Wednesday, September 21, 2011

The Poorman's Meal



Have you seen this darling woman's videos on YouTube? Mrs. Clara is in her 90's and shares the recipes her family ate during the Great Depression. She shares some wonderful ideas for cheap eating and I love hearing her tell her stories.

I'm all for healthy eating, but we sometimes eat less than healthy foods because they are just plain cheap and we are trying to stretch our grocery budget just a leeeeeetle bit more. One of those less-than-healthy foods we eat on occasion are hot dogs. I can get them for $.99/lb and the Littles love them. To make a really cheap meal, we'll do "Beanie Wienies" - homemade baked beans with hot dogs cut up in them. Last night for dinner, we ate "chili dog chili", which was basically homemade chili stretched with cut up hot dogs and a little cheese on top. I remember when we first got married, Preacher Man and I would have chili dogs for our cheap meal. It came out to a $.50/person/meal.

When we eat such meals, I try to always add some fresh cut up veggies to balance things out just a little. Sometimes you just have to fill the bellies, you know?

One thing I have noticed that is funny - when we are eating as cheaply as possibly, I run short on bowls. Most of the time these days we are eating 3 meals a day in bowls - oatmeal for breakfast, beans and rice for lunch, soup, etc... for dinner... Doesn't it seem like cheap food tends to be served in a bowl?

So what is your family's "Poorman's Meal"?

2 comments:

  1. Such a cute video! One of my favorite cheap meals is pasta with spaghetti sauce. The Hunt's brand is usually $1 a can and Jady doesn't like his pasta "saucy" so I use 1/2 a can. Then about 1/2 a box of $1 pasta equals $1 to serve a family of 4 (plus 1)! Add a can of green beans or peas and it rounds out to $1.50. Can't beat that!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anything that has pasta/beans/rice/potato seems to go farther for us! With grocery prices creeping up, it does save a lot of $$ eating in, and eating "smart." The trick is finding meals that are healthy and frugal. I just made a pot of chicken soup from scratch, and it last for 3 lunches for myself and 3 children. Not bad for spending around $9 for everything. The same soup for our family would have cost about $10 for 3 family size cans. I pick the homemade any day!

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...