This weeks adds

This weeks adds

QFC

Produce that is .99

Grapes
Romas
Broccoli

Buy 10, save. 5

Om lunch meat
Triscut
Butter
Franz bread
Cheerios
BBQ sauce


Chili 1.00
Corn 2/.88


TOP

Lean ground beef
Pork chops
London broil
All 2.77 a pound

2lbs carrots 1.00
Celery .57 lb
Cauliflower .89

SAFEWAYS

Pork loin 1.69
Fryers .89
Sirloin tip 2.49
Tomatoes .99
Lettuce .99
Milk 2.59

5buck Friday

Cake
Oranges
Shrimp
French fries 5

Artichoke hearts b1g1. Net 1.50
Onions .99

ALBERTSOMS

Thurs only. Rage .88 limit 2
Cantaloupe . 99
corn 2/1.00

That's about it.

Thanks for stopping by

Jane

Main dishes

Finding recipes that use inexpensive sources of protein that your family will eat is one way to cut your food bill.

Bean Counters Chowder ( can be vegetarian )
1/2 cup chopped onion
2cloves garlic, minced
1T olive oil
1medium tomato
1 quart of chicken stock (or veggie stock)
1 3/4 cup water
1/2 tsp basil, oregano
Celery leaves
1/4 tsp pepper
3 cans beans, great northern, pinto
1cup uncooked elbow macaroni
Parsley

In a saucepan, sauté onion and garlic in oil until tender. Add tomato and simmer 5 minutes. Add broth, water, and seasonings.
Bring to a boil. Cook for 5 minutes. Add beans and macaroni, return to a boil.

Reduce heat, simmer, uncovered, for 15 minutes or until macaroni is tender. Sprinkle with parsley. 2 quarts .

Notes:

If tomatoes are not in season, use diced tomatoes. Drain, reserving juice and reduce the chicken stock to compensate.

Top soup with grated parm or other hard cheese.

Serve with a crusty bread and a salad or fruit cup.

Thanks for stopping by
Please share this blog.

Jane

Let's talk about salad dressing

I belong to a group that sometimes has a potluck salad dinner. It works really easy, no real organization needed. If someone gets sick a key part of the dinner is not missing. One person bri gs a punch, one a roll and butter, one desert, and the rest of us bring a salad. Yum.

Ready made salad was .79 cents at Safeways last week, and it was twenty percent off that with JFU. That's .63 cents.

Salad dressing was recently a buck at Albertsons, and there was a coupon on the Sunday paper, that if you were lucky enough to find made it free.

That being said, that salad dressing was a regular price of about four dollars.
If you don't find a super sale, scratch would probably be cheaper.

Zippy tomato dressing

2/3 cup vinegar
2/3cup water
1/4 cup tomato paste
2T vegetable oil
2 T chopped green onion
2T parsley
2tsp sugar
1tsp dried basil
1/2tsp dry thyme
1/2tsp lemon juice
1/4tsp garlic powder
Salt and pepper

BLEND TOGETHER AND STORE IN A JAR WITH A TIGHT FITTING LID

BASIC VINAIGRETTE

3T vinegar
1/2tsp dry mustard
Salt
Pepper
8 T olive oil

Mix everything but the oil in a small bowl. Whisk in the oil slowly to incorporate it into the dressing.

Or
Place all imgredients I'm a blender and whirl

Note
You can substitute

lemon juice for the vinegar
Dijon mustard for the dry mustard
Vegetable oil for the olive oil

You can add

Garlic
Shallots
Basil

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Jane

Meat after the drought

I can still find some cheap meats that are not full of fat.They are not as cheap as they were, but with some adaptations , theynwill still work.
Jimmy Dean sausage is 3/6.89 at Costco. Defat it and use it as flavoring.
Chicken is up to 1.39 or so. It's still a good bargain. You can still get three meals from a 4.5-5 pound chicken. I got boneless spareribs for 1.50 a pound last week and steak for 2.88 this week. Good for stir fry.

Pork chops with pear chutney, adapted from food channel cb.

Pear chutney
1T onion that has been put over a microplane.
2T vinegar
2T brown sugar
1T butter
1inch piece of peeled ginger, cut into coins.
Cinnamon, salt, pepper
3pears, peeled, cores, and cut into chunks
2T dried cranberries
Chopped cilantro ( or parsley)

Mix together. I would pour the vinegar over the pears to keep them from discoloring.

