Cook and save money and everyday thoughts

By cooking at home you can buy more food for your money. We have one more frozen beef roast in our freezer. They do not cost much. Try to buy them on sale if you can, or buy meat at prices when pound prices are lower. For ten dollars you can purchase one at a good price, a nice large beef roast and bake it yourself. Joann, my wife actually steam cooks or bakes the roast in a special kind of electric steaming cooking pot. The food will easily last the three of us for two or three days.

My wife Jo Ann cooks a roast with potatoes, carrots, onions, herbs, salt and pepper, and she uses a special kind of electric steam pot with a lid. She also heats up a cup of instant brown gravy by adding a cup of water to it.

When the roast is finished cooking, Becky, Jo Ann and I sit at our table and begin to dine on our feast.

Our ten cats always manage to keep us company. So I will usually open a large can of mackerel which they love. A large can will cost one dollar. It is divided in two large dishes for them, and they all enjoy it.

Sometimes I will give them some portions of roast, but they prefer their own food.

Our cat Peanut likes to tap Jo Ann on her leg with her paw for food, so out comes the fork and knife and the dividing begins.

Another dish is usually necessary just in case the others want extra food, and they always do. Little Bear the oldest cat will wait until the other cats are finished before she eats her portions of food. They all manage to get something to eat.

The dishes pile up at the end of our meals. So out comes the dish soap and the foam scrubber with the plastic handle. It is great for cups and dishes. Just squirt the soap on the dishes, and wash them with hot water, and place them in the dish drain. When I am finished washing our dishes I will wash the empty cat dishes real well and rinse them with hot water and place them in the dish drain as well. I always use very hot water to rinse dishes.

Usually by the time Jo Ann and I or finished doing things in the kitchen, the cats are all lounging around licking their paws and grooming one another.

We have one last roast left in the freezer. We try to cook at least one a week. So next month we will buy four more and freeze them. It is tempting to buy cooked ready made food, but when you have to cut corners it is best to cook meals yourself if you have the time.

Chicken is a very important food source in our home. We like to buy it on sale if we can. It does not happen often, but if you can buy it at 39 cents a pound your doing wonderful. If you can buy good fresh ten pound bags of raw chicken for less than $4.00 then your doing well. Even if you have to pay higher prices, ten pound bags of fresh raw chicken are usually a very good purchase.

We buy very good heavy duty freezer bags. We prefer Zip Lock bags. What I will do with a ten pound bag of chicken is to simply open it in our sink and rinse all the pieces very well with very hot water, and then I will carefully trim off all the fat from all the pieces, and rinse the chicken very well again. Be very careful with knives. I use very sharp knives when I work with chicken.Try to avoid letting fat go down your sink drain. Use a good strainer and collect the fat and bag it, freeze it, and throw it in your garbage before your garbage service picks up your trash.

When your finished working with raw chicken, wash everything that came in contact with the chicken and use very hot water.

I usually clean our chicken well, cut it and bag it. I do not let Joann do it. She does enough work of her own. It can be a messy job, but we save money and we buy more food this way.

When our raw chicken is in bags, we usually freeze it. If you wish, you may want to store small bags of it so that you can cook it conveniently. I like to fry it, and a lot of it.

As for our cats if I am not very tired I will find our long plastic stick that has string attached to it. The cats love to play with the string as I swirl it in the air. The younger cats love to jump high in the air to try to catch it and they usually do.

So far Blackie is the highest jumper. He can jump at least five feet in the air and catch the string easily.

As for our floor, it always has lots of cat toys for them all.

I finally found my camera and rechargeable batteries. I have been waiting to catch our cats in some relatively good pictures.

Thank you for reading my hub, and God bless you.