Just read a nice facebook post from a lovely friend who is grateful to her mom for teaching her to cook for lots of people cheaply. I herald this teaching because sooner or later, we will want to have a party and it's not cheap!
We cook for a crowd every day. Recently, Miss Molly and Miss Lisa have taken on the measure of lunch and have enjoyed doing all kinds of creative things with our food budget to the delight of the kids. It has been so successful, that we have empty plates at nearly every lunch.
At home a cook can make what she wants, but at school, we have "component" issues that have to be met. The USDA rule is two fruits and veggies at every meal along with protein and a bread product. We double much of what we are supposed to serve. This past weekend while shopping, I purchased forty pounds of fruit and veggies for the ladies to choose from to serve. I'm wondering if this will make even stronger meals. Hoping it will. Instead of reading and following a menu, Miss Lisa will be inventing from what is in the fridge. She will learn what spoils quickest, and what goes with what.
Miss Molly must choose her own entrees. As she makes the main course with Lisa's help, Lisa builds the fruit and veggie tray. The problem comes with budget and added extras. It all needs to be planned and executed without a million runs to the store. That's how you keep the budget down.
Taking advantage of the sales is always smart. Having a "general" idea of what the meals will be this week according to the ad that comes out mid week is an important part of making the budget go a little farther. Our budget is 31 cents a meal.
Making things stretch and still taste good depends a lot on creativity. Making something wonderful out of left overs and having the extras to do that helps. Three "free" meals from leftovers include egg rolls, quiche and soup. I can't imagine buying food to make any of those three things! When I make a quiche, whatever we've eaten during the week goes into the belly of the quiche. Egg rolls are chopped leftovers rolled in a shell and fried. Soup is anything at all put in a pot with a quart of strong chicken or beef bouillon.
Today I had two tiny pieces of left over chicken breast...I sliced them into fine strips and added some hard cheese and put that in the micro to melt the cheese. You wouldn't know that those sandwiches were made from less than two ounces of chicken.
The whole object of crowd pleasing and crowd feeding is to make it fun and have something most of your crowd wants to eat. With little kids, that often means finger foods. When most of what they are eating they can pick up like carrot sticks, apple slices, oranges rings, you can offer a little stranger variations like thin sliced turnips and dip. Turnips are cheap and they make a lot of chips. When the kids find out they are fun to eat, it allows the budget to stay firm and the eating to be plentiful.
Baking is a great way to keep a budget down. It would cost me $40.00 for muffins if I bought them, but I can bake them for as little as $1.00. Baking from scratch keeps a budget way down at home as well. It can all be freshly baked if you remember that batters hold for days. Making a dozen corn muffins on Monday will hold for two days, but the batter refrigerated will hold for a week. When it's time to start dinner, turn on the oven and make one muffin each. You can repeat this as often as muffins will go with your meal and each night they are fresh and warm and yummy!
It's the same with making cookies. Make one huge batter, roll the dough into tubes and freeze, and when you need a dessert, chop off as many cookies as you need just for the evening or afternoon. Always fresh, and not so many as to cause a weight gain....
The other side of the coin is not making the whole recipe at once. Tonight I'm trying a new leek, bacon, bread crumb casserole. It says use a pound of leeks...three halved...but that's too much food for Terry and me, so I will use half of that and make a much smaller amount. If we like it, I will do it again this week. Food waste is a real issue in today's home and in our American way of life. We must always be careful of wasting...we might want it tomorrow...
So I'll report back later about how this leek thing turned out...
Have a brilliant Sunday!
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