$3 Meals by Ellen Brown

How could any frugalista worth her salt resist a book with a title like “$3 Meals~Feed Your Family Delicious, Healthy Meals for Less Than the Cost of a Gallon of Milk”?

Here is a little disclaimer. Since these brand spankin new cookbooks only arrived on my doorstep a few days ago, I have not had a chance to try out any of the recipes. I will post an update later when I’ve made a few. . . after all the proof, as they say, is in the pudding!  The cookbook is written by Ellen Brown, the founding food editor of US Today, the former senior feature editor for the Cincinnati Enquirer (which included the restaurant & food sections) and the writer of 17 cookbooks~obviously this lady knows a thing or two about food.  I’m willing to go out on a limb here about the quality of the recipes

On to the review/overview.

The original $3 Meals cookbook is 242 pages long, contains over 200 recipes, and costs $14.95.  The book is separated into 8 Chapters.

This book is simply written with clear directions.  Many of the recipes contain notes with possible variations and information on whether the dish can be prepared ahead.  The author uses call out boxes at the end of recipes to give the reader additional information such as  pronunciations, interesting history, and offering relevant tips and techniques for the recipes.

Chapter 1: Strategies for Shopping and Cooking

Saving money while cooking not only comes from the recipes themselves, but from being organized and purchasing your ingredients at reasonable prices.  This chapter talks about being organized and shopping frugally.  Right away she recommends is having a weekly meal plan-you know I love that!  She then covers most of the basics.  Ways to save via coupons, sales and using alternate brands. Stocking up but not wasting food either.  Alternate places to shop.  It’s a good section for newcomers to the frugal life, or a refresher for those of us already on the path.

Chapter 2: Starting with the Basics

Here she attacks some of the basic building blocks of meals.  Dressings. Marinades. Sauces. Breadcrumbs. Stocks.  These are indeed the things that can take a ho-hum meal and dress it up. . .

Chapter 3: Meals in a Bowl

This section is all about soups that make a meal. I soup is frequently a “use it up” frugal style meal at the Frugal Upstate household. I rarely use a recipe. . . but the “Chinese Vegetable with Meatball Soup” and the “Tuscan White Bean Soup with Sausage” have me salivating.  One of those might have to go on my menu plan in the near future.

Chapter 4: Fishy Business

Every week when I make my menu plan I tell you all that I am trying to work fish into my family’s diet.  Yet I seem to use the same 2 or 3 dishes over and over.  This chapter had some basic variations on baked & poached fish, but also had some more unusual ideas such as  “Fish Pot Pie”, “Fish Corn & Pea Risotto” and “Peppers Stuffed with Tuna and Rice”.

Chapter 5: Poultry with Panache

The chapter on poultry starts out with a discussion of  the less expensive cuts to use.  There is a nice description of how to cut up a whole chicken and how to debone bone in breasts.  I keep promising myself that I will try that eventually.

Although there are many basics in this section-”Chicken Pot Pie”, “Chicken and Dumplings”, “Oven Friend Chicken”, “Turkey Meatballs”-there are also some more unusual offerings.  The ones that jumped out at me? “Chicken Cooked in Red Wine (Coq au Vin)”, “Chicken Croquettes”, “Chicken Hash”, and “Moroccan Chicken Salad” (although that last has some ingredients I don’t normally keep on hand).

Chapter 6: “Meating” the Challenge

The meat chapter stays true to the frugal theme by concentrating on the cheaper cuts of meat that benefit from braising (a cooking method where food is cooked in liquid at a lower temperature for a longer time).  I found the lead in to the recipes in this section to be particularly informative.  Ms Brown covers how to choose your cut, some procedures (such as browning the meat first) that increase flavor, how to cut back on fat and even briefly how to substitute different types of meat for a recipe.

There are the standby’s in this section. “One Step Lasagna”, “Shepard’s Pie”, Spaghetti with Bolognese (meat) Sauce”, “Stuffed Peppers”, “Sweet and Sour Cabbage Rolls” and “Spaghetti Carbonara”. Some new recipes I would happily try in this section are “Garlicky Rosemary Meatballs in Tomato Sauce” and “Vietnamese Pork Loin” (although I’d have to find some Lemon Grass & Fish Sauce for that one).

Chapter 7: Vegetarian with Verve

Another goal I frequently mention in my weekly meal plan is adding in one meatless meal a week.  Meatless meals can be big budget stretchers, as well as healthy and tasty!  Many meatless dishes rely on beans for their protein punch, which not only are extremely inexpensive, but naturally winds up lowering the fat content and upping the fiber. Win Win!

Ms Brown starts out the section with some basic information on beans and pastas.  I was happy to see that she took the time to explain the concept of “completing proteins”.

