Cooking Ideas

Have you heard of http://www.savingdinner.com/ ? Menu planning is essential in stretching a grocery budget, IMHO. And planned overs (fancy word for leftovers..because I do it on purpose) are a must for us. I have 2 kids & a husband that take meals to work each day. I have not personally used this menu mailer they have, but I have a friend with 10 children that uses it often. They provide a menu, shopping list & recipes for a small fee each month. Sometimes we get stuck in our meal rut & it's hard to think outside of that. There are different menu plans to choose from, bulk cooking, low carb, and they have one called frugal.

Also, keep it simple, don't think it has to be a gourmet even every evening. Sometimes we have baked potatoes with canned chili & cheese, simple and good on a cold night. We've made breakfast for dinner sometimes too. A great cookbook for crockpot cooking, which I LOVE, is FIx It and Forget It: Feasting With Your Slow Cooker...lots of recipes and all I've tried are very good.

Hope that helps.

1 mom found this helpful

I go to www.recipes.com .They have a lot of simple recipes that are easy to follow.An tasted good when your done.Type in your meat of choice and it will give you several recipes ,giving you lots of choices.Throw in some mashed,baked or fried potatoes and a veggie and your good to go.Tell your hubby he is going to be your new guinea pig as you learn to satisfie his hunger.Best of luck you can also contribute recipes to the site ,I have given several recipes my self as I am an experimental cook.My hubby never knows what hes having till I'm done thinking and cooking.

1 mom found this helpful

Fill a crock pot with chicken thighs with the skin removed. Pour a large jar of sweet-n-sour sauce over the chicken. Bake at the recommended time and temp for the crock pot. You can make your own stir fry rice or use a package. You can also remove the chicken from the crock pot 45 minutes before and put some thinly sliced carrots and brocolli in the crock pot on high for 30 minutes. Veg. will be crispy. Pick up some fortune cookies at the store to go with the meal. (Can even add a small bowl of vanilla ice cream as a treat.)

I must be your sister-in-law b/c my husband is the same as far as eating! My suggestion - try not to have every meal be time consuming. You will begin to feel you are not getting anything else done in life! Keep an index file listing favorite meals so you can skim through them when your memory needs jogging or when you are looking for a quick and easy meal. Also, with children - have some meals you can do in pieces during the day and not have to work on it all at 5:oo. I always found that to be the hardest part of the day for my child and then I was trying to prepare a meal! Simple meals can be great, too!

1 mom found this helpful

Hey Allisa,
Mom of 4 here, and I know that cooking can get into a rut. Have you ever tried the Oh-so-gentle on your wallet tuna casserole? All you need is 2 cans of tuna, 2cans of cream of mushroom, 1 package of egg noodles, and about 5 slices of velveeta cheese. Mix all of the ingredients, put the cheese on top and bake for about 15 minutes at 350 degrees.
We are discussing this very topic of recipe ideas at my Mommy-and -Me group at the end of this month. You are so welcome to join us. We meet the last Wednesday of each month from 10:30-noon @ Mission Blvd Baptist Church. Your little ones are welcome to come with you. Childcare is provided for your older child, and all the moms with smaller babies can just keep them right with them. If you want to know more just subscribe to ____@____.com

I am the mother of 5,4 are still at home and I have just started my own home based business so finding time to eat something other that chicken nuggets has been a challenge for me as well. 2 things that have helped is a website called E-mealz.com, they give you a menu designed for your family with simple easy to prepare foods. They also give you a grocery list from your favorite grocery store, so you can shop the weekly specials. This helps with the bottom line as well. Another great resource is www.kraftfoods.com. They have lots of great recipes using easy substitutions for more difficult dishes and a recipe box where you can save the dishes that your family loves. No more cut out scraps of paper in a drawer. Also if you sign up with Kraft, they will send you their recipe magazine that comes every other month with even more great ideas.
Hope this helps and don't forget if you have the time to make a casserole or a pot of soup, make double or triple what your family would normally eat and freeze the other for a quick meal on a hectic night.
There are franchises where you can go a prepare a weeks worth of dishes using their ingredients, but I have found that they are too pricey for a family our size. Phil Lenehan - a finincial guru like Dave Ramsey suggests the cooking once a month or once a week method and there are many websites with instructions on how to do this.

I also noticed that you mentioned the grocery budget - one of my favorite websites is www.coupons.com. I have no idea how they get all the coupons, but you can go through all the different catagories and for a small handling fee, you can save big $ off your grocery bill.

Hope this helps - and don't forget - don't sweat the meals and housework now. Babies are only babies for a very short time and there will always be a dirty house and meals to cook.

