Eat well. Spend less. Cheap recipes that taste good.
Yesterday afternoon I got a hankering for dinner rolls, fresh, warm yeasty rolls. I looked through The Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook and found a recipe for Virginia Light Rolls, which I first made back in 2012 and have made multiple times since then. I’m usually making them for big family dinners but last night…
I picked up a copy of The Homesick Texan’s Family Table at the library the other day. Just reading the names of the recipes was making me hungry! It’s includes sections for breakfast, starters and snacks, salads and sides, chilis, soups and stews, main dishes, sweets and accompaniments (stuff like salsas and pickles). Her Buttermilk…
Our Sunday dinner last night was based on the chili verde I’d promised to make for my youngest. I also made a skillet upside down cake with fresh cranberries. All the leftover chili went home with my kids for their lunches. I had the rice and beans with salsa and cheese wrapped up in a…
And here’s a favorite meatloaf recipe of ours that got left off when I redesigned the site. Karissa just emailed me and asked about it so here it is!
Last night was a solo dinner and I had leftovers to use up. Eggs are one of my favorite meals for using up bits and pieces of things and last night’s scramble was a great example. I’d made pizza on New Year’s Eve and had leftover chopped vegetables, including peppers, onions, olives and peperoncini. I…
This simple soup tastes fantastic even though you just use water for broth. It’s also filling and nutritious. Escarole is a lettuce from the chicory family. I originally looked for it in the “greens” section at the grocery store but found it over by the lettuces. The original recipe for this soup is in Lidia’s…
This was a great simple dinner for midweek and was the hit of my pre-holiday dinners. I halved the original recipe from Lidia’s Italy in America so I used half a pound of pasta instead of the full pound and I used broccolini instead of broccoli rabe or rapini. The Kitchn has a nice post…
It’s time to do a post on my favorite recipes of the year. For January, I have to go with Tamar Adler’s Minestrone Soup. I just made this again last month in fact! For February, the choice is a little harder but I’ll recommend you try this chicken and leek pie from Nigel Slater. This…
I discovered I’d not moved this recipe over from the old site and it’s good enough to bring back. This is from one of my favorite cookbooks, Mom’s Updated Recipe Box: 300 Family Favorites Made Quick and Healthy. That links to a book that is slightly newer than my copy as it has 50 more…
I grew up eating my mom’s macaroni and cheese. I did develop a fondness for the blue box variety when I was in high school but once I had kids, I went back to this one. It’s easy and delicious. Leave out the onions if you have a child that doesn’t like them, like I…
This would have to go into that “so easy it’s not really a recipe” category. I haven’t made this in a long time so don’t have a good picture but I noticed people searching for it on the site so here it is! 1 cut up chicken or just your favorite pieces 2 cups barbecue…
Lunches at home get boring. Leftover this and leftover that. But I have found that an inexpensive George Foreman Grill can do wonders to perk up leftovers by turning them into a nice grilled sandwich. The possibilities are almost endless once you start scrounging through the refrigerator. The other day I spotted a mostly empty…
This is from one my all-time favorite cookbooks, Let’s Eat In Quick and Delicious Weekday Meals, only available used on Amazon apparently. It’s quite a bargain at a penny! Save
This bread soup is packed with flavor and is a great way to use up stale bread or leftover stuffing or dressing. The recipe comes from Tamar Adler’s An Everlasting Meal, one of my favorite books to read from and cook from! I used canned cannelini beans but you could use chickpeas or cranberry beans…
We just had our 21st annual gingerbread house decorating party. Some people bring the kits you can buy for around $10 and those work great. It’s amazing how different the houses turn out with each person’s individual decorating ideas. But some of us like to build houses from scratch. And they’re not always actually houses….
Croquettes are one of those things you can make to use up small amounts of leftovers and turn them into something with a different texture so it doesn’t seem like you’re eating leftovers. I made potato croquettes with our leftover mashed potatoes today. They were great with some leftover gravy, although my daughter preferred hers…
I haven’t made this for years but someone just wrote asking me where this recipe went so here it is! This is much easier on the food budget than stroganoff made with steak. My kids used to love this. I would often make this without the mushrooms if I didn’t have any. Or I would…
If you want to make a larger batch of granola, I’ve got a long-time tried and true recipe over here. This makes a smaller batch, about one quart, which is perfect for my smaller family these days. In addition to being a great breakfast with some fresh yogurt on top, it makes a reasonable nighttime…
A ham has got to be the bargain lover’s dream. First, you can find it on sale at a reasonable price periodically. Half hams (shank or butt portions) often go on sale for less than $1 a pound around here. The only other thing I can buy for that price is whole chickens. But even…
This is my daughter’s favorite bread currently. I make a smaller (1 1/2 pound loaf) so that it stays fresh. This recipe is straight out of The Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook: A Master Baker’s 300 Favorite Recipes for Perfect-Every-Time Bread-From Every Kind of Machine, which I bought based on Amazon reviews and have loved!…
This is a great way to have a hot kid-friendly dish at a large party.
The June/July 2011 Every Day with Rachael Ray (2-year affiliate link) caught my eye because of the burger on the cover. I actually followed the whole recipe (maybe a first!), right down to these onion rings. The idea of adding chives to onions sounded good and I have a ton of chives right now. You…
I picked up a package of stew meat from Costco a while back and shared half with my daughter. Then I split my portion and froze them in 1 pound portions so I could make smaller batches of stew. Last night was the night! I debated about several different beef stews I’ve made before. Jacques…
Thin pieces of chicken breasts, dipped in flour and cooked in oil and butter with a pan sauce made of capers, garlic, white wine and lemon juice. This has become a family favorite over the years, rivaled only by chicken cutlets that are breaded with a mixture of bread crumbs, herbs and Parmesan. These are…
