Grocery set. Tips from a thrifty housewife

Home Savings: how to save money at home, useful tips, DIY things for the home

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Thrifty housewife. Miracles in the refrigerator.

Today is a story about what saves a housewife’s time. Something that can be used many times and that makes our stay in the kitchen “witchcraft” for the rest of the family. Post content:
1. Square meatballs
2. Concentrated meat broth- soup base
3. Universal soup dressing
4. Pesto cheese sauce
5. Bolognese sauce.

1. Square meatballs

Meatballs are a very convenient semi-finished product for freezing. You can make a lot of them at once so that you have a supply in the freezer. But their creation takes too much precious time. Therefore, we will adapt an ice tray for these purposes. Labor and time costs are minimal, and the shape is original.

We will need:
Minced meat for meatballs (half a kilogram of minced meat, 50 ml of milk and the crumb of half a loaf. Salt and pepper to taste)
Ice mold (for this amount of minced meat you will need 3 standard forms)
Wide knife or spatula

Preparation:
Pack the minced meat tightly into ice cube trays. The denser, the neater our meatballs will turn out. Remove the remaining minced meat with a wide knife or spatula.

Freeze it.

After 6 hours, remove the pan from the freezer and remove ready-made meatballs. To make this easier, you need to lower it into the water for 10 seconds. hot water in such a way that the bottom and walls of the molds are under water, and the top (where the minced meat is) is not covered with water. Then carefully insert a thin knife into the gap between the meatball and the wall of the mold, press down and remove the meatball.

Place the finished meatballs in a freezer bag or container and place them back in the freezer.

All! Now you can put them in soup, in the oven, or in a frying pan.

2. Concentrated meat broth - basis for soup

I would like to show an example of another way to rationally use money for food and your own time. We often make soups. In fact, we eat them every day, only in the summer they are lighter vegetable soups or pureed soups, and in winter soups thicken and become fatty. Apparently, a chilly body requires two qualities from food: the presence of meat and “for the spoon to stand.” Therefore, it is better to cook the soup in two stages: first make a concentrated meat broth, and then dilute it with water and add vegetables to taste and mood.

One liter of such concentrated broth produces 5 liters of soup with meat. Considering that standard portion soup 350-400 g, then four liters of concentrate is enough for 50-57 servings of soup. The cost of one serving (excluding vegetables such as potatoes, cabbage, onions and carrots - this is always inexpensive) is about 5 Russian rubles. rubles So soups are not only healthy, but also very cheap.

The most rich meat soups obtained from pork knuckle. It is not expensive, and the broth it makes is excellent. Pork knuckle can also be replaced by beef leg. How to prepare concentrated meat broth?

We will need:
Pork knuckle - 1.5 kg. One kilogram of shank costs about 150-200 rubles. I strongly advise you to buy chilled, rather than frozen, shanks, so as not to accidentally buy stale meat.
Bay leaf, black peppercorns, 3-5 clove buds.
Salt to taste

Preparation:
Wash the shank, put it in a five-liter saucepan and pour cold water for 1-2 hours. After this, scrape the skin with a knife to accurately remove all possible dirt. Wash the knuckle again and fill it with clean cold water.

Place the pan on medium heat. When the water boils, reduce the heat and remove the foam. The fire under the pan should be such that the water does not even boil, but sways slightly.

The knuckle should simmer in this manner for about four hours. During this time, it will release all its juices and most of its fat content into the broth. As it boils, water can be added. 20 minutes before readiness, add spices and salt.

Checking the readiness of the shank is very simple: the meat should easily separate from the bones. It will be impossible to pick up such a piece with a fork - it will immediately fall apart. The finished meat broth will be dark yellow.

Remove the shank and strain the broth through a fine sieve. After removing the shanks, there should be about four liters of concentrated broth left in the pan.

Separate the meat into fibers small pieces. We no longer need the bones, skin and remaining fat (we can give these remains to the yard dog). Divide the meat itself into four liter jars and add broth into them (but not to the brim).

Actually, concentrated broth I'm ready now. Some of it can be used immediately, and some can be frozen. This concentrate should be diluted with water in a ratio of 1/3 (vegetables will take about another liter by volume). And then proceed as with regular broth.

