Frugal Cookin' Carnival

Welcome!

I'm very excited about this Frugal Cookin' Carnival.

Here are a few thoughts before we feast on the meals…We have food allergies so our recipes reflect this fact (no dairy, peanuts, tree nuts, fish, or tomatoes). For this reason, I did not include Little G's rice milk in the price totals.

I tried to find a middle ground between nutrition and frugality. I only used whole wheat flour and tried to use honey instead of cane sugar when I could. I also tried to change up the meals every day, where in reality we have the same snacks or breakfasts more than one day in a row.

The snacks were only eaten by Little G, but are included in the daily and per person totals.

Ingredients with a “*” next to them are leftovers that were included in a previous meal total and are not included in the total for that meal.

Here's my 3 day stash (I didn't quite get everything into the picture).

Prices do not include: lemon juice (for soaking grains), baking soda, baking powder, salt, and pepper.

Day 1:
B-Sourdough Pancakes, Eggs (1/person), Unsweetened Applesauce
Snack-Banana Chips
L-Pita Bread with Soy Butter, Lettuce Salad w/Carrots and Oil and Vinegar Dressing (See Recipe Below)
Snack-Homemade Graham Crackers (I add Flaxseed)
D-Roasted Whole Chicken with Carrots and Rice, Canned Pineapple (I forgot to write the size of the chicken before enjoying, but it was around 3 1/2 lbs)

Daily Total: $7.79
Per Person Total: $2.59

Day 2:
B-Steel Cut Oats with Raisins, Honey and Banana
Snack-Unsweetened Applesauce w/Flaxseed, Carrot Sticks
L-Chicken* Salad w/Red Pepper and Oil and Vinegar Dressing, Apple
Snack-Banana Chips
Dinner-Pita Sandwich, Chicken*, Lettuce and Hummus, Peaches

Daily Total: $3.79
Per Person Total: $1.26

Day 3:
B-Steel Cut Oats w/Flaxseed and Honey and Applesauce
Snack-Pita Chips* with Hummus*
L-Pancake Sandwiches* (See below), Mandarin Oranges Snack-Homemade Banana Chips
D-Stir Fry (Chicken*, Red Pepper*, Carrots*, Rice*) Dessert-Fried Bananas

Daily Total: $2.51
Per Person Total: $.84

Final thoughts:

We really enjoyed all of these recipes. I'm not sure whether or not I could budget like this every month, but I do plan on adding up a few of our frequently eaten meals to compare prices.

The sourdough pancakes per serving were cheaper than the oatmeal per serving. This was surprising to me. I would suspect that muffins would be a frugal breakfast as well. We usually have oatmeal in the mornings, but we may need to re-hash our breakfast menu.

The cheapest snack was by far the banana chips. Little G loves them, and they run around $.08/serving (1/2 a banana). *Note: Banana prices have gone up, but Aldi still had theirs at around $.44/lb.

I suspect the pita bread costs more per serving than regular bread I would make; however, it served us well and was very versatile.

Stir-fry is a fabulous way to use up leftovers and costs next to nothing (about $.18/person using my leftovers). We often add some beans from the pantry if we need a little more substance.

Leftovers that were included in these prices: chicken and about a serving of stir-fry.

The Recipes:

Oil and Vinegar Dressing

I don't have exact measurements for this recipe, so just trust your taste buds…

Olive Oil
Red Wine Vinegar
Garlic Salt (or Dill or other spice)

Combine! Easy enough, and it doesn't have any high fructose corn syrup like many other store bought dressings do.

Pancake Sandwiches

I discovered this nifty treat while I was pregnant with Sweet Boo. Sometimes I freeze my leftover pancakes to pull out for a quick breakfast, and sometimes we have them for leftovers. I found that if you use the pancakes like bread, it makes a great sandwich. Don't be afraid to fix your sandwich like you normally would, either. We load it with whatever leftovers we have in the fridge. Using a little bit of “pancakey” goodness as the bread makes this sandwich something special, not to mention a frugal lunch!

I hope you can use some of these ideas and recipes in your Frugal Cookin' endeavors. Check out more Frugal Cookin' at Owlhaven.