A Long Time Stay at Home Mom

Hi, we've been there as well! I found you can do a lot of different casseroles with mac and cheese, hot dogs, and hamburger meat! You can mix the hot dogs with pork and beans and about a Tablespoon of brown sugar, serve them cut up in the mac and cheese, have them separate with the mac as a side. You can mix chili in with the mac and cheese and hot dogs mixed together. You can mix cooked noodles with browned hamburger, cream of chicken, and cream of mushroom for a delicious casserole (my daughter's favorite). You can put mashed potatoes on top of a heated slice of bologna and top it with cheese (it's called bologna cups) (another of my daughter's favorites! She would even eat it for breakfast!). Hope this helps.

Hi A.,

My husband recently had a pay cut that forced me to be more frugal. Try www.kraftfoods.com and select the dinner option...then select the 1 bag, 5 dinners...it has been a great help. It will give you a grocery list and 4 dinners to prepare with the 5th night being frozen pizza...everything that I have cooked so far has been a hit with my family.

Good luck.
Jen

Hey A.,
I found the website www.menus4moms.com and I love it. It's free, like Mamasource and once a week, they will send you an entire week (M-F) menu and grocery list. They also keep previous menus in their archives, allowing you to look through nearly 18 months of menus.
Check it out. I've found some good and easy recipes there.

A. Hayes

I will tell you something that I am about to try myself! I just pulled up the Feb. menu from "A Dinner A'Fare" and everything looks good and relatively low calorie. It only costs $145 to prepare 12 meals serving 2-3 people. You go and use their menus and their cut up ingredients, and assemble your meals in pans or ziplocks, and then you freeze them, and heat and eat. I really don't think I can cook 12 meals for the same amount. It seems every time I go to the grocery store to buy ingredients for a couple recipes I want to make, it ends up costing me at least $50-60 or more. Super Suppers is the same kind of deal. Good luck!

I'm not sure if you have heard of Angel Food Ministries or not. Through local churches (you don't have to be a member or meet any qualifications), you can purchase $70 worth of food for $30. You can even purchase additional meats and poultry at a good price. Each church has their own deadlines. You pay for the food and pick it up on their delivery day. Just take a large box. To see a list of churches that particiapte and the menu for the month, visit www.angelfoodministries.com.

Check out hillbillyhousewife.com. She has great tips for dinner, snacks, and lunches for your husband. She also shares recipes for foods you would buy pre-seasoned and boxed, like flavored pastas and rice-a-roni.
I hope you find this helpful!

I love using the crock pot!!! It's so easy to make good meals in.

One of my favortie recipes is for Taco Soup.

Here it is:
1 lb ground beef or turkey
1 can ranch style beans
1 can kidney beans
1 can corn
1 can stewed tomatoes
1 can rotel
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves crushed garlic
1 package powder taco season
1 package powder ranch dressing mix

Brown meat. Mix all ingredients in crock pot (drain corn and beans). Add approx 2 1/2 cups water to desired consistancy. Cook on low all day. I serve this with tortilla chips, saltine crackers, or corn bread. You can also sprinkle cheese on top.

My husband loves this soup!!! It's so good and makes lots of leftovers. You can freeze the leftovers.

Good Morning A. - do you have space to grow a vegetable garden? That is a no.1 start to stretching the budget (and children can help - they love to). Learn how to can and/or freeze as much as possible. I discovered using herbs and spices helped as we felt fuller with flavor rather than fat, etc. Make homemade mac and cheese - vvv inexpensive and you can add lots of veggies and meats, etc to stretch that out. Soups and stews can be "neverending". I fed a family of 9 kids on a tight budget and no one starved. They never seemed to feel deprived. I just didnt give them processed foods or lots of sweets, etc. Buy in bulk if you can, day old bread and use coupons, taking advantage of reduced prices, etc. - another budget stretcher. Anyway, good luck - all you need is a little planning ahead and you will manage.

Hi A.,

I am new to this group, but saw your request and thought I'd respond. I do have some recipes that my husband loves that make enough for leftovers. However, I am wondering if your husband likes pasta and lasagna. If so, I can send three different recipes that might be helpful for you.

I have a family of 5. Myself, my husband and 3 growing children. The way we stretch our grocery budget is radio stations have things called "half-off hook ups" or River Rewards and stuff like that. They sell 50$ gift certificates to different places for 25$. Everytime they have one to any grocery store near us we buy them. You get double the groceries for what you spend!

My favorite/easiest recipes are the crockpot (slow cooker) recipes. You can put in a roast, and veggies like carrots, celery, onion, garlic, potatoes, put some water & other seasonings, and just let it cook low & slow all day. Also, the bigger your slow cooker, the larger size roast & more veggies you can fit in it to create lots of freezable leftovers.

