credit crunch tips n recipes....

[Artyfarty]

Tonight I cooked a english dish using Corn beef and plainold mashed potatoes topped with puff pastry....but I did a extra large size dish a 2 portion size dish so i could freeze the remainder for another night.
hubby loves his topped with cheese and not pastry so I did his too in a 2 portion dish.
What are you all serving up and saving on durring the credit crunch ....any tips we should learn..remember in the 40's when rashion books were out well if they can go without n make meals for under a fiver what have we to lose except the monies for stamps lol
Which reminds me thankyou Homebase you saved me some money to buy stamps with lol !!! why ? well my new oak doors were on the weekly deal and had £11.00 knocked off.:biglaugh:

[logcabincreations]

well....I'm trying to cook meals where we will have at least 1 leftover night. Tonight is just grilled cheese sammies.....but I'm putting a turkey breast in my big crockpot tonight to cook. I just add chicken stock and cook all night long. We can have turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing one night......sandwiches another night......turkey casserole another night.....and I want to make a casserole for a friend who is out on sick leave from work right now. She had surgery on her foot.

[limeyscrapper]

I have a tuna casserole recipe that is so old we can't remember it's real name or where it came from originally. My kids always called it "Tuna Fish Modge".
It's a really simple recipe that uses mashed potatoes as a base. Then a can of tuna added to a can of mushroom soup and stir in 2 sliced two hard-boiled eggs. Pour it over the potatoes, top with sliced tomatoes, and shredded cheese. Cover it, and bake it in the oven for 45 minutes. It doesn't sound great - and it looks messy when you serve it out ( Hence the " modge" ) but it's very tasty, quite filling and quite cheap. And it uses up some of our potatoes and tomatoes from the garden.

[MsQuesMom]

We're having Shepperd's Pie

8 servings mashed potatoes
1 can of whole corn drained
1 can cut green beans drained
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can Spicy V8 juice
1 can tomato sauce
1 lb ground round

Cook the meat in a pan with salt, pepper and garlic to suit. Add all the ingredients above except the mashed potatoes. Bring to a boil and simmer for 20 minutes.

Pour into a large rectangle baking dish and top with spoonfuls of the mashed potatoes.

Bake for 45 minutes at 350. Will serve 6 maybe 8. Freezes great and can be reheated in the microwave.

[MsQuesMom]

Chicken and Rice for 6

1 bag frozen chicken tenders (they have been on sale here a lot)
4 cups Minute Rice
2 cans cream of chicken soup ( I use Wal-Mart brand)
water

Cut up and brown the chicken with salt, pepper and garlic to taste. Dump the chicken soup into a 6 cup measuring cup and add enough water to make 4 1/2 cups of soup.

Add the soup mix to the cooked chicken, then stir in the rice. Bring to a boil, cover and turn the heat down to LOW. After 25 minutes, turn off the heat and let sit for 5 minutes.
Serve

[stampinmom3]

I save money by planning meals ahead and making a big shopping trip rather than lots of little ones. I spend about 250.00-300.00 every six-eight weeks or so for a family of four. Of course there is bread, lunch meat, and milk trips more frequently. I am very blessed that my family are hunters, so they provide LOTS of deer burger, deer roasts, and turkey for us to eat. That really helps with the grocery bill.

[teabear]

One of my go to meals that is very inexpensive and popular around here is pizza. I make the dough in the bread machine and use a bit of bottle or jar or leftover spaghetti or marinara sauce and then use up bits of this and that to get pizza. Tonight will have grilled onions and peppers, fresh grape tomatos, mozarella and feta cheeses and a bit of pizza seasoning. Almost any bits of leftovers will work even BBQ sauce and chicken. Just look at some of those fancy restaurant pizzas for inspiration.

[cindi]

some of my tips are to buy a whole chicken, bake it have roasted chicken one meal, then use leftover chicken for sandwiches, casseroles, ect, then make soup out of the rest.
I also like to do a cheap cut of beef in my crock pot with veggies and we can eat that for days.
I also haunt the sales.
I make a large crock pot of chilli ot spagheti sauce and freeze batches, this is also a money saver.
keep the tips coming ladies
:)

[GSMom385]

Homemade noodles is a big favorite here. 4cups flour 1cup broth beef or chix 4egg yolks mix roll thin cook in broth water mix or freeze for later. Really cheap. DH is a big hunter we eat lots of deer rabbit turkey squirrel saves big money. MIL is big canner too.

[cindi]

I ws just thinking also that my parents have a nice garden and my mom freezes tomato sauce instead of canning,,so easy and so yummy! also I have shreeded and frozen a bunch of zuchinini this summer to bake with throughtout the colder months. Also I have frozen fiddle heads and blueberries too. I'm loving these tips..keep them coming
:)

[teabear]

This is such a fun thread, we all have different things available to us. We have lots of fish in the freezer since hubby and son are avid fishermen. Also, I can salsa and jams with my mom every year, so we don't have to buy that. I shop the sales and the dollar stores for alot of things. I got starbucks coffee for $2 a bag this week and fruit rollups and junkie stuff like that for the kiddos lunch for $1 a box. I freeze alot of things when they are low prices or on sale for later like the coffee. It stays fresher that way.

[logcabincreations]

This is such a fun thread, we all have different things available to us. We have lots of fish in the freezer since hubby and son are avid fishermen. Also, I can salsa and jams with my mom every year, so we don't have to buy that. I shop the sales and the dollar stores for alot of things. I got starbucks coffee for $2 a bag this week and fruit rollups and junkie stuff like that for the kiddos lunch for $1 a box. I freeze alot of things when they are low prices or on sale for later like the coffee. It stays fresher that way.

oh yeah ... can't forget the dollar stores. I try to go to Dollar Tree and Dollar General at least every couple of weeks. I also have some canned tomatoes (from my dad's garden) and homemade jam that I made. Hopefully we'll have some deer for the freezer this hunting season.