That's all, actually. The result is a big saving not only of money, but also of time, since preparing the next portion of soup will no longer require preparing the broth. And twenty liters of soup will last a long time even in such a carnivorous family as yours.

3. Universal soup dressing - a lot at once.

With the onset of cold weather, cold soups, okroshka and light puree soups practically disappear from my menu. They are replaced by hot and thick dishes: cabbage soup, borscht, solyanka, rassolniki, etc. I noticed that to prepare most “winter” soups you need to do the same operation: boil the meat broth and fry the onions and carrots (parsley root, celery or parsnips) in vegetable oil. On average, the soup takes about 2 hours to cook. Of these, it takes one and a half hours to complete these two operations. If you optimize these two processes, then even a very slow housewife will take no more than half an hour to prepare soup. How?

We have already discussed the preparation of broth, its freezing and storage above (using broth prepared for future use gives +1 hour of free time). Now it's time for frying. Everything is simple here - you need to do a lot of it at once so that it is enough for several times. I calculated that the preparation universal refill for soup in bulk (for six at a time large pans soup, takes 30 minutes), but saves two and a half hours of valuable time in the near future. I'd rather spend those two hours walking with my baby than chopping onions and peeling carrots. And you?

Soup dressing.
The total and active cooking time is 30 minutes.
Quantity: 6 large pots of soup.

Ingredients:
Onion - 2 pcs. Carrots - 2 pcs. Celery root - 1 pc (small or ½ medium) Bell pepper - 1 pc. (in winter you can use pre-frozen and chopped) Garlic - 4 cloves Tomato paste - 4 tbsp. (or tomato sauce 6 tbsp.) Parsley - a bunch Dill - a bunch Vegetable oil - 1 cup (you will need a lot) Salt - 3 tbsp.

Preparation:
1. Peel the carrots (4 minutes).
2. Pour 1/3 cup of vegetable oil into a frying pan and heat over low heat (1 minute).
3. Peel the onion, chop finely and fry in vegetable oil (4 minutes).
All frying is done without a lid over low heat.

4. Peel and finely chop the garlic. Add to the onion and mix. Fry. (4 minutes).
5. Carrots for three coarse grater and add to the pan.
Add another 1/3 cup of oil and fry, stirring occasionally (5 minutes).

6. Peel the celery and grate it on a coarse grater.
Add celery and the remaining oil to the frying pan, stir and fry (5 minutes).

7. Peel the pepper, remove the seeds and stem. Cut into cubes.
Add together with tomato paste to the frying pan, mix and fry (3 minutes).

8. Add finely chopped greens, mix, salt and fry (2 minutes).
Add salt to taste, and then the same amount twice more. It takes me 3 tablespoons of salt. It’s okay that the dressing will be over-salted - it will only be stored better, and the future soup does not need to be re-salted.
All is ready. It took us almost 30 minutes to prepare the soup dressing.

After the dressing has cooled, it can be placed in clean glass jars(I fit in one liter jar). Fill the remaining centimeter to the edge of the jar vegetable oil and put the jar in the refrigerator. In this form it will be stored for up to two weeks. If part of the filling is used, then upper layer in the jar you need to cover it with oil again.

4. Pesto sauce - prepare, store.

With the advent of this sauce, our family practically stopped adding mayonnaise to all dishes. Now the place of a universal additive is taken by Pesto sauce (“ cheese sauce"). Except classical use- when preparing pasta or lasagna, it can act as a salad dressing, added to soups, vegetable stew, meat or mushroom dishes, and just spread it on bread. In general, it’s like mayonnaise, only tastier and healthier.

The almost daily presence of Pesto sauce on our table does not mean that we need to prepare it every day. You just need to know how to store it so that it stays fresh for up to two weeks. A half-liter jar of this sauce is usually enough for this period. I cooked it once and the refrigerator smells like an Italian restaurant. Worth it homemade sauce much cheaper than in stores, and the taste differs favorably. It's quick and easy to prepare - no need to cook, fry or bake anything. I'm telling you.

