March 15, 2010 by KerryAnn Foster.

My children are prone to complain if they see the same meal too many times in a row.  To keep them from getting food boredom, I often take leftovers and turn them into something new. I do pinto beans on a Monday night, doubling the beans and setting the extra aside.  I serve cornbread for dinner on Tuesday or Wednesday, and the following day for lunch I serve the reheated beans spooned over the cornbread.  For me and the kids, we’ll eat three slices of cornbread and a third to a half a pound of dry beans for a lunch.

Final cost- 73 cents a serving using organic beans or 67 cents a serving for conventional.  If you can use cornmeal that isn’t gluten-free, it will be a cheaper meal. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in leftovers, Nut-free, Soy-Free, Lunch, lazy cooking, crock-pot, Casein-Free, Cheap Eats, frugality, recipe, Gluten-Free | Print | 1 Comment »

March 13, 2010 by KerryAnn Foster.

How many times do your kids run into the kitchen and pull their stool up to the stove to take a peek at what you’re heating up for lunch, only to hear, “Awwww!  Again?  We ate that last night!”  Fried rice is a good way to reinvent leftovers from the night before.  I serve this by having rice one night and then doing a roast, pork or chicken and veggies the second night.  The third day for lunch I combine the rice and leftover meat and veggies to make fried rice.

Fried Rice Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in leftovers, Nut-free, Lunch, lazy cooking, Menu Mailer, Casein-Free, Cheap Eats, recipe, Gluten-Free | Print | 2 Comments »

March 11, 2010 by KerryAnn Foster.

I am often appalled at the price of hot cereals, especially gluten-free hot cereals.  If you have a blender or a grain mill, you can make them for a fraction of the cost of the commercially produced products and they will be fresher.  Rice farina is the perfect example of this.  Bob’s Red Mill sells it for $17.72 for 7 pounds, which comes out to $2.53 a pound.  You can get whole rice for the normal price of 40 cents a pound around here, probably less if you go to an ethnic market, and then do about 3 minute’s worth of work yourself to save the $2.13 difference.  I have also done this with sorghum and had excellent results.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Egg-Free, Nut-free, Soy-Free, breakfast, recipe, Casein-Free, Cheap Eats, frugality, Gluten-Free | Print | 1 Comment »

March 9, 2010 by KerryAnn Foster.

This recipe has been one of the most requested and most loved dessert recipes I have used in the menu mailer.  I have modified it here to be more budget-friendly and usable for breakfast.

Clafouti (from the Menu Mailer)

Total meal cost $1.80, 60 cents a serving Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Menu Mailer, Nut-free, Soy-Free, breakfast, recipe, Casein-Free, Cheap Eats, frugality, Gluten-Free | Print | No Comments »

March 7, 2010 by KerryAnn Foster.

I normally try to have enough leftovers from dinner to have lunch the next day, but sometimes that doesn’t work out.  So on those days where I have to cook lunch, I normally turn to vegetarian meals with plenty of veggies.  I like this one because it’s very quick to throw together.  Since we normally eat meat at every dinner and we use a lot of stock, I don’t worry about an occasionally meatless lunch.

Lentil Dahl-  from the Menu Mailer Volume 2 Week 7

Total cost for the meal $2.49, 63 cents per serving, not including the rice or $2.90 for the meal, 73 cents per serving including the rice. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Nut-free, Soy-Free, Lunch, Egg-Free, Menu Mailer, Casein-Free, Cheap Eats, recipe, Gluten-Free | Print | No Comments »

March 5, 2010 by KerryAnn Foster.

It seems so many are struggling with their finances right now.  My husband has been unemployed since May, so we know the struggle well.  I’d like to share some of the recipes we use to help keep the food costs down.  These prices are assuming that you are not buying in bulk and are shopping at a health food store.  I will be posting a series of recipes over the next few weeks.

Latkas (from the Menu Mailer, Volume 3 Week 20)

Total meal cost $1.25, 31 cents a serving without applesauce or sour cream and not reclaiming the oil Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Menu Mailer, Nut-free, Soy-Free, breakfast, recipe, Casein-Free, Cheap Eats, frugality, Gluten-Free | Print | No Comments »

February 10, 2010 by KerryAnn Foster.

Finally, a post about food!

We’re having nasty weather yet again.  The sky is spitting snow, there’s a blizzard advisory and we’re on the border of it but I’m really hoping we won’t get anything.  They keep on telling us yet more snow is coming and making the forecast for the coming days worse then change it all the next hour.  Thanks to having taken multiple classes on weather, I understand the constant flip-flops but I really wish they wouldn’t do it.  I wish someone had strangled that groundhog, cause I’m sick of snow!  God is laughing at me because I wanted to move to Asheville in part because it rarely got snow. Supposedly.

Today was proving to be a busy day thanks to doing taxes and writing the mailer.  I am behind on menu planning for this coming week and I do my shopping at the end of the week, so I drug out the crock-pot and threw this together from what I had on hand with the big London broil in my fridge, in between conversations about how I understand what the cat is saying when he meows and the proper way to write a “W.”  I often have clients complain when I don’t give exact measurements, but the fact is that I most often measure many things in the palm of my hand or not at all. The only thing I typically measure is when I bake so I don’t turn out little brick loaves.  Otherwise I go on intuition and proportion since I usually cook in a hurry and have at least one of two short folk giving me a stream of consciousness in monologue or diatribe form while I work statuesque with the old-man cat wrapped around my feet.  Thanks to the motorized, heat-seeking Croc accessory, I rarely move while cooking once I plant my feet well enough for him to adhere to me.  I’m really good at leaning and reaching.

Fajitas on Rice Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Egg-Free, Nut-free, Soy-Free, lazy cooking, beef, Casein-Free, recipe, crock-pot, Gluten-Free | Print | 1 Comment »