MPmomof3Preparing Your Pantry For The Night Before Payday
September 30th 2010 21:57
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Paycheck to Paycheck Recipes
Cooking from your pantry can be a real lifesaver when you are trying to stretch each dollar until you receive your next paycheck.
Earlier this month I wrote a post about preparing your home food pantry. A well prepared pantry is an essential element of
MSN Money author Liz Pulliam Weston calls a well stocked pantry "The emergency fund you can eat." Her article by that title (click here for link) includes shelf life estimates for common frozen and pantry food items.
Having your pantry pre-stocked can also be beneficial for everyday convenience. Knowing how to make the most of common ingredients can save you the aggravation and expense of unplanned trips to the grocery store. Websites like recipekey.com allow you to tailor meals around the ingredients you already have. Another helpful website is about.com's busy cooks channel (click here for link).
Wise planning can also help you through tough times. Making extra food and freezing it can be a real time and money saver. Inspiration for freeze ahead meals can be as close as your grocer's freezer section. The benefits of making and freezing your own meals are, however, that you can control the ingredients and costs of preparing and freezing the food.
Personally, I like to make and freeze things like barbecue chicken, lasagna and spaghetti. Your family's tastes and nutritional needs may vary, however. If you cannot find enough ideas in your grocer's freezer case, try doing a Google search for "make ahead meals" or "freeze ahead meals." Once you find what you are looking for, try making two batches of the dish so you can eat one and freeze one. Use the frozen meal when payday is near and the food budget is tight.
You may want to note, however, that some foods can be frozen even before they are cooked. You can read more about freezing uncooked food in another pennysmart.net post (click here for link) and learn more about how long you can freeze food by reading this yahoo green article (click here for link).
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