Lemonade Budget Cooking

My melancholiness from Friday is over or at least pushed aside.  Sometimes talking or in this case writing out angst, is enough to get the "ish" out of my system. On to other things. I learned a new term the other day from the Frugal Queen, called Lemonade Budget. Apparently it is the same as I've always referred to as the beer budget, as in champagne tastes on a beer budget. I guess that might say something of me that I didn't know the nonalcoholic version. Anyway, check out the link to FQ's favorite budget meal. As I try and not only keep my grocery budget in line, I also am challenged now with thinking through healthier options than my  simple carb loaded hotdishes and pastas. I've been wondering about my favorite lemonade budget meal, and how I can make it healthier. 

I make a killer macaroni and cheese.  The trick is to get the creamiest bechamel sauce first, at least 1/3 more than you need to cover the pasta, and then use a good mellow cheddar, and amply coat the macaroni. I've been experimenting with substitutions for the calorie laden cheese, 

Neufchatel cheese has 74 calories per ounce to 110 per ounce cheddar. In my recipe, I use at least four ounces or one cup of shredded cheese, but by using 2 ounces of neufchatel cream cheese plus only 2 of sharp cheddar, more punch per bite, and the recipe drops 13 calories per hearty serving, with no sacrifice in taste. Using olive oil instead of butter adds a healthy fat in the sauce and using whole wheat pasta ups the staying power. As I already use skim milk, the sauce is not that high in those calories, but even reducing 1/2 the skim milk with 1/2 cup of broth, drops another 10 calories a serving. While 23 calories isn't huge, if this is done on 14 meals per week, a pound of excess weight is gone without really doing a thing, not even factoring the health boosts of the oil and pasta, after 11 weeks, or 4.5 pounds in a year. 

Long game, right? If someone said I could be 22 pound slighter in five years without dieting, I'd want to hear what they have to say. Now I need to listen to myself and reinvent how I cook. I know about food, what can substitute for what; time to apply this and not just to my spurge meals. As I challenge myself to reinvent the humblest meals in my home, I'll share my successes and failures with you all.

Pantry Staples I Always Have

 Not including coffee, tea (both must haves) and assorted baking ingredients, I have a few pantry staples that I rarely let my cupboards be without. It truly is a bonanza if I can get these items at really low prices. In no particular order, these include:

Rice
Assorted Pasta
Broth
Pumpkin
Pineapple-chunks or rings
Canned Tuna
Tomato Soup
Canned beans

You can see pasta was on sale, and DH has never seen a low priced box of pasta he didn't like so I believe he bought 10. Tuna is his other proud buy. I once came across a sale on store brand pineapple chunks at something like $ .59 a can, almost half price, and bought a case of 24. That might have been excessive, but it was when my older kids were teens, and I had a toddler. I couldn't fit that many in my pantry without sacrificing just about everything else. I had read an analogy in the Tightwad Gazette about bulk buying storage and finding unconventional places. She compared storing cases of bulk bought items at rock bottom prices to having someone pay you, perhaps $50 a month, to store something under your bed. I think I found a space in the laundry room, but the idea was the same, though my savings was probably more like $12. I haven't bulk bought quite like that since but still make sure I toss extras of these essentials into my cart. 

Combined with odds and ends from the rest of my pantry, freezer or refrigerator, I can pretty much wing it for any food need without having to go to the grocery store. Needing to stretch dinner because a friend came home with DD? Cook up a side of rice pilaf in broth and serve pineapple in sauce dishes. A request to drop off a desert at church or for a work potluck? Pumpkin bars, pumpkin bread, or pumpkin cake can be ready in an hour. Impromptu trip to the Lake? Make a tuna salad, or enough tuna for sandwiches, and grab buns and chips on route. DD wants childhood comfort food after a grueling day of tests? Macaroni in tomato soup, a la spaghettios, fit the bill. Canned bean such as baked beans, chili beans, or garbanzo beans can be cooked with the rice, or combined cold with the pasta, or mashed and made into a sort of burger, and I have a protein filled main dish. 


