Menu For A Real Broke Week

It happens.  Some weeks you look at the bank account and realize you are just about flat busted.  It's like a lead weight in your belly.  Electric bill or groceries?  If you are careful, you can have a stove to cook on and food!!!!!!!!  Maybe not exciting food, but at least not ramen and ketchup soup.

For breakfast it is time to bust out the box of oatmeal in the back of your cabinet.  Alternate with corn meal mush.  Breakfast cereal is too expensive for times like these.

Lunches are a little harder.  Generic kraft dinner, peanut butter sandwiches, apples, and quesadillas (just cheese) will cover it.

Day 1:  Egg drop soup.  Fried rice with broccoli. 

To make the soup, boil chicken bullion and stir in a beaten egg for every serving.  When the egg is cooked, the soup is done.  Buy the fried rice seasoning packet, follow directions, and stir in a package of cooked frozen broccoli pieces at the end.

Day 2:  Spaghetti with marinara sauce.  Homemade french bread.  Salad.

The bread keeps the no-meat sauce from feeling like poor food.  It is very effective if you set the table and eat by candle light.

Day 3:  Twice baked potato night.  Mix in any leftover frozen meat you can find or a little lunch meat.  Go real light on cheese.  Make the texture smoother, so you can save on butter, by adding a splash of milk when you are mashing the potatoes with the cheese and meat.  Serve a can of veggies with it.

Day 4:  Breakfast for dinner.  Make french toast out of the rest of your home made french bread.  Cook what is left of your eggs after the french toast.  Open a can of fruit.

Day 5:  Swiss steak and mashed potatoes.  Salad.

Buy a cheap smallish package of minute steaks.  Slice into meat ribbons.  Pan fry with garlic, onion, and salt.  Pour in a large can of diced tomatoes.  Add a lot more garlic and a little more salt.  Let simmer for about 25 minutes.  Mix two tablespoons of flour with a quarter cup of water. Stir in to thicken gravy.  Season to taste.  When gravy is very thick, serve on top of the mashed potatoes.  This is your fancy dinner for the week.  Serve it as such and no one will feel sorted on the meat side.

Day 6:  Hot dogs.  Canned fruit.  Move this meal to whatever day you don't have the time or energy to cook.

Day 7:  Celebrate pay day and go to the store!!!!!!!   

My Mama Told Me So

Babies need fat.  Not hot dogs, whole milk and grains.  Babies, two year olds, turn their noses up at meat proper.  More power to them.  Type two diabetics wished they had followed suit.  But, sometimes it needs to be sneaked in. 

One:

Soup night.  At least one night a week it should be soup.  Not a weird kind, a, "brings sledding with grandma to mind", kind.  Lot's of times this involves nothing more than adding instant mashed potatoes to a regular recipe  With a side of fruit.  Apples are cheap and grapes go on sale a lot.

Making Meat Last

Slice it.

For fajitas.  On salads.  On the rice instead of beside it.  You can halve the serving and no one will ever question it.

Cut the amount called for by half in all soup and casserole recipes.  If it doesn't work with that recipe, you'll know not to do it again.  It almost always works just fine.  In soup, whole grains can make up for the texture loss.  Barley is always a good bet.  It absorbs the flavor of the broth well, and remains far firmer than the veggies.

Buy an electric knife.

Chicken breasts are huge, but everyone thinks they need a whole one.  My little sister taught me to slice through the wide part.  Like a sandwich bun.  It takes some finesse, but no one knows I do it.  The flavors absorb deeper into the chicken as well.

Breakfast

Breakfast Today:  Peanut butter toast and frozen blueberries.  Dirt cheap and everything the kids need for brain development.  I skipped the peanut butter and took some omega-3 fatty acid vitamins instead.  I friggin' hate peanuts.  Unfortunate, but true.

The kids being home for the summer is hard on a budget.  But at least they can eat healthier food than a school would serve.  One school I taught at had at least six different kinds of pigs-in-a-blanket.  Damn.  Gross.

What Is Frugal?

I've looked at a lot of frugal food websites, and am always disappointed.  So, I'm going to try.  It is pointless to try to save money if you look at your mash of hamburger and egg noodles and think, "You know, a McDouble sounds pretty good."

Food isn't frugal if it's not tasty, easy to cook, and healthy.  The co-pays for a ragin' case of diverticulitis could have bought a lot of food.

So, let me know if you know a recipe that fits these critera.