Brown thin pork chops that have been salt and peppered. Cook until done. Serve with sauce

Chicken in a pot

Cook carrots, onion and lemon zest in olive oil in stockpot. Add chicken broth and chicken parts. Being to a boil and simmer until chicken is done


Notes: sometimes a little splurge makes a big difference. Youncan buy a little bit of ginger, it's sold by the pound. If a recipe calls for somethimg like cilantro, either make several meals that use it, or use parsley imstead and make pesto with the leftovers. LemoN zest can be cut from a lemon and plan to make fish that week, or freeze lemon juice.

Thanks for stopping by

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Jane

The nuts and bolts revisited

For people reading this blog recently, it is about grocery shopping and feeding your family on the cheap.

It takes a three pronged approach. Shop wisely, plan and organize, and cook from scratch.

Step one: Develop your own recipe book using sources of protein that are the least expensive. This is getting harder because of the drought making meat prices skyrocket.

Step Two: Never pay full price. Unless you have a photographic memory, you need a small spiral notebook, or a spread sheet of the foods that are your staples: What they are, what size package they come in, and how much you paid, when , and where.
For us it is diced tomatoes, canned beans, some canned veggies, refried beans, instant mashed potatoes, and pasta and pasta sauce.

Find the lowest price, and when it goes on sale for the lowest price buy as many as your budget will allow, as many as the store will let you buy, or as many as you can safely use before they expire. If it is something that I use once a week, I keep a supply of 24. If I only use it once a month, I keep 5 or 6. Pasta has a eight year shelf life. I just keep by bin full.

Each week I survey the adds. I take a sheet of computer paper from the waste basket, and divide it into four. Mark each quadrant with the name of the store. We are fortunate to have all four stores within a four mile radius and I can hit more than one in a shopping trip without back tracking. we also have dollar stores and the bank on the way.

Write down on each store's section, what is on sale cheap that you can use to make dinner, or that you need to stock. Now cross off anything that is higher priced elsewhere and anything that you already have enough of. You can now assess which two stores that you are going to visit. Stick to your list. Get in and get out. the longer you are in a store, the more you are going to spend.

Step three:

Cook from scratch. There are a few ready mades that are cheaper than making them from scratch. A few things are just too much bother to make. I take time into consideration. Figure your savings and divide it by your time spent cooking it from scratch. Sometimes I make 32.00 an hour.
We talk about techniques to get you out of the kitchen fast. IF you can set it and forget it and then go on to do laundry etc. You haven't spent much time in the kitchen.

Remember if you spend more time on the front end of the "Get a meal on the Table" train, and less time on the back end, you will be better off. Noone is "paying you to cook, but you are being "paid" well for shopping wisely. Half of the USDA 2009 stats for a family of four is about 75.00 a week. If you spend an extra hour shopping, you have made 75.00 an hour. Not to Shabby.

Thats pretty much the sumation of it all. The added bonus of stocking is that you never have to worry about getting to the store because you are out of food. You are prepared for a disaster. That can be that you are to sick with the flu to go to the store, or its snowing and you can't get to the store.

To the minimalists out there, if you can afford to buy your groceries from the whole paycheck store and burn seventy five dollars a week and feel good about it, then go for it, IT"S YOUR MONEY!

For the rest of us, that extra money might mean you can afford orthadontics or a college fund for the kids, a much needed vacation, or just have a piece of mind knowing that you have some more money in the bank.

Thanks for stopping by

Please share with a friend.

Jane

Meals from adds

There are still a few meat buys , not as good as before. Fruits and veggies are still reasonable.The best way to cope with rising meat costs is to eat less meals that have the meat as the main ya-da on the plate and use recipes that have less meat added to another protein source.


1) chili, beer bread, veggie sticks

2) meat loaf, baked potatoes, acorn squash

3) quiche, field green salad with strawberries and vinaigrette.

4) chicken orzo salad , French bread. ( I made itnthe other night, my daughter and I decided that it needed pesto or some chopped herbs.

5) pizza, green salad

6) tacos, refried beans

7) shrimp stir dry, rice

Note. : shrimp is often on Safeways 5 dollar Friday. Last week I got it for less with JFU. Peaches are a buck several places. Acorn squash is .79, beer bread is a bucket the dollar store, pizza is five bucks at Safeways . Steak is 2.88, makes good fat content hamburger cheap and you know what is in it.

