When eating at home is EASIER than dining out.
You know you’re changing when you think about dining out - and something in you says…" “Um…NO.”
Now, before I really get into the meat of this blog, understand that I am so NOT a perfectionist here! Our son and new daughter-in-law invited us to join them at Lucky’s Steakhouse in Imlay City the other day, and I couldn’t say YES fast enough! As any parent will understand, it wasn’t the restaurant that drew me - it was time spent with beloved children.
Then there are those times we’re passing the Chinese restaurant after church, and I say, “Um…Hon…???”
But the truth is, overall, eating out just ain’t what it’s cracked up to be. I mean, it SOUNDS great. Someone else is doing the cooking? Let’s go! But then…
Number one, COST.
Dining out costs an arm and a leg. Now, as “Your Local Chicken Lady” who runs the numbers and knows what it takes to stay in business, I understand that piece of the puzzle from the restaurant owner’s perspective. I really do. I myself am often horrified at what I have to charge for my chicken if this business is going to be sustainable long-term. The numbers don’t lie. I can’t even imagine how much money it costs to run a restaurant.
Ack. Oof.
But still, from the consumer’s perspective, we have a responsibility to decide if what we are getting is WORTH the price we’re paying.
For my family, I honestly believe that paying a local farmer for nutritionally-dense food is something we should consider if we can (and I do understand it isn’t always an option), considering the benefits to our families, our local communities, the animals, even the environment.
A restaurant? Well, maybe. It does support local economy, for sure, and there are restaurants like Coon Creek in Armada, who go the extra mile to source their food from local farmers. Now THAT is a dining experience I can get behind!🥰
But still: COST. We go out for an evening, and we’re hungry. It all smells so good. We get something to drink, maybe even an appetizer, if it’s a special occasion. Kev wants chicken; I won’t touch restaurant chicken with a 10-foot pole, so I order fish.
(Almost totally unrelated side note: I heard a funny story about a couple organic farmers who went to a restaurant. The vegetable farmer, knowing all the chemicals sprayed in typical veggie operations, ordered a carnivore-based meal, while the beef farmer, knowing the horrors of the beef industry, ordered vegetarian! I get it! Catch me EVER ordering chicken at a restaurant! It’s disgusting, it squishes, and it ain’t happenin’. Except for the Three-Cheese Chicken Quesadilla at Tropical Smoothie Cafe. Somehow that one slips past my defenses and grabs me every time.😁Shhh…Don’t tell!)
Onward…
So there we are. Two people, and if it’s a nice restaurant, we may pay $70 by the time we leave a tip.
Now, as Kevin and I ARE getting a little wiser as we age. We’ve begun splitting meals, so if we are VERY careful, drink water and skip the appetizer, we can get away for under $30. So there is that. Still, $30 is a whole lot more than my average meal at home!
And when it comes to cost, have you priced take-out lately? A couple years ago for some reason I needed to break with our homemade Friday Night Sourdough Pizza tradition and order take-out. It was going to be over $70 for the pizza needed to feed our family! Now, this was Jet’s, because I absolutely can NOT do the Little Caeser’s Hot & Ready and continue to function, but still! Sheesh!
Number two, Nutrition.
Exactly HOW do you feel after leaving the restaurant? Energized? Oh, yeah, right. After garlic bread, stuffed mushrooms, and pasta? Nope. You feel sluggish, draggy, and it may even last into the next day or two. As I’ve gotten older, unfortunately, I’ve found that even my FAVORITE restaurant makes me feel AWFUL the next day unless I just eat a tiny bit. And the Chinese restaurant? Oh, ugh. As soon as we get in the car, I start dragging and my guts just feel…wrong. Off, somehow. (But the egg rolls were SO good goin’ down!)
My friend L. (name hidden to protect the innocent😁) said she and her husband broke down and went out to dinner after months of eating only at home…and spent two hours on the toilet afterward. Oh, yay. And my own son D. (ditto😂) recently learned the fast food lesson many of us learn eventually…one “tasty” meal may be followed by a horrid bout with food poisoning.
