Ingredients

• 2 cups of  white rice
• ¼ cup of oil.
• 4 cups of stock [1]
• Basic Red Soup Stock

Instructions

1. Soak rice for 15 minutes and drain.
2. Heat oil in large sauce pan medium-high heat .
3. Add rice and cook until golden brown, drain excess oil.
4. Now add Basic Red Soup  Stock and salt to taste.
5. (Add the peas, potatoes etc. at this point.)
6. Simmer uncovered until liquid evaporates

[1]You can use homemade chicken stock or add 2 bouillon cubes to 4 cups water.

Lasagna and Bread

Many people think that cooking on a budget can’t be fun, but there are several ways to save money and  make it work. A lot of people fell that their choices are limited  when cooking on a budget and therefore don’t enjoy cooking. You can make cooking on a budget not only practical, but fun! Here are 4 ways to make cooking on a budget, practical and fun.

1.  Cook Large Portions

The first thing to keep in mind when cooking on a budget, is to think about cooking large portions. These large portions  can then be frozen in smaller portions and frozen. You need to have the right containers to use in the freezer,  but there are many different types which are freezer safe, allowing for the freezing of smaller meals. Some things you can use to package your meal size portions are freezer paper, plastic bags and specialty containers.

2.  Make Meals Ahead

If you make your meals ahead of time and then freeze them, you avoid coming home from work and looking at the pantry and refrigerator and not really wanting to cook. By making meals ahead of time, you can buy foods on sale, have them ready to heat and save money. Talk about cooking on a budget. You can save a lot of money this way. If you really want to find out how much you save, just make a meal and divide the ingredient cost by the servings. Oh, and don’t forget the gas you use driving to get that quick meal!

3. Use Your Freezer

Make sure you cook a larger meal than you normally would. If you are single this is easy, just take a family meal and divide it into portions. For families, either double the recipe or make easy casseroles and other family fare like lasagna. When you are done, cool the lasagna and divide it up into the freezer containers. This one meal could feed your family four additional times during the month at least.

Don’t be limited in what you can freeze as almost anything can be frozen, even bread. If you are cooking on a budget numerous food choices are available. You can cook a big roast and then cut it up and use it as a quick addition to vegetables and a salad.  This makes not onlygood practical sense, but also you to purchase larger quantities of food at a lower cost; perfect when cooking on a budget

4. Cook What You Like

None of this will work if you dont’ make food you and your family like. You can search this website and others for recipes, or find some cookbooks with recipes that are designed freezing. Many families use this popular method for cooking on a budget, and there are plenty of cookbook and recipe choices. One advantage of cookbooks is that they often go into more depth describing the methods involved when cooking and freezing foods. They are often fun to collect and read as well.

Summary

Many find the weekends a great time to cook and store your meals for the month. Make sure that you purchase all the ingredients you will need for your recipes (you did plan for this didn’t you! ). Some even go so far as to take one day a month to cook an entire month’s meals. Then your dinner is no further than the freezer. These meals save not only money, but they save time as well. You will also find that you go out to eat less just because you don’t feel like cooking, or nothing looks good.

Cooking on a budget can and should be an enjoyable experience. Save money and have delicious food on hand, not to mention that cooking on a budget is often the healthier choice.