Regardless of our income, we all tighten our belts when it comes to our refrigerators. One third of all food worldwide is wasted in production and consumption systems. Using these losses, you can save the money you save for other needs of your family, creating new nutrition standards, maintaining physical health and family time.

Steps

Preparing for Success

Make lists and don't buy too much. When you go shopping, don't take anyone with you who might prevent you from following the list.

Set a budget. Take only cash with you and leave your cards at home. If you have a limited amount of money, that's all you can spend. Grocery stores will often try to add a few extra items to your cart; It is very easy to be tempted by this. Having a limited amount of cash will help you stay within your budget.

Plan ahead as a family. Think about how much you can afford to spend and what you no longer need to spend on. Consider the options that are most attractive to your family and try to find a balance between them. Compromise is the key to changing your shopping habits.

Look for sales announcements. It may seem counterintuitive to shop well in advance of cooking, but you'll save more if you plan your meals around what's on sale. If something interesting comes on sale for a great price, but you don't know what to make with it, look for new and exciting recipes for you and your family.

Clip/print coupons. Look for grocery coupons in newspapers and online on specialty websites that highlight the latest grocery deals.

Shop less and save more. Try to limit yourself to one productive shopping trip per week. This will give you plenty of time to make a list, check the products available, and collect coupons. The more you think about your future while shopping, the more money you'll save, as well as time and energy, since you won't be able (or won't) to buy that "one extra thing."

Go to several stores. Some stores offer the best prices on eggs, milk and cheese compared to others. Others may have better prices on toilet paper, while your favorite greengrocer offers the best prices compared to all the other greengrocers in your area. Do your research and ask your friends about theirs personal experience in saving.

• Take advantage of each store, but remember to consider the distance between them. There's no point in saving on toilet paper if you're spending more on gas.

1. Track your expenses. Control how much you spend at the grocery store. This way you will keep your budget under control. Don't throw away receipts. Save them to avoid unnecessary expenses in the future!

Cook at home with your family

Cooking meals with your children will spark their interest in healthy foods. Although they will still have a love of snacking due to their childhood, the most important thing is how they eat most of the time.

Bake bread yourself with your loved ones. Bread is fun and easy to make at home, you only need a few simple ingredients. Look for recipes and involve your loved ones. This way you will save money, and your home will be filled with the wonderful aroma of freshly baked bread!

Get ready large dishes, such as stews, soups, casseroles and so on. Dishes that you can eat for a week will lighten the load. You don't have to think about what to cook for lunch. Lunch will be ready.

• Expand your horizons! Some cuisines, such as Mexican, Peruvian and Italian, use inexpensive ingredients to feed large families and communities. Introduce your family to other cuisines and take advantage of the opportunity to explore new places.

1. Cook with cheaper meat. The right gravy or the right sauce can take a dish from a less expensive cut of meat to an unexpectedly fantastic one. Just keep in mind that only clippings in finished form tend to be tougher than others, so consider cooking in a slow cooker (you can buy a new one or a used one for less) to add flavor.

   Try having a fast day once a week. Cooking meals with vegetables and grains is cheaper without meat and is also a great experiment. These meals are good for your family's health, your wallet, and the environment.

When the family is large, the question of “what to cook today” becomes a daily survival quest. We have selected simple dishes, which will feed the whole family - and cooking will take almost no time from you.

Dough for all occasions

The recipe is suitable for vegetarians, because... does not contain eggs.

• Water and milk (kefir, yogurt) - 1 glass each
• Yeast - 1 sachet
• Sugar - 2 tbsp. l.
• Salt - half a teaspoon
• Flour - 1 kg.
• Vegetable oil - half a glass
• Vinegar - 1 tbsp. l.

