The Tight Budget Cookbook

Here’s a cookbook perfect for budget conscious meal planners…

If you want to save a lot of money on your grocery bills, yet still serve delicious and nutritious meals, this cookbook is for you!

All of the recipes in this book were contributed by Nutrition Educators with your needs in mind. You’ll find breakfast dishes for as little as 4 cents per serving, and main dishes featuring meat for as little as 51 cents per serving.

With hundreds of recipes, you’ll find everything from breakfast; main dishes with meat, poultry, fish and a secti (more…)

The Everything Meals For A Month Cookbook

You don’t have to order take out every time you don’t feel like cooking–now there’s an easier way to have breakfast, lunch, and dinner (not to mention dessert) right at your fingertips!

The Everything Meals for a Month Cookbook is the perfect tool to help you save time in the kitchen (and money in your wallet!) with practical shopping tips and food handling tricks for buying and cooking in bulk.

Learn how to plan your menu, assemble the ingredients, and store and freeze a month’s (more…)

Recommended Cooking Accessories when on a Budget

 

Are you looking for ways to save money on food? There are lots of standard tips that will help you stay within your budget when grocery shopping. Here are some top tips and cooking accessories that make it easier for you to stay within your food budget in tough economic times.

Buying in bulk is a great way to save money on purchases that you will use over time, but you need a way to break down your purchases and store them. One of the handiest items to have on hand is a Burger Maker Set that lets you turn 3 pounds of ground beef into 12 hamburger patties and store them in airtight trays in your freezer. You can easily pull out one patty at a time for use, or take out a whole tray. A 6-piece Burger Maker set lets you pick between full size patties or 9 sliders for each tray of burgers.

Speaking of hamburger, you can save even more money by buying whole cuts of meat and grinding your own at home with an Electric Meat Grinder. Take advantage of sales on pot roast and other cuts, and grind them yourself at home for higher quality ground meat at bargain prices.

Why pay a premium for deli-sliced roast beef, turkey, corned beef and other deli meats? Why pay for plastic packaging for name brand sliced meats? Invest in a deli slicer and you can slice your own sandwich meats at home and save up to $5 a pound on ham, turkey and other deli meats.

With salad dressing costing up to $2.50 a bottle, you can save a nice chunk of change by making your own salad dressings at home. For about the price of two bottles of dressing, you can buy a salad dressing carafe and emulsifying mixer that lets you whip up your own dressings in seconds. Pick up a few and you can keep several different salad dressings in your fridge for easy use.

Store dry cereal and snacks in a handy set of snack dispensers, reminiscent of retro gumball machines. You can set the dials to deliver measured portions, which makes it easy for kids to grab a bowl of cereal without spilling (and wasting) half the box on the table. It’s also a handy way to limit the amount of snacks that kids take at once, which is good for their health as well as your pocketbook.

Are you paying a premium price for little plastic tubs of yogurt full of preservatives and additives to make them “appealing”? Save big bucks by making your own yogurt at home. You won’t believe how easy it is to do with a Yolife Yogurt Maker. Just pour milk into a jar, add yogurt starter (which you really only need once) and cover with the domed lid. In less than 12 hours, you’ll have the freshest, best-tasting yogurt you’ve ever eaten at a fraction of the cost of store bought products.

Microwave popcorn is a favorite snack because it’s so easy to make – but a buck a bag can really put a crimp in your budget. You can still pick up a bag of popcorn for less than a dollar, and a Microwave Popcorn Popper makes it just as easy to pop the corn as dropping a bag in the microwave.

How much does it cost you to grab lunch at work each day? Even if you eat off the dollar menu, you can save hundreds of dollars a year by bringing your own lunch to work each day. Investing in a good set of thermal storage containers like the Smart Portion Container Set can make it easy to bring delicious and nutritious lunches to work or to school each day.

Do you end up throwing away fruits and vegetables that have spoiled before you get to use them? Do you have to pass on great bargains because you know you won’t eat them before they go bad? One of the hottest products to come along in years, Green Bags keep your produce fresh for days, even weeks longer. Other fresh storage options to look at include FreshVac Storage Containers and the Produce Keeper which lets you store up to three vegetables or fruits in one container and keep them fresh up to two weeks longer.