This section had a lot of new recipes for me.  “Italian Bread & Tomato Stew”, “Asian Black Bean “Chili”", “Curried Lentils”, “Southwest Spinach Loaf”, “Risotto Style Barley with Spinach” (I’ve been meaning to try cooking barley), and “Southwestern Squash and Bean Stew”.

Chapter 8: Bakery Basics

There are procedural points at the start of this chapter for folks not familiar with baking.

There are your basic all purpose recipes like those I already use frequently (several of which I’ve posted here on Frugal Upstate). “Basic Muffin” (with variations), “Beer Bread”, “Banana Bread”, “Buttermilk Biscuits”, “Pie Crust” and “Homemade Pizza Dough”.  There is a nice savory twist on a quick bread I need to try: “Basic Herb Quickbread” as well as “Focaccia” and her own version of “No Knead White Bread”.

Overall this is a nice cookbook for those trying to be more frugal in the kitchen.  I wholeheartedly recommend it if you have basic skills but haven’t cooked much from scratch-she explains the frugal philosophy well and I think it has a very nice combination of basic recipes and a few more unusual/advanced.

If you are a long time cook you may find those basic recipes to be just that-basic.  You probably already have a favorite Spaghetti Bolognese or Chicken Pot Pie in your recipe file and aren’t likely to replace it with one of these.  There are quite a few new recipes spanning several cultures-Asian, Mexican, Greek, French-so I would suggest pick up a copy at your local library or bookstore and flip through it to see if this is a cookbook you’d use frequently.

Now on to the fun part!  Globe Pequot Press was kind enough to not only provide me with a copy of the book to review, but also with a copy to give away! One readers will win a great frugal cookbook this week.

This giveaway will run from Tuesday, Nov 10th to Monday Nov 16th.

To Enter:

Leave a comment telling me what your family’s favorite inexpensive meal is.

Want extra entries? Here you go! EACH MUST BE A SEPARATE COMMENT!

1. Subscribe to Frugal Upstate (or tell me you already have)

2. Tweet about the giveaway.

3. Post on Facebook about the giveaway.

Good Luck!

((NOTE: I will have limited access to the internet for a few days.  If you have never commented on my blog before, your comment will go in a queue for me to approve prior to posting.  You won’t see it appear until I approve it-don’t worry if that doesn’t happen for a few days-it will get approved and it will appear in the order that the original comment/entry was made-waiting for approval does not affect that.))

***This is a sponsored post***

Note: Coming soon. .. a review of  “$3 Low Calorie Meals~Delicious, Low Cost Dishes That Won’t Add to Your Waistline” by Ellen Brown. So keep your eyes peeled!

Tonight (Monday) I got a “fresh” pizza at Aldi’s-you know, the kind that’s raw & you have to bake.  Tomorrow (Tues) I need to do something to use up the LB of ground beef in the fridge.  Maybe some sort of casserole? I haven’t made good old fashioned ground beef casserole in a very long time.

Then on Wednesday at O dark-thirty in the morning I leave for yet another conference.  So that’s the end of the meal plan!

I have stocked up the freezer with frozen entrees for the family while I’m gone.  My wonderful husband will pop a frozen meal in the oven, but if he has to cook with fresh ingredients-well, let’s just say he helps the local economy by patronizing eating establishments

I have bowed to this reality-frozen family sized meals are still less expensive than restaurant meals.

Although I’ve been horrible about updating the “Lunchbox Report” in the sidebar I have been sending the kiddo’s meals in fairly regularly.  Of course while I am gone hubs just buys the school lunches.

So that’s it!

Photo by NCReedplayer

Halloween might be over, but it is not forgotten at the Frugal Upstate household. Despite the fact that we get over 200 trick or treaters a year, we still somehow wound up with leftover candy and the perennial question: “What do we do with leftover Halloween Candy?!”

I asked my friends on Twitter and we came up with 12 great ideas for using up leftover Halloween candy:

1. Save it for your holiday gingerbread houses (via VisitFingerLake)

2. Freeze it for later.

3. Add a cup at a time to rice crispy squares (via Jeremy Wright). If it’s chocolate or easily meltable let the mix cool a bit first

4. Chop and roll candy apples into crushed candy.

5.  Chop and use as icecream topping or as a decorative/tasty topping for an iced cake.

6.  Toss into homemade trail mix.

7. Chop and mix into brownies. Peppermint Patties or any chocolates/candy bars are especially good.

8. Make Molten Candy Cookies. Just take chocolate chip cookie or sugar cookie dough and wrap a ball around a mini chocolate bar.