Thanks for stopping by

Jane

This weeks adds

Just as we could have expected, meat has taken a big jump.
There are a lot of buy ten and get fifty centsoff sales, but it is hard to find products that are not high priced ready-made garbage.


QFC

Franz bread 1.99 (almost as cheap as outlet 3/5.89)
Butter 1.99
Triscuit crackers 1.49
Sour cream 1.49

Peaches.99
Raspberries 1.99
Corn 2/88

TOP

Cross rib roast 2.69
Canned veggies 15/10.00. Coupon
Milk 2.50 a gallon . Coupon
Eggs. 18 / 1.99

Grapes 2.00
gala apples 1.59

SAFEWAYS
Gala apples 1.69
Peaches .99
Bigi meat. No prices
Yoplait 10/ 5.00

5 BUCK FRIDAY
Pizza
Cookies

JFU
Strawberries 1.99
Skippy 1.89

ALBERTSONS
Green beans 1.49
Grapes 1.99
Gala apples .78
Pasta .88
Pasta sauce .88
Lean ground beef 3.49
Sirloin steak 2.88
.50 off ten
Mashed potatoes .49
Cheerios 1.99
Brownie mix .99

Acorn squash .79


That's about it. Albertsoms is the spoiler here, then QFC

Thanks for stopping by

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Jane

Grilled chicken salad ..yum

Here is the recipe that I found at the hair cutting place.




GRILLED CHICKEN SALAD

8 ounces orzo
8 ounces green beans, fresh
Olive oil
2large somewhat firm peaches
8 to 12 ounces of chicken breast strips
4 ounces feta cheese


Cook orzo in stockpot. Add green beans during last 5 minutes of cooking time.

Drain but do not rinse. Toss with olive oil.

Grill quartered peaches and chicken breast pieces.
Toss gently with olive oil and place on top of the orzo.
Sprinkle feta over top

Notes.

Sometimes all pasta is on sale. Orzo is a rice shaped pasta that can be used in soups.
Buy it when it is on cheap because pasta has a long shelf life.

Peaches and green beans are in season. Nectarines would also work and are a bit firmer.


Salt, pepper, garlic , rosemary?

Thanks for stopping by

Grocery adds are late because of the holiday.
Please share the blog

Jane

Coupons

Someone told me that the Sunday paper had a coupon for a dollar off the salad dressing that was on sale at Albertsoms last week. Had they told me I would have passed it on.
That's what the comment section is for. I don't get the paper and ro buy the paper just for the coupon would not have been cost effective. That was still a really good price.

I have had people pass coupons to me while I was in a store that they weren't going to use. Random act of kindness. I have done it too. It just made my day!!!

On to a series of designer food recipes adjusted to be on the cheap. The book is making it easy from the food network. I got it used. Try 1/2 price books if you want
It.

Chicken Breasts with Balsamic and garlic


2 T olive oil
Salt, pepper
2 chicken breast, boned and cut in half.
2 T EACH of flour and butter
5 cloves garlic , smashed
Rosemary
1/2cup balsamic vinegar
1 2/3 cup chicken broth


In frypan, brown the chicken in the oil on both sides. Place chicken in a baking pan and bake at 350 degrees 12-15 minutes until chicken tests done.

Mix the flour and butter to form a paste.

Add the rosemary and garlic to the frypan and toast slightly.
Stir on vinegar, deglazing the pan. Cook about one minute.
Add chicken broth and bring to a boil.
Whisk in butter mixture.
Simmer 1minute.

Serve sauce over chicken.

Serve with oven roasted root veggies


Notes

Balsamic vinegar is a splurge. Sometimes you can get it at the dollar store. Make your own chicken broth and freeze it. Pit it in old fashioned ice cube trays. Then pop out into a zip lock.

Use any root veggies that are in season. Cut into uniform sizes, toss with olive oil and rosemary and roast in the oven. Any degree from 350 to 400 degrees works. I usually let the meat I am cooking dictate the temp. this makes best use of the oven .


We knew it was fall when my mother made meatloaf, baked potatoes and acorn squash for dinner. She made it all in the oven. She would bring the squash down to my dads workshop and put it in the vice to cut it in half lengthwise. Then filled it with butter and brown sugar. these days if you poke it with a fork several times, you can microwave it for 2 or 3 minutes and soften it enough to cut it in half.

