I pickle, ferment and sauce a lot of things. Then I look for things that can be made in very large quantities and then preserved frozen/cooled (a lot of times just in the cellar). A lot of these things are from Asia and are great and very cheap and I'm love them for taste as well; curry's (I make 10 liters at a time; from scratch, very very cheap except my time but I like cooking), auntie dumplings (prep + freeze; just watch tv while making 100s of them) etc. Lovely food and cheaper than most things.