To teach my kids that  macaroni and cheese doesn’t always have to come from a box I decided to make some from scratch.  Here is the recipe I went with. Creamy Macaroni and Cheese Recipe Ingredients 2 cups uncooked elbow macaroni 4 tablespoons butter 4 tablespoons flour 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/8 teaspoon pepper 2 cups milk 1 cup American cheese (cubed) Directions Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Cook noodles as package dictates and set…

My youngest daughter loves her Pizza Lunchables, she would eat them for every meal if we would let her. I am not sure if it is the taste or just the fact she gets to construct her lunch. Being out of them we decided to make our own. As many discoveries are found by mistake, I found that my tortillas had a similar (but better) taste to the Lunchable “pizza crust” if I cooked them too long at low heat. Though there are better instructions on the…

My wife made the mistake of mentioning that my daughter and I should bake something for some company that would be coming over in a little over an hour.  Not knowing what to bake I passed the decision to my 5 year old who immediately proclaimed we should make chocolate cake.  Not having any chocolate cake mix nor frosting in the house this seemed like a great opportunity for a Store versus homemade challenge. Given I have never…

My youngest daughter (5 years old) loves to bake and one of our favorite things to bake on Sundays is fresh baked bread.  Now I doubt there are not too many people that could argue that fresh baked bread/rolls from your oven beats store bought bread, though I was curious if I am actually saving money baking it myself.  For now I am going to tackle the cost comparison of bread dough and cover the actual cost of baking in the next…

In the last post, we proved that it is cheaper to make you own bread dough versus using frozen bread dough though a big question still remains, how much cost does the baking cost add to the overall cost. The Contender – Store Bought The competition: Safeway Butter Top White Bread, $1.50 per loaf Ingredients: Enriched Malted Wheat Flour (Wheat Flour, Malted Barley Flour, Niacin, Iron [Ferrous Sulfate], Thiamin Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic…

Our family was feeling like some tacos and decided to take my first attempt at making these from scratch, but figured it would be a good opportunity to going a little more homemade. The Contender – Store Bought The competition: Mission 6 inch Flour Tortilla, $3.39 for 8 tortillas Ingredients: Enriched Bleached Wheat Flour (Wheat Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Water, Vegetable Shortening (Soybean…