I go along, which can help quite a bit. So far, I have the following food completed and put into the freezer: 12 turkey and cheese “hot pockets” made with a wheat crust 12 turkey enchiladas I batch of turkey stock. While this might not seem a lot when you think about … Continue reading

Frugal Freezer Cooking: “Hot Pockets” 2

We are working on a freezer cooking idea–that of making “hot pockets.” You can make these pockets for pennies as opposed to buying the expensive ones in the grocery store. They are also much tastier than those other ones, I personally think. The hot pockets can be brought in for lunch or just heated for snacks. If you missed the first post that appeared earlier today, please click here. Frugal Freezer Cooking: “Hot Pockets” Now let’s continue. You can then form the pocket into a rectangle, if you want to more traditional shape. I do this by flatting the pocket … Continue reading

Frugal Freezer Cooking: “Hot Pockets”

Stocking your freezer using leftovers or foodstuff that you buy in bulk on sale can really save you quite a bit of money. If you have the freezer and the room, I highly recommend doing some freezer cooking. It will give you the opportunity to have low cost meals handy and avoid eating out, and it will also give you the opportunity to eat food that you might have otherwise thrown away. These are free meals, as I like to call them. With panic in the economy, it makes so much sense to cut expenses and pay down as much … Continue reading

Freezer Cooking Sauce Recipes

Sauces are one of the easiest things to make and freeze. And sauces are great for all different kinds of meals. You can thaw a sauce packet from the freezer and put it over pasta, chicken, beef, steaks, anything really. Almost any sauce, except cream based, usually freeze very well. If you are wanting to freeze a sauce that calls for cream as an ingredient, you can freeze the rest of the raw ingredients and add the cream once you thaw it out, and then cook it. You CAN freeze cream based sauce recipes. Some just don’t like to. Here … Continue reading

9 Meal Ideas for Leftover Chicken

The prices on whole roasting chicken has been pretty good lately, so I have been finding myself buying quite a few chickens for our meals. My family likes roast chicken, so it isn’t usually a problem, except for the leftovers. They can get a little boring after a while. That is why we usually have one meal of roast chicken (I vary the seasonings), and then use the leftover chicken in new dishes, some of which I can freeze.   Here are my favorite ways to use leftover chicken.   Chicken Pot Pie: You can use a butter crust, shortening … Continue reading

How to Use Holiday Food to Save Money

Many holiday foods are starting to go on sale in anticipation of the holidays. The grocery stores want you to shop with the, so they will deeply discount the items that you need for your holiday table. To be frugal, take advantage of these sales and use the items in your cooking throughout the year, making the cost per serving of your regular meals go way down in price. Here are some of the common holiday foods that you will find on sale and how to use them to save money. Turkey and Ham The bigger the better with these … Continue reading

Stocked for Breakfast

My kids are so spoiled lately. They expect a hot breakfast practically every morning. Well, if you are a mom like me, you know that is practically impossible these days with all of the business of life. My husband often either skips breakfast completely in order to rush out the door for work, or he grabs something expensive and usually unhealthy from work, such as a lard-laden muffin. I needed to address these issues, and I’m doing this by having my freezer sticked for breakfast. Often when we think about freezer cooking, we think about full meals or meal kits … Continue reading