How Your Family Can Beat Inflation

Inflation and Your Family Budget

If you have gone to the gas station or grocery store in the last couple of weeks, you might be having sticker shock. You, like many people, probably have been wondering how you beat inflation and hedge your buying power. We could go into a lengthy financial breakdown that would address all your financial needs, but we are going to keep it simple. Most families are feeling inflation the most at the grocery store, especially if you have a growing or large family and we provide some solutions today.

We have been here before as a nation and many times in rougher places with inflation high and unemployment high also. Right now, we have growing inflation but one of the lowest unemployment rates in decades. So, that is the good news, but that doesn’t help your wallet at the grocery store. We are going to give you some great tips about how to beat back inflation at the grocery store today.

Bust Food Cost Inflation with Leftovers

Most of us have good intentions when we go shopping each week, that we will use everything we have bought and not waste any food. This is easier said than done with work, family, and so many responsibilities that demand your attention. Food waste is a huge problem for the environment and I know many of you compost, but wouldn’t it be great for your family’s food budget if you didn’t waste any food each week?

I know many of us have memories from childhood of meals made from leftovers that tasted really bad, this could cause an aversion to using leftovers for cooking! You can be very creative with leftovers and if actually spark creativity and save you money each week at the grocery store. We are going to show you how to get creative with leftovers!  I write recipes for some of our clients, so using leftovers from a meal to create another tasty meal is a creative endeavor for me and fun!

 

Delicious Meals From Leftovers

If you are ready to start lowering your food costs and you also want to stop wasting food, read on. The tips we share with you today will not only stop food wastage for your family, but it will also help you reduce your food costs substantially! With food costs going up at crazy levels, the timing couldn’t be better for how to creatively use leftovers. I’ve put together a list of great ways to use leftovers but also some not-so-common facts on how to store food so that it extends the shelf life of the food you have bought.

I hope to motivate you to cook some mouth-watering meals with recipes for some really good meals, from French Toast to one of the best calzones you will taste this side of Italy! I suggest taking this on as a creative task, having fun with it, making it like a game to save money, taking notes about what works and what doesn’t, and what your family’s favorite meals have been from your stash of leftovers. Let the savings begin!

Leftover Bread Tips

Bread is something we all have on hand for our families, Sometimes the bread you have on hand gets ahead of you and we share some great ideas of what to do with leftover bread below:

• Make croutons out of leftover sourdough bread.
• Use any leftover bread as an extender for meatloaf.
• Did you know that you can freshen leftover sourdough bread by spritzing it with a little bit of water and then putting it in a low-temperature oven for 10-15 minutes?
• Put any kind of leftover bread except bread with fruit or nuts in a food processor and make your own breadcrumbs. You can always add your special mix of seasonings to your breadcrumb mix also.
• A few day-olds French bread makes for great crostini, since it is toasted very well and slathered with your favorite fixings, it will come out just fine and make for a wonderful appetizer or companion to the soup.
• Try your hand at making bread pudding, it’s especially yummy on these cold winter days for dessert or a special treat for breakfast.
• Make French Toast from bread that is going stale, especially sourdough bread for a really good breakfast or dinner if you make Monte Cristo sandwiches.

Leftover Cheese Tips

Kids and adults love cheese, but sometimes you have cheese that is getting near its pull date and we give you some really good ideas on how to use leftover cheese below:

• Fondue is a great way to use up leftover cheese and kids love fondue young and old. There are many varieties of cheese that make tasty fondue, you just want to choose easy melting versions, such as swiss, gouda, Gruyere, Fontina, or Cheddar.
• Make up a batch of macaroni and cheese, either the stovetop version or the baked version.
• Make twice-baked stuffed potatoes with leftover cheese and vegetables nearing their pull date.
• Avocado and grilled cheese sandwiches are filled with protein and are a great way to use up leftover cheese.
• Make eggs au gratin or any vegetable mixture with an au gratin sauce, it’s a great way to get picky eaters to eat veggies.
• Make a batch of blended cheeses, the French call it Fromage Fort, try blending your leftover cheeses with garlic, wine, and your best-loved herbs for a flavorful cheese spread.

