*raises hand*
Raise your hand if you've ever looked up cheap meals!!!
*raises both hands*
Raise your hand if you've ever realized that all those cheap meals are still too expensive!!!!!!
*raises both hands and a foot*
I'm all for cheap. I'm raising 3 kids and a husband (who acts like a child most days, so might as well loop him in there too!!), on little-bit-more-than-minimum-wage jobs, and some days it just doesn't cut it! If after paying bills, you have only a few dollars left that you can spend on food and necessities, you are officially "Broke"! Don't feel bad, most of us have been there, and if you haven't, you are truly blessed!
So, now that you've come here looking for cheap meals, I'm gonna give them to you! Now, I'm not talking about the "cheap" meals you find online. Don't get me wrong, some of them are great, but to me, when I type in cheap meals, coming up with recipes like "Fish in Lemon and Butter Sauce", and "Whole Wheat Penne with Sausage and Peppers", I instantly think EXPENSIVE and LOTS OF WORK!!! You want a recipe for Tater Tot Casserole? You've come to the right place! You want a plethora of Ramen noodle recipes?! Guess what, we'll get to that one too! It's a work in progress, because I have yet to break everything down into pennies per meal like some of these sites(do I really have to do that?!), but I've been to the grocery store enough to know what the "cheap" stuff is!
*WEEK 1*
I posted a Meme on Facebook that said "I'm at the 'What can I make with green beans and cake mix' stage of needing groceries"! I thought it was hilarious because I've called up my mom before and asked "What can I make with these weird things", and usually I figure something out! Well, somehow my dad thought that meant I didn't have food in my house (ok, I kind of don't but only because it was payday and I hadn't gone to the grocery store, but my kids aren't gonna starve by any means....there was dry cereal in the pantry!!!). So he brought over some food! Well, that's all great this week because my husband's factory shut down for a week and I didn't know about it, so we didn't plan! But hey, yay for us!!
It kind of made me chuckle, because he told me he brought over food for 6 days. Yup, for him and his girlfriend it might have been 6 days. For me, I have 3 growing kids and a husband who can out-eat all 3 of them put together!
This is where improvising comes in! Now, while I didn't spend this money, I'll go ahead and put the prices down of the meat he brought me, because sometimes you can get it for cheap, you just have to look around for it! My dad found this store here in town that has super cheap meat. He brought me over a whole chicken that cost him $3.05. Now, it's not at all a large chicken, but even if you pick one up at Walmart, you can get one for around $6, depending on the size!
This is where the "hungry family" comes in. If I take that chicken tonight and cook it as a roasted chicken, we'll be lucky if all of us aren't hungry by the end of the night, and there goes snack food! So why not figure out something cheaper and more fulfilling?!
This is where Chicken and dumplings comes into play, or really, any kind of chicken noodle or chicken casserole will work! But tonight, I talked my husband into making his famous Dumplings (which my daughter and husband swear made the Cubs come back to win the World Series....I still maintain it was my earrings!!).
The good thing about the dumplings is that most of the ingredients should be in your pantry, but if they're not, they're all stupid cheap! This "recipe" is actually my grandma's that my mom adopted into our family and I beg for it every time I go to her house. I finally tried making them once, and mine came out super doughy and tasted like I was eating flour, so I made my husband learn how to make them!
When I quote "recipe" above, it's because I don't remember there ever being a set recipe for these...so I'm gonna have my husband give his best estimate tonight so I can right it down to share with you!
So the basics of what goes in dumplings....
Flour
Chicken broth (from boiling the chicken, so less expense there)
Eggs
Salt
Pepper
Baking powder
And you can throw in some other spices too if you want, but that's the basics!
How many of you have all of that in your pantry?! ME!!! Which is the reason we're having this tonight!
Chicken and Dumplings are usually a treat around here because they are time consuming, and since my husband works 2nd shift, we might get it on the weekends!
So, while I plan on posting recipes to most of my meals on my menus, I'll give ya a sneak peak to what we're making this week.....
EDIT!!!! EDIT!!!!!!!! EDIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ok, so I changed this up a little bit because I went shopping...
Monday: Pork Yakisoba - This is one of the few recipes I found online that we actually like and it is super cheap, but this week I'm making it with pork instead of chicken like the recipe says. (Oh, this has those Ramen noodles in there, so score one for cheap!)
Tuesday: Tater Tot Casserole
Wednesday: Buffalo Chicken Bake
Thursday: Chicken noodle casserole BBQ Picnic Pasta
Friday: Spaghetti Creamed Pork over Mashed Potatoes (it's not gonna be as gross as it sounds, I promise!!)
So as soon as my husband decides to wake up, I'll finish posting the basic recipe for that, but until then, I gotsta go to the store!
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