It's the cheese

A certain member of my household doesn't eat vegetables. He also happens to be the only member of the household who is bigger than me and I can't make him do it. So you will notice that many of the recipes I share don't contain vegetables. I serve the healthy stuff as side dishes so that those of us who are "lean, mean, fighting machines" (that was an example of poetic license) can eat the good stuff, while the big guy can eat just the main dish.

Consequently, we use a lot of cheese in our house. If there are no veggies, there's gotta be something else in a dish. I have found that buying cheese in bulk is the only way to go. I pick it up in 5 lb quantities and it is half the price (yep, I said half the price) of stuff in the grocery store. I can get it shredded for the same price as the block. Originally, I had a bit of a problem with buying bulk shredded cheese, I couldn't stay ahead of the mold. Now, I bring my cheese home from the warehouse store and immediately break it down into 1 lb quantities. I put each pound of cheese in it's own freezer bag and put all 5 bags back in the original large bag then throw it in the freezer. Putting it back in the big bag keeps me from having stray bags of cheese floating around my chest freezer and I can just grab one bag out at a time.

Ok, an additional cheese tip... I also use a lot of mozzarella cheese (we love homemade pizza and lasagna) and they don't sell that in large quantities shredded. I buy it in a large block, bring it home, shred it in my food processor, and then break it into the 1 lb bags. If I didn't have access to the shredded warehouse cheddar cheese, I would follow this same process with the largest blocks available in the grocery store.

This is a huge money saver for our family and it doesn't take me a whole lot of time or effort.






Tuesday: Shamrock Shake Recipe