Another week...another crazy amount of food prep...

How do you keep your food bill down? Do you try? Is this an issue for you?

We're a family of six so naturally we eat more than, say the average family although most of us (Isaac and Amelia I'm looking at you!) eat almost nothing. It's more like an average family of 4 or 5 but whatever.
I'm not a crazy health food lady by any stretch but I try to feed everyone as nutritiously as I can. I try to feed them whole foods and lots of fruit and veggies (Okay so I do have nuggets and fries in my freezer but other than that...)

I drive out to a special grain store to by my freshly ground organic flour (look I'm not insane, it's just not that far from my house.) I try to by local, organic and fresh as much as possible. I'm not independently wealthy, however, so there is a limit to all of this of course.

I'm just finding we are struggling to stay within our food budget every month. Granted we have tons and I mean tons of company ... but I love to bake so I don't buy much prepared stuff. We also don't eat out very often. Have you take 4 + kids out to eat lately? It's expensive and not at all my idea of fun! It costs us almost $30 at Tims or Wendy's and to quote my husband, "it's like paying for the privilege of being in a food fight." I don't think it's quite as bad anymore but we still throw too much away for me to justify the whole thing very often.

I probably feed my brood plus at least 2 or 3 others at least three times a week and I feed 14 (the size of our extended family that lives near us) probably weekly. Plus we have company that comes to stay once a month.

I refuse to stop doing this.

I love that people feel they can come, hang out and stay for a meal. I like feeding people, which if you knew me when I first go married, you would be surprised to hear. I could just barely make toast and ... I'm NOT joking! I see it as a way to create community. It's not fun to prepare everything but it's a blast to have everyone over and get to know people better.

I'd love to hear any tips, websites, recipes that you swear by...leave them in the comments. It will be greatly appreciated. I have a link to an amazing recipe blog on my side bar. Her pot roast is to die for!!! Actually everything I've tried has been great!

Oh and I have one last question. Why when I have a house full of food, do my teen son and nephews think there's "nothing good to eat", if we don't have chips???!!!