If you are single, and frugal

[kozar]

Try this.
I watch for Subway BOGOs , but I’m alone now. That’s too much food. I’m a sandwich guy.

I order the first sandwich, fully dressed, that’s 2 meals for me.

The 2nd, I order “dry” I have mayo, I have vinaigrette, I have mustards. Everything they want to put on.

A 1foot piece of foil, take the top off the sandwich, turn sandwich over, the good stuff , goes to the foil, that goes in fridge, the bread, goes into a ziplock, on shelf.
And tomorrow, toss the fillings in microwave, put the bread in the toaster, on low,

And reassemble, your next 2 meals!
4 meals for 12 bucks.

Koz

[elleng]

1. Good approach, Koz.

[Marthe48]

2. Terrific idea!

When I baked and frosted cakes, I'd use a 9x13 pan and frost the cake. If I wanted to pack pieces for lunches, I'd cut them, them slice them in 1/2 and flip the frosted side over to make a cake sandwich. Saved a lot of the frosting from sticking to the wrap

[brewens]

3. I'm a homemade whole foods fanatic. I cook and bake everything from scratch if I can. I'll be buying

two turkeys here in a couple weeks. I do one for the holidays and one in late spring. All for myself. I have turkey dinners, turkey sandwiches and turkey noodles with homemade noodles year around.

[MOMFUDSKI]

5. I am a homemade freak myself. I have a

question. Do you think the butcher at the supermarket would be able to cut a frozen turkey in half? I will ask next time I am in the store. Would love to make the whole turkey dinner but a whole turkey is too much for us. Will post how hard the butcher laughed!

[kozar]

7. To reply, uhmm

Last time I actually cooked a turkey dinner, I talked to butcher, and asked for, as MrsK used to tell me,

A Volkswagen, I bought huge turkeys!
Last year , when LilBit and I were here, I just bought a big chicken, prepared it as always, and we ate.
Now, I’m just to sandwiches. Nothing mentally, I had weight loss surgery 11 years ago.
I can only eat, a half a foot long at a time, or 1 burger, or 1 chicken thigh, etc.


Koz

[zeusdogmom]

9. You could get a turkey breast instead

Or cook the whole turkey and create a bunch of freezer meals with the yummy leftovers. Plus a wonderful turkey soup with the carcass. Which means more freezer meals!

I have also purchased the whole turkey, thawed it, finished the butchering ie cut it into parts - breast or half breast, 2 thighs, 2 legs. Individually freeze the parts. Soup with bones and left over bits of meat. I generally pressure can the soup so all I have to do is open the jar, heat the contents, cook some noodles - an almost instant meal.

FWIW - I am cooking for one person only - me.

[brewens]

10. I used to buy a lot of canned soup and chili. Buying whole turkeys, hams and chickens gets me

five-star soup you can't buy in a store. To me that makes turkey, ham and chicken almost free. Just takes a little work.

My chili isn't so much cost effective because of what goes into it, but so much better and lower in calories.

[zeusdogmom]

12. Totally agree

If one can cook from scratch it is a win win in almost every aspect. I will admit it takes time, space, etc. And not everyone enjoys the process of food prep. But the results a so worth it.

Confession time however - I really like Campbell’s tomato soup - with fake orange cheddar fish crackers floating in it. 😋.

[kozar]

11. Uhmm

I live in a camper, I don’t buy full anything, anymore.because a camper freezer won’t hold a full anything. Guess I have to put my full life story, before I post anything. Ty for your response and snarkiness, “I cook for 1 only”

I’m just,

Koz

[LisaM]

6. I get a lot of mileage out of a chicken or turkey.

After everything else is done, I cook the bones for 10-14 hours to get bone broth. I often save the cut up ends of carrots, celery, and onions and throw them in the freezer and then stick those into the pot too. They don't need to look pretty, since it's all being drained off anyway.

[kozar]

8. I would do same

But my stomach seems to tire from poultry , quickly. So I tend to go towards, beef , never pork,of course. And vegan dishes, black beans, seem to make stomach happy



Koz

[Polly Hennessey]

4. Koz, every penny counts.

I can picture you enjoying every last bite of that sandwich. 😋

[Old Crank]

13. Nice hints

Should work well if you need to make sandwiches a day early for serving. Wait and add the condiments just before serving.

