Inexpensive meal ideas

We all like to save money anywhere that we can, and since we eat about 3 meals a day, it only makes sense to do a blog about meals. I, personally, love my meat. Nothing in this world could convince me to cut it out of my diet. SO, most, if not all, of these meal ideas will have meat in them. Some of them you can omit the meat. Others you can replace it. Some of them just won't work if you don't like or can't eat meat.

My all time favorite meal is stir fry. (Total Cost: around $10) Stir fry is one of those wonderful meals that can be personalized.
Me? This is how I like mine:

4 Carrots, chopped
1 Green Pepper, sliced
1 Red Pepper, sliced
1 Head of Broccoli, split into smaller pieces
1/2 Bag of Sprouts
1/2 Bag of Snow Peas (fresh is WONDERFUL, if available)
(Sometimes if I'm in a pinch I just dump in a full bag of Zen Garden Frozen Veggies)
1 Chicken Breast or 1 Small-Medium Steak
Sweet & Sour Sauce OR Teriyaki Sauce (or similar, those are my personal favorites)

Stir fry those together and cook until veggies are cooked.

Boil Stir fry noodles or Rice and serve with veggies on top! YUM

Another all time favorite in our house is Lasagna. It's delicious. I don't quite know how to do lasagna without meat sauce, but then again, I've never tried. Lasagna is a bit more expensive to make, and should cost you around $15 to do 2 pans. 2 pans can easily feed a family of 4 with leftovers for another day. A tip I have is to NOT spend the extra money on already cooked noodles. They don't taste nearly as good as noodles that you cook before hand. I personally don't mind spending the extra 5 mins cooking the noodles to get a much better taste quality. Another tip is to buy the ground beef on the day that you plan to make the lasagna. Most grocery stores have sales on meat that is soon to expire. There is generally nothing wrong with buying this meat, and it costs MUCH less. Also, a lot of stores have sales on meat that they've frozen in order to keep it from spoiling. You can generally find a package of ground beef for about 50 cents in one of those bins, if your store has them!

Here's how we do our lasagna:

1-2 boxes of lasagna noodles (depending on size of group eating)
2 or 3 Jars (or cans) of your favorite pasta sauce. (we use whatever is on sale)
1 Package (small) of ground beef
1 Can of Mushrooms (or fresh bulk mushrooms, washed & peeled)
1 Medium Tub of Cottage Cheese
A Brick Of Cheese (personally we use marble)

Cook noodles.
While cooking noodles, also cook ground beef.
When ground beef is cooked, add pasta sauce & mushrooms
Layer the bottom of a cake pan with noodles
Add sauce, and some cottage cheese, spread evenly over noodles
Layer noodles on top of this
Add sauce and cottage cheese on top of noodles
Next, you can either do another layer, or just put sliced cheese on top.

Once you've put the cheese on top, you're going to bake it at 350°F for about an hour. (you want the cheese gooey and melted, but not burnt). Cut into pieces and serve. YUM.

Another thing that we like to make in our house is chili. Since everyone makes theirs differently, I'm not going to include how I make it, as it's very much a personal preference type of meal. What I will say is that no matter how you make it, you should be able to make it for around $10. Especially if you buy your meat on sale.

Another cheap meal is hamburger helper. They boast that their meals average less than $4 a person. I'd believe it.

Also, if you go organic, maybe rethink that. There is proof that certain organic foods are no better for you than the regular foods, as long as you wash them good. Foods that I know are better for you organic than "regular" are apples and grapes. No matter how well you wash them, they have been SOAKED in pesticides and it's nearly impossible to get them off. Bananas and Asparagus though? Switch to normal and save a bundle. You'll want to research this and decide what is best for you and your family, but that's what we've done!

A wonderful meal that can be cooked for a FRACTION of the price that it can be purchased for is Steak Neptune! It's a classic, but its SO EXPENSIVE if you're eating out. If you want a fancy meal but don't want the fancy price let me suggest this meal idea to you:

Steak Neptune with veggies and stuffed potatoes

Prep:
Wash imitation crab meat
Wash Asparagus *minimum 2 pieces per person*
Wash Potatoes

Since potatoes take a long time to cook, you're going to probably want to do the potatoes first.

Take your thoroughly washed potatoes and place them in the oven at 350°F for 45 mins or until soft and cooked all the way through.

When your potatoes are done, take them out of the oven and cut them in half, lengthwise. Scoop out the potato part and put it in a bowl. You're going to mash it. Beat in 2-4 Tbsp of softened butter or margarine, about 1/2 a cup of sour cream, a pinch of salt, and a pinch of pepper, and bacon bits (about 2 tbsps, but to taste). Scoop this mixture back into the potato skins. Sprinkle them with shredded cheese and put in the oven at 425°F for about 10 to 15 mins more (until cheese is melted)

Now you should be cooking the steaks & steaming the Asparagus. You should also be making the Bearnaise sauce, and cooking the veggies. (My favorite way to do this, since there is so much going on at once, is to cook the veggies in a microwave steamer, or microwave steam bag. They only take about 5 mins to cook even frozen veggies)

Since the Bearnaise sauce needs constant stirring, you're going to want the steak close at hand. Provided you're using a double boiler to steam the asparagus, it should be totally fine left to steam on its own until you are done, thus leaving one hand for stirring, and one hand for flipping steak. (even better yet, if you have someone who will BBQ them for you, this is a great help and tastes a million times better)

Once your steak is cooked, place it on the plate and top it with imitation crab, a couple of pieces of Asparagus, and cover with Bearnaise sauce. Add the stuffed potato to the plate and the veggies, and you've got a beautiful and delicious meal, for a fraction of the price you would have paid to go out.

If you're wanting to make it a more romantic meal and spring for wine with it, the cheapest wine that I have found that goes wonderfully with it is Boones Sangria. It is about $5 a bottle.

The entire cost for that meal shouldn't exceed $20, but it may depending on the size of steak that you've gone with. One meal of that alone would cost you about $30 if eating out, and add money on top of that for the wine, if you're having it... this cost is for two people, not one person!

Another wonderful meal that we love to have is stew. It is so good, and so healthy. Again, however, stew is a very personal taste type of meal, so I won't write how we make ours as everyone likes theirs a bit differently. I will add, however, that there is nothing like fresh homemade bread/buns to go with a pot of stew.

You will save a bundle and it's better for you, if you bake your own bread. It's a simple process, especially with a bread maker. I used to think that bread makers were just fancy machines that I would never want... how wrong i was. I can pop the ingredients in the maker either in the morning before the busy day, or sometime through the day and set it to start baking 2 or 3 hours before our dinner, and we will have fresh baked bread for dinner. I also like to make a batch of fresh bread for breakfast sometimes. Again, just pop in the stuff to make it, set it for a few hours before you wake up, and you'll have steaming hot bread for breakfast, without having to wake up hours earlier to bake it! I picked up our bread maker at a garage sale a few years ago, and I paid $5 for it. Best $5 I've spent!

These are just a few ideas to help you get started with inexpensive yet delicious meals at home. I'd like to add as a conclusion, if you make double what you will eat, you can freeze most of your meals either for lunches or for days when you're strapped for time, so that you don't end up eating out!

If anyone has any other meal ideas, or would like more meal ideas, please let me know! I'd be more than happy to post more ideas, and more than happy to have more ideas to add to my meal lists!