Although I still consider myself fairly young in the grand scheme of things, I have seen what kind of devastation a recession can do to restaurants. In times of hardship people watch where they spend money and they look for great value.

The feeling I get right now is that things in Canada are not as bad as in the USA, but in the past we have always been hit 6 to 18 months later which would mean that the worst is yet to come.

I am totally for saving money in the kitchen, but please cut down at the right places.

The best way to save money on meals is to follow these simple rules

1-Having visited hundreds of people’s homes with The Chef in Stead, I have seen many kitchens and many pantries. The first place I would cut down if I were you is to start by emptying your current food stock to a minimum. People in general have a huge pantry or cupboard full of food. Plan your meals around what you have sitting in your pantry until you have just about emptied all the old stock. Start with the foods that have been there since you got married and work your way towards the fresher stuff!!

2-Once you have reduced your food inventory make sure you spend wisely to restock everything. If you noticed that it took you two years to eat a certain can of soup, don’t go buy another one like it. When it is time to re-stock your pantry go buy the basic foods once they go on special: tomato sauce, a few different pastas, a few kinds of rice, extra virgin olive oil, cans of tuna, etc… but keep in mind that one to two months of food supply is plenty. Any more than that can go stale before you get a chance to eat it.

3-Empty the freezer in the kitchen and then your deep chest freezer in the garage. Frozen food does not last forever either… stop buying loads of foods that just sit there and get old. Freezers are a great place to store a few chicken breasts or a few whole chickens, stewing beef cubes, pork roasts or even fish - all bought once on special. Meat or fish should not be stored for more than six months. Plan to only buy enough so that you empty everything every few months. Label and date all foods in your freezer.

4-Even if your family is only three or four people, always cook huge batches of food. It is way cheaper to buy big and cook big so that you can freeze a few portions for the days where you don’t have any spare time and can’t make a good dinner from scratch.

There is a whole generation of people that have lived through tough times like during wars, the Depression or even some smaller recessions, but these crazy events are not an excuse to store food up to the ceiling. If your 89 pound, 75 year old mother lives alone and stores 16 cans of tomato soup, 28 boxes of macaroni pasta and 11 cans of tuna it’s time to start cooking!