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!

A Week of (Healthy) Bare-Bones Meals: Day 4

Welcome, Tuesday Tag-Along friends and welcome to all of my wonderful readers. :)

Today's day 4 in my week of meals that cost very little but provide lots of taste and nutrition. On today's menu: a sandwich that uses up the leftover chicken from the past two days' menus.


Day 4

Breakfast: scrambled eggs & biscuits with jam
Lunch: Leftover Fried Rice or Soup
Dinner: Chicken Burgers on Soft Rolls with Lettuce, Tomato, and Onion

Chicken Burgers on Soft Rolls
Makes 6 chicken burgers and 16 rolls

What You Need:

• 1 lb cooked, boneless, skinless chicken
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 to 3/4 cups bread crumbs (just toss the heels of your homemade bread into the food processor for this)
• salt & pepper to taste
• 1 tsp minced garlic (or 1 tsp garlic powder, if that's cheaper or easier to get)
• 1/2 an onion
• 1 Tbsp oil plus more for cooking
• rolls for serving (recipe follows)

How it's Done:

1. Combine chicken, eggs, bread crumbs, salt, pepper, garlic, onion, and 1 Tbsp oil in your food processor or blender. Process until smooth, adding tiny bits of water if needed.
2. Form the mixture into 6 patties.
3. Fry in oil over medium heat for 2 or 3 minutes per side. They're already almost completely cooked -- you just need to heat them up completely and brown both sides.
4. Serve on rolls with your choice of toppings.

Yummy, Cheap, and Easy SOFT Rolls for Sandwiches

What You Need:

• 2 cups milk
• 1/4 cup sugar (I used honey, but for cost purposes, I'm listing sugar. Use honey if you have it.)
• 1/4 cup oil
• 2 Tbsp active dry yeast
• 1 tsp honey or sugar
• 1/4 cup water
• 5 to 6 cups all-purpose flour, divided
• 1 tsp sea salt

How it's Done:

1. Heat milk on stove or in microwave until steaming (about 4 minutes in microwave for me). Add oil and 1/4 cup sugar or honey. Let this cool down.
2. Meanwhile, combine yeast with 1 tsp honey or sugar AND 1/4 cup warm water in a large mixing bowl. I used my KitchenAid stand mixer. Let sit for 10 minutes.
3. After 10 minutes, pour the milk mixture into the large mixing bowl. Turn beater on or stir by hand. Add 2 cups of flour and 1 tsp salt. Stir briskly 2 minutes. Then, let this sponge sit undisturbed for 10 minutes.
4. Now, add in 3 cups of flour, slowly, beating all the time. You want to form a soft, smooth dough. Add additional flour as needed.
5. Knead for five to eight minutes on a lightly floured surface.
6. Move the dough to a greased bowl. Cover and let rise until doubled, about an hour.
7. Punch the dough down and divide into 16 roughly equal bits. Roll out into ropes, then spiral them around themselves like snail shells, pinching the ends securely. Cover and let rise 30 minutes.
8. Bake at 375 for 15 minutes, or until the tops are golden in color.
9. Brush with melted butter if desired.

Frugal Tip #4: Use your time and energy wisely. Why make only 6 buns for one meal, when you can make 16 and use the rest over the next few days? Baking in large batches saves time, effort, and energy cost.

Who says livin' cheap has to mean eatin' junk?

This post linked to:

A Week of (Healthy) Bare-Bones Meals

It's day 3 in my week of bare-bones meals. I want to take a minute to talk to you about something I see a lot of people do that wastes quite a large percentage of money. So here's today's frugal tip:

Frugal Tip #3: Learn to buy, cook, and use dried beans.

Now, hold on. I can hear the groans already. But you're looking to cut your grocery dollar, aren't you? Then why is it that you keep spending 75% MORE on the same foods? Dried beans average $1 per pound. One pound of dried beans is equal to four cans of beans. One can of beans costs around $1. So why are you paying $4 for the same food you could be paying $1 for?

What? You don't want to heat up your house, you say? Worried about energy use, you say? Dump them in your slow cooker, cover with lots of water, and let them cook overnight while you sleep. No kitchen heat, less energy. Big savings.

Oh, and guess what! Beans cooked from dry taste so much better than canned beans. It's true. Not only are you wasting your money, you're also hindering your recipes. Yup. Try it. Cook your beans from dry.

On to today's meal plan:

Breakfast: Oatmeal with raisins and brown sugar
Lunch: Chicken Soup from leftover chicken carcass (SAVE the rest of the chicken for tomorrow's meal, though)
Dinner: Mexican Pizzas (recipe follows)

Mexican Pizza
Serves 4

What You Need:

• 8 corn tortillas (make them yourself if you have a press)
• 2 cups cooked, rinsed, and drained beans (any type will do -- I used small red beans)
• 3 Tbsp oil
• 2 to 4 peppers (whatever's on sale or cheapest -- I used bell and sweet banana peppers from my garden) 
• 1/2 a large onion
• 1 large tomato
• 1 Tbsp chili powder
• 1/4 cup shredded cheese
• 1 green onion, chopped

How it's Done:

1. Cook your beans. Save half for another recipe. Of the remaining two cups, place 1/2 cup in a food processor or blender with 1/4 cup water and puree to make "refried" beans. Set aside.
2. Heat 1 Tbsp oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add diced onion and peppers and tomato. Stir until the vegetables are soft. Add chili powder and remove from heat.
3. Heat the other 2 Tbsp oil in a separate skillet. Fry the tortillas, cooking 30 seconds per side. Remove to drain.
4. Assemble the pizzas like this: place a tortilla on a plate. Spread with some refried beans. Top with a second tortilla. Spoon the bean & pepper mix on top. Sprinkle with cheese and green onion. Serve right away.

