How to feed a family. Business woman in the kitchen: how to feed the family with healthy food

Known Rules
You need to buy groceries in shopping centers for a week at once. Make a list of products, follow it clearly and without concessions. For two trips to the store on Sundays, you can easily determine what is usually included in the weekly diet. Thus, you can avoid temptations and not buy delicacies that neither your wallet nor your stomach needs. You need to go to the store with a certain amount.

Now about the meat
Women are used to buying ready-made semi-finished products in the store due to their employment. There are a lot of flavors, preservatives, vegetable proteins in store-bought semi-finished products, and high-quality semi-finished products are very expensive. Do not be surprised, but it will be cheaper to buy fresh meat in a trusted store or on the market, spend 30 minutes of your time on a day off, make meatballs, cabbage rolls, meatballs, dumplings from cooked homemade minced meat and fill the freezer with them. Enough for the next month. And if you add the same amount of minced chicken to minced meat, then this will make the minced meat tastier and more tender and reduce its cost.

Chicken
For our convenience, chicken breasts, legs, thighs and drumsticks are sold separately in stores. Brought from the store - and in a frying pan. And you take and buy several broiler chickens and whole chickens in the nearest supermarket and butcher them yourself at home. Then approximately 20% of the cost will remain in your wallet. Remember, before you throw them in the freezer, sort and arrange the already cut chicken into bags. On each bag, write what is in the bag, the date of the package will tell you when to cook the chicken. When baked, chicken thighs and wings are very tasty, fillets will go to main courses, drumsticks go to soup, and chicken backs, unnecessary and bony, will make a rich and fragrant chicken broth.

Soups
It is not necessary to cook soup from a whole piece of meat, let's remember how grandmothers cooked soups. We will buy pork or beef bones and add boiled chicken meat to the broth we have prepared. The soup will be rich and will not yield to meat broth in taste. The same method can be applied to stewed cabbage, potatoes, pilaf. If you add a small amount of lamb, beef or pork to chicken fillet, this will improve the taste of the cooked dish. It will turn out as if a dish was prepared from one kilogram of pure meat.

Fish
It is cheaper than meat, of course, if it is not trout, salmon or salmon. And the body will bring considerable benefits in the form of minerals and protein. From white inexpensive fish - hake, haddock, pollock, cod, you can cook fish cakes and fish sticks. Do not bypass pink salmon, it will replace steaks from expensive Norwegian salmon. Preserves, which are bought because of saving time and convenience, can be easily made from mackerel or herring yourself, having previously bought frozen fresh fish.

As a side dish for homemade cutlets, in addition to common potatoes and pasta, you can serve legumes or cereals. For variety, you can cook a side dish of vegetables. Cabbage in all its forms goes well with meat. All vegetables are purchased in season. It is profitable to buy beets, onions, potatoes in autumn at the bazaars. These vegetables can be stocked up for a whole year. From radishes, carrots, beets, cabbage, you can cook unusual and delicious salads, they will become a real decoration on the festive table. How many vitamins do they contain?

In the season you need to buy fruits and berries, during their ripening they have more vitamins. In summer and autumn, you can make jam from berries, then you don’t have to spend money on imported jams and jams. Some berries can be frozen in the refrigerator. From them you can cook kissels and compotes, which will enrich the diet with vitamins. Frozen berries are good to put in sweet pastries. A pie with raspberries or cherries will bring the whole family together for evening tea. These few principles of housekeeping and grocery shopping will bring significant savings to your family budget.

Naturally, every family has its own rules, tastes, and everyone acts as he pleases. But some of these tips, which are not invented, but tested on myself, may be useful to someone.

When the family is big, the question “what to cook today” becomes a daily survival quest. We have selected simple dishes that will feed the whole family - and cooking will take almost no time from you.

Dough for all occasions

The recipe is suitable for vegetarians, because. does not contain eggs.

Water and milk (kefir, yogurt) - 1 glass each
Yeast - 1 sachet
Sugar - 2 tbsp. l.
Salt - half a teaspoon
Flour - 1 kg.
Vegetable oil - half a glass
Vinegar - 1 tbsp. l.

