| 10 frugal cooking tips that sizzle |
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10. Slow means
cheaper.
For Webber and Vivaldo, slowcookers are a godsend. They help tenderize
tough meats and save time spent in the kitchen hovering over food.
Slowcookers usually sell for around $40. Besides meat, they can
cook a variety of soups, side dishes and main courses.
The bread and butter of your
pantry
To keep yourself from panic shopping for a last-minute meal, or
worse, shopping with hunger pangs, make sure you have enough food
in your pantry to make a meal. We compiled the most common pantry
items favored by Vivaldo, Webber and Turano.
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| Pantry mainstays: |
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While they're not technically pantry items, frozen
vegetables, as well as a few fresh favorites also made the list.
Last-minute meal ideas
Victoria Gotti, famous Italian TV mom and author of cookbook "Hot
Italian Dish," provided the following meal ideas, which make
use of whatever's in the pantry or fridge.
If you have oil, pasta or rice and some greens --
you can make a meal. Saute the vegetables, mix them with cooked
pasta or rice and you can stretch a side dish into a meal. Sprinkle
Parmesan cheese on top of the pasta if you have any.
Feed a meat-eating family with beef stew. Simply take
a pound of inexpensive cubed beef (or chop it up yourself) and throw
potatoes, carrots, peas, mushrooms, a can of crushed tomatoes, beef
or chicken bouillon cubes and spices into a pot and slow cook until
the ingredients tenderize. Improvise with what you have on hand.
The whole meal should cost under $10.
Do you have a secret way to save in the kitchen? Enter
your cost-cutting tip in our monthly Frugal
$ense contest and you could win $100!
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