Sentry Page Protection
Portion Control and Free Meals
We eat well. We eat healthfully with plenty of fresh vegetables every day, most of them straight from our garden. I treat the meat component of our meals as a side dish and the vegetables the main ingredient. I'm not doing this to be mean, to starve my family or to save money. I'm doing this because that's how we should eat for a healthy diet.
A lovely dietitian at Maroondah Hospital explained it this way: imagine your dinner plate with a line drawn down the centre. One half should be filled with lots of lovely fresh vegetables. Then imagine the other side should be divided into two equal sections. One portion is your meat/poultry/fish and the other is your carbohydrate (potatoes, rice, pasta etc.). You'll see that the meat is indeed a side dish and not the main event.
Ever since, meat has been a side dish or an accompaniment to our meals. I did a meat shop last week, a couple of weeks early (it wasn't due until June) because the local butchers have had some sensational specials.
I spent $162.13 and we have 12 mince meals, 4 casserole meals, 2 meals of chicken legs, 15 meals of chicken fillets, 3 whole chickens, 1 meal of lamb burgers (I've never had them before and they were marked down to $1.50 for the packet of 10), 2 meals of sausages (again, marked down to $1.50 a packet) and 2 pieces of roasting beef (marked down to $6.99 each) plus 1 roast, 2 packets of single chicken fillets, 2 packets of chicken tenders and 2 packets of 300g of mince for our camping trip in June.
That's a total of 48 meals at $3.86 per meal for the meat/poultry component.
Actually it will be less because some of those quantities will do more than one meal i.e. the roast beef. When I do a roast we all have the meat with baked veggies, steamed greens and gravy. I use the electric knife to slice the meat into neat slices and we all have two (Hannah and I like the smaller slices at the end, the boys of course like the larger slices toward the centre of the roast).
The remaining meat is sliced and then frozen to use in other meals.
It may be another roast dinner (in which case the meat is frozen in gravy ready to heat and server).
It might be minced to make rissoles or a cottage pie.
I might shred it to use in Sloppy Joes or pasta sauce.
Sometimes I dice it to use in a quick stew, stroganoff or beef and barley soup.
When I roast a chicken it stretches even further.
We have roast chicken with baked veggies, steamed greens and gravy on a Sunday night (we always have a roast on a Sunday).
Then the remaining meat is frozen to use in chicken pie, sweet'n'sour chicken, curried chicken, chicken casserole or a stir-fry or made into nuggets. Then the carcass is used to make stock which can be used to make soup or to cook rice or pasta or make wonderful gravy. Whole chicken is a very economical meal when you practise portion control and use the whole chicken.
By treating the "leftover" meat or chicken from a roast as another meal I can bring down the average cost per meal for meat or chicken. This shop I bought enough meat and chicken for 48 meals. By using the leftovers for other meals I will actually get at least six additional meals, giving me 54 meals and bringing the cost per meal for meat down to $3.
I can get that cost down even lower by not wasting the extra serves in each recipe. We are a family of 5 so my recipes are either six serves or eight serves, leaving either one or three serves spare for each meal. When I am dishing up those spare serves are put straight into freezer containers and frozen.
They become my freezer stash of free meals and another way to save money. When the "I-can't-be-bothereds" strike or I'm particularly busy or everyone is in and out at odd times or just any reason really, we don't need to ring for pizza. We can open the freezer and each choose whatever we'd like to eat from the freezer meals. Straight away at least $25 has been saved because we're not getting pizza delivered.
Remembering this, counting the number of meals or portions you need each time you shop and then making sure you stick to those numbers will not only help you get your grocery bill down, it will keep you healthier too.
A lovely dietitian at Maroondah Hospital explained it this way: imagine your dinner plate with a line drawn down the centre. One half should be filled with lots of lovely fresh vegetables. Then imagine the other side should be divided into two equal sections. One portion is your meat/poultry/fish and the other is your carbohydrate (potatoes, rice, pasta etc.). You'll see that the meat is indeed a side dish and not the main event.
Ever since, meat has been a side dish or an accompaniment to our meals. I did a meat shop last week, a couple of weeks early (it wasn't due until June) because the local butchers have had some sensational specials.
I spent $162.13 and we have 12 mince meals, 4 casserole meals, 2 meals of chicken legs, 15 meals of chicken fillets, 3 whole chickens, 1 meal of lamb burgers (I've never had them before and they were marked down to $1.50 for the packet of 10), 2 meals of sausages (again, marked down to $1.50 a packet) and 2 pieces of roasting beef (marked down to $6.99 each) plus 1 roast, 2 packets of single chicken fillets, 2 packets of chicken tenders and 2 packets of 300g of mince for our camping trip in June.
That's a total of 48 meals at $3.86 per meal for the meat/poultry component.
Actually it will be less because some of those quantities will do more than one meal i.e. the roast beef. When I do a roast we all have the meat with baked veggies, steamed greens and gravy. I use the electric knife to slice the meat into neat slices and we all have two (Hannah and I like the smaller slices at the end, the boys of course like the larger slices toward the centre of the roast).
The remaining meat is sliced and then frozen to use in other meals.
It may be another roast dinner (in which case the meat is frozen in gravy ready to heat and server).
It might be minced to make rissoles or a cottage pie.
I might shred it to use in Sloppy Joes or pasta sauce.
Sometimes I dice it to use in a quick stew, stroganoff or beef and barley soup.
When I roast a chicken it stretches even further.
We have roast chicken with baked veggies, steamed greens and gravy on a Sunday night (we always have a roast on a Sunday).
Then the remaining meat is frozen to use in chicken pie, sweet'n'sour chicken, curried chicken, chicken casserole or a stir-fry or made into nuggets. Then the carcass is used to make stock which can be used to make soup or to cook rice or pasta or make wonderful gravy. Whole chicken is a very economical meal when you practise portion control and use the whole chicken.
By treating the "leftover" meat or chicken from a roast as another meal I can bring down the average cost per meal for meat or chicken. This shop I bought enough meat and chicken for 48 meals. By using the leftovers for other meals I will actually get at least six additional meals, giving me 54 meals and bringing the cost per meal for meat down to $3.
I can get that cost down even lower by not wasting the extra serves in each recipe. We are a family of 5 so my recipes are either six serves or eight serves, leaving either one or three serves spare for each meal. When I am dishing up those spare serves are put straight into freezer containers and frozen.
They become my freezer stash of free meals and another way to save money. When the "I-can't-be-bothereds" strike or I'm particularly busy or everyone is in and out at odd times or just any reason really, we don't need to ring for pizza. We can open the freezer and each choose whatever we'd like to eat from the freezer meals. Straight away at least $25 has been saved because we're not getting pizza delivered.
Remembering this, counting the number of meals or portions you need each time you shop and then making sure you stick to those numbers will not only help you get your grocery bill down, it will keep you healthier too.
Related Articles |