Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Meatless Meals: Save Some Serious "Dough"!

This is our biggest "do without"... instead of always including meat in our meals, several times a week now, we eat meatless meals... variations:

* Rice with cream of chicken sauce.
* Pasta with white sauce
* Cheese quesadillas with salsa (or guac)
* egg spaghetti
* Make-our-own cheese pizzas (I often mix ranch into the pizza sauce for a little pizazz!)
* Homemade pancakes and/or waffles with homemade syrup
* Rice w/ leftover chicken teriyaki sauce (sans chicken, since that's usually eaten up in the first meal )
* Cornbread and milk
* Peanut butter/PBJ sandwiches w/ chips of our choice
* Homemade biscuits with jelly or honey
* Buy one really good fresh veggie and eat a ton of that (buttery carrots or garlic-y green beans fried up in a wok)
* Oatmeal or Cream of wheat (made with non-name-brand semolina, rather than buying the expensive box)
* Egg & Cheese breakfast burritos (or egg & cheese biscuits)


All of these meals cost significantly less than a meal with meat, and are still very tasty and filling. I try to rotate in at least 3 of these into our lunch/evening meals on any given week.

(If you have a question about recipes for any of these, lemme know and I'll post it.)

8 comments:

Mrs. Sewell said...

Great Idea!

Thanks

God Bless
Crystal <><

Miranda said...

Would love the recipe for Egg Spaghetti and a good chx teriyaki recipe....thanks for the ideas!!

Jess Connell said...

Egg spaghetti is just simple, and it's something I've just recently started making.

Prepare your spaghetti like normal. Then drain the water out and crack a couple of eggs into the hot pan with the noodles. Add in a smidge of salt, pepper, and parmesan cheese. Stir like crazy, until the eggs cook from the heat.

The kids like it, it's tasty, and it costs next to nothing.

I'll do the chicken teriyaki as a separate post soon.
~Jess

Christy said...

Ooh, Goody! I've been looking for some meatless meals. Thank you!

Alison said...

We do a lot of meatless meals as well.. I've found my husband doesn't even tend to notice, as long as there is enough protein to hold him over. :) There are a lot of great recipes out there for beans and lentils and sometimes you can get those for dirt cheap! I used to be pretty intimidated about the thought of cooking my own beans, but as long as you remember to soak them the night before, it really isn't too hard. :)

Laura said...

Jess, do you have the More With Less cookbook by any chance? They have TONS of meatless, meat-substitute, and meat-stretching recipes, as well as suggestions for using up leftovers, fun and budget friendly "theme" dinners, etc. The recipes are from Mennonite missionaries all over the world, so they include yummy ethnic dishes as well as home-cookin'.

Oh, and the make-your-own kinda stuff: bisquick, granola, drink mixes, english muffins... my mom never put that puppy away when I was growing up. It saved our lives during our "lean years." So rad.

Meatless is such a good idea -- even doing one meatless day a week will make a difference in your grocery budget.

Jess Connell said...

No, Laura, I don't have "More With Less"- I wish I did! I've heard WONDERFUL things about it. Thanks for the recommendation. I'll definitely grab it if I ever have the chance!

Leah said...

My husband and I both LOVE our meat, and would never enjoy a proper meal without it! That said, the smaller-snack type meals (like at lunch, or perhaps an evening when we're not very hungry) can go without meat; sometimes we'll have soup, cheesy pasta, noodles (with diced veggies and egg, much like your egg spaghetti), toasted sandwiches, tinned spaghetti, or scrambled eggs (sometimes with bacon, sometimes without).