Meals that are entirely cooked at one rime in the oven saves power and makes for easier cleanup too.


Thanks for stopping by

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Jane

Pork medallions with apple horseradish sauce

Another recipe from food nw cb, adjusted to be in the cheap.

I still have pork medallions in the freezer from when pork loin was two dollars a pound.

Panko bread crumbs can be made by using French bread, hotdog or hamburger buns, a good way to use the extra hamburger bun from getting hebrew national hot dogs.

Applesauce can be made from small apples on sale.

Pork medallions with apple horseradish sauce.


2 large eggs, beaten

1cup bread crumbs seasoned with salt and pepper and dried thyme


Dredge pork medallions 1/2 to 1 in thick in egg and then bread crumbs

Fry pork in oil until both sides are brown. Place in a bakimg pan and continue cooking at 350 until pork tests done.

Sauce:

1 cup apple sauce
1/4cup sour cream
3 - 4 Tbls horseradish, drained well. ( place in sieve and squeeze out the juice.
Salt


Serve with baked potato and a green salad.


Thanks for sropping by

Please share.

Jane

Tortilla soup

Adapted fom Make it easy cook book, food network.

Sauté in olive oil until tender

1 medium chopped onion
2cloves garlic or 1/2 tspn garlic powder
1T chili powder
Salt and pepper.


Add 6 cups chicken or vegetable broth, simmer 10 minutes

Add
1cup corn and cook 5 minutes more.

Remove from heat, and add

1ripe tomato, chopped
1cup shredded cooked chicken

Garnish with cilantro, lime juice and tortilla chips


NOTE

Imstead of a fresh tomato if tomatoes are not in season, reduce chicken stock by the 16
Ounces that are in a diced tomato can. I got diced tomatoes with lime for 60 cents at big lots.

Tortilla chips can be made by trying flour or corn tortillas and draining on a paper towel or brown bag.

Use frozen corn, canned corn, or microwave a fresh corn cob when it is in season and cut it off the cob. Leftover corn?


Thanks for sropping by


Jane

Adjusting recipes

There are a lot of restraunt dishes and high end popular dishes than can be made on the cheap without sacrificing taste. Sometimes one high end ingredient splurge can make a real difference; or substitute a cheaper ingredient that is a close match. Arugula on a sandwich can become spinach. Ask yourself, what can I use instead. Celery can substitute for fennel.

Capers can last a long time in the fridge and a little bit goes a long ways.
Bottled lemon juice is a lot cheaper than squeezing your own juice.

Artichoke, potato and chorizo tortilla

Artichokes are cheaper at big lots , chorizo at grocery outlet. Sometimes it is frozen. You can make it vegetarian by getting soy chorizo at Trader Joe's.

3 ounces chorizo, or other sausage
1medium potato diced
12 ounces artichoke hearts, marinated, rinsed and drained.
Salt
Oregano
8 eggs
1cup cheese, grated
1red pepper, sauté in olive oil.


Use an oven proof fry pan

Cook 3 ounces of chorizo until done. Remove from pan. Cook 1 medium potato diced, artichokes, Salt and oregano until potato is done. add sausage.
Whisk eggs with salt and pepper.

Take the skillet off the heat . Add the eggs and stir until eggs begin to set.
Top with cheese and red peppers.

Put the skillet under the broiler for two minutes or until the eggs are set.

Slide the tortilla onto a cutting board and slice into wedges.


Thanks for stopping by

Jane

Chicken pesto pannini

I am watching food network,. They had chicken pesto panini on semi homemade. What a wonderful idea.

My cheap version of chicken pesto panini

Rustic French bread

Pesto (see older blog)
Sliced chicken breast
Mayo
Spinach
Sliced white cheese
Sliced tomato, seeded

Cut French bread in half

Spread each side with pesto and mayo.
Layer white cheese on each side.
Layer spinach on one side, tomato on the other
Spread both sides of chicken breast with pesto and place in middle of sandwich.
Close sandwich.

Toast on both sides.

Grill with a weight on one side at a time, or use a grill press or stovetop grill.


Thanks for stopping by


Jane

Please share

Meals from the adds

I'm running late this morning, so this will be quick! LOL

Meals from this weeks adds. Last days of summer

I'm finding lots of meats this week albeit not as cheap as they have been in the past.

