Love all the reciepes on this thread! But I have another thought....Have you tried plating everything from the stove? It sounds crazy, but a lot of food ends up in the trash from cleared plates. Fix everyone a plate--certainly be more generous with your FIL, the kids eat less....then put the plates on the table. Put the bread and butter on the table. Of course if anyone needs seconds the food is on the stove. I'm guessing more food will be eaten and less wasted. Serve those leftovers!
I do plating as well (plus it saves on how many dishes you have to wash). It really does work well in cutting down waste, and also in cutting down waistlines.
The frustrating thing is how expensive meat is when you have a bunch of meat lovers in the house. For instance, while DH and I both love this one meatloaf I make, you really do end up spending more b/c it's mostly meat (even when you add filler). But if you put it into a pasta sauce, voila it feeds a bunch of people.
Another good option is beef enchiladas! As long as you're doing corn tortillas, not a lot of meat goes into each of them. So if you serve each person 2-3 enchiladas, plus a big side of beans and rice, it feels like you've had more meat than you really have. Make your own enchilada sauce, grate your own cheese, use Lawry's and chile powder rather than buying taco seasoning, and it's even cheaper. Plus you can freeze enchiladas, so if you wait until the meat is on sale, buy a lot and make several pans. Stretch it even further by adding partly mashed black or pinto beans to the pan while you're browning the meat.
We had many lean times when I was little, and mom's go-to budget meals were always stews and beans and rice. Serve with salad, and lots of cornbread or bread and it goes a long way.
Cheap stews:
*Ground beef with pinto beans, blackeyed peas and Rotel...sounds dull, but definitely isn't.
*basic Chicken Tortilla soup: lots of simple recipes out there
*Posole
*Chili...both red and white (I use an excellent Cooking Light recipe for a turkey chili that involves onions, broth, white beans, chili powder, oregano and lime. Not remotely expensive, and VERY good in both taste and nutrition).
*Potato soup (yummmm...talk about filling, and only a few slices of bacon in that one!)
Another thing my mom always had was lots of sides, which not only stretched the budget and the stomachs, but was healthier (well...except for those cheesy, buttery southern-style sides
). Nowadays we're used to one meat, one starch, one veggie, but she was old school. Potatoes, carrots, green beans, corn, sliced tomatoes, squash casserole, okra, green salad..you get the drift. You end up with a groaning overloaded plate, but the expensive part (the meat) actually takes up a smaller portion of the plate without you ever really realizing. Plus, again, healthier overall.
I had to edit to add: avoid serving people whole chicken breasts unless you've made them into cutlets. The sizes they sell are ridiculously oversized. For instance, the quick frozen package ones, I've found, tend to be like 10-14 oz each..even up to 16 oz! But people really shouldn't have more than 4-6 oz of meat. So make that big piece, and it either doesn't all get eaten and is wasted, or people stuff themselves insanely b/c they think they need to clean their plate. I've found that if I make a recipe that's for whole chicken breasts, I can cook it as instructed, but then since I do plating, I will slice it in the kitchen, then fan the slices out on the plate over a starch. I end up using one chicken breast for the both of us! DH still thinks he's getting a lot of chicken, but he's really getting the normal size. And I've saved money. It's funny how much psychology plays into food budgets.