[Ziggysmom]

14. Great money saving idea! Nothing worse than saving a sub in the fridge and it gets the

bread all soggy. I can't eat as much as I did when younger, often needing to split meals.

Thanks for the tip, Koz!

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

15. Interesting suggestion.

I likewise live alone, cook for one, and have to pay attention to the leftovers.

What's nice is that my actual food costs, especially per meal, are remarkably low for the most part. I recently made a chicken soup I call Chicken of Muchness. Using 2 chicken leg quarters, a whole lot of carrots, a small to medium sized onion, a can of small diced tomatoes and one of crushed tomatoes, plus chicken broth and various spices, I wound up with something like ten meals. All for perhaps a total of $10.00. Not bad.

[kozar]

16. Nice!

I may try this recipe, there are times I would just like , some soup.
I’m learning how to BUY food cheaper, as far as cooking, that’s a bit of a problem still for me. To just cook for me. I guess, I just spent so many years, cooking for MrsK, LilBit, and whoever else happened to drop in, just having trouble adjusting to the new thought process.
But I could never make 10 meals at once, because, camper freezers don’t even hold 10 ice cubes, much less meals!!

Koz

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

17. Depending on your space at home,

perhaps you could purchase a small freezer. Wait -- camper freezer? Do you live in a camper?

I have the good fortune to have had an extra fridge in my garage when I bought this place. I almost never use the fridge part, but the freezer part is wonderful, even though it's a standard, average size fridge with freezer.

Here's something I learned from working in the kitchen at a homeless shelter: label and date EVERYTHING. I note when I made something and when I froze it. A couple of months ago I tossed out a bunch of stuff that I'd bought at the beginning of the Pandemic and never got around to using. The labelling and dating was very helpful.

[kozar]

18. Yes, I live full time in a camper,

No room for any freezer, which is part of what I’m learning now, I’m used to “batch cooking” also.
What I’m trying to wrap my head around, is,
Who’s gonna eat the batch? So look at your soup thing, and now , I gotta do algebra!! (10 meals divided by 1.5 divided by freezer space= 1/8th of a carrot?) lol

Hope you know , you made me smile,hope you smiled too.
Thank you for the recipe, I’ll figure it out.

Koz

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

19. That's a very different world.

When I recently made Chicken of Muchness and got ten servings to freeze, I used two good-sized chicken leg quarters. If you did only one, and ramped down the other ingredients it might possibly work for you.

Again, carrots, onion, cinnamon stick, bay leaf, chicken broth (I use the cubes), tarragon, celery seed, marjoram, and thyme. Also a can of either diced tomato or crushed tomato. To make the small amount you want to make, you can only use one can. The larger amount I make I typically have one of each. I'd suggest going with the crushed tomato.

Boil the chicken. You really ought to skim off the crud that comes up in the first fifteen or so minutes of the boiling. Once that's done, put in cinammon stick (one or perhaps two for the small amount) and a bay leaf or two as well as a couple or three carrots. I LOVE carrots, so my version is heavy on carrots. Let simmer for an hour or two. Take out the chicken to cool. I break it apart a bit here to speed up the cooling down. Chop some onion. Sometimes I sautee the onion, sometimes not. Go with what you like. Cut up the carrots. Open the can of whatever tomatoes, and dump them in the pot. Take the chicken off the bone. This is the least fun part. You'll get your fingers all yucky, but you have to do this by hand so you only get chicken mean and not any of the other gross stuff into the soup.

Now I make a roux (butter, flour, cooked for a couple or three minutes) then add another cup (perhaps for the smaller amount you want to make, a half cup) of chicken broth. Let it thicken. Then pour into the soup pot that already has everything else, including the other herbs. A bit of pepper, if you'd like. The chicken broth cubes are already somewhat salty, so I don't add salt at this point.

I used to always fix rice to make this a chicken and rice soup, but lately I've dispensed with the rice. I suppose you could consider noodles, but I doubt I would.

The important thing about the flavor is that the cinnamon is by far the strongest flavor. This makes it completely different from any other kind of chicken soup out there. I actually adapted this recipe over several decades from an original Middle Eastern recipe I long since no longer have the original of.

Let me know if you make this. It's one of my personal favorite foods. Making a batch is somewhat time consuming, but since I have good freezer space, it's worthwhile.

Poindexter.