Good hot dogs are on sale everywhere, my best guess is because of the holiday.
I, however, haven't seen buns cheap? Corn on the cob is really cheap at QFC.

1) Brats, oven roasted potatoes or corn on the cob, roasted peppers, coleslaw

2). Hot dogs and buns, potato salad, veggie sticks, apple pie

3)Quiche , mixed greens with rasp. Vinaigrette and strawberries, Youhert and granola parfait.

4). BBQ spareribs, potato salad, green salad, coleslaw, French bread.

5). Steak salad, French bread

6). Tuna melts, French fries , salad

7). stir fry shrimp, rice,

Meat prices are creeping up, especially chicken and beef.Buying Sirloin roast at 2.75 a pound is a good way to Hedge yourself. By buying two and grinding your hamburger you can save yourself a bundle. It turns out to be really lean hamburger and far less than the 4 plus dollars a pound for the good stuff.

Thanks for stopping by today,

Jane

Grocery Adds for August 29th

Grocery Adds for August 29th.

It doesn't seem like summer should be over. Lets hope for a great September.


Safeways:
JFu
Lucerne Ice Cream 1.99
Kraft Singles 1.79
Gala Apples 3/2.99
Hamburber buns .99
salad blends 1.00


corn 3/1.00
80 per cent hamburger 2.49
Hebrew National 2.99

5 dollar Fridays
Boston Cream Cake 5.00

Chicken leg quarters .79
Milk .99 Coupon


Albertsons


Berries 2.99
Hillshire Farm sausage BIGI Identical only 2/5.99

TOP

Sirloin Tip Roast BIGI 2.75
Country Style Ribs BIGI 1.50
Medium cheddar cheese 3.99 Coupon
Milk 2.50
Hebrew National 2.50* Thurs-Sun only
London Broil 3.00
Zucchini 1.00


QFC

Corn 10/3.00
Strawberries 1.99
Hebrew Nationals 3.00
cottage cheese 1.00

Remember to strike through everything that is more expensive elsewhere and cross off anything that you don't need or use.

Pick two stores.

Thanks for stopping by

Jane

MY 100th Blog

This is my 100 th blog. Thank you for stopping by.

Just a couple of notes:

Salad dressing is a dollar at Albertsoms...even the fancy ones.
Betty Crocker instant sweet potatoes are .79 at grocery outlet. I think that BC has discontinued them, and they are really good and easy to make. Probably at that price, cheaper than from scratch. One package has two three servings pouches. It has a short pull date, don't get overstocked.

Now is generally the time that can goods go on sale, about the time of the new canning season. I haven't seen that happening.

We went to the fresh food market ( by the old k mart). Some of the veggies and fruit were cheaper, and some not. Celery was cheaper, as well as red peppers and green peppers. Odd sixes pears were79 cents a pound.

Cheese is at Costco now in 2.5 pound bricks at less than two dollars a pound.

Remember, to stay at a 1/2 price pace, set goals for the cost of certain things. I want a dollar a pound for veggies and fruit.I want two fifty a pound for meat, and two dollars a pound for cheese. Sometimes I make it, sometimes I have to average to make it. fresh veggies are harder to stick to your guns on. One year I was waiting for strawberries to go down in price...we didn't get strawberries that year! LOL
Corn is up again this year, but cherries are down. You just have to be flexible.

Night before last we had brats, oven roasted red potatoes, roasted red and green peppers, coleslaw and French bread with parm cheese and parsley.

The brats were on five dollar Friday, there were ten big brats, enough for two " typical" families. Red potatoes were .40 cents a pound. Peppers were1.00 for both, the coleslaw was .80. And the bread was .60. For a total of 5.50 a meal.

Brats and coleslaw were from Safeways. the bread was from the bakery outlet, the peppers were from the grocery outlet. I got red potatoes from WinCo for two dollars for five pounds.

By careful shopping and averaging your meals, you can eat five dollar meals and still have a more expensive cut of meat every so often. Most of the time our kids would have rather had pizza, tacos, Dagwood sandwiches, or a casserole.
Cooking what the kids like, providing that they like a variety of foods, just makes life easier. We did interject a new veggie or dish ever so often so that they were introduced to a variety of foods.