1. Dissolve sugar in a glass hot water, add milk.
2. Add yeast, salt and about 300 gr. flour. Stir with a fork - you should get a dough, like for pancakes. Leave for at least half an hour - the volume should begin to increase. (Can be left up to three hours).
3. Into the risen dough in small portions add vinegar, flour and vegetable oil - as much as the dough will take.
4. Knead the dough and then grease the surface with oil. Let rise once.

The dough can be used for pies and pies with sweet or savory filling, made into croissants or even baked homebaked bread(Be sure to let the finished buns rise in a warm place in this case).

Stew from what we have

The basis of this dish- any meat, if everyone eats it. Otherwise, the meat is stewed separately and mixed with the main dish before serving.

• Meat - depending on the number of eaters
• Onion, carrot - 1 pc. for sautéing
• Vegetables - what are in the house (see that they are combined with each other, you can use good freezing): potatoes, zucchini, pumpkin, mushrooms, cabbage.

1. Saute half the carrots and onions, add the chopped meat small cubes and fry.
2. Fill big amount water, add salt and cook for a long time (up to one and a half hours). Remove the foam periodically.
3. Add pepper, spices to taste and a tablespoon of vinegar - this will help even the toughest beef become softer; vinegar does not affect the taste of the finished dish in any way.

If there are not enough vegetables, you can add small soup noodles, stir and remove from heat. Let it brew for 10 minutes.

Very quick Banoff Pie cake

• Dry oatmeal - 1 cup
• Dried fruits (prunes, dried apricots) - 300 gr.
• Nuts - 100 gr.
• Baby puree (or fruit puree) - 1 cup.
• Soft cottage cheese - 1 pack
• Bananas - 2 pcs. Whipped cream - optional

The basis:

1. Fry in a dry frying pan until golden color oatmeal.
2. In a blender, grind oatmeal with dried apricots, prunes, and any nuts.
3. Press the resulting mass tightly with a glass onto the bottom of the mold and put it in the refrigerator. (for the base, you can simply crush ready-made oatmeal cookies).

Caramel:

1. Mix fruit puree with soft cottage cheese or half and half yogurt, add a pinch of cinnamon and honey to taste, apply to the base. Cut the bananas into slices and place in an even layer on the caramel.

Topping:

1. Spread whipped cream on top of the cake (if desired, replace it with “yogurt half and half with sugar”)

Life hack for desserts: it’s very helpful to store it in the freezer already ready-made sponge cake- for example, chocolate. If you urgently need dessert, you can crumble the biscuit into the base and compact it. Make the filling from whipped cottage cheese with half and half cream (if you have at least an hour left, you can add gelatin). Top with fruit for an amazing cheesecake.

Soup made from anything

The basis:

1. Cook any vegetables (one or two, as many types as there are) in chicken or vegetable broth.
2. Puree soft vegetables with a blender.
3. Next, add a glass of cream or regular fat or soy milk, egg yolk, grated cheese - yellow or blue. Bring to a boil, add salt.

You can serve with meatballs, fried chicken pieces, or toasted bread until golden brown.

Pilaf in a pan

• ½ kg of any meat
• ½ kg rice Onion - two large heads
• Carrots - 2 pcs.
• Vegetables - optional, up to ½ kg, you can do without them altogether
• Garlic - 1 head
• Oil for frying
• Salt, seasonings - to taste

1. Pour boiling water over the rice and leave for at least an hour.
2. In a frying pan, fry the onion in charcoal in hot oil, add the carrots cut into cubes, fry another onion in the same place until golden brown.
3. Add any meat cut into pieces - you can mix (beef + chicken, chicken + pork), fry until golden brown.
4. Place the meat in a saucepan with a thick bottom, pour rice on top, add water so that there is two fingers on top of the wall.
5. Add salt, add a whole head of garlic (completely), add spices, cover with a lid.
6. Reduce heat to low. At the end of the “boiling” of the water, add two tomatoes, pureed with a glass of water. Stir and leave covered for half an hour.

