Posted in Simple and Frugal Living
Leslie Valeska
Most everyone loves shredded paremsan on a variety of dishes. Our family is no exception. We use it at least 4-5 times per week for items like soup, bread, pasta, rice, eggs, casseroles, etc. Actually, I use a mixture of parmesan, romano, and asiago. I save a BUNDLE on shredded cheese by shredding it myself. Now what I am about to show you is so easy, you will probably laugh. If you don't laugh, you might be thinking, "I don't have time for that," or "That's just to too much trouble." Follow along, and promise you won't form a solid opinion until the end.
To shred the cheese, I purchase 1 wedge of each type of cheese at Sam's Club. Place them in the fridge until you get yourself set up. What you will need is some type of food processor with shredding & chopping capacity. You will also need 2 large bowls and 3 large siploc bags. If you will be freezing some of your cheese, make certain to use freezer bags or food saver bags, for those portions. Set your machine up to shred, but have whatever you need to convert it to chopping mode handy.
Now, take one wedge of cheese from the fridge. Remove wrapper and cut into chunks that will fit in your food processor. Piece by piece, begin to shred the cheese. My machine has a more course grating disc. Sometimes I like to add more coursely shredded cheese to a dish, and sometimes I like more finely shredded. So, I use both.
Once the entire wedge is shredded, pour the cheese into a large bowl. If you want to take some of the course grated cheese and place it in a separate bag, do that now. Replace the shredding disc with your chopping blade. Put approximately half the cheese into the processor and do a little combo of on and pulse until the cheese is at the consistency you want. Pour this into the second bowl. Now repeat with the rest of cheese.
Using a 1 cup scoop, place cheese in your bags (I usually use 3 bags). I try to portion it out equally...3 cups or so per bag. Repeat this process with each wedge of cheese. I normally, use equal parts of the different types of cheeses, but you can mix it up any way you like. When freezing the cheese will last up to 3 months in a freezer bag. If stored in a vacuum sealed freezer bag, it will last up to 8 months. Just for reference, it took me 19 minutes, to grate, chop, and package 5.43 lbs of cheese this week.
NOW, comes the most amazing part. If you are still thinking this is too time consuming, read on. At the grocery if you went to the cheese section and purchased a small plastic tub of grated cheese, you would pay around $10.72/lb. (I am not talking about shaker cheese that is unrefrigerated and located on a shelf near the pasta, but real cheese that needs to be refrigerated. This said, I have never used that type of cheese and thus I have not facts to incorporate into the following calculations.) Ok, so the shredded cheese at the grocery costs $10.72/lb or .67/oz. Keep reading..........
The cost of each wedge of cheese averages .36/oz or $5.70/lb. That is almost HALF the cost of the convenient cheese! In the batch I made this week, I would have spent $58.21 on 5.43 lbs of cheese if I had purchased the convenience package. However, I spent $30.95 on the wedges. I spent 20 minutes + electricity + bags to shred and package my own cheese. This cost is far out weighed by the savings incurred from less gas to the grocery and less rubbish in our landfills. This batch will most likely last about 3 months, which will be a total savings of $27.26!
Now, I ask, is 20 minutes of your time worth $26.72?
These are my thoughts.
~Contributing Writer~
Posted by 
Posted by 
