Which Tends To Be Cheaper?

[VydorScope]

Which do y'all tend to find is the cheaper way to go, stuff like the prepackage mixes, or buy the 6 dozen flours needed to make your own? I need get our new celiac disease food shopping bill under control.

[KaitiUSA]

Well the flour in my opinion would last you longer but it depends on the recipes you want to make because the more ingredients you get the more it adds up.

It also depends if cooking from scratch is your type of thing. Either is a good option it's just what suits you best.

My mom needs to get our grocery bill lower each month too...we pay 850.00 a month for food

[VydorScope]

Well the flour in my opinion would last you longer but it depends on the recipes you want to make because the more ingredients you get the more it adds up.

It also depends if cooking from scratch is your type of thing. Either is a good option it's just what suits you best.

My mom needs to get our grocery bill lower each month too...we pay 850.00 a month for food

850? Hmmm We pay around 700-750 a month now, and growing! Thats with just 2 adults, 1 toddler, a dog and 2 birds. Of course the almost 10% sales tax here does not help

I love cooking from stratch as it gives me much more room to play, but till this celiac disease stuff his it was only occasionaly that I did that so never gaveit much thoguht cost wise. Now its gonna be a way of life, it will need to be figured out some how

[KaitiUSA]

Well cooking from scratch would be cheaper. There are ways to cut down if you need to. Buying quantities of things like rice will last a long time. I love making different flavors of fried rice.

The reason we pay so much is because we buy alot of organic foods as well and that all adds up. We only have my mom, dad, and me to buy for ...so I know how you are feeling with what you are paying for how many people there are.

[Boojca]

I know it sounds insane, but the flours are cheaper than the mixes. One mix, which will make you one loaf of bread, will cost as much if not more than one bag of flour which will make much more than one loaf of bread. The mix I use is:

2 1/2 C Rice flour (brown or white is fine)

1 C Potato Starch Flour

1 C Tapioca Starch Flour

1/4 C Cornstarch

1/4 C Sorghum Flour

2 Tbsp Xanthan Gum

I find this works great for just about anything I make (I make killer cut out sugar cookies for decorating with this flour mix....) This blend, mixed with these measurements, makes me about 2 batches of cookies and I still have plenty of flour left in my "bins" for further mixing later on. So, definitely buying flour is cheaper than mixes. Also, look into mail order for stuff. I jsut did a quick survey of the online ordering resources I use, and found a big price difference in flours and will be soon doing some flour ordering from Made By Mona as she has 5 lb bags of flour for $7ish...much cheaper per pound than anything else I've found. I also absolutely LOVE her mixes as well. Her cake mix is the most normal white cake you will find, and her bread mixes...YUM.

[Boojca]

Oh, and just so you know, once you really get into this and figure more stuff out, you will find your bill will go down a little. I find now the only "specialty" things I need to buy are crackers, flours and a mix here or there. My son doesn't like cereal, and other than that I can either make it or there is a gluten-free 'normal' version out there.

Do you have a list of mainstream products that are gluten-free?

Bridget

[tarnalberry]

I don't do a lot of baking, but I go with the flours. It depends on how you bake, though.

[VydorScope]

Booca, I have the April Delphi list if thats what your refering to. Some one posted it here (forget who) but its realy to huge to work with I am trying to figure out what our main foods are that we consume and just work on gluten-free versions of them.

[Boojca]

That is exactly what you should do. When we first went gluten-free, and got the lists, I went through each category and found things I would actually buy and deleted the rest. Then I made three binders. One for home, one for my car, and one for my husbands truck. That way we were never somewhere that we didn't have access to a list, it's worked out quite well and a year later I find that I rarely need the list any more!

Bridget

[Guest Viola]

I found that the mixes ended up being cheaper, because I made so many mistakes with the 'scratch' baking that a lot of it ended up in the compost bucket. Aside from that I really do not like cooking and get really stressed out if something goes wrong. Probably because I know how expensive it can be

[Guest nini]

I haven't even tried buying the flours in bulk and baking that way, I don't have enough time to spend measuring and pouring and mixing... the mixes are so much easier and IMHO worth the extra money for the convenience. I find that I don't bake as much though. I tend to save the baked goods for more "special" occasions than just daily.