After a working day, few people want to spend a lot of time at the stove. This article will tell you how to quickly feed your family, several simple recipes and tricks with which you will cook delicious dinner for a short time.

Pasta. Majority pasta cook for 10 minutes. Bolognese sauce is also quick to prepare: fry the onion and garlic, add the minced meat and fry until golden brown. Mix with tomatoes or tomato paste and add oregano or your favorite herb blend. Simmer over low heat for 15-20 minutes and serve with pasta. Bolognese sauce pairs with red wine. Mushrooms go well with this dish. Bell pepper and corn. Prepares even faster cheese sauce for pasta: mix grated cheese with cream, add pieces of bacon or mushrooms. On culinary sites you can easily find many recipes for pasta sauces.

Canned concentrated soups can be the basis for sauces for meat and pasta.

Fast pizza. Fry the onions, garlic and mushrooms, cut the French bread lengthwise and place on top mashed potatoes, water mushroom sauce, sprinkle with grated cheese and heat on the grill or in the microwave.

Omelette. This dish of eggs, milk (or cream) and flour is easy and quick to prepare. The omelette is especially delicious with salad, crispy potatoes or jacket potatoes.

. Slow cooker is a device that can be called a dolgovorka or slow cooker in Russian, an analogue of a pot in a Russian oven, where food is cooked for a long time. Using a slow cooker you can get delicious hot lunch in the evening, placing meat and vegetables in it in the morning.

Potato wedges. Instead of frying or boiling potatoes, cut them into wedge-shaped pieces, cook until half cooked for 7-10 minutes, drain, sprinkle olive oil and bake in hot oven 20-30 minutes. This the dish will do for fish, meat and cutlets.

How to quickly feed your family a fish dish? Rub the fish fillet with spices and salt, wrap in foil and bake for 15-20 minutes in a hot oven.

Curry or chili. Adding red pepper to the Bolognese recipe above creates a curry or chili that goes well with rice.

Rice requires constant attention when cooked in a pan. In a special rice cooker or steamer fluffy rice Can be cooked simultaneously with other dishes.

Chicken. Chicken breasts You can pre-marinate in the morning and bake in the oven in the evening. Chicken meat with salad and jacket potatoes is a healthy and nutritious dish.

. Jacket potatoes can be the main or second course. Cheese, mayonnaise, beans, curry, chili, bacon, mushrooms, shrimp, Bolognese sauce, cottage cheese and olives can be used as a side dish for baked or boiled potatoes.

Pork cutlets are quick and easy to grill or bake. Original taste it will work if you grease the cutlets with the mixture orange jam And soy sauce and bake in the oven.

Large portions. Chili and other sauces can be prepared in large quantities at once and stored in the refrigerator.

Prepared meals such as salads, pizza and vegetable mixtures, will significantly reduce the time you spend in the kitchen.

Rating. Make a list quick recipes and after preparing dishes, evaluate them. In a few weeks you will collect a large number of favorite recipes that you can always rely on. Experiment with new recipes when you have free time.

Now you know how to quickly feed your family tasty and inexpensive. Bon appetit!

To begin with, in the store we choose (you can write it down or remember) which products are the cheapest - usually everything, without exception, cereals (naturally, in kilogram packages, and not in bags for fast cooking), flour; Vegetables and fruits usually depend on the season. So we choose what this season is the cheapest.
As options (according to the season): onions, cabbage, garlic, carrots, rutabaga, beets, zucchini, paprika, potatoes, cucumbers; from fruits: apples, plums, watermelon, berries.

Here I have to sing an ode to the freezer (deep freeze).
I freeze EVERYTHING!
For example, when there are berries and greens (and, as a rule, there are so many of them that relatives, neighbors, friends (their own options :)), there is nowhere to put them, and they shove all this stuff to someone else.
You should definitely use it!
So, we take it, and... freeze, freeze, freeze... - straight into plastic bags (without holes), and into her dear freezer.
And if no one gives it, then you can buy it in season very, very cheaply.
And there are fruit drinks, and teas with raspberries, and jelly, and pancakes with fresh berries, mm-mmm...
Never miss an opportunity to stock up on seasonal vitamins for future use!