Dissolve sugar in a glass of hot water, add milk.
Pour yeast, salt and about 300 gr. flour. Stir with a fork - you should get the dough, as for pancakes. Leave for at least half an hour - the volume should begin to increase. (You can leave up to three hours).
In the risen dough, add vinegar, flour and vegetable oil in small portions - how much the dough will “take”.
Knead the dough, and then grease the surface with oil. Let rise once.

The dough can be used for pies and pies with sweet or savory fillings, make croissants from it, or even bake homemade bread (be sure to let the finished rolls rise in a warm place in this case).

Ragout from what is

The basis of this dish is any meat, if everyone eats it. Otherwise, the meat is stewed separately and mixed with the main dish just before serving.

Meat - depending on the number of eaters
Bulb, carrot - 1 pc. for sautéing
Vegetables - what are in the house (look to combine with each other, you can use a good freeze): potatoes, zucchini, pumpkin, mushrooms, cabbage.

Saute half of the carrots and onions, add the meat, chopped into small cubes and fry.
Pour plenty of water, salt and cook for a long time (up to one and a half hours). Remove the foam periodically.
Add pepper, spices to taste and a tablespoon of vinegar - this will help even the toughest beef become softer, vinegar does not affect the taste of the finished dish.

If there are not enough vegetables, you can add small soup vermicelli, mix and remove from heat. Let it brew for 10 minutes.

Very fast cake "Banoffipie"

Dry oatmeal - 1 cup
Dried fruits (prunes, dried apricots) - 300 gr.
Nuts - 100 gr.
Baby puree (or fruit) - 1 cup.
Soft cottage cheese - 1 pack
Bananas - 2 pcs. Whipped cream - optional

The basis:

Toast the oatmeal in a dry frying pan until golden brown.
Grind oatmeal with dried apricots, prunes, any nuts in a blender.
The resulting mass is tightly packed with a glass on the bottom of the mold, put in the refrigerator. (for the base, you can simply grind the finished oatmeal cookies).

Caramel:

Mix fruit puree with soft cottage cheese or yogurt in half, add a pinch of cinnamon and honey to taste, apply to the base. Cut bananas into slices and spread evenly over caramel.

Topping:

Spread whipped cream on top of the cake (if desired, replace with “half yogurt with sugar”)

Life hack for desserts: it saves a lot to store a ready-made biscuit in the freezer - for example, chocolate. If you urgently need a dessert, you can crumble the biscuit into the base and tamp it down. Make the filling from whipped cottage cheese with cream in half (if you have at least an hour in stock, you can add gelatin). Decorate with fruit on top - you get an amazing cheesecake.

Soup puree of anything

The basis:

Any vegetables (one or two, how many species there are) are boiled in chicken or vegetable broth.
Punch soft vegetables with a blender.
Next, add a glass of cream or full-fat regular or soy milk, egg yolk, grated cheese - yellow or blue. Bring to a boil, season with salt.

Serve with meatballs, fried chicken pieces, or croutons fried until golden brown.

Pilaf in a saucepan

½ kg of any meat
½ kg of rice Onion - two large heads
Carrots - 2 pcs.
Vegetables - optional, up to ½ kg, you can do without them at all
Garlic - 1 head
Oil for frying
Salt, spices - to taste

Pour boiling water over rice, leave for at least an hour.
In a frying pan, fry the onion in coal in hot oil, send the carrots chopped into cubes there, and fry another onion in the same place until golden brown.
Add any meat cut into pieces - you can mix (beef + chicken, chicken + pork), fry until golden brown.
Put the meat in a saucepan with a thick bottom, pour rice on top, add water - so that it is two fingers from the top along the wall.
Salt, put a whole head of garlic (completely), add spices, cover.
Keep the fire to a minimum. At the end of the “boiling” of water, add two tomatoes, whipped in mashed potatoes with a glass of water. Stir, leave covered for half an hour.