9.  Make Leftover Candy Cake.

10. Make Chocolate Candy Corn Cookies (via Feels Like Home)

11. Donate the extra candy to a rehab center (via MommyBlogExpert) a nursing home (via backhomeagain) or a shelter (via luciagia)

12. Sell it to your dentist (via KingdomFirstMom and jodirotondo). Really! There is a program called “Halloween Candy Buy Back” that many dentists participate in.

So what do you do with your leftover candy. . . besides eat it!

Never one to turn down great knowledge I readily agreed! I hope you agree that she brings us some fabulous ideas. Enjoy!

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We have 4 children and kid’s activities can really add up.  My oldest son is 11 and he loves to play sports.  Not being one to get locked into one thing, he wants to try them all.  My oldest daughter is the opposite.  She fell in love with gymnastics at age 3 and hasn’t looked back since.  She has been competing for a few years now and I don’t see an end in sight yet.  My third child is just starting to get interested in activities and my fourth child is only 5, so I am trying to hold off on activities for her.  Here are some of the things we have done over the years to save money on sports and activities for children. 

1. Pick and choose what you sign up for. There is plenty of time to try different things out; you don’t have to try them all at once.  Aside from scouting my son does one thing at a time.
2. Analyze the hourly rate of each activity. The $125 baseball season that meets 3 times a week for 3 months is a much better deal than the $125 soccer that plays once a week for 2 months.
3. See if you can get a sibling discount. Both my boys wanted to play soccer.  We got a small discount for the second child and rather than being pulled in different directions, we go to the soccer fields just once a week and they play at the same time on neighboring fields.
4. Stick close to home. I know many people that drive to gyms 30-40 minutes away several times a week.  We prefer the gym that is 4 minutes from our house.  It saves time and money.  We have also chosen to do things through the schools that happen right after school.  Rather than making 2 trips (to drop off and pick up) we have only one trip to pick up the child.
5. If your child has a sport or activity that they do a lot, once you are established with a facility or organization you can look for opportunities to barter. By getting to know the coaches and letting them know what my husband would love to do, when they had a need they talked to him.  Now he is the strength and conditioning coach in exchange for our monthly tuition.
6. Pick sports or activities that have low equipment or start up costs. My son prefers soccer and baseball.  The equipment for these are very minimal compared to the hundreds of dollars I could spend getting him suited up for tackle football or ice hockey.
7. Look for free activities. Our schools and our library offer numerous free things.  From cooking classes to story time and everything in between, my kids can try plenty of things for free through these places.
8. Remember you have 18 years for your child to spend trying out sports and activities. Don’t get burned out on them before they even start school.  Besides up until age 5 or 6 they really won’t remember it all.

Jennifer is a stay at home mom of 4 kids, ages 5, 7, 9, & 11.  She lives a very frugal life in Ohio on a single teacher’s salary.  Jennifer has been blogging at Getting Ahead for 3 years.

Photo by mrjoro

Dear Frugal Upstate,

I am hosting a brunch for 60+ at my church and I saw your recipe for crustless quiche that can be frozen.  If I make these in disposable pie tins, freeze for about 10 days, then how long do I heat to serve?  Thaw first?  Your help is greatly appreciated!

Theresa

Theresa,

Quiche for brunch should be lovely!  I should think that you could make the quiche in 9X13 disposable pans instead of pie plates and then cut into squares or rectangles to serve. You would just have to keep an eye on them while cooking and adjust the time to make sure that the center was completely set/cooked.  I’d say from perusing some other recipes for “quiche for a crowd” about 45-50 minutes at 350.

As for the freezing and thawing, I’ve always cooked the quiche, let cool completely and frozen it. I put it in the oven frozen and baked for 20-30 minutes at 350 degrees (check it as you go!).

I did some research for you and saw folks who preferred the taste and quality if you froze the quiche raw (careful not to spill!) and then popped it straight into the oven to bake at 400 for about 45 min for a 9″ pie.

Good luck-I hope you have a lovely brunch!

Sorry for the rest of you, you’ll have to buy your own copy or head on out to the library

Stay tuned for another giveaway soon.

I’m feel quite in a recipe rut.  Honestly.  I feel as though I cook many of the same dishes over, and over, and over. . . so I am going to add another goal into my weekly menu goals.  As it is I try to work in a vegetarian recipe and a seafood recipe each week. On top of that I want to add in at least one NEW recipe each week.

NOTE:  Do you have a tried & true recipe you think my family would like? Feel free to send it to me!  You can use my contact form. . . if I try  the recipe I’ll publish it (or link to it if you have a blog and have published it) along with full credit and a review of what the Frugal Upstate family thought! So send me those recipes . . .

Monday:  Kid’s Choice.

Our kids only have a half day of school today due to parent teacher conferences.  When the kiddos get home from school I’m going to let them pick what they want to have for dinner, then they can help me make it.  If we don’t have the ingredients on hand then they will have to head to the store with me to go shopping. We’ll use it as an exercise on how much things cost and how to cook. Should be fun!

