If you don’t follow me on facebook, then you won’t know that I’m ‘going Dave Ramsey’. I’ve created a plan that includes my budget, my debts, and my investments.
One of our biggest money wasters is food. Apparently we eat a lot. Whether it’s in town, snacks, or just good home cooked meals..it’s a lot and with the kids getting out of school for the Summer, it’s only going to get bigger. I’ve planned a budget of $350 for June which is WAY below what we normally spend but I plan to try hard to make sure I don’t go above it. And because of these new financial decisions, we decided to meal plan, seriously.
Me and my cowboy sat down and discussed some meals that could be made cheaply and some that would be eatable all day. Since beef is supplied with our job, most of the meals will involve beef. I’ll be shopping sales, ad matching at Walmart, using coupons, and taking advantage of the ‘real big deals’ from our local Brookshires. Here is the real big deal this week, which changes every Wednesday.
One thing I love about this week’s big deal is that it involves chicken! WOOHOO! As you can see, by buying a 3lb bag of boneless, skinless chicken breast, we get 5 things free; Suddenly Salad, foam plates, marinade, baked beans, and potatoes. We LOVE LOVE LOVE suddenly salad, specifically the Caesar one so if we buy one more box of that and another can of baked beans, that will feed our family of 5. (one of each would not…not with my teen boys). We’ll use the foam plates for pizza night so that I can have an evening of no dishes and the marinade will be used for steak or roast. Potatoes? Well, we don’t have a meal without them usually so any bag of potatoes will be just fabulous!
So here are the meals we chose for the next couple of weeks. All basics.
- Meat & Bean burritos
- Steak fingers,
- Spagetti
- carne guisada
- bbq sandwiches
- Salisbury steak
- pizza
- cubed steak stroganoff
- roast
- hamburgers
- enchiladas
- broccoli rice & cheese (might add some chicken to it)
- king ranch casserole (might use the chicken instead of ground beef)
- elbow mac & beef
I’ll be making lots of tortillas and potatoes and many of the items were already stocked in my kitchen so my grocery list won’t be too big. Obviously I didn’t include fruits & veggies but it gives you an idea. The challenge comes on whether or not I get all the meals cooked and stick to the plan.
I’ll need your help with meal ideas that are budget friendly and can feed AT LEAST 5 preferably 6. Share if you have some!
When bell peppers come into season, or if you grow your own, then you could make stuffed bell peppers, or bell pepper casserole.
Bell pepper casserole is the same as stuffed bell peppers only you just layer chopped up items in a casserole dish. Layer a thin layer of tomato sauce to cover bottom of your casserole dish, then chopped up bell peppers (seeded and stem removed of course), then cooked ground beef (or can substitute any cooked ground up meat of choice, so if pork sausage is on sale, or ground turkey it can be used instead, or a combination of ground cooked and drained of grease meats can be layered in the casserole), cooked white or brown rice layered on top of meat, chopped up onions layered next, then more tomato sauce poured over the top. Cover top with aluminion foil and cook at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes. Longer time if you have a thick layer of chopped up bell peppers so they get cooked and tender, shorter time if you had a thinner layer. Some people add a layer of cheese in their casseroles made this way, I don’t, because I think it masks the flavor of the peppers and the onions.
Mexican Meatloaf is another of our favorites.
3 lbs. of lean ground beef or mixture of other lean ground meats.
3 eggs, lightly beaten,
3/4 cup of your favorite salsa
3 slices of bread torn up into small pieces (don’t use dry bread crumbs it makes the meatloaf too dry).
3/4 cup ketchup
1 teaspoon up to 1 Tablespoon of Chili Powder (this is a preference thing for spice and I like to mix in a whole tablespoon of chili powder to my ketchup topping).
Directions: Mix all ingredients except the ketchup and chili powder together in a large bowl until well blended.
Shape the mixture into a loaf.
Place in a large baking dish. I use a 9.5 by 13.5 by 2 inch deep cake pan. I like to make my loaf longer and skinnier in the middle of the pan. That way the ends of the meatloaf touch the ends of the pan and don’t dry out so much when cooking.
Bake in a 375 degree preheated oven for 50 minutes.
Combine the ketsup and chili powder together and carefully spread over the top of the meatloaf while it is still in the oven.
Then continue baking the meatloaf an additional 10 minutes.
Take meatloaf out of oven using oven mitts of course and place on a cooling rack or top of your stove. Allow to cool about 7 minutes before cutting. This should be enough to feed 6 and you may have enough left over to make someone a meatloaf sandwick the next day (it just depends on how hardy the mens appetities are the night you make it).