Regardless of our income, we are all tightening our belts when it comes to our refrigerators. One third of all food worldwide is wasted in production and consumption systems. Using these losses, you can save money for other needs of your family, creating new nutritional standards, maintaining physical health and family time.

Steps

Preparing for Success

Make lists and don't over-buy. When you go shopping, don't bring anyone with you who might get in the way of following the list.

Set a budget. Take only cash with you and leave your cards at home. If you have a limited amount of money, then only you can spend it. Grocery stores often try to add a few extra items to your cart; it is very easy to be tempted to do so. With a limited amount of cash, you can stay within your budget.

Plan ahead with the whole family. Think about how much you can afford to spend and what you don't need to spend on. Consider the options that are most attractive to your family and try to find a balance between them. Compromise is the key to changing your buying habits.

Look for sale ads. It may seem counterintuitive to shop well in advance of cooking, but you'll save more if you plan your meals around what's on sale. If something interesting comes up on sale for a great price but you don't know what to make, look for new and exciting recipes for you and your family.

Cut/print coupons. Look for coupons for groceries in newspapers and on the Internet on special websites that cover the latest promotions in the food industry.

Shop less and save more. Try to limit yourself to one productive shopping trip per week. This will give you enough time to make a list, check out the available products and collect coupons. The more you take care of your future while shopping, the more money you'll save, as well as time and energy, because you won't be able (or won't want to) buy another "one extra thing".

Go to several shops. Some stores offer better prices for eggs, milk and cheese than others. Others may have the best prices on toilet paper, while your favorite vegetable stand offers the best prices of any other fruit and vegetable vendor in your area. Do your research and ask your friends about their personal experiences with saving.

Take advantage of each store, but remember to take into account the distance between them. It makes no sense to save on toilet paper if you spend more on gas.

Track your expenses. Control how much you spend at the grocery store. This way you will keep your budget under control. Don't throw away checks. Save them to avoid unnecessary expenses in the future!

Cook at home with the family

Cooking together with your children will awaken their interest in healthy food. Although childhood love of snacking will still remain, the most important thing is how they eat most of the time.

Bake bread yourself with your loved ones. Bread is fun and easy to make at home, you only need a few simple ingredients. Look for recipes and involve your loved ones. So you save money, and your house will be filled with the wonderful aroma of freshly baked bread!

Prepare large meals such as stews, soups, casseroles and so on. Meals that you can eat for a week will ease the load. You don't have to think about what to cook for dinner. Dinner will be ready.

Expand your horizons! Some cuisines, such as Mexican, Peruvian and Italian, use inexpensive ingredients to feed large families and communities. Introduce your family to other cuisines and take the opportunity to explore new places.

Cook with cheaper meat. The right gravy or the right sauce can turn a less expensive cut of meat into an unexpectedly fantastic dish. Just keep in mind that some tenderloins tend to be tougher than others when cooked, so consider cooking in a slow cooker (you can buy a new one or a cheaper used one) to add more flavor to the dish.

Try to have a fast day once a week. Cooking with vegetables and grains is cheaper without meat and is also a great experiment. Such meals are good for the health of your family, your wallet and the environment.

I do not understand why children must unconditionally love all that will be them suggested for lunch or dinner. We forgive an adult that he does not eat oysters, or salty watermelons, or macaroons. No matter how hard I try to convince children that broccoli is insanely healthy, and zucchini is amazingly tasty, they will not believe it. It is better to take a wait-and-see position: do not impose and do not press. This usually works - sooner or later priorities change, the range of flavors expands, and the hated broccoli becomes a favorite side dish, and zucchini pancakes are a wonderful afternoon snack.

Big family and small portions

Mothers of many children have to deal with one stereotype: a bucket of food prepared for a week is an image that has become entrenched in the minds of the majority. This ever-boiling pan of the day before yesterday's borscht could become my nightmare if I didn't have a sense of humor. In fact, everything is different. I cook in small batches and solve problems as they come up. I must say right away: all this is possible only due to the fact that I myself do not buy products. This task lies with the head of the family, and he copes with it brilliantly.