Tuesday:  Manicotti, Beets & Tossed Salad

Last time I went shopping at Aldi’s they actually had Manicotti shells. It has been a really long time since I’ve made manicotti-so I went ahead and bought them.  I will use a stuffing made with a combination of Mozzarella and cottage cheese (I know it’s heresy to use it in place of ricotta, but it’s what I have on hand).  The beets are still out in the garden.

Wednesday:  Broiled Mahi Mahi, Sauteed Chard & Rice

Mahi Mahi (forzen & prepackaged) was pretty cheap at Aldi’s last week. It is such a nice mild white fish that I couldn’t resist picking up two packages.  I’m serving it with just plain rice and some more chard from the garden.  I can’t believe that stuff hasn’t succumbed to the frost yet!  This is my seafood meal for the week.

Thursday: Split Pea Soup & Homemade Bread

We are still calling this “Shrek Swamp Slime Soup” at the Frugal Upstate house to help get Buddy, who “hates peas”, to eat it.  Funny-he loves the taste as long as we don’t actually call it “Split Pea Soup”. This will be my vegetarian meal for the week.

Friday:  Homemade Calzones & Roasted Broccoli

Using the Pizza Hut Crust Clone recipe of course.

Saturday: Leftovers or Breakfast for Dinner

Gotta use up all those bits and pieces!  If somehow we don’t have enough leftovers to make a meal out of then I’ll whip up some scrambled eggs, bacon & toast.

Sunday:  Shepard’s pie & Beets

Well-actually it will more correctly be “cottage pie” or maybe “woodland pie”. . . I’ll be using a mix of ground beef/turkey and ground venison for the meat.  I’ll add more beets from the garden as a side dish.

For more great menu plan ideas head on over to Menu Plan Monday at The Organizing Junkie.

photo by Atelier Teee

Dear Frugal Upstate,

My husband and I recently bought a house. The house came with a washing machine that does not like my homemade laundry detergent (I’ve been using your recipe for a year at the old house with no problem).

The only way I can get my detergent to dissolve in this washer is to dissolve it first in hot water and then do an extra rinse cycle – which pretty much negates the money I’m saving by making my detergent in the first place. Otherwise, my clothes come out of the wash with goopey pieces of soap still stuck to them.

I’m already drying out the soap and re-grating it with my food processor before I mix up my detergent, so it’s a pretty fine powder. I don’t want to have to make the liquid version. Am I overlooking something obvious that I can do to solve this problem?

Heather

Photo by Garden Hoe

Dear Heather,

Wow, that’s a new one on me.  My first impulse would be to wonder if your water heater is set high enough-but then again I use my laundry detergent in cold water, and it always dissolves fine.

My second thought would be to wonder if there is something different in the actual water itself-perhaps harder water?  Then again, the water is very hard where I am and again, it dissolves fine.

Obviously the recipe itself isn’t at fault, as you have used it previously without an issue.

It almost seems like your machine isn’t really draining well. . .

Long story short, if we can’t figure out how to fix your problem, then your best bet is probably to go back to using store bought detergent.  If you have to do that then of course you should look into combining coupons and sales to get the best price.  Don’t forget to comparison shop across several stores to see where you can get the best price-by load, not by net weight! Most boxes and jugs do say h0w many loads they will clean.

What about all you readers out there? Anyone have a suggestion that Heather can try to make her homemade laundry detergent work?

Jenn

Crockpot Salsa Chicken

4 Chicken Breasts
2 Jars of Salsa
1C Corn
1C Black Beans

Layer ingredients in Crockpot & cook on low 6-8 hrs.
Remove meat, shred and return to the sauce.
Serve on tortillas with fixings (lettuce, tomato, cheese, salsa etc)

Variations:

Bake in the oven at 350 for about 1 hr instead of using the crockpot.
Don’t shred & serve on tortillas, but serve as chicken breasts.
Serve over noodles or rice.
Use other parts of the chicken. Remember that leaving skin on increases the ending fat content.
Use “Rotel” style tomatoes in place of the salsa, or use 1 jar salsa and 1 jar crushed tomatoes.
Spice it up with Spicy Salsa, a dash (or 2 or 3) of Tabasco or a package of Taco Seasoning.
Use “mexican” style corn-or leave it out all together
Use any type of cooked bean.
Add 8 oz of Cream Cheese or 1C sour cream to the sauce right before serving for a “creamy” version.

Witches Hat Cookies (super easy & cute-no baking!)

Eyeball Cupcakes

Spider Cupcakes

Spider Ring Cupcakes (I used this idea last year w/skull rings!)