I used to have a weekly calendar with large journalimg blocks next to each day on my computer. I would fill in the meals when I got home from the grocery store. It enabled me to let the kids know what was off limits for snacking because it was part of dinner.One week my son wrangled an invitation to dinner at the neighbor kids house. He had done so because he didn't like what was on Wednesdays dinner menu. I cranked out the menus with no intension of sticking to a rigid schedule. He missed the Dagwood sandwich night! LOL

Most of the time, the shows that talk about ten and twenty dollar dinners, have some good information on them. I find that their prices don't march the prices in the pacific northwest. I can get most of the ingredients cheaper; a few are more expensive here.

Thanks for stopping by today

Please share this blog with a friend.

Next time, the grocery ads.

1/2 Price Food Budget, Really ?

In case you just dropped in, this blog is about eating on the cheap. I want to save 1/2 on food. I try for the savings amount on the bottom of my slip to be at least as much as I spent. My budget is half of the USDA stats.

I can make five dollar dinners based on a "typical" family of two parents and two school age children. I attempt to keep a middle of the road attitude on fat and sugar.

In order to meet this criteria, I don't buy many ready made foods. Picky eaters are not part of my plan. Allowing a child to be a picky eater is doing them a dis-service. It's not giving them the opportunity to try new foods and enjoy natures bounty. There are children that are allergic to some foods, and that you have to deal with. Don't make a rod for your or their future spouses back by allowing a picky eater to be picky. Keep trying to introduce foods to them. Some of what I wasn't fond of as a child, I actually like now.

Staying on a 1/2 price budget in these times of meat prices rising weekly, will take a good amount of flexibility. You have to learn to roll with the grocery ads. Taking advantage of what's in season and what you can find that is on a special price.
Buying in bulk lowers your price and gives you more variety. If you divide the meat into family sized portions, you can freeze them and pull a variety of meats from the freezer.

I suspect that we will eat a few more vegetarian meals and more fish.

There are a few principles that allow you to meet the 1/2 price criteria.

1) never pay full price for food. Develop a spread sheet or a small spiral notebook to keep track of prices of the things you buy often. For is, that would be canned beans, tomatoes, pasta, tuna, refried beans, pasta sauce, instant mashed potatoes.
When they get to the rock bottom price, I buy as many as the store will let me, as many as I need to restock my shelf, or as many as I can afford. If it is something that h I use once a week I keep about a six months supply. If I use it once a month I keep 4 or 5. If it is something like mustard, mayo or salad dressing, I keep one ahead. Going to the store to buy two days worth of food at a time is the worst thing you canDo for your budget. You pay full price and are subjected to impulse buys.
You need to go to more than one store a week and get in and get out. pretty much stick to your list. The more time you spend in a store, the more you spend.

2) Plan. Sit down after you finish putting away the groceries and crank out seven main dishes from what's in the freezer and refer and what you just bought. If you have to think of the answer to the " What's for dinner? " question after a long day, it's a sure way to fall into the let's order pizza trap.

3). Learn to cook from scratch quickly. Buying ready made food is almost always a budget buster. Ditto single serving packages. There are lots of techniques that get you done fast. Spend more time on the front side of the DINNER ON THE TABLE TRAIN and less on back end. You get paid for shopping, you do not get paid cooking.

4) develop your own recipe book of entrees that your family will eat that use low cost sources of protein. Chicken, pork, tuna, beans, cheese, some beef, some shellfish
And fish.

One of the ways that I save time on scratch cooking is to cook bulk meat shortly after I bring it home. I portion control it and put it on labeled freezer bags.

Roast chicken can be split into two breast portions or a breast portion and cubes.
And thigh and leg portions. Make stock from the bones.

Hamburger purchased or ground at home in bulk can be made into a meatloaf, taco meat, meatballs or Salisbury steak, or hamburger patties, or crumbles.

Pork loin can be roasted and sliced thin for BBQ sandwiches or sliced thicker dor reheated roast. It can be cubed and slow cooked for stew or tips over rice.

Sirloin roast can be roasted , having roast beef dinner one day and the rest sliced thin for a jus sandwiches. It can be ground raw for hamburger with less fat and cheaper than ground 7 percent hamburger.