Problem is, we aren’t usually GETTING good, nutritionally-dense food at a restaurant. More often than not, they’re cutting corners on quality to be able to stay in business. There are exceptions, I must say. But most of the time, it’s the cheapest of the cheap. I ordered Italian Wedding Soup a few months back at another local steakhouse - they’re going to have good quality food at a steakhouse, right? Oh, the squish. It was AWFUL. I ate ONE of the tiny meatballs and fished the rest of them out of the soup, leaving them on the little saucer. Gag. The broth wasn’t so bad.
Number three: TIME.
And this is a weird thing, because it seems like since we aren’t doing the cooking or washing the dishes, it shouldn’t take as long. But by the time you get in the car and drive to the restaurant, place your order, eat, and wait for the check (Oh, for the good old days when I didn’t have to wait and pay at the table!) and drive back home, you could have easily had supper made, eaten, dishes washed, and be sitting with a book in your easy chair!
In the final analysis, whether you’re looking at things from the perspective of Cost, Nutrition, or Time, dining out usually just isn’t worth it.
I had an interesting conversation with a couple good friends and customers a while back, and they talked about how much more they AND their kids enjoy eating at home! When their kids hear that they’re eating pizza that night, they start clamoring for “Dad’s Pizza!!!” because Dad’s is SO much better than take-out.
Mom’s homemade Friday Night Sourdough Pizza - complete with crispy, bubbly crust! Who needs Jet’s?😁
Not to lose sight of the title of this post, though, how can we make it EASIER to eat at home?
1) Have a basic, simple meal plan. See my video blog here for some suggestions on the dreaded meal planning!
2) Have a good assortment of the nutritious foods your family actually likes and will eat (key point there!) available in your pantry, fridge, and freezer. The Cluckery does sell parts & pieces now, which makes at least keeping top quality chicken on hand easier than ever! It is MUCH quicker to thaw a chicken leg quarter or a breast than it is to thaw a whole chicken if you need something speedy.
And I REALLY recommend making large batches of chicken stock and freezing it! This makes whipping up a tasty soup or even just a cup of broth a breeze.
3) Make yourself a list of your family’s favorite Quick & Easy Meals. Here is a picture of mine, called “What’s For Dinner?” I keep it taped on the inside of a cupboard where I prep most of our food. It’s broken down into 10- and 20-minute options, and depending on what I have available, I can ALWAYS find something quick that’ll work for my family. You needn’t bother to copy mine, since in 20 minutes with a pen and paper you can create your OWN list of your family’s favorite quick and easy meals!
(Oh…and those “labels” such as “DD 200” just tell me where to find the recipe: in this case, Desperation Dinners cookbook, page 200. BC Easy 157 means Barefoot Contessa: How Easy Is That? page 157. And so on, and so forth.)
This little list, updated from time to time and taped inside a handy cupboard, is a LIFESAVER when “life happens” and my day and my menu plan get derailed!
4) Learn to can, so you have an assortment of fully-prepared, NUTRITIOUS, top-quality meals ready at hand. In my own pantry, I have home-canned chicken ready to turn into BBQ chicken or chicken tacos; home-canned beef ready to turn into nachos or sloppy joes; asparagus soup; and usually pinto beans, some sort of chili, maybe some sort of stew.
The other day I was heading out the door to a canning class, coincidentally, when I realized I hadn’t even THOUGHT of what my own family was going to eat! So I grabbed a jar of my home-canned chicken, dumped it in a pan with barbeque sauce, slapped a loaf of my sourdough bread on the counter, and they were GOOD TO GO! It literally took me - and I’m not exaggerating - three minutes, and that’s only because I had to run downstairs for another jar of sauce. You can’t get through a McDonalds drive-thru in three minutes!
(Remember that I’ve got canning classes on the docket in the Cluckery Kitchen! Click here to check out the classes remaining in 2026!)
5) Buy a used copy of Desperation Dinners or some such treasure, discover your favorites, and jot them down on the inside of the cover for easy reference. I found this copy at a garage sale, and I often say it is the best $1.00 I ever spent. Sometimes these meals take me longer than 20 minutes, since I rarely use the pre-packaged items some of these recipes call for, but I am the queen…the QUEEN, I tell you, of taking a pre-packaged idea and coming up with a from-scratch replacement!
So, tell me.
What makes YOU decide to eat at home instead of dining out? And what are YOUR favorite tips for making in-home dining easy? Leave your comments below!