One Caveman’s Financial Journey

With our grocery budget experiment well-underway, cooking for a growing family on a shrinking budget is our new reality. We’ve always tried to be cost-minded when we shop for groceries, but this experiment has required a complete change in our thought processes.

Before, we would write a list of the things we thought our pantry needed and all the stuff that was running low in the fridge and use that as our starting point when shopping. We often found ourselves with a full shopping cart where we probably could have gotten by with half of what we purchased. We bought everything with good intentions, mind you, but many things often went to waste because we didn’t properly utilize the supplies we already had.

Now, we’ve transitioned to writing up a weekly meal plan and we focus on purchasing just what we need to accomplish that plan. Of course, there are still a few unanticipated purchases, but those have been dramatically reduced. We’ve gone from “good idea”-based shopping to needs-based and we’re already seeing a difference in our grocery bills.

This week, one of my favorite summer dinners ended up on the meal plan: Quick Fettuccine Cacciatore. My wife found this recipe in Kraft’s seasonal magazine, Kraft Food and Family. (You can find the nutritional information for this recipe reprinted on the kraftfoods.com website.)

This meal is one of the few great warm dishes for summer. It’s light, full of flavor, and doesn’t cost much in terms of time or money to make.

Quick Fettuccine Cacciatore

Ingredients:

• 1/2 lb. fettuccine, uncooked
• 2 tsp. oil
• 1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breast, but into small pieces
• 1 cup green pepper strips
• 1 cup sliced mushrooms
• 1 can (14 1/2 oz.) diced tomatoes, undrained
• 1/4 cup Italian dressing
• 1/2 cup shredded “Italian” Mozzarella-Parmesan cheese blend
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh basil

Directions:

1. Cook pasta, as directed on package
2. Heat oil in large skillet on medium-high heat
3. Add chicken; cook and stir until no longer pink
4. Add peppers and mushrooms and cook for 3 minutes, stirring regularly
5. Stir in tomatoes and dressing
6. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 5-6 minutes
7. Drain pasta; toss with chicken mixture
8. Sprinkle with cheese and basil

Makes four 2-cup servings

The Italian dressing had been in our fridge for a long time, so I’m not sure how much it cost and we haven’t priced a bottle lately. We also substituted dried basil (another ingredient we’ve had sitting around for a long time) to eliminate the cost and waste of buying fresh basil. And strangely, the bag of sliced mushrooms was cheaper per ounce than whole mushrooms, so this is the first time I’ve ever saved money by buying pre-prepared ingredients.

Note: The “official” recipe will encourage you to use Kraft-branded ingredients. Of course, this is not a requirement and won’t necessarily make it taste any better. The “off-brand” items we purchased at Aldi were tasty enough for us to not notice a difference. Staying away from name brands is one of the easiest ways to shop frugally.

Fortunately, there is still a lot of room in this recipe for improvement:

Instead of a can of diced tomatoes, you may find it cheaper to buy a pound of tomatoes at the grocery store or farmer’s market and dice them yourself. Of course, you could always cut that price even more by growing your own tomatoes at home! We just planted a “bushing” variety of tomato plant that is safe to grow in a pot, so I anticipate using fresh, home-grown tomatoes the next time we fix this dish.

At one time, Sam’s Club used to sell containers of freeze-dried mushrooms alongside their spices. We ran out quite some time ago and haven’t been able to find them since, but I can guarantee that it would have cost less than $2.00 for 10 ounces of mushrooms if we still had some of the freeze-dried ones left over. If you can find them and you use mushrooms even occasionally, I suggest you pick up a container.

Pricing for chicken has been pretty volatile lately. If you shop smart, you can sometimes find cheaper chicken. I was surprised when I realized it cost us so much this time around. This is where a deep freezer comes in handy: When you do find the cheap chicken, stock up and freeze all that you can’t use right away. We try to always have at least one bag of chicken in the freezer for backup.

This may not be the most frugal recipe in our rotation, but it is one of our flavorful favorites. For $7.41, we managed feed all three of us for a night and have enough left over to comfortably fill two GladWare Soup & Salad containers - my preferred size for taking to work for lunch. That means we were able to make 4 adult-sized meals for $1.85 each. Not bad when you consider a meal like this would cost at least $5-7 at a pasta restaurant. That’s frugal enough for me! If you have any suggestions to improve this recipe or other frugal recipes you’d like to share, do not be afraid to let me know in the comments.

Bon appétit!

Other articles you might enjoy reading

• Enjoy the 4th With Homemade Burgers
• Grocery Budget Experiment: Two Week Check-In
• Adventures in Frugality: Grocery Budget Experiment Preview
• Frugal Food: Macaroni and Tomatoes