In practice, it looks like this. I rarely start such solid dishes as hodgepodge or aspic. Pretty much everything I do is cooked quickly, very quickly, or on its own. There are household appliances for this: a blender, a mixer, a sensitive and obedient oven. You can bake in it, for example, a good piece of pork ham. I spend no more than 10 minutes manipulating the meat: salt, season with paprika, garlic, thyme and bay leaves, wrap tightly with a double layer of baking paper and put in the oven, preheated to 150 ° C.

You don’t need to do anything else - after 3.5 hours a signal will sound that the wonderful pork is ready. When cooled, it can be cut into thin slices and used for breakfast sandwiches. You can also bake a whole chicken, take it apart into small pieces and use it in a salad with couscous, raisins and pistachios, stuff pancakes with it, or hide it in rolls of thin pita bread spread with curd cheese, along with vegetables and finely chopped herbs.

What else can you do ahead of time?

What can be done in advance, of course, is better done in advance. For example, beat off the turkey fillet and put it in the refrigerator in an airtight container. Or prepare minced meat for hamburgers, meatballs or cutlets. Remove the fish from the freezer and defrost properly, without haste, on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator. Be sure to cook soup or, more precisely, two soups, no more than 1.5-2 liters each. This is not at all because I am so kind, but simply so that the “refuseniks” still eat: if not mushroom soup, then lentil, not minestrone, then pumpkin.

Children are always happy with jelly or compote. It is also better to cook them in the morning so that by dinner they " reached". In between, you can bake muffins, a chocolate muffin, or just a little bit - just one baking sheet - cookies. After all, it is possible that someone will want sweets or need consolation: children's life is not an easy thing. All these operations take no more than one and a half to two hours, so there is a lot of free time before the start of active actions caused by the return of children home.

How to diversify standards

Fanaticism is not worth it. It is ridiculous to cook each individual handful of rice. But to make from pre-cooked rice individual puzzle- it's exciting.

Puzzle #1: vegetables ( e.g. red bell peppers, stalked celery, carrots, garlic, spinach, mushrooms), sliced and quickly fried in a wok in olive oil, + rice - for two vegetarians. 15 minutes!
Puzzle #2: chicken breast cut into narrow strips + vegetables, also quickly fried in a wok, + rice.
Puzzle #3: shrimp, the same wok, a drop of sesame oil, lemon, garlic + rice.

Likewise with pasta. Cook a pack of penne, spaghetti or fusilli - 15 minutes, then pasta with mussels, tomato sauce, bacon and cheese and cream sauce, with tuna. Each option takes another 10 minutes - you don’t even have time to get tired.

Afternoon and dinner

Ossetian pies, khachapuri, pizza or kulebyaka with fish, spinach, mushrooms and rice are perfect for a snack between lunch and dinner. If after dinner I put yeast dough, it just comes to the condition by this time. I knead the dough from two kilograms of flour and immediately put half of it in the refrigerator in a tightly closed bag. There it approaches very slowly, not having time to peroxide, and by the next day it acquires a different taste and structure.

From such a slow» dough can be baked bread sticks sprinkled with seeds and oatmeal, deep-fried potato patties, or rolled out thinly in a round pizza dish, topped tightly like a tile, covered with apple slices, sprinkled with almonds and powdered sugar, or poured with maple syrup. At an oven temperature of 200 ° C, the cake is baked in 15-20 minutes. For a greater effect, it’s nice to turn on the oven for a couple of minutes in grill mode - then an appetizing crust appears around the edges of the apple slices.

Dinner children always with an enviable appetite - they will never refuse scrambled eggs or scrambled eggs, pasta salad and baked vegetables or cottage cheese casserole with canned pineapples, raisins or peaches.

Most likely, my tactics are flawed. We rarely sit down at the table with the whole family. In my defense, I can say one thing: in our village house there is a specially ordered table, at which everyone is placed. And behind it is very fun and tasty.