Steak Fajita’s are always tasty.
Hamburger-Corn Bake is another casserole type dish.
6 ounces of medium sized
2 pounds of ground beef or ground round
1 cup chopped onions
One 10.75 ounce can condensed cream of celery soup
One 10.75 ounce can condensed cream of mushroom soup
Two standard size cans of whole kernel corn drained
2 cups dairy sour cream
4 Teaspoons beef bouillon granules
1 cup dairy milk or soy milk
6 tablespoon shopped pimiento ( if not available after recipe is done cooking just sprinkle over the top some dried paprika for color and a little added flavor)
1 teaspoon pepper
2 cups of soft bread crumbs (just tear up bread into very small pieces or such a food processor and pulse bread)
2 tablespoons butter or margarine melted.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Use 6 ounces medium sized noodles of choice (I like the standard elbow macaroni noodles, there are some healthier low glycemic ones on the market, or some whole grain ones now). Cook the noodles according to package directions and drain.
While noodles are cooking in a large skillet cook beef and ontion till meat is browned and onion is tender.
Drain off fat.
Add in beef bouillon granules, the soups, corn, sour cream, milk, pimiento’s*, and pepper.
Mix well.
Stir in the cooked noodles.
Spoon the mixture into a 9.5 by 13.5 by 2 inch deep cake pan.
Toss bread crumbs with melted butter and sprinkle atop casserole (really this step can be eliminated as the casserole will taste just fine without the bread crumbs, but it looks more professional with them).
Bake, uncovered (if using the bread crumb topping, however if not using the bread crumb topping you might want to cover with aluminion foil to keep your oven from getting some little splatters), in a 350 degree preheated oven for 50 minutes, or until heated through.
Makes 6 hearty helpings.
Spicy Red Beans and Rice always taste good with added beef cubes.
Beef Ribs on the BBQ are always tasty and there are many different types of glazes or marinades you can use to flavor them up.
Orange-Glazed Ribs use 2/3 cup or orange marmalade with 3 tablespoons of soy sauce and 2 tablespoons lemon juice, and 3/4 teaspoon of ground ginger. Spoon glaze mixture evenly over 6 ribs during the last half of their cooking time.
Stuffed Cabbage Rolls can use ground beef or a combination of ground beef and ground pork.
Lasagna using ground beef.
Dill Sauce Beef Patties
12 slices of bacon
2 beaten eggs
1/2 cup rolled oats
1 large sized onion chopped (reserve 2 tablespoons of the chopped onion for sauce)
1 teaspoon salt or salt substitute
1/2 teaspoon pepper
3 pounds ground round, or lean ground beef
4 tablespoons of butter or margarine (or a combination)
8 tablespoons of grated Parmesan cheese
4 tablespoons of all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons of dried dillweed (you can add more if you like the sauce even more dillicious)
2 teaspoons of paprika
4 cups of milk
Partially cook the bacon where it’s still soft enough that it can be wrapped around the outside of each beef patty and kept in place if needed with a toothpick.
Set the partially cooked bacon aside to drain.
In a mixing bowl combine the beaten eggs, rolled oats, the onion not reserved for the sauce, salt, pepper.
Add in the ground meat; mix well.
Shape mixture into twelve 1/2 inch thick patties.
Wrap a partially cooked bacon slice around the side of each patty; fasten with wooden toothpick.
Place patties on an unheated rack over a broiler pan.
Broil 4 to 5 inches from heat to a desired doneness, turning once. Allow about 14 minutes total time for medium well done and add about another 4 minutes for well done.
While beef patties are cooking, in a saucepan cook the reserved onion in the butter/margarine till tender but not brown. Stir in the Parmesan cheese, flour, dillweed, paprike and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Add milk all at once. Use a wisk and wisk till thickened and bubbly. Cook and stir about 2 minutes more.
Remove from heat.
Spoon dill sauce over patties.
Makes 6 servings of 2 patties each.
I don’t usually serve any potato’s, rice or noodles when I make these patties since they have some oats in them. I usually make a big three bean salad and corn on the cob.
If there is left over dill sauce and you are having baked fish or salmon patties the next night the sauce can be slightly warmed in the microwave and used for that purpose.
Sorry the first ingredient on the Hamburger Corn Bake is 6 ounces of noodles. I thought I typed noodles, but I don’t see it there.
Also, on the Mexican Meatloaf, even after it is thoroughly cooked it will have a slightly pink hue inside, but that is due to the ingredients from the salsa (the tomatos do that), but an hour of cooking at that temperature does cook it through.