Good food does not have to cost alot or be complicating for home cooks to succeed

There are people who eat out so frequently that they have almost forgotten the art of cooking. Then there are people who complain about an extremely stressful life and how they don’t have time to cook at home. However, continuous eating out can have an extremely negative impact on one’s health. One needs to keep in mind that fast food or eating out in general is an unhealthier option and an expensive affair as well if done on a regular basis.

Whereas cooking at home is undoubtedly cost effective. When you gather ingredients and cook up a meal at home, the cost of ingredients would be much lesser compared to any dish served in the restaurant. However, there are some excellent home cooks who adopt some great cost effective methods to prepare healthy, nutritious food for their family. The primary approach these cooks take is they cook their staples at home. They bake their bread, make cottage cheese, prepare jam etc. Some would even cook Pizza from scratch which would totally be as good as the restaurant.

Also, these home cooks plan their meals way ahead of time. To make productive use of time , it is also wise to cook extra food and to store properly in freezer for later use. One can read different recipes on-line and experiment with recipes with family members and make it a fun affair.

While buying ingredients it is important that one buys from farmers market or local mass market place rather than visiting any suave mall. This would be a great way to save money. In fact if you have some extra space or land then you might as well start a kitchen garden, plant vegetables and fruits in your own backyard. Imagine how brilliant the quality of those ingredients would be in terms of freshness. This is extremely cost effective as well. Also, if you have a farm house or extra land you can think about maintaining your own poultry.

It is advisable that you always make a monthly list of what to buy. It is essential that you keep your pantry full so that you don’t feel the urge to go out to eat. It is wise to keep a stock of various kinds of dry foods for example, rice, sugar, pulses, salt, flour, milk powder etc. These ingredients are very basic and are believed to have unlimited shelf life as well.

If you are a non vegetarian then you might consider buying minimally processed meat. If you buy a whole chicken you can prepare lot of stuffs with it. Even with the carcass you can make chicken stock. Also, slow cooking your meat in the slow cooker would help to retain flavor and would require much less effort. It is important that you learn how to preserve your food either by refrigerating or using various kinds of food preservative techniques.

Instead of buying canned fruit juice, buying whole fruits and extracting the juice at home is healthy as well as cost effective method for those who want to opt for home cooking. Also, making good use of discount coupon while buying grocery and other kitchen ingredients is also very cost effective.

Reader, writer, reviewer for Being Grand Kitchen Table Talk, the food and beverages site with recipes and healthy eats for diabetics, and what women talk about around the kitchen table.

by: Andy Salazar