last night: Arugula and Steak Salad + Eggplant Stir-fry by Chris
tonight: pizza! prosciutto and arugula
tomorrow: mustard chicken+ broccoli
mango chicken tacos, tuna farfalle and shrimp arrabiata to follow.
For my next menu: i need your most favorite CHEAP dinner recipes.
much obliged to you,
e
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
Those sound delicious!
I pulled out a recipe book to give you some ideas for cheap dinners, but now I can't find it.
i have a whole week, so no worries...
i really want your favorite(s).
A personal fave of mine is Parmesan crusted chicken with penne pasta. It's not all that healthy but it's inexpensive and delicious.
Lately I've also been eating a lot of black bean and corn salad as a side dish.
To get away with a cheap week, I try to plan meals where I can repeat key ingredients. Like on Sunday, we'll have chile and lime roasted chicken(whole) with a risotto and zucchini (chop up three whole zucchinis, but only saute 1.5). Monday, I'll use the leftover chicken for burritos with black beans, salsa and bell peppers. Tuesday, I'll use the left over zucchini and bell peppers with andoule (sp?) sausage for a stir fry. And so on and so on . . .
Like I said, I am a big fan of soups . . . I can make a huge pot of soup for very little money, thrown in a baguette and salad and we have a meal. Whatever soup we don't eat can be frozen or used for lunches.
The best investment I have made -- glass pyrex with plastic lids for leftover storage.
Oh, and weird sauces can dress up any leftover meat or vegetables, making it seem like a whole new meal: Ume plum vinegar, hoisin sauce, etc. . . I only use about two tablespoons of the sauce to flavor a dish, so the investment in the sauce lasts a good three months. I try to buy one special sauce per month.
We have a tight, tight budget, so I am probably more frugal than most, but it seems to work.
Okay, one more thing and then I'll shut up . . . puff pastry and phyllos dough. I buy a package of each once a month. You can wrap anything in puff pastry throw it in the oven and a have a delicious out of ordinary turn-over. Phyllo dough is more calorie friendly and lets you wrap up veggies like gifts, bake, and sprinkle with soy sauce. They make out of ordinary goodies for weekend dinners.
hmmm.. the things I cook are so much more "down home" that what you ladies cook. I am definitely old school and southern :)
One our favorites is:
I use a family pack (4 BIG breasts) of chicken breast with rib meat (the bone in gives it so much more flavor)
marinate it with a 1/2 bottle of Italian dressing, throw it in the oven for an hour or so (depends on just how big the breasts are) and serve with buttered egg(less) noodles and a veggie.
Cook a pan of Ziti according to directions. Brown a pound of hamburger add a jar of spaghetti sauce. Put the ziti in a baking dish, add the meat and sauce, add a layer of sliced provolone and stick it in the oven until the cheese melts.
I make my own spaghetti sauce in really big batches and freeze in small amounts. We have a spaghetti night once a week. Sometimes I add fresh broccoli to the spaghetti while it is cooking. Most of the time I serve the sauce meatless, sometimes I add hamburger, sometimes chicken. Cheap, easy and fast.
Tacos.. how can you go wrong with tacos?
Rice and beans.
And, HooRay for soups.. you can make so much at once and have leftovers for days and you can get so creative with soup.
I could do this all night but I will stop now.
A, your cooking style appeals to me, but sadly not to David and Erin. They like plain things. It gets boring around here!
We do love tacos! :)
I'm late to this convo...sorry. All the traveling.
I cook more like Aola as well. Usually nothing too fancy and rarely processed. I'm lucky that J is about the least picky eater alive and eats leftovers for lunch, and sometimes for dinners, too. We are a waste-not-want-not kind of household. The two and a half :) of us do about $60-70 on food/toiletries/etc. each week, including diapers. I'm a big "watch the sales and only cook what's on sale or freeze it," and we also take advantage of frozen veggies (and fruits, for Alyssa's smoothies) and we eat what's on sale of the fresh produce, too (no strawberries in the dead of winter, etc.). I subscribe to the Tightwad Gazette style of cooking and living for the most part (think outside the box on ingredients, simple foods, etc). That's a great book for that kind of cooking, but I don't know that that's your style, E.
And like Becky, I try to reuse ingredients in new ways--and my kiddos snacks and juices are something spendy--but she's still bf-ing a lot (sigh) and a super picky eater so...
Post a Comment