Staying on the DIY thread of convenience foods- next up Eggo Waffles. Even with coupons a box usually runs about $1.50 for 10 waffles. A 24 pk will run over $5. Of course, there are store brands- a Harris Teeter 10 pk runs $1.95 regular price.
Recently, I picked up a box of Hungry Jack Pancake Mix for $1 at Lowe’s Foods. In fact, I picked up about 10 over the course of the week!
The recipe for Hungry Jack calls for:
1 egg
2 cups mix
1 1/4 cp water
1/4 cp. oil
This recipe made 12 4×4 waffles.
I doubled this recipe and made 26 4×4 waffles.
I laid the waffles out in a single layer on a cookie sheet to cool. Then I transferred them to freezer bags and laid flat in the freezer until hard.
**A tip: extremely crispy waffles work better than softer ones.
I used 1/2 of the box (.50), 1 egg (.08) and 1/4 cp oil (.25- purchased on sale w/ a coupon)= total cost of 24 waffles: 83 cents or about 7 cents each.
If I had made pancakes it would have cost only 50 cents for all 24 or 2 cents each!
Even buying the Eggo brand on sale with a coupon- the usually cost about $1.50 or 15 cents each. This is an ADDITIONAL 50% savings by making my own! AND they are tastier and probably a bit healthier with less preservatives, etc!
Love this! We have the large, round kind of waffle maker, so I sometimes make a double batch of from-scratch waffles and *undercook* some for freezing. I put wax paper between them, which makes these larger ones easier to pull apart, and pop them under the broiler to finish toasting them from a frozen state.
That said… this is the second time you’ve mentioned preservatives in frozen foods. I thought the benefit of frozen (homemade or store-bought) is that they don’t have the preservatives that we find in shelf-stable consumables. Have I been misled somewhere along the way?
ALmost ALL prepared foods contain preservatives of some sort to retain the pretty image on the box. This article is why I say this: http://www.womenshealthmag.com/nutrition/whats-in-frozen-dinners?page=2