Leftover Ham, Turkey or Chicken Tips

If you make a large meal on the weekend, baking a ham, chicken, or turkey it’s so simple to use the leftovers during the week to make some wonderful meals. We give you some good ideas below as to what to do with leftover ham, turkey, or chicken:

• Make chicken or turkey tortilla soup, it’s also a great way to get rid of extra tortilla chips before their pull date.
• Make your favorite chicken or turkey soup recipe using leftover cuts from your meal or submerge the whole chicken or turkey in a big stockpot and let the boiling water do the job of removing the last of the meat from the bones plus giving you a really hardy base stock for your soup.
• Make chicken, turkey, or ham sandwiches. Our kids love leftover chicken, turkey, or ham sandwiches.
• Make chicken or turkey enchiladas, this is one of our favorite use of leftovers any time and they freeze so well.
• Make breakfast burritos from your leftover meat or burritos for lunch or dinner. Our kids feel any meal is a great time for burritos and it really lets you use leftover meat effectively.
• Make a stir-fry with your leftover meat and use up some of your leftover vegetables at the same time.
• Make a batch of sushi, a great way to use leftover rice and vegetables.
• Make chili with your leftover chicken or turkey.
• Leftover ham makes a great addition to mac and cheese and really increases the protein in the dish.
• Break out the lentils or split peas and make a great soup with leftover ham.

Leftover Rice Tips

I don’t know about you, but many times I over calculate how much rice I need for a side dish and then I’m left with lots of leftover rice. Here are some tasty ideas to put your leftover rice to good use:

• One of my kid’s favorite breakfasts is rice crullers. Rice crullers are a southern breakfast treat made from leftover rice. Since rice is one of the main ingredients you can use up a lot of rice this way and make a breakfast treat that everyone will love.
• Make rice pudding, you can use up both white and brown rice this way. You can make your rice pudding without sugar by using maple syrup or honey as the sweetener.
• Vegetable fried rice uses up not only your leftover rice but also can make a clean sweep of your refrigerator of any vegetables that are nearing their end of life
• Chicken or turkey and rice soup is a winter favorite and uses both your leftover meat and rice in one great filling soup.
• Brown rice burgers not only taste good, but they are good for you.  These are great warm or cold used in sandwiches after the fact and use a huge amount of leftover brown rice and they are good and good for you!

Leftover Vegetable Tips

Leftover vegetables or vegetables nearing their end of life in your refrigerator can be used for a number of great-tasting meals. Plus, we give you some storage ideas about avocados that you probably haven’t heard before below:

• Did you know that you can freeze avocados? I didn’t know this till recently even though I have cooked for years. When you don’t think you’ll be able to use your avocados, remove the pulp from your avocados and put it in a bowl, use an ice cream scoop to scoop up your avocado and put it on a cookies sheet, put it in your freezer till the avocado balls are firm, and then decant to a plastic bag for storage. Your avocados won’t turn brown and you can use the mixture when you need it with only a few minutes out on the countertop to be able to use the avocado in a number of dishes or on sandwiches.
• Make a vegetable smoothie from your leftover vegetables. Just add your favorite liquid, maybe a frozen banana, throw in some berries, and protein powder if you wish, and you have a great-tasting and nutritious smoothie.
• Make vegetable soup. Such a tasty soup and it uses up your leftover vegetables and gives them new life in a soup that warms you up.
• I made my first spinach enchiladas this last week because I needed to use up spinach before the pull date and they were so good! So, give vegetable enchiladas a try for using up leftover vegetables even if you aren’t a vegetarian.

We understand you know Shed Windows and More as a building supply company for home hobbyists, DIY builders, and small construction companies, but we are also a company of families like yours that work on tackling inflation for our family’s well-being. You can always count on us for great customer service and fair prices for your building needs but we will also throw in some good content from time to time to address larger issues we are all facing to try to help you out. For us at Shed Windows and More, it’s all about community and working together!