Fresh herbs are a delight in your cooking, but buying fresh herbs at the supermarket gets expensive quickly. Growing your own basil, thyme, oregano and other herbs is surprisingly easy. A set of Herb Pots is a wonderful way to add some green to your kitchen and flavor to your meals, all while keeping the green in your wallet.

 

Quick Healthy Dinner Recipes

photo credit: Bill HR

One of the challenges of meal planning is having dinner recipes on hand that your family will enjoy and eat.

Here are some of my favorite places to find quick healthy dinner recipes:

FoodNetwork.com – not only do I love watching the Food Network, I love trying out the recipes too.  You can find all of the recipes from your favorite shows and more on the Food Network website.

AllRecipes.com – this is my go-to website when I need dinner ideas or if I’m looking for a recipe.  There are thousands of recipes and ideas on this site.  One of my favorite sections is Budget Friendly Meals.

CookingLight.com – a great site to find healthy recipes for those who are dieting or just trying to eat better.  Check out the Vegetarian section, or my favorite, the In Season section.

EatingWell.com – this is the Eating Well magazine website.  In addition to finding tons of recipes you’ll also find articles on topics such as cooking for kids, food and travel, food and entertaining, and much more.

KraftFoods.com – this is another one of my favorite sites for finding meal ideas.   This site is frequently updated with recipes for the occassion.  For example, right now you’ll find Mother’s Day recipes and Cinco de Mayo recipes.  They also have a new BudgetWise section if you’re looking to stretch your food budget.

Stuffed Baked Potatoes

We eat a lot of potatoes, so I’m always looking for new ways to cook them.  I saw a recipe for stuffed baked potatoes on MenuPlanningCentral.com recently that looked great.  I modified it a bit to fit my family’s tastes.  I hope you enjoy it as much as we do!

4 large baking potatoes
1 medium onion, chopped
Olive oil
3/4 cup milk
2 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon pepper
3/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Bacon bits
Sour cream
Green onion, chopped

Preheat oven 350 degrees. Bake potatoes on rack for 1 hour or until tender.

Saute onions in olive oil until tender. Drain and set into large mixing bowl.

When potatoes are done, cut in half and scoop out the insides. Add potato to mixing bowl with onions. Blend in milk, butter and pepper. Blend in 1/2 cup of the cheese; set remaining 1/4 cup back in refrigerator for later.

Return potatoes by the spoonful to the skins. Place on baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes longer.

When done, top with sour cream, extra cheese, bacon bits and green onions.

Tips to Make Meal Planning Easy

Do you have trouble coming up with ideas for dinner when you’re working on your meal plan for the week?

Here’s a tip to make meal planning easier for you:

Assign each day a food category or a theme to help you brainstorm ideas for meals. For example…

Sunday – meat and potatoes (or Dad’s favorite)
Monday – chicken
Tuesday – ground beef
Wednesday – leftovers
Thursday – fish or vegetarian
Friday – fun or kids’ favorites
Saturday – eat out or grill out

These are just suggestions to help make meal planning fun and easy!

My Favorite Taco Soup Recipe

Taco soup is one of my favorite comfort foods. It’s great for football or snowy days or even a quick dinner idea.

This recipe is extremely easy to put together with inexpensive ingredients, and my friends and family ask for this dish over and over.

Anyone who knows me knows that I rarely cook from recipes… I may start from a recipe, but I like to tweak and improve recipes to put my own unique stamp on them. Since my family has been asking for this recipe, I’ve decided to write it down and share it with others on my blog.

I created this recipe from a combination of taco soup recipes I found on the web and my favorite chili recipe.  Enjoy! Read more

Where To Find Recipes

Even with multiple cookbooks and hundreds of recipes, I still get stuck for ideas for dinner.  And I’m always looking for new recipes.

There are two sites that I love browsing for dinner ideas and for new recipes.  They are:

AllRecipes.com and
Meals.com

In addition to thousands of recipes, these sites also offer articles and tips on cooking, cooking on a budget, entertaining, and eating healthier.

What are your favorite recipe sites?