And the kitchen is our island. An island of trust, secrets, conversations, decision making. I love it and we are never bored.

Our heroines have proven that, while pursuing a career, you can remain an exemplary housewife and cook for your family quickly, tasty and healthy!

Experts

Mikhail Zeigarnik
Candidate of Medical Sciences, Chief Physician of the Clinic "Nutrition and Health"

Menu from farm products

Who?Elena Korneeva, translator, 35 years old:"We buy exactly what we need, and thanks to a clear menu, it takes little time to cook."

What? Our family has completely switched to natural farm products. At the same time, we systematized the preparation of food, starting to draw up a menu for the week. Thus, we buy exactly as much food as we need, and it takes little time to cook.

Why? We, like everyone else, bought food in supermarkets. But one day I noticed that we don’t eat about a third of the products, but throw them away. We bought too much of something, and it spoiled, something turned out to be unnecessary, because we did not know in advance what we would cook. Often, through inattention, they took food on the verge of expiration date, and then the meat smelling of potassium permanganate did not inspire confidence and ended up in the trash can. And then I thought - maybe it's worth buying less, but focusing on better products?

How? When we first went to the farmers' website, their products seemed insanely expensive. Eggs are twice as expensive as store-bought ones, potatoes are three times more expensive. It even became interesting why there was such a difference, and at the weekend we went to the farm to get to know each other. We saw the production with our own eyes, bought some products for testing. It turned out that if you know the person who grew this tomato and trust him, then the perception of food changes completely. The process of eating ceases to be a mere assimilation of calories, you begin to enjoy the taste.

In order not to go broke, we decided to make a clear menu for the week. I used to go home and wonder what to cook, I didn’t remember exactly what was in the refrigerator. I had to go to the store and pick up a cart. And at home it turned out that there were already two cans of sour cream in the refrigerator, but not enough oil. Now we sit down at the table with my husband and daughter once a week, write a list of desired dishes, then we buy products for them - what we need, and not what they want to sell us. I do not waste time shopping, and after work I spend 30-40 minutes at the stove - and I have dinner ready. Sometimes I cook for two days. Our usual breakfast is porridge, eggs, pancakes, sandwiches or cottage cheese. Be sure to buy kefir and ryazhenka. We dine at home together only on weekends. I cook soup and a second course for two days at a time. I make salads according to the season, in winter and spring these are root crops and pickles. For the second, we usually have meat or fish with a side dish. On weekends I bake apple pie or cottage cheese cookies, and homemade compote.

Bonus! It turned out that if you buy the products necessary for specific dishes from farmers, then it is quite possible to meet the same money that we left in the supermarket. Meals for a family of three cost us 10,000 rubles a week - quite a typical amount for Moscow. But we have become much tastier and better to eat: chicken broth smells like chicken, and there is a spoon in sour cream.

Menu for the week from Elena

MONDAY

Breakfast: Oatmeal with jam, herbal tea with sandwiches

Dinner: Chicken noodle soup, cod with potatoes, baked in the oven

Dinner: T reska with potatoes baked in the oven

TUESDAY

Breakfast: Curd with dried fruits

Dinner : Chicken noodle soup, beef cutlets with stewed cabbage

Dinner: Boiled chicken and cheese salad

WEDNESDAY

Breakfast: Omelet with sausage and cheese

Dinner: Vinaigrette, beef cutlets with mashed potatoes

Dinner: Beef stroganoff with buckwheat

THURSDAY

Breakfast: Oatmeal with dried fruits and sandwiches with cheese or doctor's sausage

Dinner: Vinaigrette, pumpkin gratin with cheese and veal

Dinner: Beef stroganoff with buckwheat

FRIDAY

Breakfast: Cheesecakes with sour cream

Dinner: Vinaigrette, pumpkin gratin with cheese and veal

Dinner: Seasonal vegetable salad, pumpkin and parsnip pancakes with sour cream

SATURDAY

Breakfast: Buckwheat porridge with milk

Dinner - walking in a cafe

Dinner: Cottage cheese casserole with sour cream

SUNDAY

Breakfast: Pancakes with jam

Dinner: Daily cabbage soup from sauerkraut, herring under a fur coat

Dinner: Baked chicken with apples. Garnish with baked root vegetables: potatoes, parsnips, scorzonera.

