Day #9: Level Up Your Cooking Skills

This is Day #9 of “25 Days to Healthier Finances”, a series of blog posts where Frugal Pinoy readers and myself work on 1 task a day to make our financial lives better. Please stay tuned for the next installment of this series, which will be up tomorrow.

Here’s today’s installment:

After tweaking your budget in Day #2 of this series, you’ve probably noticed this: food is one of your largest expenditures, if not the largest. This is especially true if you have a family or if you usually eat in restaurants or order takeout.

So to minimize your largest expense, it’s time to learn more effective and affordable cooking.

Today’s Task: Level Up Your Cooking Skills

Note the keywords “level up”. This means that whatever cooking skills you have, take this as an opportunity to improve them. I’ve listed some resources below to help some of you get started.

Note that these are only suggestions. You’re the only one who can decide what you mean by “leveling up”.

For those who are inexperienced with cooking:

• Beginner cooking techniques from ReluctantGourmet.com, and don’t forget to try their basic recipes
• Random cooking tips at Lifetips.com
• Some helpful videos:
  • Tips to crush, chop, and mince garlic cloves
  • How to chop an onion the right way
  • How to measure rice proportions with your finger (which is why it’s funny to me to see foreign cooking shows talking about cups of water and cups of rice) and How to cook rice
  • How to debone a fish from InYourKitchen
    
  • How to portion a chicken from InYourKitchen

If you’re already an advanced cook, why not try to learn the following skills?

• Batch cooking
  • Batch cooking and freezing guide from Netmums.com
  • The Five-day Freeze: Batch cooking for the rest of us from Wisebread
  • A handy freezer storage chart that tells you how long food stays good in a freezer
• Canning and preserving produce - here’s a detailed guide
• Or, simply learn to cook 3 new dishes.

Also, check out The Insider’s Guide to Frugal Food and Fitness at Squawkfox.com. Many of the mentioned ingredients are expensive here, so I’m kind of tempted to write a similar free resource for Filipinos.

Why does this lead to healthier finances? If you’re the type who often resorts to dining out, by learning how to cook more efficiently, you’ll save a lot of money without much hassle. If you’re already experienced with cooking, new skills such as batch cooking and learning how to preserve food can also decrease your expense. Who knows, if you enjoy cooking enough, you might just end up with a small side business.

Image by lusi from sxc.hu

Affordable Solar Power: Looking Beyond Panels

Lately I’ve been thinking about what I can do to lower our energy consumption at home. We don’t have many appliances, but if there’s a way I can lower my bill and lessen my home’s negative impact on the environment, I’d love to try it. This made me consider using solar energy.

When people think about harnessing solar energy, the first thing that comes to mind are photovoltaic panels — but this is hardly the best choice.

Here’s the problem: First of all, most solar panels are not that environment-friendly. Some use a very rare metal called indium, and if we continue to use indium at our current rate, we’ll only have a 10-year supply of it left.

Using solar panels to power your home can also be impractical. You’ll need several modules or panels to produce a workable amount of electricity, not to mention the space to hold them. Plus, they are just too expensive for the average Filipino consumer.

We have to look at solar energy from a different angle, then.

Solar Ovens

One way to utilize solar energy for your home is to build a solar oven. Basically, these ovens run on nothing but the light and heat of the sun. Here are the advantages of doing this:

Read more..

4 Must-Visit Websites for the Frugal Cook

I’ve always loved cooking my own meals at home. Not only is it cheaper, but it’s a great way to bond with your family, experiment with different ingredients, and personalize dishes according to your taste.

If you love cooking just as much as I do, you’ll benefit from checking out the following websites listed below. They prove to be good references whenever I need answers to my storage, preparation, and other cooking questions.

Still Tasty is a website that tells you the shelf life of food items in your house. Apart from telling you the shelf life, you also get some tips on how to store these items properly so you can keep them fresh.

I’ve mentioned Super Cook in the past, but I’m including it on this list because it’s one of the most useful cooking sites out there. Basically, you input the ingredients you have and the site tells you what you can cook with it. It comes in handy during those late night snacks or rainy days where you can’t go out to the grocery.

Want to cook your main meals just once a month? The Freezer Cooking Guide contains the basic things you need to do to plan once a month batch cooking. This site is especially helpful for busy professionals. The guide doesn’t contain recipes though. For those recipes, you can visit the batch cooking section of BigOven.com.

How about you, do you have any frugal cooking sites to share? Please post them in the comments section

Next Page »