Tuesday, June 29, 2010

A Week of (Healthy) Bare-Bones Meals

Today's day five in my week of super-frugal recipes. You'll notice I don't use much meat this week. It's much less expensive to eat a plant-based diet. Therefore, my frugal tip for today:

Frugal Tip #5: Treat meat as a side dish or a tasty addition to a meal, not the main course.

If you find yourself in a situation where you need to cut your grocery budget, rethink your meat & potatoes approach. Even if it's what you've been doing your whole life, you can change now, and so can your spouse and/or children.

Today's meal uses up some of the scraps of foods leftover from other days. I encourage you to switch things up a bit with whatever you have around.

I don't have a recipe for you; just a set of instructions. Open up a bag of tortillas (flour, hopefully whole wheat). Spoon on any leftover beans and vegetables you have. Maybe you have some salsa and cheese in the fridge. If you don't, I suggest adding chili powder, salt, pepper, and garlic to the beans before heating them up. Anyway, you're making a leftovers burrito. It's easy, it's practically free, and it's tasty. As a matter of fact, I have a sixth frugal tip for you today:

Frugal Tip #6: PLAN to USE your LEFTOVERS.

Don't waste food. Plan to use them. Leftovers don't have to be the same dish just warmed over. Take your leftovers and transform them. Chicken becomes chicken soup and chicken burgers. Beans become Mexican pizzas and bean burritos. Change it up a bit. Add new spices. Make a main dish into a salad. Be creative.

And enjoy your quick and easy lunch. :)

Here, I've taken a whole wheat tortilla and stuffed it with my beans (leftover from Mexican Pizza), lettuce, and tomato. Filling, nutritious, and easy!

7 comments:

Mandy Bird said...

Looks great! Thanks for the tips.
I have an award for you here:
http://mandysrecipebox.blogspot.com/2010/06/blog-with-substance-award.html

J Rodney said...

Hi There,
Thank you for stopping by my blog. I am here to check out yours, and I am now your newest follower.

Everything looks very tasty!


Frugal Mom from
Frugality Is Free and
Print Your Coupons Now!!!– All Your Printable Coupons in One Place

Andrea the Kitchen Witch said...

This is pretty much what I have planned for lunch today :) Gotta love left over bean burritos!! Thanks for all the great tips Michelle! I love this series :)

Kate said...

This looks delicious! I've been trying to pack lunches for my husband since he started his new job, and for some reason I find lunch box ideas so hard. Thanks for the inspiration!

Ma What's 4 dinner said...

Great tips! You are so right!

Lots of yummy love,
Alex aka Ma What's For Dinner
www.mawhats4dinner.com

M @ Betty Crapper said...

I usually eat any leftovers for lunch the next day. Great tips.

Unknown said...

I'm loving the bare bones posts! Everything is inexpensive and tasty!! Just the way I like it!

*NEW!* Stay current on what's cooking!

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails