Budget Board - ROCKS!!! Weekly dinner menu plan suggestions - needed

[d'Isigny]

First of all – YOU PEOPLE ROCK!!! Some of your recipes and suggestions to assist our ‘food budget’ HAS made a positive financial difference – THANK YOU!!!

(some history) We are a family of 5 that returned from a DCL/WDW vacation in late October. We had such a great time…we wanted to go back again – in less than waiting another 3 years. We took out our bank statements and starting reviewing/categorizing our expanses. Needless to say – some of your ‘painless’ suggestions have made a huge difference in our savings. I am proud that we eliminated some pretty bad habits;

~$35 – 45 per week for my lunch
~$30 – 35 per week for after school snacks at sonic/burger king/micky-d’s/etc
~$75 per week for 1-2 dinners out – this is a low estimate/average (not counting…quick but more expansive grabs at the supermarket for dinner).

Some ‘budget minded’ changes that have made a huge difference are;

- I’ve started taking leftovers/home prepared meals to work
- After school snacks are; cut veggies, bag of pop corn or simple sandwiches with juice boxes. Instead of going to a fast food ‘play place’…they go to the park for some REAL exercise with a REAL snack.
- Dinners out are now ‘special’ instead of inspected – we search our mailings/newspapers/entertainment book for BOGO or kid’s free with an adult meal.

In all honesty…none of these changes have really ‘cramped our style’.

We are now ready to – ‘STEP IT UP A NOTCH’.

Found out - if we plan our dinners for the week...we have had great success 'sticking to it'. We will review our two closest grocery stores and have started 'stocking up' when items we use go on sale. After this long winded...TMI post...here is where we need your help.

Please offer some of your suggestions for dinners made at home - full week or just a few of your favorites. I am trying to eliminate our dinners from becoming stale. AND - your rescipes are grately appreciated.

 

[mannasn]

Okay, I'm the world's WORST organizer.

I found that what motivated me was having someone else plan for me! LOL!
I bought the "Saving Dinner" book at Walmart for $5.00 - gives me a weekly plan and shopping list. SOOO easy! We've gone from eating out 5+ times a week to none at all! But we're not picky eaters..

 

[hezell123]

If you have a mama fu's or Moe's Kids eat free on Tuesdays (1ad to every child meal)

 

[Earstou]

This is one of my family's favorite recipes. We had it for dinner as leftovers tonight and it was just as good as the first day! The meat gets a very subtle taste that's just great.

Cranberry Pork Roast
1 (3 to 4 pound) pork roast*
1 cup ground or finely chopped cranberries
1/4 cup honey 1 teaspoon grated orange peel
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
Salt and pepper

* Boneless or pork loin roast may be used.

Sprinkle the roast with salt and pepper. Place in a crockpot.

Combine the remaining ingredients; pour over the roast. Cover and cook on LOW for 8 to 10 hours.

Yields 6 to 8 servings.

 

[Teresa Pitman]

This is from Today's Parent magazine and it is excellent.

1 tblsp vegetable oil
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 19 ounce cans kidney beans or pinto beans, drained and rinsed
1 pkg taco seasoning (or 2 tblsp. Mexican chili)
1/2 tsp. oregano
1/2 tsp. salt
1 28 ounce can diced tomatoes
1 1/2 cups frozen corn kernels

Preheat oven to 350 and grease a 9 by 13 pan. In a large skillet, heat up the oil and saute the onion and garlic, stirring for about 3 minutes. Add the other ingredients, bring to a boil, then turn down the heat and let simmer for about 10 minutes. Remove from heat and put in the 9 by 13 pan.

Now make the cornbread topping:
1 cup flour
3/4 cup cornmeal
2 tblsp. sugar
1 tblsp. baking powder
1 cup milk
1 egg
2 tblsp vegetable oil
1 cup grated cheese

In one bowl, mix flour, cornmeal, sugar and baking powder. In the other, mix milk, egg and oil. Add the milk mixture to the cornmeal mixture and stir just to mix - don't overmix. Spoon this batter as evenly as possible over the bean mixture in the baking pan and sprinkle the cheese on top.

Bake for about 45 minutes or until the topping is browned and set.

(You can substitute 1/2 pound of ground beef for one can of beans if you like - just brown it with the onions and garlic.)

Enjoy! This is delicious, easy, and inexpensive.

Teresa Pitman

 

[SamSam]

If you like Mexican Food and a little spice, then you may like this Mexican Soup recipe. My DH and my grown DD (25) love this soup.

Mexican Pazole

3 lbs.pork steak (or chops)
1 tbls. Vegetable oil
2 med. Onions, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 cans (29oz) white hominy, drained
2 cans (10oz) diced tomatoes & chiles (Rotel or similar)
1 can (6 oz) tomato paste
2 tbls. Oregano
6 cups chicken broth

Place pork in slow cooker and cook until fork tender. Allow to cool, then shred. Set aside. Add oil, onion and garlic to stock pot and cook over medium heat until onions are translucent and starting to brown. Add remaining ingredients and simmer for a minimum of 30 minutes. If desired sprinkle with strips of toasted corn tortillas. 8 servings

If desired chicken can be substituted for the pork.

 

[DsnyDrmr]

Check out the Cooking, Crafting and Scrapping Board on this website--great ideas/recipes for inexpensive meals!

 

[decaff38]

It is amazing how much you can save by using a crockpot. Either find a crockpot cookbook online or I found a good one at Goodwill for 2.00. You can litterally cook anything in one. I have mine set up with one of those light timers that you plug in so that it doesn't have to be on for 12 hours while we are away. I set it to come on around 11:00 am and set it on high. It works great. If for some reason we are delayed getting home or get a dinner invite (hubby works with many salesmen and they often take us out to dinner for free) I set it to shut off at 6:00pm. If we are just last it stays warm. You always have an extra meal or two for lunches, too.

There are some great sites to help with the grocery shopping too.
If you are in a metro area, thegrocerygame.com can save you hundreds. Coupon Mom.com, gottadeal.com, fatwallet.com are a few I like.

I read that if you write to companies and tell them you love their products they often send samples and good coupons. I'm going to give it a shot this weekend.

Love to have dinner planned out. Hate the panic of not having any ideas and the kids are hungry. Don;t know how my Mom did it but at least I am making a better effort this year.

Best of luck on you $$$ saving adventure. You will be on the ship in no time!!

 

[carone0318]

Both dh and I work full time and I don't have a ton of time, but I do make dinner every night with the exception of Friday, which in our house is pizza night. We are a family of 4 and I am most definitely am a creature of habit. As I said Friday is pizza night and Wednesday is pasta night, we rotate between white clam sauce and red clam sauce ea week. This works for us because we all love pasta and look forward to it every week. It also helps the kids know what day of the week it is. The other nights I make all different things. Lately, I have gotten into making stromboli for dinner (pepperoni & ham), the kids and dh seem to like that. We also eat roasted chicken (mainly in the winter) or I will make chicken parm and serve it over brown rice. One thing that my kids love is when I cook pork chops in the oven in Good Seasons Italian Salad Dressing. I then will also give them a little in a bowl so that they an dip their pork in it at the table. The kids love that. I serve it with some sort of starch (my son loves Barilla 3-cheese tortillini) and some sort of veggie. They also like when I cook pork chops on the stove in chicken broth with onion, garlic, salt, pepper & parsley and serve over brown rice with a veggie. We also have kielbasa sandwiches with tater tots/onion rings and baked beans. We sometimes have sloppy joes. It is not uncommon for me to do a slow cooker meal on Mondays because of our schedule and I buy the Banquet ones, they are pretty good or I'll throw chicken or a roast in there. My one rule is if we have something like kielbasa or sloppy joes one night I have to have a "good" dinner the next, meaning like pork chops, steak or chicken with a veggie and a starch. Nothing I make really has a recipe because I don't have time to get involved in something that takes a long time because I like to have dinner on the table when my dh comes home from work at 5:30 - 5:45. Oh, another favorite in the winter is chicken noodle soup with grilled cheese. I will make homemade chicken noodle soup on a Sunday and we can have leftovers during the week or I freeze for a later date.

Just some ideas, good luck!

 

[nbodyhome]

I love my crockpots too! I actually received two for wedding gifts - I didn't think I'd want both, but I've got a small one and a large one - last weekend I made ribs in the large, and goulash in the small at the same time.

I get most of my recipes off of Recipezaar - a goulash one is a favorite of mine! I am going to try soon the crockpot ginger chicken, borscht, pork chops, beef fajitas, etc. I have like 118 recipes currently in my online cookbook - lots of them I found after just searching for "crockpot" or another keyword - depending on what I was looking for.

The great thing about recipezaar (besides that it's free, unless you upgrade - which I haven't at this point) is that you have reviews on many of the recipes!

Thanks!

Denise

 

[figment52]

This is one of my family's favorite recipes. We had it for dinner as leftovers tonight and it was just as good as the first day! The meat gets a very subtle taste that's just great.

Cranberry Pork Roast
1 (3 to 4 pound) pork roast*
1 cup ground or finely chopped cranberries
1/4 cup honey 1 teaspoon grated orange peel
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
Salt and pepper

* Boneless or pork loin roast may be used.

Sprinkle the roast with salt and pepper. Place in a crockpot.

Combine the remaining ingredients; pour over the roast. Cover and cook on LOW for 8 to 10 hours.

Yields 6 to 8 servings.

I'll try that this weekend. Sounds great. Thanks