Pesto
Total and active cooking time - 20 minutes
Cost - 3 $

Ingredients:
Cheese durum varieties- 200 g. If you have the opportunity to get pecorino cheese (sheep cheese), then use it. If you live in reality, then Parmesan. And if in a cunning way, then any other hard cheese taste. The taste of the cheese is not so important here - garlic and basil will still be in the foreground.

Basil - about 1 cup chopped. If in our northern countries it is very difficult to find basil in the autumn-winter period, then it can be replaced with 2 tablespoons of dry + a large bunch of fresh parsley.

Nuts - 100 g. If financial resources allow, then pine nuts. But sauce options with walnuts or hazelnuts they also have the right to be. The only warning about walnuts- they must be fresh, collected no more than 3 months ago (we fresh nuts arrive on shelves at the end of September and are quite suitable for consumption until February).

I advise you to never buy already packaged walnuts, since they only have a statute of limitations on the fact of packaging. Old walnuts are bitter and can ruin the entire sauce. It is better to buy in bulk and strictly inquire when the harvest was harvested. Fresh walnut kernels have a light skin. If, despite asking for fresh ones, they try to slip you dark brown or wrinkled nuts, then you have every moral right to be rude to the seller.

Garlic - 4 cloves. In my family, we really love garlic in this sauce, so we exceed this norm by 2 times. But for the first time, try to get by with at least 4 large cloves.
Olive oil - the amount depends on the thickness of the sauce.

Preparation:
Peel the garlic and crush the cloves using a garlic press. Finely chop the basil, mix with garlic and, armed with a marble mortar and wooden pestle (or an aluminum saucepan and a wooden masher), crush everything together until smooth. The mixture should be vibrant green and very fragrant. Those who are especially lazy and in a hurry can use a blender, however, the mixture cut in a blender is less fragrant than crushed by hand.

Grate the cheese on a fine grater.
Finely crush the nuts and add to the future sauce.
Mix the cheese with a mixture of garlic, basil and nuts.

You should get a fairly viscous mixture, reminiscent of plasticine. To dilute this mass and add plasticity to it, add olive oil in a thin stream. In this case, the future Pesto sauce must be stirred all the time.

That's it, the Pesto sauce is ready.

To store, transfer it to a clean, dry half-liter jar (tamping tightly), and pour 0.5 cm of olive oil on top. Such an oil cushion, firstly, will prevent the sauce from drying out and spoiling, and secondly, it will reduce the intensity of its smell (I warned you that in the refrigerator in which the jar of sauce is standing it will smell like... Italian restaurant). If the sauce is used, then the oil from the jar must first be drained and then topped up again so that it completely covers the sauce. It can be stored in this form for up to two weeks, but, as a rule, it is eaten even earlier.

5. Bolognese sauce. Cook, freeze and store.

One of my friends works in an Italian restaurant. She once admitted that restaurant visitors are almost never served fresh, freshly prepared sauces. For example, Bolognese sauce is prepared once a week in two five-liter pans, and then frozen in portions. If an order comes from a client for a dish with this sauce, it is taken out of the freezer, and while the pasta is cooking, it is defrosted and served as fresh. She claimed that not a single person has yet been able to understand that he is eating a frozen semi-finished product. Nobody complained, only praised. So I thought: why don’t I adopt this principle? If this is practiced in a good Italian restaurant, then all the more permissible for me.

The results of my subsequent experiments with Bolognese sauce showed that, indeed, it not only freezes well, but also tastes no different from freshly prepared. Since then I have been preparing this sauce right away. large quantities. I freeze portions in 200 gram cups. Thanks to such reserves, dinner is prepared almost instantly: while the pasta is cooking, 2 cups of sauce are defrosted in the microwave (for me and my husband). And after 15-20 minutes, not just banal pasta is served for dinner, but Pasta with Bolognese sauce (it sounds!). This sauce can also be the basis for making lasagna, served with potatoes or stewed vegetables.

Bolognese sauce
Total cooking time - 40 minutes
Active cooking time - 25 minutes
Number of servings - the given quantity of products yields seven 200-gram cups.