A Week of (Healthy) Bare-Bones Meals: Day Two

One of the key ingredients to make it through a food hardship is variety. I've seen many blogs and websites geared toward bare-bones recipes, but they all seem to focus on the same ingredients, with little variation from day to day. A big part of surviving hard times with your sanity intact is having variety and feeling like you have choices. You aren't going to be very happy eating Ramen-style noodles, oat porridge, and beans everyday, are you? You need variety. It will make you feel better, both physically and mentally.

Variety doesn't have to mean buying more ingredients. It can be as simple as changing the way you present them or the way you use them. Take flour, milk, and eggs, for example. You can turn them into egg noodles, muffins, breads, pancakes, or popovers. All different. All the same. See how that works? Take this new trick and make this delicious, pretty, fun to eat breakfast that costs very little to throw together.

Day Two

Breakfast: Popovers with Eggs & Cheese (recipe follows)
Lunch: Leftover Vegetable Fried Rice
Dinner: Roast chicken, rice, and carrots, yeast rolls with butter or margarine


Popovers Stuffed with Eggs & Cheese
serves 8

What You Need:

for the popovers:

• 3 eggs at room temperature
• 1 Tbsp melted butter or margarine (or cooking oil)
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 1/4 cups milk
• 1 tsp salt
• cooking oil for greasing pan

for the egg filling:

• 8 eggs
• splash of milk
• salt and pepper to taste
• butter, margarine, or cooking oil for the pan
• 1/4 cup cheddar cheese (shredded) & 1 green onion, chopped, for garnish

How it's Done:

1. Preheat your oven to 450 degrees. Stick your muffin tin(s) or popover pan(s) in the oven to warm up.
2. Mix all the ingredients except greasing oil in a blender. Blend until smooth, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.
3. Remove pan(s) from the oven and oil them well. Pour batter into the pan(s) to 3/4 full.
4. Bake at 450 for 20 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 and bake an additional 10 to 15 minutes.Popovers will be high, hollow, and golden brown when done.
5. After reducing the heat, beat the eggs with milk and salt and pepper for the filling. Cook in a hot skillet until done. Sprinkle with cheese and green onions.
6. Cut them open as soon as you remove them. This is to allow steam to escape. Cut the tops off almost all the way. Fill with the eggs, cheese, and green onions. You can add some cooked leftover vegetables if you have them for even more nutrition and variety.

Frugal Tip #2: Buy some things in bulk. Namely, cheese, eggs, and baking supplies. Buying cheese in large bricks, then slicing or shredding at home saves money and takes very little time. Always check unit cost, but bulk buying gives your money more power.

A Week of (Healthy) Bare-Bones Meals

Last week, I talked about ways to get by during food hardship periods. This week, I'm going to practice what I preach. I'm going to show you a week of rock-bottom recipes that you can pull out of your reservoir in hard times. Each day, I'll give you one recipe, along with a basic meal plan. I am not a dietitian, a doctor, or a financial expert. I'm just a gal with a kitchen, a computer, and a knack for saving a few bucks. Your mileage may vary.

Day One

Breakfast: oatmeal made with a banana and milk, not water
Lunch: peanut butter & jam on wheat bread & an apple
Dinner: vegetable fried rice

Recipe: Vegetable Fried Rice

This isn't so much a recipe as a basic set of instructions. What you include will depend on what you have. It's a forgiving recipe, so amounts are not exact. use what you have.

What You Need:

• 1 1/2 cups raw rice (at least use brown rice -- mine was a mix of brown & wild rices)
• 1/4 cup oil (I used olive, because I had it. use what you can afford and what you have on hand)
• 5 cups chopped vegetables (cabbage, carrots, onions, green onions, and peas are all cheap. I added green bell pepper, banana pepper, both from my garden)
• soy sauce to taste
• if you have it, fresh ginger is great. 2 Tbsp minced is enough (I will not count this in my grocery list at the end of the week)

How it's Done:

1. Cook the rice according to directions. Let it cool slightly before using it.
2. In a large skillet, heat half of the oil. Cook the vegetables in the oil until crisp-tender. remove them to a platter.
3. Add the remainder of the oil and fry the rice until it's browned a bit and smells nutty. Add the vegetables back in and stir-fry the food, adding soy sauce to taste.
4. Serve right away. This recipe makes a large amount, perfect for lunches throughout the week.

Frugal Tip #1: Plan meals that use similar ingredients. If you plan for 4 meals that use rice, you only need to buy one package of rice. That will cut your grocery bill significantly.