I will buy rice in bulk and make large quantities of rice at a time, then divide it up into smaller portions and add different meats, sauces, cheeses, spices, etc... then I divide them into individual portions, freeze them and reheat as needed. I do this maybe once every couple of months.

[Guest Eloisa]

Baking is cheaper if your buying all the ingredients in bulk. Make sure to refridgerate all flours and freeze things for later. Keep your receipts cause I think you can use for tax purposes but you have to be formally diagnosed and check with a good CPA or accountant on how to do this. Being a Celiac is expensive.

[VydorScope]

I compared the price of the 5lb bags at the mona link given, against the price at my local Kroger and Wildoats... cheaper for me to by it locally even with my 9.25% sales tax (soon to go up to 9.75!!!).

Any one know a cheaper place?

[Guest Lucy]

I love to cook, and I love Bette Hagamans flour mix. Also her creamed soup mix. I definately think buying the flour is cheaper. But....I have figured out how to just make regular foods gluten free I try to avoid any recipe that requires flour. But we all have a hankering for carbs once in a while and here's what I do:

For pizza crust I love the chebe mix. It is one that I always have around. Kinnikit bread also. I don't even try to make my own bread anymore.

But for cookies and hotdishes that require flour. I use mix.

Gluten Free pantry has an awesome brownie mix but it is expensive. For a birthday cake I just added two more eggs and it rose a little higher. It was a perfect chocolate cake.

Our grocery bill went very high the first few months after diagnosis, but I have settled it down alot. It's trial and error the first while. This sight is awesome for me. I have learned SOOO much from everyone.

[Guest BellyTimber]

Vincent,

I especially enjoyed the cloud and bird photos! The starlings around me in the UK make hilarious phone and car alarm noises!

I go through phases of not having any bread-cookies-pizzas-cakes; buying ready baked; buying mixes; mixing own for own baking.

I find different ways suit me for different reasons but know I have to get used to baking a higher proportion in future for cost's sake.

Everyone's suggestions will be valid in different circumstances. You may want to try out all the ideas and gradually gravitate towards some options more than others.

To start with you may only need four different flours, add another kind after a month or two.

And keep them in boxes with a nice tight seal, fridge or freezer is recommended (it doesn't freeze solid but some poeple say bring to room temp. before using, perhaps that doesn't take long)

A bread machine can be a good buy, whether with your own mix or a bought mix.

Shirley - if it's bread that is going "wrong" you could turn into bread and butter pudding or if cookies, use as cheesecake base or crumble topping? Haven't been doing so myself but I have a book that suggests that sort of thing. If you know what went into it was good, it can't be bad surely?

[Guest Viola]

Those are good suggestions Michael. My biggest problem is with my oven, it always burns some and barely cooks the other I should get it repaired, but have been holding out for a new one.

Also if anything at all goes wrong, I tend to really stress out when cooking. Don't have the faintest idea why, but most of the time, it isn't worth the effort. When I am doing mixes, on the rare occasion that I bake, I tend to turn the oven down 50 degrees lower than it calls for and watch it all the time. That way I do manage to get a cake out that's eddible.

[Guest imsohungry]

I use both mixes and recipes.

Honestly, for some meals that I know we won't eat very often, a mix is more economical because the ingredients won't spoil before they are all used.

Tonight, I picked up a closeout special on a gluten-free one-pot meal (i.e. hamburger helper type) for $1.75 + ground beef $2.00 + green beans $1.00= $5.00 dinner for two!

On some meals, ones that I know we eat often or meals that freeze well, I will buy the ingredients for recipes. It is only a better deal to buy in bulk if the food isn't allowed to spoil or go stale.

-Julie (obviously not a bulk-buyer...)

[VydorScope]

So the answer appears to be "it depends" heh

[lbsteenwyk]

VydorScope:

My vote is for using individual flours, etc and baking gluten free products yourself. Besides cost (and I do think it is cheaper to make your own), you say you like to cook, so you are probably more likely to experiment and find recipes that really work for you and your family. The other reason I like to make my own, is that I can make a much more nutritious product that the packaged mixes. Most of them are primarily starch with little fiber or other nutrients. When I make my own I can use the more nutritious flours (buckwheat, garbanzo-fava, sorghum). I also use flax seed, ground nuts, and things like pumpkin and mashed fruits to improve the nutritional quality. Have Fun!