Ingredients:
Minced meat - 400 g (beef + pork) Onion - 2 pcs. Garlic - 6 cloves. Mild green pepper - 3 pcs. Tomatoes - 5 pcs. (in winter, can be replaced with 3 tbsp. tomato paste with 1 tsp. sugar) Olive oil - 50 ml Dry wine - 120 ml Dried basil - 1 tbsp. (in the summer you can use fresh - 1/3 cup chopped) Dried mint - sprig (usually dried mint is sold in the spice department, but if it’s not there, you can gut a bag with mint tea, which is sold in any pharmacy) Salt to taste.

1. Put the kettle on the fire (boiling water will be needed a little later for blanching the tomatoes).
2. Fry on olive oil ground meat.

Since you will get quite a lot of sauce, I advise you to cook it either in a large and deep frying pan or in a saucepan with a thick bottom.

3. While the minced meat is fried, finely chop the onion and garlic. Add to the minced meat and fry, stirring constantly.
During this time, we have time to finely chop the green pepper.

4. Peel the tomatoes (this is where we need boiling water) and also chop finely.
When the minced meat begins to brown, add the chopped pepper.

5. After 3 minutes, add tomatoes. Close the lid and simmer everything together for 10 minutes.

6. Add wine, spices and herbs. Stir, cover and simmer for another five minutes, then ready sauce can be removed from heat.
That's it, the Bolognese sauce is ready.

Tip: To freeze, you need to let the sauce cool and only then pour it into plastic glasses. You can store at a temperature of -18C for up to two months (I’m sure it will run out much earlier).

P.S. I specifically searched Google for a recipe for this sauce. I discovered about two dozen recipes with different ingredients that claim to be “real Bolognese sauce.” I can’t guarantee that my version of the sauce is “the one,” but I guarantee that it’s delicious.

Nina Minina-Rossinskaya

14.06.2015 | 6474

Sharing simple techniques effective savings, which I have verified from my own experience.

Like most women, I love wandering around the supermarket and making spontaneous purchases. But I get no less pleasure from weekly grocery shopping for my family according to the list..

I, a constantly experimenting cook, mother and thrifty wife, have developed the following principles over the years - “must-have basket” and “creative set”.

For every day and for holidays

I definitely make a menu for the week - it’s very convenient. I'll share my simple menu formula. I usually cook for breakfast homemade cakes, for lunch - soup and salad, and I try to make dinner varied (these are dishes from chicken, meat, fish, vegetables).

Based on the menu, I make a list for the “must-have basket” and, in addition to saving time and money, I get the opportunity for culinary creativity.

In my case, the “required cart” includes:

chicken
vegetable and butter
cereals
pasta
vegetables
sugar
tea leaves
mineral water

I buy some products in small wholesale for one or two weeks or even a longer period. It's profitable, and then you can go to
shop lightly.

As for the “creative set”, these are all kinds of spices, sauces, sometimes products for a specific dish, or those
which suddenly I really wanted to buy and cook something with them.

Baking is a tradition

I always take a lot of flour, since every day I prepare pastries for breakfast and bread in a bread machine. It's useful and beneficial.

I have basic recipe dough, on the basis of which I have already prepared more than a dozen sweets.

Cupcake (basic recipe)

2 tbsp. flour

1 tbsp. kefir

1 tbsp. Sahara

2/3 tbsp. refined vegetable oil

1.5 tsp. baking powder

Combine all ingredients and mix. Bake the cake in a greased pan. Fresh or canned fruits, berries, dried fruits, spices, jam, nuts, candied fruits.

Fish, chicken, meat...

I like to prepare rolls for my family, for which I buy a piece of chilled trout, which I salt in my own way signature recipe. My husband once calculated how much cheaper it is to buy chilled fish than lightly salted fish. The price difference is twofold. Already good!

Lightly salted fish

0.5 kg fish

1 tbsp each salt and cognac or rum

Dissolve the salt in alcohol and coat the fish with this mixture. Leave in a cool place for a day, or better yet for two.

During my weekly grocery shopping, I always take chicken, because you can cook dozens of different dishes from it. And I
I decided for myself: it is more profitable to buy chilled poultry whole and divide it into parts yourself.

