Cooking Ideas That Will Save You Time And Money

The saying, "time is money" certainly applies in the business world, but it applies in the kitchen, too. Saving time and money in the kitchen really helps with family time and the family budget. So it works in our favor when we come up with cooking ideas that save time and money in the kitchen. There are a lot of kitchen shortcuts out there, but no matter which way you cut the roast, cooking is still cooking. So what are some cooking ideas that will save you time and money?

Easy cooking is a great place to start. We all like to think of ourselves as good cooks, but not everything has to be complicated. It's hard to save time and money if you aren't organized. So get organized by focusing on what to cook and when to cook. Write your cooking ideas down and put them in your own personal cooking book. Along with planning what to cook, you should plan when to cook. Most people assume they have to cook dinner between the hours of 4 pm and 7 pm. As the norm this is great, but make sure you are using easy recipes for dinner.

Here is another one we found works in our house. Cook dinner at breakfast. No, most would not classify this as a normal habit. Think of it this way. By cooking your dinner in the morning, you will not have the evening rush of "what to cook" which regularly translates into "where can I order out" because you don't have the time or energy to make a home cooked meal. Prepare your dinner meal while you are fixing breakfast, and then put it in the refrigerator. When you get home, you will only have to reheat and a home cooked meal is on the table in a jiffy. This is especially good when you are cooking for kids.

Here is a another one from the cooking book. Dig out the crock pot. We do this a lot on Sundays. There are healthy and great tasting dishes that you can make in a crock pot. In the morning, all your ingredients get added to the pot. By dinner, it's ready to serve. How much prep time do you have when you get home? Just long enough to set the table. Talk about easy cooking! To us, this is as close as it comes to having someone cook your dinner for you. Shop around. There are some great crock pot recipes available that will tantalize your taste bud.

Along with those quick and easy recipes, try this. Plan a kitchen table picnic. What does that mean? It means you use paper plates and plastic ware. Does that beat washing the dishes or what?! Even the kids can get involved with throwing out the plates when they are done eating. I f you do this when you do crock pot cooking, then you have only one dish to wash, the crock pot!

This one needs prep time, but offers you a real break on a day to day basis. We do this about five or six times a year. We cook for a whole month a one time. Everything goes in the freezer. When we are done, there are 30 dinners in the freezer. It takes two days to get it all done, but for a month, dinner is on the table about 20 minutes after we get home. If a month seems overwhelming, start with doing meals for a week or two. Every night then has easy recipes for dinner!

Save time. Save money. It's a great way to run a kitchen. The more easy cooking and cost effective cooking you can do, the better off your kitchen is!

Chris & Michelle Grimbilas both have backgrounds in teaching and education. Cooking is one of the things they both enjoy. They have five children who have shared the kitchen with them over the years. You can get more great easy cooking ideas at their Creative Cookery website. You'll find more cooking ideas,real resources that will help you in the kitchen, and best of all FREE GIFTS! Get software that shows you how to cook almost anything! Get free dessert recipes! Claim your gifts today at the Creative Cookery!

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Learning to Cook - Cooking Schools and Getting the Best Return For Your Money

I was just watching TV and saw that for Johnson and Wales University which is a locally cooking school located in downtown Charlotte North Carolina. Upon researching their website just a tiny bit and see they charge $22,000 a year in tuition alone. Upon a little deeper research and watching recent episodes of MSNBC where it was made aware that many of these graduates from these expensive cooking schools cannot find jobs that pay more than $10 an hour or fare even worse without a job. With graduation rates as low as 50% or even lower at some of these for-profit cooking schools is there a better alternative?

The biggest problem is how many years do you have to go this cooking school to become a chef and get a good paying chefs job? Apparently it is more than one and with the fact that most of these for-profit cooking schools give financial aid that only consists of student loans that leads to many heavily or overburdened students that when they graduate cannot possibly pay their debts back and live on their own or live a comfortable lifestyle. This is directly a kin to online colleges like Phoenix University and others that basically give oneself a degree that no one hires or that does not transfer to other fully accredited colleges like state colleges and universities.

As a matter of fact some of the online colleges have not been required to place a disclaimer in their TV advertisements that states that credits are unlikely to transfer. And numerous employers will actually place on their websites and in their hiring materials that if you have gone or attended one of these online colleges that you basically should not bother applying. Are these cooking schools any different? Yes, they are not online and many of them are more credited or at least better accredited then the basically fraudulent schools like Phoenix University (if you were to look at the Whois database, which lists all domain register information you will see that the organizations Phoenix University lists as being accredited by are owned by Phoenix University itself which is basically fraud for all intents and purposes).

Now some of these cooking schools like Johnson Wales University are fairly well respected, but with limited financial aid packages that consist mostly of loans is there a better alternative? Yes, there is for anyone in any state. It is called your local community colleges. Almost every single community college out there has well accredited cooking programs and similar that can teach you the exact same courses, cooking skills and more for far less than any of these for-profit cooking schools like Johnson and Wales University and others. Another nice feature of learning to cook at a community college is that the courses that you take are directly transferable to a four year or other school. Then you do not have to worry about transfer issues like you would with many of these cooking schools or online, for profit schools offering local cooking classes.

Just request a course catalog from your local community college and peruse through the cooking classes and see which ones will get you towards the degree that you want or teach you the skills that you desire. From learning how to barbecue, two creating a roast, to making exquisite Christmas cookies, to much more advanced subjects on cooking, mostly community colleges will offer all of it and more. Now, if you live out in waistline you might have traveled it go to the committee College offers an extensive list of cooking classes. There are also other alternatives to which are far less expensive than the for-profit cooking schools.

Viking, which makes expensive and high grade ovens and ranges amongst other products, offers cooking classes in most states for everyone from children to adults and for every level of all sorts of cooking techniques and ideas. Basically, Viking brings in their own or celebrity chefs and will teach all sorts of cooking concepts in everything from one day classes to classes that can last several weeks or even months. The general cost is between $60 and $100 a day for a Viking cooking class and you can find out more information on this their website.

So basically you do have alternatives, you don't have to become heavily burdened by debt to become a chef or cook. You can use your local committee Colleges where financial aid consists mostly of grants rather than loans like with the for-profit cooking schools. You also can take other classes that may even go outside of the cooking curriculum sheet and exposure something different classes, courses and even majors and the best part is that all of it is transferable. Another alternative is cooking classes like Viking offers to get a taste of what cooking school is really like without having to obligate yourself financially to the tune $20-$30,000 or more. Common sense here would tell you that for-profit schools are just that, for their profit, not yours. Use your state school and university system and take advantage of low-cost or even free schools for manufacturers like Viking.

Melissa Maillie is a long time gourmet Italian cook with her own website loaded full of great, free recipes and cooking tips. For more great tips like this and free recipes be sure and visit - Great free cooking recipes and tips. Article provided courtesy of Hotcookingrecipes.com. Here's an example of one of the many great recipes you will find on Hotcookingrecipes.com Best sweet potato casserole recipe. Be sure and check it out - you'll be glad you did!

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