Cooking a bulk batch of meat uses less power, takes almost no more time, and you only have to do the dishes once. LOL

I usually try to tell you the good buys at the grocery stores based on our newspaper adds, and what you can do with them. I try to find recipes that take advantage of low cost ingredients that taste good and slip in a few techniques along the way.

Thanks for stopping by, please share this blog spot.

Jane

Stretching the meat dollar

Anyone that has ever grocery shopped knows that protein is your most expensive food
Group. Even the vegetarians pay dearly for their soy meat want a be 's.

The drought only promises that it will be more costly.

MOCK TENDERLOINS

3/4 lb ground beef
1cup cooked rice
1/2 cup minced onion
1T. W sauce
Salt and pepper

Mix all ingredients. Shape into patties. Wrap with bacon. Secure with toothpick.

Bake at 450 for 15 minutes or until meat tests done.


Eggplant Parmesean

1 small eggplant, about 3/4 of a pound

Salt
1 beaten egg
3/4 cup bread crumbs
Vegetable oil
2cups pasta sauce
4 ounces white cheese
1/4 cup parmesan cheese


1) peel and slice eggplant 1/4 inch thick

2) sprinkle both sides with salt and let stand 30 minutes

3) rince and pat dry


4) bread eggplant with egg wash and then breadcrumbs and fry until golden in batches.
Drain on paper towels

Heat pasta sauce in pan on stove

Layer in 9x 9 pan

Eggplant, sauce, motte and parm. Repeat layers

Bake at 350 for 45 minutes



Thanks stopping by

Please share this blog

Jane

The cheaper better for you alternative.

I ran into a young mother recently that was servimg her children hamburger helper, a store bought fruit cup and a box drink for dinner. This turned out to be more than ten dollars for dinner.

What could she have done instead with little or no extra effort.

1) make hamburger patties with the hamburger.
2) substitute American cheese slices instead of the milk used in the hamburger helper.
3) substitute herbal ice tea for the juice box.
4) use the money spent on the juice box for hamburger buns. ( sometimes they are free at the bread outlet)
5) instead of the fruit cup full of more syrup than fruit. Make a mixed berry cup.

More nutrition, less money a winning combo; and less time than the hamburger helper.


Thanks for stopping by


Jane

Ps. I just bought black raspberry herbal tea for 6 cents a bag. That's .18 for a pitcher of ice tea Box drinks were on SALE at albertsons for .30 cents each. 1.20 for four of them. And the boxed stuff has 16 grams of carbs ( sugar).

Odds and ends

This is about odds and ends of observations this week.

Many of the retro recipes I have " dug up" have more fat than we are used to in this age of healthy cooking. While it is a good thing to eat healthy, I think you can go overboard and fall into a tasteless food trap. As in anything, moderation is the key. My nutritionist told me that a skim of butter on my toast was better than a spread. The more dense the "butter" is, the worse it is for you.

Many of the recipes that call for butter can have olive oil instead. That doesn't work for baking, but we eat actual desert rarely in this house. Fruit or ice cream is more the norm. There are low fat and sugar ice creams out there that are really fairly good.

One restaurant we went to lately served balsamic vinegar and olive oil instead of butter for French bread.

When I make meal plans, I try to balance more fatty meals with less fatty ones. Using a smaller portion of fatty meats is another trick.

If you defat hamburger crumbles before you make taco meat, or meat for a casserole or pasta sauce, it can have less fat than a boneless, skinless chicken breast. Don't throw out the baby with the bath water. It is easier to stay on a diet if you don't think that you are being deprived.

We eat far more meat in this country than other countries. Cutting down on portions is a good way to save the health and the budget.

A four ounce portion is adequate. If you have growing ACTIVE children, they are ok to carb up, they burn them off. A couch potato, not so much LOL.

It will be interesting to see what effect the drought has on our food prices.
Like our grandmothers during the great depression and the second world war, I suspect we will adjust and come out victorious.

One of the main rules of keeping on a strict food budget is to find dinners that your family loves and plan . Plans can be flexible, but you have to have a plan.

This blog is based on less that 1992 stats for grocery shopping budget...the thrifty plan. It s all about careful shopping, using up what you buy, and not paying full price.

If you spend more time on the front end and less time on the back end of the MEAL
ON THE TABLE train , you will be better off.

You get "paid" for shopping wisely, No one pays you for cooking.

More recipes tomorrow, I promise LOL

Thanks for stopping by

Jane


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