No one in our family has any food sensitivities such as gluten, so I have it quite easy. I won't say my family likes me raiding the pantry as our sole menu plan, but in a pinch, can appreciate the relevancy of having core items at the ready. Besides baking goods, spices, and seasonings what items do you always have on hand?

 

Kitchen Challenge-the Humble Whole Chicken

 Jane at Crabapple Landing commented a few posts ago about how she loves a good challenge  in the grocery area and specifically mentioned a roast chicken and how many meals could be prepared form one.  Loving a good challenge myself, I thought I would take up this challenge and see what my results are. I wanted a blog post topic I could write ahead and schedule for Saturday, so this worked well for that. I like a roast chicken-so easy to prepare with a little seasoning, perhaps an onion sliced in big chunks and a glove of garlic stuck in the cavity while it roasts, and it really is that simple. Golden plump are usually in my local stores for around $8.00, but every so often there is a rock bottom sale and I can get for around $4.00. Even the rotisserie chickens are on special one night a week for $6.99 if I didn't even want to bother roasting. 

Juice could be used for gravy, but mine was saved for extra soup flavoring.

I roasted it up with a little butter spread on the skin, Morton's All purpose seasoning, and put an onion in the cavity. Wow, did it smell divine while it cooked.  I worked from home so that was the fragrance I had all day.  Here is my game plan for the chicken. For simplicity, I'm using the cost of each meal for chicken as $2.00 per meal, even though the roast chicken in meal one uses larger portions.

Meal one: Roasted chicken, reserving the bulk of the two breast, using the legs and wings as pieces, plus rice (making two meals worth), steamed carrots and biscuits. (Meal cost estimate: $4.00)

After meal one, once cool, set breasts aside and pick all the meat off the bones. Bring whole chicken. bones and all, to boil on stove in about 8 cups of water, with a large  carrot, celery stalk, and onion in big chunks, then simmer until vegetables are soft, and any remaining meat falls of the bone. Pick out and strain large vegetable chunks, fatty pieces, and bones to have a savory chicken stock. Now you will have two large breast, and at least a cup of chicken meat pieces, and 6-7 cups of chicken stock (as water will cook down). I'll dice up the chicken breasts and store separately.

Meal two: Chicken noodle soup, made with the stock, a diced onion, diced large carrot, and diced celery stock, the loose chicken from picking the bones, and 8 ounces of noodles of your choice. I like egg the best but usually just have boxes of pasta in our cupboard.  I didn't buy egg noodles so am using spiral rotini pasta. I will cook the whole box though and use half in the soup, and reserve the other half for another meal. Served with homemade bread from bread machine). Besides feeding the three of us on Sunday, this will yield at least two lunch size portions as leftovers.(Meal cost estimate: $3.90)

Meal Three: One of the chicken breasts will be used with rice, intentionally left over from the roast chicken meal, mixed vegetables, and two eggs for chicken fried rice. (Meal cost estimate: $3.40)

Meal Four: The last breast will be used with Alfredo sauce thinned out with a 3/4 cup of milk, the other have of the rotini pasta, frozen broccoli, more garlic and herbs, mixed together, topped lightly with  mozzarella, for a cheesy Italian pasta bake.Using frozen broccoli, adding the milk, and putting the cheese on top locks the moisture into the hot dish keeping everything creamy and not dry. (Meal cost estimate: $5.45) Plus 1-2 lunch leftovers.

$16.75 for four meals for three people, $1.40 a serving, not counting leftovers. Had I bought the chicken on sale, even less, though most of the other ingredients were pantry or fridge items bought at low costs and I used what I paid for them in my cost estimation. This was a good exercise so thanks Jane for the prompt. I wanted to find things that were labor and time saving, doing double duty in the kitchen. I'd love to hear how others take a humble item and stretch it into a variety of meals. Vegetarian or special diet ideas would really be appreciated.