Saving Money #1: Cooking

I can cook. I’m not a gourmet chef but I can cook even though I haven’t mastered bread yet. Thanks to my mother, grandmother and two years of cooking class in high school with Miss Sooden, I can pretty much do anything, even make a white sauce.

The problem with living on your own is that sometimes it’s just tedious to cook when it’s just you. Yes, yes, I know: make enough for multiple meals and freeze what you don’t use but sometimes laziness plays a big role and I don’t cook.

I order in instead and at an average of $20 a pop and I’m sure I’m lowballing that estimate. It eats up my cash obviously. So this year I’m going to make a concentrated effort to cook about 90 per cent of my meals. I’m not going to commit to 100 per cent because sometimes you do want to order in.

My parents, who had no idea of this, gave me a lovely set of pots for Christmas. I’ve already started using them. The stoneware pot is also from them. They gave me a gift card to get a good set of dishes but I bought the pot instead.

This set of photos is me making stewed chicken with lentils. Delicious, easy to make and hey, vegetables. The best part is that you can add whatever you want to this dish including carrots, mushrooms or tomatoes. The trick is to burn the sugar so you get that nice brown colour.