The following is a guest post written by my wife, The Cavewife. She regularly writes here about what’s on her heart as a frugal stay-at-home mom.

One of the things I like to do in my spare time is to read parenting magazines. I love the different articles in the magazine, but the one thing that I love the most is checking out the family-friendly recipes. I’m always up for trying new recipes, especially for a picky toddler and husband who has a hard time eating vegetables. [Ed. note: It's not that I have a hard time, I just don't like them. :) ]

The latest recipe that I came across was for “Pasta bolognese,” which I found in the March 2008 issue of Parenting magazine. It is a simple family-friendly dish that even your older kids can help with. This recipe makes 4 servings and takes about 30 minutes to prepare.

Pasta Bolognese

Ingredients:

• 1 TBS Olive Oil
• 2 Carrots, peeled and coarsely chopped
• 1 LB Lean Ground Turkey or Beef
• 1 can (28 oz) crushed tomatoes
• 12-oz bag wide noodles, such as pappardelle, or fettuccine

Directions:

1. In a large nonstick skillet, heat oil over medium heat. Add carrots and cook for about 5 minutes until softened. Add ground meat to skillet.
2. Cook (stirring and breaking up meat) until the meat is brown and cooked through, about 7 or 8 minutes. Stir in the tomatoes and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes.
3. While the sauce simmers, prepare the pasta as directed on the package. Serve it topped with sauce.

Cost of Ingredients:

This recipe is easy to make and the great thing is you can sneak in vegetables and your kids won’t even notice the difference. It is similar to spaghetti. I have made this recipe twice and my daughter loved it, the first time I made it. The second time I made this recipe, I added chopped mushrooms (leftover in the fridge), diced fresh tomatoes (from my garden), basil, Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper. After spooning out the servings for my family, my husband and I added some Parmesan cheese, garlic, and crushed red pepper to our servings for a little kick.

As always I’m interested in hearing from you about what recipes that you have tried for your family. Feel free to leave me a comment sharing a recipe that you think my family would like.

Happy Cooking!

(c) 2007-2009, That One Caveman, http://www.thatonecaveman.com

The following is a guest post written by my wife, The Cavewife. She occasionally writes here about what’s on her heart as a frugal stay-at-home mom.

As my daughter becomes older, it is becoming harder to come up with meals. Most nights she eats what the whole family eats, but some nights I make her special meals if my husband and I are eating something special.  She is a picky eater and it is hard to please her with dinner.

In the past couple of weeks, I have been trying out new toddler-friendly recipes. The first recipe I came across was for “first chicken nuggets.”  This recipe is good for toddlers from the ages of one to two.  This recipe makes about 2-4 servings and takes about 25 minutes to prepare.  It is also suitable for freezing and is good for up to 24 hours in the fridge.

First Chicken Nuggets

Ingredients:

• 1 chicken breast, cut into small strips
• 2-3 Tbsp dried breadcrumbs
• 1 egg, beaten

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Lightly grease an oven pan by brushing with olive oil.
3. Dip the chicken breast strips in the egg and then in the breadcrumbs.
4. Place each nugget on the baking pan.
5. Cook in the oven for 10-15 minutes until golden on both sides, turning once.

I found this recipe from The Big Book of Recipes for Babies, Toddlers, & Children. This recipe is very simple, yet only takes a few ingredients.

Cost of Ingredients:

As you can see this recipe is easy and very inexpensive to make.  I only made one change to the recipe when I made it the first time for my daughter.  I added a little flour, black pepper, and basil to the breadcrumb mixture for more weight and flavor.  Feel free to add special seasonings to add a little extra flavor to the nuggets.  I just served the nuggets with ketchup and my daughter loved it!  Serve the chicken nuggets alongside your little one’s favorite veggies and it should be a hit. If you’re trying out this recipe with a baby, cut the nuggets into small pieces that they can chew, but only if they have the teeth and chewing skill to properly eat the chicken.

For parents reading this post, I would love to hear from you.   If you have great toddler-friendly recipes or recipes for the whole family that you would like to share.  I am always looking for new recipes to try, especially now with another little one on the way.

Enjoy!

Photo credit: my_amii

(c) 2007-2009, That One Caveman, http://www.thatonecaveman.com

I love to experiment with food, specifically hamburgers, when grilling season comes around. Making your own hamburgers is a true hands-on experience, so be prepared to get a little messy. It’s not hard to make a regular burger – all you have to do is fashion ground beef into patties – but to make something special, you have to experiment with mixing in spices and other seasonings.

Making a great burger is an imprecise process; it really comes down to how the meat mixture feels between your fingers and how pleasing is the aroma. In search of that perfect burger, you’ll find yourself adding a pinch of this and a dash of that until you’re happy with the final result.