Same with mushrooms.
Do you know how to pick mushrooms? (personally, unfortunately, no) Then go ahead into the forest, and there will be lingonberries and something else (well, you know better there).
Salt mushrooms, marinate, freeze - all this will save your hard-earned money, especially in such a difficult period as now (and then, you see, there’s a thaw...)

And the tests are different! Pies, pancakes, pancakes, dumplings (the filling is also tasty, but economical!), dumplings - there are many options! For example, a charlotte made from aspic dough with apples is delicious, almost for free!
Take the dough from the cheapest products: kefir, flour, eggs, yeast, vegetable oil (this is not a recipe). Don’t be bothered by complexity and high cost - what’s inexpensive and simple is also very tasty!

I deliberately do not write recipes here, since I myself find them on the Internet in the same way.
What I personally have been doing for the last month - by the way, this approach also saves me a lot of time!
I take minced meat (about 450-500g in a package) and a bunch of different seasonal vegetables(today I had carrots, onions, garlic, herbs, multi-colored paprika, tomatoes without skin, celery). I stewed and fried all this on vegetable oil with spices (pepper, bay leaf, salt - whatever is available), 10-12 minutes before the end of cooking, add the minced meat, cook until the end, cool, etc. I put them in 4-5 bags and freeze them!

Thus, for about 10 days I get away from cooking with a slight fear, namely:
First (each time), defrost 1 bag - (for example):
1) Cook buckwheat + fry
2) Pasta + frying
3) Roasted pilaf
4) Frying + cabbage + potatoes + water = soup
5) Stew: potatoes, a little water, cook, add frying - delicious! (don't forget about salt and spices!)
Then there may be options for dishes to suit your taste...

Despite the same taste of roasting, the dishes turn out to be radically different in taste!
And of course, roasting can be from different vegetables.
I even did the frying for borscht once, it turned out a lot - I put it in a bag: frying, diced potatoes, chopped cabbage, froze, and then just added water - and the borscht is ready.
You can also prepare hodgepodge and any soup, according to the principle - "just add water".
You can also prepare a lot of broths at once, and then, after cooling, freeze them.
Fish, bone, chicken... Everything is used: bones from meat, heads and fins from fish.

Cereals! This is poetry!
This and pearl barley porridge with cracklings (or just any fried meat products).
It’s also very tasty with sauerkraut (cook everything together for 3-4 hours, add fried meat products - preferably something like bacon, but you can even use sausages.)
Goroshnitsa is a holiday, a song (hee hee, literally and figuratively:).
Soak overnight, cook until pureed, add butter, and enjoy the taste (my favorite porridge since childhood)
And buckwheat with mushrooms! And, everything in a row.

Egg oil(butter 1:1 with hard-boiled eggs, grated, + a little salt) - very tasty on a bun for breakfast! Kids love it!

Where do you put the humps? Feed them to your poor husband? Don't the children eat?
They will eat! - If, of course, you save up for a week and make croutons, any soup with them will go with a bang!
Well, as usual, first fill it with milk, put the softened tops in the cutlet mince (you still need to add ingredients there :)

By the way, you can add finely chopped fresh meat to the cutlets. vegetables - onions, cabbage, potatoes, carrots - and in general, whatever you like - experiment! Just add an egg for the connection, otherwise you will end up eating stew.

From cabbage- in general, a Klondike of amazing and inexpensive dishes!
Be bold, be creative, and your family’s food will not be a very significant expense item, while remaining tasty and healthy!

Our heroines proved that while pursuing a career, you can remain an exemplary housewife and cook for your family quickly, tasty and healthy!

