Home Cooking

It’s not really fun to go to the grocery store multiple times each week, but in the Covid-19 world, minimal trips is best.  Learning how to make the most of your food will help you stay at home, prepare more food yourself, and save some money while you’re at it.  Here are five of my currently favorite ways to get the most out of our grocery trips and add variety to our meals.

POTATO SKINS:

I love potato skins.  I used to love the sports bar kind, loaded with cheese and bacon, then topped with a dollop of sour cream and chives.  But…that’s not really my jam any more because I feel food like that for days.  But we eat potato skins quite a bit now.  No real recipe, just a technique with some ideas….

Bake washed and poked potatoes in a 400-degree oven for about an hour, until cooked through.  Place on a cutting board and cut in half.  Allow them to sit and let steam evaporate so you can handle them.  Scoop the insides out into another bowl.  Use those immediately in mashed potatoes, or save in the fridge.

Brush the skins with extra virgin olive oil and a sprinkle of salt and pepper.  Place them back into the oven for 10-20 minutes or until crispy.  Use the broiler if you want to speed up the process!

We top the potato skins with roasted broccoli (it’s a veggie we make almost weekly and always have on hand), and sometimes a little cheese.  Sometimes we just have them plain as a side dish - they make a great substitute for french fries.  *My kids don’t like “potato skins” so I slice them up and tell them they’re french fries and then they eat them.  Go figure?!?!  Sometimes it’s better not to ask…

The potato skins make great side dishes, but I also keep them in the fridge and top with my spinach pesto for snacks, or I’ll put scrambled eggs in them for breakfast.  They can also be cut and put on top of salads throughout the week.

The leftover insides can be cooked into eggs for breakfast, or also used in salads or added to soups during the week.  So many options from one cooking session - these really are my favorite!

VEGETABLE BROTH:

We save every end and inside from vegetables we cut during the week.  We put them into a ziploc bag in the fridge to cook all at once and make our own vegetable broth.  If we don’t make it that week, we transition the bag to the freezer.

My husband uses the Instant Pot to make vegetable broth and I do it the old-fashioned way…I place all the vegetables ends and insides into a large stock pot with cut up lemons and some black peppercorns.  Fill the stock pot with water, bring to a boil, and then simmer slightly covered for about two hours.  Let it come back to room temperature and then run the broth through a colander and package into quart containers.  Freeze without the covers on and once frozen, cover.  Use as needed.    *We use anywhere from 4-8 quarts of broth each month.  When we make our own we save $2.50/quart which is equivalent to a savings of about $120-$240 each year.

BROCCOLI STEMS:

Most people cut off the tops of broccoli and toss the stems.  Just in recent years I realized how much I love the stems!  We save ours and peel if necessary and then sauté either sliced long or short.  It doesn’t matter which way.  They have such a tasty texture to them, they’re wonderful.  They’re great in soups (add when you do onions), as a side dish, or on salads.  I also love them in scrambled eggs.  *You can also pulse (key is pulse, not puree) them in a food processor and then bake in the oven to make broccoli rice.  Mix it in with regular rice if you are nervous and want to adjust to it first.  You can even add to muffins, breads, or meatballs if you want to hide them all together.

CROUTONS:

We’ve been going through sliced bread like no body’s business lately. With everyone home and my kids obsession with peanut butter and jelly, we’re just not used to having sandwiches almost daily.  No one really likes the ends though.  I cut those up into about 1 inch cubes and allow to dry on a cookie sheet.  Then I toss them with a little extra virgin olive oil, salt, pepper, and any fun spices I have on hand.  Oregano and garlic powder make garlic bread croutons…just sayin’.  Bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes.  Check them regularly.  Store in a bag or container and use in salads and soups.

PIZZA DOUGH:

Why oh why have we been relying on store bought pizza dough for so long???  Every Friday night in our house is pizza night.  We make our own. We realized a couple years ago we prefer our own, it’s healthier and doesn’t leave us feeling awful afterwards.  But I was always scared to make my own dough, because, well…there’s yeast and warm water, but what temperature does the water have to be and yeast is scary?!?!  Not really.  I finally put my big girl apron on a few weeks ago and measured out flour, a package of yeast, a touch of sugar, a touch of salt, and tried to get water the exact temperature.  I mixed the dough and let it rise.  It was so much easier than I thought.  The pizza was ok because the dough was ok.  But I was confident I knew how to do it so the next week I tried again.  I measured less, used a different type of flour, and it came out better.

Cut to week three…I didn’t measure anything, used hot water that was warm to the touch, added some herbs to give it some flavor, and used my hands to tell me how much kneading the dough required…Boom!  Our best pizza dough yet.  I also cut it into two balls and let each rise, instead of letting one, massive dough ball form and work with after.  It’s really very simple and aside from yeast (which has been somewhat hard to find lately, but should be readily available now) every ingredient is something already in most kitchens.

Make several dough balls at once.  Freeze them before wrapping them in anything so you can store them easier.  Stretch them out, fill with vegetables, sauces, or some meats and then roll them up into a log.  Slice and bake for easy snacks.  Keep them in the freezer and take out just what you need when you need it.

I hope these tips are helpful and give you some variety while we’re staying at home.  If you want more tips, our Meal Planning Mini course is live and you can complete it in your own timeframe. All videos are less than seven minutes, you have access to the entire Meal Planning Guide, and we break down each section together so you can learn how to use all parts.  If you're a business owner, or manager and you'd like to explore these options for your organization, let us know.  We can customize the offerings so your teams can utilize and learn together.