Expert comment:

I have no complaints about this approach of the heroine: if the family's income allows and there is easy access to farm products, I'm all for it. The diet proposed by Elena looks quite balanced and can even be called varied (taking into account the fact that employment does not allow her to cook different dishes every day - there is nothing wrong with repetitions). The only “but”: if anyone in the family has a tendency to be overweight, then it can manifest itself, since the diet has a lot of carbohydrates (root vegetables, potatoes, bread) and fats (butter, cheese, sour cream, cottage cheese). But if such a problem is not worth it, then continue in the same spirit. Elena very correctly said that food should not be a simple assimilation of calories, you should enjoy the taste.

Freeze for future use

Who? Ekaterina Sukhova, company manager, 40 years old: “The essence of the strategy is to cook only once or twice a month, followed by heating the finished dishes in the microwave or oven.”

What? I make preparations for a month according to the freezing cooking system, which is quite common in the West. I do not buy semi-finished products in the store, but I make them myself. And in the evening I need a maximum of 30 minutes to bring a frozen dish to readiness.

Why? I naively thought that I would be able to combine a leadership position with household chores, but in reality this did not work out. I hired a cleaning lady, a nanny for my youngest son, but I decided to leave cooking for the family to myself, because I really like to cook and take into account the tastes of each family member. True, due to traffic jams, I return home at best by 9 pm. If you still need to drop by for groceries and stand for an hour at the stove, there is no time left for life at all. As a result, I was left exhausted, and my hungry family ate sandwiches with sausage. Then I found a master class on preparing dishes for the future. There are some nuances, so it is better to study everything thoroughly.

How? The essence of the strategy is to cook only once or twice a month, followed by heating the finished dishes in the microwave or oven. A radical option is to cook your favorite dishes from start to finish and freeze. Then the children will be able to heat up the food themselves. A simplified version is the primary processing of products and the manufacture of semi-finished products. It is enough to allocate one or two days for work. We cook with the whole family, and my mother also comes to help. We freeze boiled vegetables, dumplings, stuffed pancakes, casseroles, turkey cutlets, meat hedgehogs, cabbage rolls, a mixture of grated carrots and chopped onions, tomatoes, fish dishes, dishes with rice and mushrooms, etc. In the evening, I put vegetables in one pan and cutlets in another. Food is on the table in 15 minutes!

By the way, useful semi-finished products can not only be cooked, but also bought. Supermarkets sell boiled and already peeled vegetables in vacuum packaging - they can be stored for months. Boiled cereals are perfectly stored in the refrigerator for four to five days. I keep rice, buckwheat, lentils in containers - they can be added to salads or eaten as a side dish.

Bonus! Of course, it is important to have a spacious freezer, portioned dishes suitable for a microwave oven. And indeed, not all dishes can be frozen without losing their taste. Nevertheless, the strategy is working. I am very pleased that I was able to find a clever way that allows me to feed my family with delicious homemade food while I am busy.

What can be frozen:

meat broth (used to make soups and sauces)
boiled meat (in a vacuum container; you can make sandwiches with it, add it to salads, or just warm it up and eat it)
boiled beans, rice, peeled potatoes (can be stored in the refrigerator, if not for long).
"Frying" of onions with carrots (for soups)
pickled onions (for salads and hot dishes)
raw meat and poultry (cut into portions and marinated)

What not to freeze:

raw onion (flavor changes)
fresh vegetables with a high moisture content (dramatically change consistency)
mayonnaise and other sauces based on fat emulsions (separated)
dairy products (change consistency)
boiled and boiled-smoked sausage, especially already sliced \u200b\u200b(the consistency changes, then it can only be used hot)
ready-made cold salads (change the taste)