From the breasts I make our family’s favorite “sausage” – pastrami.
I freeze the wings, and when there are enough of them for a family of five, I bake them in the oven with various
spices.
Hams provide scope for culinary creativity, and I, like any housewife, have at least a dozen different options and recipes
their preparations.

Chicken pastrami

2 chicken breasts(with leather)

any vegetable oil

black allspice, pink and green pepper
mustard seeds

Soak the breasts for an hour in a salt solution or in cucumber pickle, dry. Combine the oil with spices, add salt and mix. Lubricate the meat with the mixture and marinate for 2-3 hours. Preheat the oven to 275-300 degrees, place the meat. After 15 min. Turn off the heat and do not open the oven for 6 hours.

I usually buy chilled meat, less often frozen. It is more profitable to buy a large piece with a bone: you can use it to make soup, hot dishes, make minced meat, and even pickle lard at home. I treat minced meat very carefully - I make sure to read its composition and study it appearance (better minced meat from minced meat).

Other tricks

My family loves aromatic tea, but I almost never buy ready-made ones. Instead, I add ginger, anise and others to the tea brew. natural spices– it turns out tasty and healthy.

Cereals, pasta...

You can't go anywhere without them. But sometimes I save money and make lasagne sheets and cannelloni myself. As a result, the process of purchasing products, like
the process of preparing them becomes not a routine for me, but creativity, because I put not only my strength, but also my soul into it.

Thrifty housewife's menu for the week

The article is not mine, copied. But I liked the material.

I’ll say right away that the article is from 2013, but there’s a lot to think about!
Food products become more expensive every year, and spending almost half of your salary on food is a very real situation. This happens not only because of the high cost of products, but also because of our laziness and disorganization.

Imagine you bought some product, but forgot about it, putting it deep in the refrigerator. It has spoiled, the money is wasted, and you need to buy new sausage, cheese or cottage cheese, or greens, which spoil very quickly. It's a small thing, but unpleasant. Or are you so tired after work that you don’t have the energy to cook, so you grab it at the store? ready food or semi-finished products that are significantly more expensive than the usual “grocery basket”. Saving on products is quite possible. This requires a little cunning and a systematic approach to shopping.

Menu for the week. The menu will help you plan your food consumption and make your life much easier. Its preparation takes very little time - after all, few people prepare hot food for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Think about what you usually eat in the morning: it will probably be enough to stock up on muesli, bread, cheese and ham for sandwiches, eggs, cereals or ready-made porridge. Working people usually have lunch in the office, and those who eat at home during the day can easily have dinner with the same dishes. By purchasing this meal kit, you will be provided with breakfasts and lunches for the whole week ahead. Consider several options for lunch and dinner. Experienced housewives combine the same combinations of products so that different dishes are obtained.

To the store - with a list. Supermarkets are designed so that the buyer “grabs” extra, spending as much money as possible. Shopping list - the right way avoid temptation. It is useful for inveterate spenders to take a limited amount of money with them. If you uncontrollably want to please yourself with an unplanned dessert, introduce a rule: no more than one “extra” purchase per trip, or set a limit: do not exceed the planned “expenditure” amount by more than, for example, 3-4 lats. A good opportunity to practice mental counting: when you take a product from a shelf, remember its cost and add it to the price of the next product. It is recommended to round up so that the final amount does not come as a surprise to you.

Dishes are lifesavers. These are cheesecakes, omelettes, scrambled eggs, casseroles and sandwiches. They are great because they can be made from almost whatever is left on the refrigerator shelves. Rice or pasta from yesterday's side dish for lunch can go into a casserole in the evening, and the leftover potatoes and half the sausage are used in the morning omelet. Before you go to the store again, take a look at the refrigerator: perhaps the food left in it will last for another day.

Logistics in the refrigerator. Do not crowd the shelves so that you cannot see the rest of the products behind the pots, bags and packages in the first row. Place the largest purchases against the wall, place jars and small packaged products on the side shelves. Every time you look at it, figure out which products might go bad so you can use them first.

Do your accounting. Record all expenses or save receipts. At the end of the month, this will allow you to analyze how much money was spent on food. You can compare the cost of the same products in different stores and decide which one is more profitable. You may need to split your purchases into groups: dairy products will be cheaper and better quality in one place, and meat in another.

