FRUGALITY

FRUGALITY- "Prudence in avoiding waste." (wordnetweb.princeton.edu)

Why This Blog?

I am on a pretty strict food budget; I also pray that my family and I will never go hungry, so after so many years of being creative with limited food supplies and money (including a three-pound whole chicken turned into 13 meals for the 5 of us), P-R-A-Y-S became a food and household budget philosophy. It can be anything that keep you in line with your budget. Like PORTION, ROTATE, ANTICIPATE, YELL (from joy of having money left over) and SAVE. Each post will show how this philosophy was broken down with every dish and budgeting I share. So hold on to your wallets and stay tuned!

Monday, October 18, 2010

What's For Dinner?

Isn't this the age-old question of every household?

Well, it is mine and my friend Heather's as well. She has MS (and a spokesperson for Chronic Disease Fund), and is currently in a wheelchair which makes cooking very tiring and overwhelming; but her spunky and loveable nature have not been touched by this awful immune system attacker at all. LOVE HER!

Well, it was an honor to be asked again to help her put together a dinner menu using ONLY what she has in her pantry and fridge. It has to last a while and has to be varied enough for her picky son, Chase.

The last time we did this, she only had a 3-lb roaster chicken and whatever she had lying around. Well, I know I can meet this challenge since I did it before, but at her place...
We made 19 meals! Yes, 19! Including chicken noodle soup and fried rice!

Today, I brought some stuff for her to have on hand, and--

Today, we wanted her to focus on nutrition so in under 6 hours, we made...

Power Smoothie- no ice, no sugar (4 servings)

Berry Sorbet- frozen fruits, no sugar (3 servings)

Roast Beef with veggies (6-8 servings)

Beef Stew a la CAM (4-6 servings)

Creamy Potato Soup with Ham (4-6 servings)

Health-ier Meatloaf (ground beef & breakfast sausage) (4-6 servings)

Spaghetti Sauce (6-8 servings)

Baked Tilapia with Lime Butter Sauce (4 servings)

Green Beans & Tomatoes (3-4 servings)

We PLANNED the cooking day (not the menu), RAIDED her pantry, ASSEMBLED each meal according to cook time, YAMMERED happily about life and nutrition while we cooked, and SUCCESSFULLY made meals big enough to feed 3-4 people though there's only her and her son!

My angle, make meat the side dish, not the main item. You focus on the nutritious sides, and meat suddenly just becomes the flavoring!/

BERRY SORBET

1 C frozen blackberries

1/4 C POM Pomegranate blueberry juice

1/4 C frozen pineapples

1/2 fresh orange juice

1/4 fresh lime

Put all the frozen fruits at the bottom

Add the other ingredients and blend.

Put in a freezable lidded container and mix every 15 minutes to "fluff" the sorbet to keep it from freezing solid.


Til next time!




3 comments:

  1. From Heather via FB:

    OMG LADY!!! I swear before this MS gets me there are a few things I wanna accomplish ... getting you some sort of TV show or book deal or something is one of them...I feel you need to share this with the world and honestly I think in some ways it will make the world happier. When you don't have to worry about food and your kids being hungry just because you don't have a ton of money... and still can be healthy... GIRL THAT MAKES ANYONE HAPPY

    I told you, LOVE HER! Thanks, Heather!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I feel the same way about meats in a meal. We were shopping the other day at the grocery store and the cashier commented about all our healthy choices. He said a big percentage of people buy either prepared foods ( full of all kinds of ick ) and junk foods and very little buy good, fresh stuff. I told him their tabs are about 40% higher for choosing unhealthy and I don't want to pay that price !

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ha ha! That's for sure! So glad you understand. Hugs!

    ReplyDelete