What's Cooking

I cook a lot and make homemade meals for my family. I tend to buy meat/chicken on sale and freeze, I keep my pantry well stocked with canned tomatoes, beans, rice, pasta, dried beans, and I keep lots of frozen veggies on hand. I can ALWAYS whip up something on short notice without making a trip to the store! I then fill in with my fresh produce, dairy and baked goods as needed.

I make a lot of soups/stews - my family loves them and they are great budget stretchers.

I LOVE to collect cookbooks/cooking magazines. and I LOVE www.recipezaar.com - it is my favorite cooking website -the layout is good, easy to navigate and the reviews are helpful.

Just yesterday I bought chicken breast (bone in) for under $1.00/pound - stewed it all and put it in containers in the freezer for casseroles/stews/soups... and I got homemade chicken stock from it too... I made chicken and dumplings last night but have several meals worth of chicken ready to go...

I often plan menus for a month at a time - I may not always make each thing on the specific night scheduled - but it helps me plan, have variety and have the ingredients on hand!

I LOVE to spend time in my kitchen cooking. What are some favorites of your family.

Food Network and allrecipes have good ideas.

I made home made minestrone and tomato basil soups this past weekend. Tonight is lasagne.

We also eat out a lot. My lunches are mostly at Market Street at the soup and salad area. LOVE that place.

I love the recipes from Real Simple magazine. Also, Woman's World has recipes and a monthly dinner menu in the back. All are easy and the majority are kid-friendly. You can find both magazine's recipes on their websites for free.

Good luck to you!

M.

I ran across this recipe recently on some website I was reading (sorry -- I forget where it was). I haven't actually tried it yet, but it sounds really yummy.

While the recipe is probably delicious as is, I'm planning to make a couple of changes to suit our tastes -- half whole wheat pasta and half durum (white) pasta, maybe use sour cream instead of the cottage cheese, and add some cut up grilled chicken for extra protein since I'm not using the cottage cheese. You could probably use frozen chopped spinach in this as well (or even broccoli). And if you have time to wait until the pasta is draining before starting on the sauce, you can use the same pan -- fewer dishes to wash!

Noodles with Spinach
1 lb. wide egg noodles
2 T olive oil
2 garlic cloves
1/2 t dried basil
1/4 t red pepper flakes
1/2 t salt
1 c cottage cheese
1/2 c grated Parmesan Cheese
1/2 c low-sodium chicken broth
2 (5-oz) bags baby spinach
1/2 c chopped fresh parsley

Cook the noodles al dente. Reserve 1/2 cup of pasta water. Drain noodles.

Meanwhile, heat oil, garlic, basil, pepper flakes and salt in saucepan over medium heat – about a minute. Add cottage cheese, Parmesan and broth – cook until thickened 2 to 4 minutes.

Stir the sauce into noodles, adjusting liquid level with reserved pasta cooking water as needed.

Stir in the spinach one handful at a time and cook until wilted – about 30 seconds.

Add parsley and season with salt and pepper.

Most of my "keeper" recipes came from www.tasteofhome.com.

I love to cook. The best way to do it is to plan ahead that way you know you have everything on hand. I write out all recipes on an index card and then on the back I write out everything I would need for that recipe. Then when I do my shopping I pull index cards for meals for 1-2 weeks. I organize breakfast, lunch and dinner although I only cook breakfast a couple times a week and then do cold stuff the other days, and we usually eat leftovers for lunch. I take my cards and make my list from that.

Some stuff I make a lot is:
roast
grilled chicken with veggies
stew
lasagna
spaghetti
fettucine
hamburgers
chicken parmesean
chicken sandwiches
meatball sandwiches

Chicken Dumplings
Chicken Casseroles
Beef Enchiladas Casseroles
Pinto Beans
Purple and Black Eye Peas

For breakfast you can do a Breakfast Casserole or make some pancakes, or scramble some eggs.

Some easy stand alones.

Baked or Grilled Pork Chops or Chicken
(You can add BBQ Sauce or some other seasoning as you like)

Roast and Veggies – Again it can cover a couple nights.

Spaghetti

Lasagna – Good for two nights

Also, you can do hot dogs or hamburgers once every week or so, for something quick.

Easy Side Dishes
Mashed Potatoes
Baked Potatoes
Corn on the Cob

Mac and Cheese

Steamed or boiled veggies. You can use the canned or frozen ones.
Peas
Green Beans
Corn
Etc…

Another quick potato dish is just to dice a few, place in baking dish, and sprinkle a little butter with a little seasoning salt.

A good meal can be done pretty quickly. If you will make a plan out for the month, you can make shopping a little easier, plus you don’t have to guess at the end of the day. Have everyone make a list of a few things they would like to find on the menu, then try and include something everyone will like. Also, watch your spacing.

Watch for your meats on sell and try to buy to last for a couple months and freeze it. For example, figure out what size roast you need, either buy the right size or if it is very large, cut off what you need and freeze in the correct portions. Don’t look it that well the roast is x dollar, look at and figure this is x per person, per meal.

It will take some trail and error, but you can get it.

Those are just some initial thoughts and you will have to find what works for you.

I got a new cookbook for Christmas and tried this recipe last night. French Onion Salisbury Steak And Cheese Toast. It was really good and is budget friendly. I searched and found the recipe online:

http://www.recipezaar.com/French-Onion-Salisbury-Steak-13...

* I didn't have any tomato paste on hand so I used ketchup and omitted the sugar. I didn't have beef broth or red wine either so I used chicken broth in place of both. Still turned out great!