Don't be lazy to find a cheaper store for your "basic purchases". Usually, 24-hour stores located near your home greatly inflate food prices everyday use. This is done with the expectation that residents of surrounding houses will run to the nearest store for bread, and not to the one where the prices are lower. Be smart: find a store in the area with better prices, try to buy everything necessary products there.

Seasonal vegetables and fruits - both health and savings. You don’t have to buy strawberries and grapes in January and then pay through the nose for watermelon and blueberries in the fall. Seasonal fruits and the berries are much cheaper. In addition, imported exotics are less useful than those that grow in your region: they are much more likely to cause allergies, and the likelihood of containing nitrates is much higher. So let's buy apples and sauerkraut- and provide ourselves with the necessary vitamins

Try to buy less finished products, cuts, semi-finished products, and so on e. Whole chicken in terms of price and weight ratio it will be much cheaper than minced chicken or ready cutlets. It's more profitable to buy whole piece cheese or sausage than the same products in sliced and packaged form. Ready pizza, lunches from the “just warm up in the microwave” series should appear on your table as rarely as possible.

Today is a story about what saves a housewife’s time. Something that can be used many times and that makes our stay in the kitchen “witchcraft” for the rest of the family.

Post content:
1. Square meatballs
3. Universal soup dressing
4. Pesto cheese sauce
5. Bolognese sauce.

1. Square meatballs

Meatballs- This is a very convenient semi-finished product for freezing. You can make a lot of them at once so that you have a supply in the freezer. But their creation takes too much precious time. Therefore, we will adapt an ice tray for these purposes. Labor and time costs are minimal, and the shape is original.

We will need:
. Minced meat for meatballs (half a kilogram of minced meat, 50 ml of milk and the crumb of half a loaf. Salt and pepper to taste)
. Ice mold (for this amount of minced meat you will need 3 standard forms)
. Wide knife or spatula

Preparation:
Pack the minced meat tightly into ice cube trays. The denser, the neater our meatballs will turn out. Remove the remaining minced meat with a wide knife or spatula.

Freeze it.

After 6 hours, remove the pan from the freezer and remove the finished meatballs. To make this easier, you need to lower it into hot water for 10 seconds so that the bottom and walls of the molds are under water, and the top (where the minced meat is) is not covered with water. Then carefully insert a thin knife into the gap between the meatball and the wall of the mold, press down and remove the meatball.

Place the finished meatballs in a freezer bag or container and place them back in the freezer.

All! Now you can put them in soup, in the oven, or in a frying pan.

2. Concentrated meat broth - basis for soup

I would like to show an example of another way to rationally use money for food and your own time. We often make soups. In fact, we eat them every day, only in the summer they are lighter vegetable soups or puree soups, and in the winter the soups become thicker and fattier. Apparently, a chilly body requires two qualities from food: the presence of meat and “for the spoon to stand.” Therefore, it is better to cook the soup in two stages: first make a concentrated meat broth, and then dilute it with water and add vegetables to taste and mood.

One liter of such concentrated broth produces 5 liters of soup with meat. Considering that a standard serving of soup is 350-400 g, then four liters of concentrate is enough for 50-57 servings of soup. The cost of one serving (excluding vegetables such as potatoes, cabbage, onions and carrots - this is always inexpensive) is about 5 Russian rubles. rubles So soups are not only healthy, but also very cheap.

The richest meat soups are made from pork knuckle. It is not expensive, and the broth it makes is excellent. Pork knuckle can also be replaced with beef leg. How to prepare concentrated meat broth?

We will need:
. Pork knuckle - 1.5 kg. One kilogram of shank costs about 150-200 rubles. I strongly advise you to buy chilled, rather than frozen, shanks, so as not to accidentally buy stale meat.
. Bay leaf, black peppercorns, 3-5 clove buds.
. Salt to taste

Preparation:
Wash the shank, put it in a five-liter saucepan and cover with cold water for 1-2 hours. After this, scrape the skin with a knife to accurately remove all possible dirt. Wash the knuckle again and fill it with clean cold water.