Here are the ingredients from my latest successful experiment:

• 2 lbs. 80% lean ground beef
• 1/3 cup Barbeque sauce
• 1/8 cup Dried minced onion
• 2 tsp Cayenne pepper
• 1/8 cup Oats
• 1/8 cup Bread crumbs
• 2 tbsp Hickory shake-in seasoning

Of all those ingredients, the only one I actually measure is the meat; the rest are all estimates based on memory. After getting two pounds of beef in a large bowl, I start pouring in other ingredients by sight. Working the ingredients in by hand, I check to see if the mixture is too wet from the barbeque sauce. If the burgers are too wet, they’ll likely fall apart on the grill, so I added the oats and bread crumbs to help absorb some of the extra moisture and to stretch the meat a bit further.

Now the real key to great homemade hamburgers is to use 80% lean ground beef. Fat is essential for a great grilling experience because the real flavor of the meat comes from the fat, and the extra fat will help keep your burgers from drying out on the grill. Don’t worry since most of it will drip away – if you used 90% lean, you’d have very little left and your burgers would either fall apart or turn into little rocks.

Anything beyond the bare ground beef is really up to your own tastes. I like the sweet and smoky flavors of barbeque sauce and hickory, so that drove my choices. There are many possible combinations that you almost can’t go wrong. Just take all your spices and seasonings out of your cabinet and see what you come up with.

What’s even better than getting burgers exactly how you like them, they’re also cheaper than the pre-made frozen patties. The frozen burgers we used to buy from Sam’s Club were about $14.25 for 18 1/3-pound burgers, or $0.79 per patty. I can’t really nail down an estimate for the cost of the ingredients, but I do know we purchased the ground beef for $1.98 per pound. Using the two pounds of beef (bolstered by the added ingredients), I was able to make 7 1/3-pound burgers. My meat cost was $0.57 per patty and I seriously doubt the ingredients I added would cover any significant amount of the $0.22 difference. Not only did I make an outstanding burger that my family and my guests raved about, I saved $1.54 over grilling pre-made, frozen patties! Now that’s some frugal, tasty food!

Grilling is one of the great benefits of summer and you’re doing yourself a disservice if you don’t take your cooking outside at least once a month. Why heat up your home and stress your air conditioner when you could make something wonderful outside on the grill? Get out there and start the fire!

(c) 2007-2009, That One Caveman, http://www.thatonecaveman.com

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!

(c) 2007-2009, That One Caveman, http://www.thatonecaveman.com

The following is a guest post written by my wife, The Cavewife. She regularly writes here about what’s on her heart as a frugal stay-at-home mom.

It is the start of a new week and I am busy planning my to-do list and meals for the week. I admit that I’m not a cooking expert; I grew up not knowing really how to cook. After getting married, I had to learn the hard way. The hard way was to teach myself the lovely art of cooking. There were many disasters in the kitchen, but I learned from them. No one said learning to cook was going to easy. I have come along way though and I’m continuing to learn.

Cooking for two was easy, but it has been harder to come up with meals since my daughter started eating table food. I have spent endless hours online and even more searching through pages and pages of cookbooks. The recipes I choose have to be kid-friendly (not spicy, but simple) and easy on the bank account. Being the frugal mom, I try to use items that we already have or items that I can get at a low price.

The simple meals that are good so far are spaghetti, quesadillas, and macaroni and tomatoes. Macaroni and tomatoes is a relatively easy recipe and the whole family loves it. I would definitely recommend it to anyone.

Here is the recipe:

Macaroni & Tomatoes

Ingredients:

• 4 ounces of elbow macaroni (1 cup)
• 1 – 8 ounce can stewed tomatoes
• 1 cup sliced mushrooms (drain, if canned)
• 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano, crushed
• Dash pepper
• 1/4 cup shredded low-fat cheddar cheese (1 ounce)

Directions:

1. In large saucepan cook macaroni in boiling water 6 to 8 minutes or until nearly tender. Drain well and return macaroni to saucepan.
2. Add undrained tomatoes, mushrooms, oregano, and pepper.
3. Cover and simmer for 5 minutes or until macaroni is tender and most of the liquid is absorbed.
4. Pour into a serving bowl and sprinkle with cheese.

Makes 6 side-dish servings.

I found this recipe on bhg.com. The ingredients are inexpensive and can be found at your local grocery store.

Cost of Ingredients:

For an extra addition to this recipe, I add a can of chicken breast. I pour the chicken breast into a separate bowl, add some lemon pepper seasoning to it, and then break it into shreds. Then I just add it to the saucepan close to the end and let it simmer for about 5 minutes. I usually double this recipe which makes great leftovers.

I am sure there are other recipes out there that I haven’t seen yet. I am open to trying new recipes, so if you have a good one that you would like to share, send them my way. I would love to try them. For now, I will plan my meals for the week and search for more freezable meals for my deep freezer.

Happy Cooking!

(c) 2007-2009, That One Caveman, http://www.thatonecaveman.com