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Greek Bean, Tomato, and Vegetable Stew

10/30/2015

 
Greek Bean Stew
This recipe has quite a history for me, going back as it does to the days when my husband and I first met in an international student dorm in Vienna, Austria.   

Unlike at U.S. universities, there was no cafeteria or meal plan available, so we all had to get our own meals. And as was the case for most of our dorm-mates, my husband had left home with non-existent cooking skills.

Add to that the fact that most of us were trying to get by on tight student budgets, and it’s easy to understand that we would do whatever we could to save money on food and still eat.

​Suffice it to say that I saw some interesting and, shall we say, “creative” concoctions in that dorm kitchen during the time I lived there.  Sometimes dinner consisted of a can of herring in tomato sauce served over pasta. ​

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Fresh Garlic Bread, the Quick and Easy Way

10/21/2015

 
Garlic Bread
"That is the BEST garlic bread! Soooo good!" That's a direct quote from my 10-year-old nephew after I served this when we had him over for dinner recently.

There's no doubt that serving this garlicky, buttery bread as a side dish for a meal is always a huge hit in my house.  It can turn a mundane meal into a bit of a feast, no question about it.

And I have streamlined the process so that the bread is ready in no time at all, so it takes almost no effort. 


I make a habit of picking up extra loaves of whole grain, Italian or French bread in our local grocery store bakery department when they go on sale for $1.

​​​I take and use only the amount of bread I need for each meal by cutting them into meal size portions.
​

I store the rest away  in meal size portions in the freezer for for another time.

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Broccoli Mushroom Lasagna

10/21/2015

 
Broccoli Mushroom Lasagna
This streamlined, delicious lasagna recipe can be in the oven in minutes. The actual cook time is fairly lengthy, though, so it’s a meal I often make on a Sunday and have the leftovers for a meal or two - or three - over the course of the next week. It also freezes exceptionally well if you want to save some for later, or if you are a small household.
The beauty of it is that once it’s baking - and you have done the quick job of washing your salad greens and leaving them to drain, as I always suggest doing for every dinner meal - then you can go about doing whatever other business you have to tend to in your household.

​It’s just that easy.

 
Just don’t forget to set a timer to remind yourself when the cooking time is up. Even after decades of cooking, I still rely heavily on these buzzers to jog my memory when food needs to be checked. They have saved me from many a burned meal when I got absorbed in doing something elsewhere in the house.

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Hearty Black Bean Soup

10/3/2015

 
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This is one of my oldest recipes. I have loved black bean soup since my childhood. 

It's the canned version I remember. That was what we occasionally had for lunch -- but never for dinner. Campbell's, I think it was - a pretty rare purchase made by my frugal Mom. But the flavor sure stuck with me.

Of course I didn't learn about the possibility of meatless meals until I had a vegetarian house mother the year I worked on a farm in England after high school. She introduced me to all kinds of possibilities for nutritious, budget-conscious meals.

So when I was a poor grad student and then a low-earning newlywed, I made it a point to try to re-create her delicious vegetarian fare, as well as my childhood favorites. This particular  soup was definitely one of those.

I wanted to replicate the flavor, but add a whole lot more heartiness to make it a meal in a pot. I soon came up with this recipe.

It was a mainstay of my menu repertoire for many years, included in the cookbook I created for family members one Christmas in lieu of gifts we could not afford.  But I had not used it in years and years, and had actually forgotten about it until recently when I happened to notice it again among my recipes.

I cooked it up shortly thereafter,  fell in love with it all over again, and proceeded to make it a few times over the course of the next few weeks.  

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    Follow Me
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    Hi, I'm Nancy, and I'm on a mission to help people eat and live well on a tight budget. Yes, it CAN be done. I should know because  I've been doing it for a long time now.  I learned cooking and eating on a budget first from my frugal Mom while  growing up in a family of 11, then  as a poor grad student and a struggling young newlywed putting my husband through school, and in more recent years with my family of 6, including my 4 (now grown) sons. Along the way, I picked up several college credits in nutrition.  I've always cooked using a realistic, frugal budget and keeping nutrition foremost in mind.
    I walk the walk of budget living and cooking every week, even now when we could well afford to spend more. I just don't see the point of doing that when what we've been doing has worked so well for us, saved us thousands, and kept us healthy and happy.

     In this section of the blog, I offer some meal plans and recipes, some old, some new, to help get you started on eating well for less than you think and keeping money in your bank account. Every one of them is less than $2 per serving  for a full course meal.  

    I hope you find some of these recipes useful.  

    And thanks for visiting!

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