Also, dried beans are very inexpensive, and cook up great in the slow cooker (on low, with lots of water for them to soak up). Add some salt pork (ham hocks) and/or sausage, a bay leaf or two, your usual seasonings; onions, celery, garlic; and viola another slow cooked meal.

With the slow cooker, you can buy the 'cheap' cuts of meat (roast, etc) since you're cooking it longer at a slow temp, it comes out nice and tender!

The best suggestion I can give is to have a good freezer. Buying in bulk and on sale is the best way to have dinner ready in a flash cheaply.
For instance, instead of buying a pound of ground beef at once, watch for a sale that sells 10 or even 20 pounds at once cheaply. Then you can spend 30 min to an hour prepping meals in advance. A pound makes a good meatloaf, put a few together and freeze them. Brown up some as taco meat if your family likes those - it freezes well too. Brown some as just plain browned beef with a little salt and pepper, and freeze it. You get the idea. Precooking cuts way down on the recipe prep time, and lets you time cooking to when it's convenient.
To carry it farther, premake casseroles - put them together as normal in your casserole dish, then freeze them in it. Pop them out once frozen and drop in a big freezer bag. When you're ready to cook it, just drop it in! Who needs storebought frozen meals when you can make your own?

Other suggestions - Find a salvage store/Big Lots in your area. You'd be surprised at the good stuff that goes through cheaply. If you've the storage space you can make dramatic cuts in your food bills this way by catching a good sale and stocking up.

Hope this helps!

Cook breakfast for supper one or two nights a week to stretch your grocery budget. Pancakes and sausage. Scrambled eggs, bacon, and biscuits, etc. Breakfast foods are cheaper than dinner foods. My family loves breakfast for supper.

I have my mom's Make-A-Mix cookbook that she got in the 1970's. You should still be able to find it on Amazon. It has a lot of different "mixes" that you make and save. You can combine the basic mix with other things (that the cookbook has recipes for) and make good meals. You can adjust the seasonings and ingredients to what y'all like. They are good base recipes that you can make a lot of and freeze, keep sealed, or whatever applies to the ingredients. Saves money and time!

Easy Mexican Casserole

INGREDIENTS:
1 1/2 pound lean ground beef
2 cups salsa
4 tsp. taco seasoning
1 (16 ounce) can chili beans, drained
3 cups crushed tortilla chips
2 cups sour cream
1 (2 ounce) can sliced black olives, drained
1/2 cup chopped green onion
1/2 cup chopped fresh tomato
2 cups shredded cheese (Cheddar, Monterey Jack… anything…)

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

In a large skillet over medium-high heat, cook ground beef until no longer pink. Stir in salsa, reduce heat, and simmer 20 minutes, or until liquid is absorbed. Stir in beans, and heat through.

Spray a 9x13 baking dish with cooking spray. Spread crushed tortilla chips in dish, and then spoon beef mixture over chips. Spread sour cream over beef, and sprinkle olives, green onion, and tomato over the sour cream. Top with Cheddar cheese.

Bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes, or until hot and bubbly

I found this great website that has the entire week of meals planned out for you, list the ingredients, gives the instructions on how to prepare it, has the grocery list ready to print (with the price listed so you know) and is catered toward three store options (Kroger, Wal-Mart, or other). The grocery list is based on what is on sale that week at the store. It is awesome!! Here is the website: www.e-mealz.com
I hope this helps...it helped me!

I make a Chicken fried rice for my family, and they love it. It is easy to make as much or as little as you want (if you want left over - it's a great left over meal.) I cut up some chicken breats (season to taste- as asian as you would like.) I then add veggies (frozed corn, green beans,broc, carrots-shred thin, etc - whatever you like, squash and zuccini are good too.) Meanwhile I have started rice in my rice cooker. Once the rice is finished I just add it to my pan, add soy sauce or Teryaki sauce, and some already scrambled eggs. It is so great and easy. Hope this is helpful.

Fiesta Lasgana

9 noodles boiled.
1 lb of skinless, boneless chicken breast
1 c of monterray cheese
cilantro
16 oz jar of salsa
1 can of black beans

Basically cook chicken and cut up in chunks and then make three layers with the lasagna noodles while sprinkling cheese, cilantro, and beans with salsa in every layer.

Hope it helps.

I A.,
I wrote a series of articles on the subject here:
http://parentingsquad.com/cut-your-grocery-bill-with-a-sa...
http://parentingsquad.com/cut-your-grocery-bill-with-a-sa...
http://parentingsquad.com/three-easy-ways-to-save-money-b...
You can just cut and paste the URLs into your browser!
Hope that helps,
L.