soup! I love how soup magicly comes together when you add a few ingredients and some seasonings.:love: Italian Sasage is fairly cheep (not as healthy) but if you can find it not in the casing use half of a pound (they usually come in pound packages) for spaghetti. Use the other half brouwned and croumbled on home made pizza or french bread pizza. If you can only find the links then cook and slice its so fun to have sliced sausage on your pizza it looks like pepperoni and you can slice it thin and this too will go pretty far. (freeze what you don't use in pasta or pizza and use it in soup or dirty rice. BREAKFAST who doesn't love breakfast, to keep it healthy open a can of fruit, use it on top of french toast or pancakes. (OK, I"M THINKING THE FRUIT IS YOUR HEALTHY PART)...... but also there is buiscuts, open faced with a little saucsage gravy..... again not healthy but filling and I LOVE IT..... or again have a bit of fruit next to the biscuit. Make oatmeal or grits. TACO SALAD Refried beans, rice ( I stir in some salsa to make it spanish rice) seasoned beef, lettuce and cheese. ........Make the taco bowl by spraying a large flour tortilla and placing ontop of an oven safe bowl or large ball of foil. (slice olives, or tomatoes if you wish..... I'm probably the only one in the world who eats a deconstructed taco salad, I like the lettuce and salad dressing on the side and the beans and the meat in the shell with some taco sauce)..... CHICKEN CEASAR SALAD: for 4 people you just need 2 chicken breast halves. Grill and slice or cube. Top your romain salad with the chicken and garlic flavored croutons and a little parmesan cheese. MANDARINE CHICKEN SALAD: salad, drained mandarine oranges, diced chicken, and chow mein noodles. Use an asian vinegrett dressing (Kens has a good bottled one). CHINEESE INSPIRED: I've recently started making my own egg drop soup, there are several recipes online, basicly its chicken broth with a little corn starch, soy sauce and an egg.... (once the soup is thickened splash in some soy sauce and take an egg, beat it and slowly stream into the pot, stir gently). Make some fried rice and Egg Rolls (there are a few brands of good egg rolls, we even like the Wal-mart brand, but its easy to make with a bag of cole slaw mix and browned sausage or bits of chicken or pork wrapped in the Egg roll wrappers.
Generally when I make quinoa I either do a pilaf (made with veggie stock) or like you I add it to a soup. I have also done a salad made with the cooked quinoa tossed with a variety of diced veggies, some spinach, and then dressed with a simple citrus vinaigrette.
Eating healthy on a small budget is easier than you think! When you fill your body with quality (in terms of nutritional value) foods, you will naturally eat less. Eating better doesn't mean eating more, or spending more. Choose foods that are nutrient dense and then you'll be fuller longer as well. The smoothies we eat for breakfast cost about 2-3 dollars for 5 servings, and when we eat breakfast cereal we need a full box for the 5 of us...plus the milk (nearly half a gallon) which brings our cost of cereal to 4-5 dollars per day! Spinach is great for filling bellies, and it's cheap! Rice and Beans are great, whole grains are very filling (quinoa, brown rice, barley, etc), and when you combine that with veggies you end up getting complete protein with little or no meats.
Very true. Tonight Handsome made zucchini soup. He used two small to medium yellow zucchini and two small green. He boiled them with an onion in chicken broth. He added paprika, salt, and pepper. Then he blended it to make it thick. We had it with whole wheat garlic bread. The soup feed three people two large bowls each. I didn't pay more than $1.50 for the zucchini. The onion was about .35 cents and the broth was leftover. I freeze broth to use in meals. So the soup cost about $1.85 to feed three people and it was healthy and filling. The bread was homemade so I am not too sure how much it was per slice.
I didn't read all the replies, so I apologize if this has already been said. My new favorite meals are on a site called Crockin' Girls. It's all crockpot recipes. I've been working on Sundays after church and getting all the stuff chopped, diced, etc. and put it into freezer bags and then in the mornings of the day it's scheduled, I just dump it in and start it. The meals have been cheap, easy, and most are healthy. I love my crock pot! ~Jeri
I just posted the link for this site (at Jeri's reccomendation) on the Slow Cooker thread. It really is worth looking at!