Experts

Mikhail Zeigarnik
Candidate of Medical Sciences, Chief Physician of the Nutrition and Health Clinic

Menu of farm products

Who?Elena Korneeva, translator, 35 years old:"We buy exactly as much food as we need, and thanks to a clear menu, cooking takes little time.”

What? Our family has completely switched to natural products farm production. At the same time, we systematized food preparation, starting to create a menu for the week. This way we buy exactly as much food as we need, and little time is spent on cooking.

Why? We, like everyone else, bought food in supermarkets. But one day I noticed that we don’t eat about a third of our food, but throw it away. We bought too much of something and it spoiled, something turned out to be unnecessary because we didn’t know in advance what we were going to cook. Often, through carelessness, they took food that was on the verge of expiration date, and then the meat that smelled of potassium permanganate did not inspire confidence and ended up in the trash. And then I thought - maybe I should buy less, but focus on better quality products?

How? When we first visited the farmers’ website, their products seemed insanely expensive. Eggs are twice as expensive as store-bought ones, and potatoes are three times more expensive. I even began to wonder why there was such a difference, and over the weekend we went to the farm to get to know each other. We saw the production with our own eyes and bought some products to try. It turned out that if you know the person who grew this tomato and trust him, then the perception of food completely changes. The process of eating food ceases to be a simple assimilation of calories, you begin to enjoy the taste.

In order not to go broke, we decided to create a clear menu for the week. I used to drive home and wonder what to cook; I didn’t remember exactly what was in the refrigerator. I had to pop into the store and fill my cart. And at home it turned out that there were already two cans of sour cream in the refrigerator, but not enough butter. Now once a week we sit down with my husband and daughter at the table, write a list of the dishes we want, then we buy food for them - what we need, and not what they want to sell us. I don’t waste time shopping, and after work I spend 30-40 minutes at the stove - and my dinner is ready. Sometimes I cook for two days. Our usual breakfast is porridge, eggs, pancakes, sandwiches or cottage cheese. We definitely buy kefir and fermented baked milk. We dine at home together only on weekends. I prepare soup and a main course for two days at once. I make salads according to the season, in winter and spring these are root vegetables and pickles. For the main course we usually have meat or fish with a side dish. I bake on weekends Apple pie or cottage cheese cookies, and homemade compote.

Bonus! It turned out that if you buy the products necessary for specific dishes from farmers, you can easily spend the same amount of money that we spent at the supermarket. Feeding a family of three costs us 10 thousand rubles a week - a quite typical amount for Moscow. But we have become much tastier and better: chicken bouillon it smells like chicken, and there is a spoon in the sour cream.

Menu for the week from Elena

MONDAY

Breakfast: Oatmeal with jam, Herb tea with sandwiches

Dinner: Chicken noodle soup, cod with potatoes, baked in the oven

Dinner: T cod with potatoes, baked in the oven

TUESDAY

Breakfast: Cottage cheese with dried fruits

Dinner : Chicken noodle soup, beef cutlets with stewed cabbage

Dinner: Salad from boiled chicken and cheese

WEDNESDAY

Breakfast: Omelet with sausage and cheese

Dinner: Vinaigrette, beef cutlets with mashed potatoes

Dinner: Beef Stroganoff from beef liver with buckwheat

THURSDAY

Breakfast: Oatmeal with dried fruits and sandwiches with cheese or doctor's sausage

Dinner: Vinaigrette, pumpkin gratin with cheese and veal

Dinner: Beef liver stroganoff with buckwheat

FRIDAY

Breakfast: Cheesecakes with sour cream

Dinner: Vinaigrette, pumpkin gratin with cheese and veal

Dinner: Salad of seasonal vegetables, pumpkin and parsnip pancakes with sour cream

SATURDAY

Breakfast: Buckwheat porridge with milk

Dinner - on a walk to a cafe

Dinner: Cottage cheese casserole with sour cream

SUNDAY

Breakfast: Pancakes with jam

Dinner: Daily cabbage soup from sauerkraut, herring under a fur coat

Dinner: Baked chicken with apples. Garnish with baked root vegetables: potatoes, parsnips, scorzonera.