[Guest BellyTimber]

And refrigerate/freeze flours once bag is opened - it doesn't clog.

[cdford]

A few thoughts...

- Your grocery bill will stabilize over time. You mentioned Kroger. Many of their store brands are gluten-free. Put their dietician's phone number in your cell phone or keep a separate area of you cart for questionable items and take them to the customer service counter for them to call the dieticians for you.

Soon you will find that you just go in and pick up a certain brand without the hassle and expense you have right now. It just takes a while to get to that point.

- There are some things that simply must be mail ordered. It is a fact of life. Try to order larger quantities to get discounts and save on shipping and handling.

- The flours are usually much cheaper if you cook very much. Since we have multiple gluten-free people in our family and keep and totally gluten-free home, I require more than a household where there is only one gluten-free person.

I find that I can mix a large batch of flour about once every week and a half or so. That allows me to bake bread every two or three days and use whatever else I need for batters, etc. In order to really get the cost down on a long term basis, I mill my own flours other than potato and tapioca. The expense of the mill is offset very quickly by the savings on the flours.

Here is the large batch amounts I use for flour to bake bread, etc.:

6 2/3 cups Brown Rice Flour

3 1/3 cups Potato Starch

1 2/3 cups Tapioca Flour

1 2/3 cups Ground Flax seed

1 1/4 cups Sugar

1/3 cup Xanthan gum

5 tsp Salt (plain, not iodized if you have DH)

1/2 cup Bean flour

I place all this into a very large bowl and use a whisk to mix it together well. I then place it into a covered plastic container in the fridge. I bake bread in the bread machine as follows:

Place 2 Tbl oil (I prefer light olive) into machine pan and roll it around a little to coat the bottom. Add 1 cup buttermilk and two eggs at room temperature. Use 2 1/2 cups of the flour mix. On the top, put two tsp yeast. I set my machine on a basic setting with a light crust and push the button. Voila, three hours later I have bread.

[Guest BellyTimber]

Donna what kind of machine do you use to mill your:

- flax seeds,

- grains?

I don't suppose it would be called by the same name in U.K. but still!!!

[cdford]

Sorry it took so long to get back, I am still recuperating from my son's wedding!

I use a WhisperMill for milling grains and a Black and Decker Coffee/Spice grinder for the flax. There are several available options on both. You need a mill that will handle everything from rice to beans and will mill finely. Check out some of the web sites that handle them for details on what to look for. My favorite vendor is a company in Georgia called Breadbeckers. Access them at www.breadbeckers.com

I posted an extensive "instruction and recipe" list a few weeks ago. To start with, check out topic 3983. Hope this helps.

[Guest BellyTimber]

If a coffee grinder will do the flax seeds, will a coffee grinder do the grains?

Are the other foods you mentioned tougher on the machine than the seeds or less tough?

A friend used to make "milk" from hazelnuts in her food processor, I would be afraid of breaking mine by trying to break up anything hard in it!

I'd prefer to keep asking questions here rather than contact machine suppliers at this early stage assuming they know what I need or are interested what I need it for.

Am not sure whether I shall do it but am really interested in giving myself the option.

Not thoroughly thought out & discussed with experienced people = not an option.

[cdford]

The grain mill will make a fine flour where the spice/coffee mill will give a course grind that is not really suitable for baking. You need both because you cannot mill oily or really soft stuff in a grain mill.

The mill will cost around $200 but that is quickly recouped when you calculate the cost of buying either a pre-baked loaf or even a mix from the store. It will usually pay for itself well within a year's time. (@$5 per, it would take around 40 loaves to recoup the cost of just the mill) The smaller coffee mill is usually less than $20. I have found that it is well worth the cost to go ahead and purchase both.

I buy the grains bulk in 5 gallon buckets (smaller for stuff like quinoa, teff, amaranth, or buckwheat). It saves on s/h and it keeps for years. I purchased a lid for my buckets that screws on/off to make it easier to get into and allows a longer shelf life.

Donna