Place the pan over medium heat. When the water boils, reduce the heat and remove the foam. The fire under the pan should be such that the water does not even boil, but sways slightly.

Remove the shank and strain the broth through a fine sieve. After removing the shanks, there should be about four liters of concentrated broth left in the pan.

Separate the meat into small pieces fiber by fiber. We no longer need the bones, skin and remaining fat (we can give these remains to the yard dog). Divide the meat itself into four liter jars and add broth into them (but not to the brim).

Actually, the concentrated broth is already ready. Some of it can be used immediately, and some can be frozen. This concentrate should be diluted with water in a ratio of 1/3 (vegetables will take about another liter by volume). And then proceed as with regular broth.

3. Universal soup dressing - a lot at once.

We have already discussed the preparation of broth, its freezing and storage above (using broth prepared for future use gives +1 hour of free time). Now it's time for frying. Everything is simple here - you need to do a lot of it at once so that it is enough for several times. I calculated that preparing a universal soup dressing in bulk (for six large pots of soup at once takes 30 minutes), but saves two and a half hours of invaluable time in the near future. I'd rather spend those two hours walking with my baby than chopping onions and peeling carrots. And you?

Soup dressing.
The total and active cooking time is 30 minutes.
Quantity: 6 large pots of soup.

Ingredients:
. Onion - 2 pcs. . Carrots - 2 pcs. . Celery root - 1 piece (small or ½ medium). Bell pepper - 1 pc. (in winter you can use pre-frozen and chopped). Garlic - 4 cloves. Tomato paste - 4 tbsp. (or tomato sauce 6 tbsp). Parsley - a bunch. Dill - a bunch. Vegetable oil - 1 cup (you will need a lot). Salt - 3 tbsp.

4. Peel and finely chop the garlic. Add to the onion and mix. Fry. (4 minutes).
5. Three carrots on a coarse grater and add to the frying pan.
Add another 1/3 cup of oil and fry, stirring occasionally (5 minutes).

6. Peel the celery and grate it on a coarse grater.
Add celery and the remaining oil to the frying pan, stir and fry (5 minutes).

7. Peel the pepper, remove the seeds and stem. Cut into cubes.
Add together with tomato paste to the frying pan, mix and fry (3 minutes).

8. Add finely chopped greens, mix, salt and fry (2 minutes).
Add salt to taste, and then the same amount twice more. It takes me 3 tablespoons of salt. It’s okay that the dressing will be over-salted - it will only be stored better, and the future soup does not need to be re-salted.
All is ready. It took us almost 30 minutes to prepare the soup dressing.

After the dressing has cooled, it can be placed in clean glass jars (mine fits into one liter jar). Fill the centimeter remaining to the edge of the jar with vegetable oil and place the jar in the refrigerator. In this form it will be stored for up to two weeks. If part of the dressing is used, then the top layer in the jar must be coated with oil again.

4. Pesto sauce - prepare, store.

With the advent of this sauce, our family practically stopped adding mayonnaise to all dishes. Now the place of the universal additive is taken by Pesto sauce (“cheese sauce”). In addition to its classic use - when preparing pasta or lasagna, it can act as a salad dressing, added to soups, vegetable stews, meat or mushroom dishes, and simply spread on bread. In general, it’s like mayonnaise, only tastier and healthier.

The almost daily presence of Pesto sauce on our table does not mean that we need to prepare it every day. You just need to know how to store it so that it stays fresh for up to two weeks. A half-liter jar of this sauce is usually enough for this period. I made it once and the refrigerator smells like an Italian restaurant. Homemade sauce is several times cheaper than in stores, and the taste differs favorably. It's quick and easy to prepare - no need to cook, fry or bake anything. I'm telling you.

Pesto
Total and active cooking time - 20 minutes
Cost - 3 $

Ingredients:
. Hard cheese - 200 g. If you have the opportunity to get pecorino cheese (sheep cheese), then use it. If you live in reality, then Parmesan. And if it’s tricky, then any other hard cheese to taste. The taste of the cheese is not so important here - garlic and basil will still be in the foreground.