Expert comment:

I have no complaints about this approach of the heroine: if the family’s income allows and there is easy access to farm products, I’m all for it. The diet proposed by Elena looks quite balanced and can even be called varied (taking into account the fact that her busy schedule does not allow her to cook every day different dishes- there is nothing wrong with repetitions). The only “but”: if anyone in the family has a tendency to excess weight, then it can manifest itself, since the diet contains a lot of carbohydrates (root vegetables, potatoes, bread) and fats (butter, cheese, sour cream, cottage cheese). But if this is not a problem, then continue in the same spirit. Elena very correctly said that food should not be a simple assimilation of calories, one should enjoy the taste.

Freeze for future use

Who? Ekaterina Sukhova, company manager, 40 years old: “The essence of the strategy is to cook only once or twice a month and then reheat ready meals in the microwave or oven."

What? I make preparations for the month using the freezing cooking system, which is quite common in the West. I don’t buy semi-finished products in the store, but make them myself. And in the evening I need a maximum of 30 minutes to finish cooking a frozen dish.

Why? I naively believed that I would be able to combine a leadership position with household chores, but in reality this did not work out. I hired a cleaner and a nanny for my youngest son, but I decided to leave cooking for the family to myself, because I really like to cook and take into account the tastes of each family member. True, due to traffic jams I return home to best case scenario by 9 p.m. If you still need to stop by for groceries and stand at the stove for an hour, there is no time left for life at all. As a result, I was left exhausted, and my hungry family devoured sausage sandwiches. That’s when I found a master class on preparing dishes for future use. It has its own nuances, so it’s better to study everything thoroughly.

How? The essence of the strategy is to cook only once or twice a month and then reheat the finished dishes in the microwave or oven. A radical option is to cook your favorite foods from start to finish and freeze them. Then the children will be able to heat the food themselves. Simplified version - primary processing products and production of semi-finished products. It is enough to allocate one or two days for work. We cook with the whole family, and my mother also comes to help. Freezing boiled vegetables, vareniki, stuffed pancakes, casseroles, turkey cutlets, meat hedgehogs, cabbage rolls, mixture of grated carrots and chopped onions, tomatoes, fish dishes, dishes with rice and mushrooms, etc. In the evening I put vegetables in one pan and cutlets in another. In 15 minutes food is on the table!

By the way, you can not only cook healthy semi-finished products, but also buy them. Supermarkets sell boiled and already peeled vegetables in vacuum packaging - they can be stored for months. Boiled cereals keep well in the refrigerator for four to five days. I keep rice, buckwheat, and lentils in containers - they can be added to salads or eaten as a side dish.

Bonus! Of course, it is important to have a spacious freezer, portioned dishes suitable for the microwave oven. And indeed, not all dishes can be frozen without losing their moisture. taste qualities. Nevertheless, the strategy works. I am very pleased that I was able to find a clever way that allows me to feed my family delicious home-cooked food while being busy.

What can be frozen:

• meat broth (used for making soups and sauces)
• boiled meat (in a vacuum container; you can make sandwiches with it, add it to salads, or just heat it up and eat it)
• boiled beans, rice, potatoes in their skins (can be stored in the refrigerator, if not for long).
• “frying” of onions and carrots (for making soups)
• pickled onions (for salads and hot dishes)
• raw meat and poultry (cut into portions and marinated)

What should not be frozen:

• raw onion (taste changes)
• fresh vegetables With high content moisture (dramatically change consistency)
• mayonnaise and other sauces based on fat emulsions (separate)
• dairy products(change consistency)
• boiled and boiled smoked sausage, especially already chopped (consistency changes, then can only be used hot)
• ready-made cold salads (change the taste)