[Sca-cooks] 100 tips for Frugal Feasts

Gretchen Beck grm at andrew.cmu.edu
Sun Apr 27 16:59:09 PDT 2008



--On Monday, April 28, 2008 11:46 AM +1200 Antonia Calvo 
<ladyadele at paradise.net.nz> wrote:

> jenne at fiedlerfamily.net wrote:
>
>>> 1) Make your own broth from suitable feast ingredients-appropriate
>>> bone/skin/fat/peels.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> Curiously, we use paste 'base' at home and for feasts. At $5.99-$7.99 a
>> pint, and only a few spoonfuls needed to make the difference between
>> veggies in water and soup, we find it saves us significant cost in making
>> soups and stews for lunches. A pint lasts us about a half year! We get
>> Minor's Chicken and Beef base from B.J.'s; I need to find a source for
>> Minor's ham flavor.
>>
>>
>
> Confietor.  I hate making stock.  I don't have the equipment to make
> more than about 6 litres at a time, and a feast can use 20-40l easily.
> I buy it from a place that makes high-quality stock mainly for
> restaurant supply. It comes in 5l packs at around $2.30 per litre.
>
> Feast budget tips.
> 1. Choose meats with care.  A good butcher can help you with
> availability, suitable cuts, minimising waste, etc.  When roasting,
> remember that one large cut has less waste than several small ones.
> 2. Shop around, but not too much.  Look for lower prices at different
> suppliers, but also plan your shopping carefully so that your savings on
> food isn't cancelled out by your expenditure on petrol.
> 3. Avoid convenience foods that aren't. Pre-rolled pastry is my number
> one bugbear for being expensive and not all that good, but there are
> others.
> 4. Use seasonable foods.
> 5. Avoid false economy.  Two examples:
> --I've seen a cook buy the absolute cheapest minced meat available for
> meatballs.  It seemed like a good idea, until the meatballs were
> cooked-- they were a lot smaller after all that fat melted away.
> --Also, I've seen more than one cook make so many changes to a dish that
> it just wasn't tasty anymore-- and no-one ate it, so it all went to
> waste.  6. Investigate catering/restaurant suppliers.  I used to imagine
> that  they wouldn't be terribly interested in small single orders-- then
> I  started getting touch with them and found out that they're usually
> very  friendly to small customers who take the time to seek them out.
> 7. Portion carefully to avoid waste.
> 8. Say no to bad kitchens.

I would alter 1 -- don't buy broth when you have it available -- if you are 
boiling chicken anyhow, don't waste the broth.  I'm always amazed when 
cooks don't reuse stuff like this, or plan for reuse.

A couple I haven't seen -- keep a really close eye on the sales flyers, and 
know the average prices in your area.  In this area, good quality meat of 
various sorts can almost always be had within a week or two of an event for 
<$2 per pound.

One that goes with the resturant depot is see if you can get it wholesale. 
Remember that sometimes 30lbs/20 lbs wholesale will cost less than getting 
the 10 lbs (which may be all you really need) retail.

toodles, margaret




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