Nuts - 100 g. If financial resources allow, then pine nuts. But sauce options with walnuts or hazelnuts also have the right to exist. The only warning about walnuts is that they must be fresh, collected no more than 3 months ago (our fresh nuts arrive on the shelves at the end of September and are quite suitable for consumption until February).

I advise you to never buy already packaged walnuts, since they only have a statute of limitations on the very fact of packaging. Old walnuts are bitter and can ruin the entire sauce. It is better to buy in bulk and strictly inquire when the harvest was harvested. Fresh walnut kernels have a light skin. If, despite asking for fresh ones, they try to slip you dark brown or wrinkled nuts, then you have every moral right to be rude to the seller.

Garlic - 4 cloves. In my family, we really love garlic in this sauce, so we exceed this norm by 2 times. But for the first time, try to get by with at least 4 large cloves.
. Olive oil - the amount depends on the thickness of the sauce.

Grate the cheese on a fine grater.
Finely crush the nuts and add to the future sauce.
Mix the cheese with a mixture of garlic, basil and nuts.

You should get a fairly viscous mixture, reminiscent of plasticine. To dilute this mass and add plasticity to it, add olive oil in a thin stream. In this case, the future Pesto sauce must be stirred all the time.

That's it, the Pesto sauce is ready.

To store, transfer it to a clean, dry half-liter jar (tamping tightly), and pour 0.5 cm of olive oil on top. Such an oil cushion, firstly, will prevent the sauce from drying out and spoiling, and secondly, it will reduce the intensity of its smell (I warned you that the refrigerator in which there is a jar of sauce will smell like an Italian restaurant). If the sauce is used, then the oil from the jar must first be drained and then topped up again so that it completely covers the sauce. It can be stored in this form for up to two weeks, but, as a rule, it is eaten even earlier.

5. Bolognese sauce. Cook, freeze and store.

The results of my subsequent experiments with Bolognese sauce showed that, indeed, it not only freezes well, but also tastes no different from freshly prepared. Since then I have been preparing this sauce in large quantities at once. I freeze portions in 200 gram cups. Thanks to such reserves, dinner is prepared almost instantly: while the pasta is cooking, 2 cups of sauce are defrosted in the microwave (for me and my husband). And after 15-20 minutes, not just banal pasta is served for dinner, but Pasta with Bolognese sauce (it sounds!). This sauce can also be the basis for making lasagna, served with potatoes or stewed vegetables.

Bolognese sauce
Total cooking time - 40 minutes
Active cooking time - 25 minutes
Number of servings - the given quantity of products yields seven 200-gram cups.

Ingredients:
. Minced meat - 400 g (beef + pork). Onion - 2 pcs. Garlic - 6 cloves. Mild green pepper - 3 pcs. Tomatoes - 5 pcs (in winter, you can replace them with 3 tablespoons of tomato paste with 1 teaspoon of sugar). Olive oil - 50 ml. Dry wine - 120 ml. Dried basil - 1 tbsp. (in the summer you can use fresh - 1/3 cup chopped). Dried mint - a sprig (usually dried mint is sold in the spice department, but if not there, you can gut a bag of mint tea, which is sold at any pharmacy). Salt to taste.

1. Put the kettle on the fire (boiling water will be needed a little later for blanching the tomatoes).
2. Fry the minced meat in olive oil.

Since you will get quite a lot of sauce, I advise you to cook it either in a large and deep frying pan or in a saucepan with a thick bottom.

3. While the minced meat is fried, finely chop the onion and garlic. Add to the minced meat and fry, stirring constantly.
During this time, we have time to finely chop the green pepper.

4. Peel the tomatoes (this is where we need boiling water) and also chop finely.
When the minced meat begins to brown, add the chopped pepper.

5. After 3 minutes, add tomatoes. Close the lid and simmer everything together for 10 minutes.

6. Add wine, spices and herbs. Stir, cover and simmer for another five minutes, after which the finished sauce can be removed from the heat.
That's it, the Bolognese sauce is ready.

Tip: To freeze, you need to let the sauce cool and only then pour it into plastic glasses. You can store at a temperature of -18C for up to two months (I’m sure it will run out much earlier).