March 10th 2020 was the last time we had food that we didn't make at home. No fast food, no restaurants, no take out, no delivery (which we had probably only done 1 time in the last 6 years anyway). The savings are incredible, but I knew that before.
We've really elevated our game, I'm essentially baking every bread product we use, and we're able to execute two types of pizza dough with pretty good success. Grilling, crock pot, oven roasting, pan searing, we've got multiple ways of doing everything now depending on the weather (grilling in the cold still doesn't work very well) and I'm probably contributing a full... 10% to the cooking efforts.
I've started making my own bagel dogs and other things to freeze for lunches, so the amount of pre-packaged frozen stuff we've been eating has gone way down to the point when I do nuke a frozen meal for lunch... it actually tastes pretty bad. I will admit that our home made hot pockets aren't quite right, but that's because of ingredient choices and not technique.
I hope this trend continues, wouldn't mind making 'going out' a rare treat for something special vs. just buying crap because we're lazy.
We've really elevated our game, I'm essentially baking every bread product we use, and we're able to execute two types of pizza dough with pretty good success. Grilling, crock pot, oven roasting, pan searing, we've got multiple ways of doing everything now depending on the weather (grilling in the cold still doesn't work very well) and I'm probably contributing a full... 10% to the cooking efforts.
I've started making my own bagel dogs and other things to freeze for lunches, so the amount of pre-packaged frozen stuff we've been eating has gone way down to the point when I do nuke a frozen meal for lunch... it actually tastes pretty bad. I will admit that our home made hot pockets aren't quite right, but that's because of ingredient choices and not technique.
I hope this trend continues, wouldn't mind making 'going out' a rare treat for something special vs. just buying crap because we're lazy.