Budget Busting Cooking Tips

Record food prices and the failing economy have forced American consumers to shop more carefully. You're already choosing store brands and buying your meat in bulk, right? That's an excellent start, but you can do even more to stretch your food purchases and feed your family for less money. Dust off the bread machine and slow cooker and get ready bust your grocery budget.

Bread Machines Save Money in the Kitchen
If you have a bread machine, find a permanent home for it on your kitchen counter. Fresh, baked bread is delicious, easy, and inexpensive. By having your machine readily available, the hassles of bread baking are minimal. Though convenient, stay away from the prepared bread machine mixes as these are expensive. Instead, stock up on bread machine flour and yeast. Buy these in bulk and your finished breads will cost just pennies per loaf. In addition to baking your own fresh bread, use your bread machine to make pizza dough.

Slow Cookers Make Preparing Meals a Snap - and They Save you Money in the Kitchen
Busy parents love slow cookers because they make preparing meals a simple matter of placing the ingredients in the pot in the morning and returning later that night to a home-cooked meal. If you want to save on your grocery bill each week, use your slow cooker. Tougher cuts of meat (which are less expensive) become fork tender when cooked in a slow cooker. In addition, you can strategize your slow cooked meal planning to make the most of leftovers, thus stretching your food purchases even further.

Meal Planning Tips
Now that you have two essential kitchen budget busting tools, it's time to use them to your financial advantage. Before heading to the grocery store, it pays to have a solid meal plan. For example, let's look at how you might plan your nine family meals around pot roast, meatballs, and a turkey breast:
• Sunday - Pot roast, vegetables, salad, and home baked rolls
• Monday - Shredded beef tacos, refried beans, and rice
• Tuesday - Turkey breast, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and cranberry sauce
• Wednesday - Turkey enchiladas, refried beans, and rice
• Thursday - Pot roast chili in homemade sourdough bread bowls
• Friday - Turkey Cobb salad and fresh French bread
• Saturday - Leftover meat on nachos or in soup
• Sunday - Spaghetti and meatballs with a green salad and bread machine garlic bread
• Sunday - Meatball pizza

In this plan, cook a cut of London broil or beef chuck in the slow cooker, use your bread machine to make dough for dinner rolls, and enjoy a pot roast dinner on Sunday night. Use the leftover pot roast in shredded beef tacos on Monday and again on Thursday in a hearty beef chili served in sourdough bread bowls.

On Tuesday, cook a turkey breast in the slow cooker and serve with mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, and cranberry sauce. Shred half of the leftover turkey breast for the next night's turkey enchiladas and chop the other half into cubes for use in Cobb salad on Friday night.

If you have any leftover meat at the end of the week, serve it on nachos or make a hearty soup. If not, start the next week by serving spaghetti and meatballs, reserving a little extra spaghetti sauce and six to seven meatballs for the following night's meal. The next day, use your bread machine to make pizza dough and serve meatball pizza.

Once you get into the habit of thinking ahead and using your kitchen machines to your advantage, you'll be able to serve delicious home-cooked meals for a few dollars per meal.