You Can Feed Your Family on a Food Budget

You can prepare home-cooked, delicious meals for your family for about $5 per entree. It just takes a little planning. Here are some tips to help you stay within your food budget:

1. Join your local grocer's loyalty program. Grocers often offer customer coupons based on your shopping patterns, as well as money off for bulk grocery purchases. Let me explain. I receive the following coupons: $7 off $70 purchase; $3 off $10 purchase of meat; $2 off $5 purchase of produce; and $3 off a $10 health and beauty products purchase. So far, $15 off for things I would already purchase for my family. Then I have various manufacturer's coupons, which are doubled to 50-cents, so 35-cents off deodorant becomes 70-cents; 25-cents off paper towels = 50 cents; 50 cents off dish detergent = $1.00 off; 30-cents off toilet tissue = 60-cents; and then theres $1.00 off my shampoo, $1.00 off conditioner, 75-cents off mouth wash, for a total of $20.55, just for signing up for the loyalty program and clipping coupons.

2. Be flexible in your meal planning. If you were planning a chicken casserole and it's pork chops that are on sale, then be flexible enough that you can alter the meal plan. If you were planning a pot roast and it's round steak that's on sale, change the meal plan to include the round steak. The trick to doing this is to have enough entree dishes that you can be flexible in your planning, and you can prepare whatever is on sale: fish, chicken, pork, or beef. One of these is usually a stand-out better bargain over the others, and that's the one that will help you stay within your food budget.

3. Really LOOK for the bargains. Sometimes, for example, the chicken tenders will be on special sale for say $1.69 a pound; but they may be in a completely different location than the other chicken products. I've found, too, that buying chicken thighs (including boneless chicken thighs), can help you prepare a really delicious chicken dish for $2 to $3 for the family. By adding rice or pasta along with seasonings, you can feed a greater number of servings. I mean, chicken, garlic and pasta--what's not to like?

4. Cut the meat into bite-sized servings BEFORE cooking it, and add it to rice or pasta. This is particularly helpful when, say, you have four boneless pork chops ready to cook for dinner and suddenly have an extra guest. What do you do? It's too late to make another mad dash to the grocery and too late to thaw something else. So prior to cooking, cut the chops into bite-sized pieces and brown them. Saute a few onions, combine with herb stuffing and 1/2 stick of melted margarine and bake. Voila, you have enough for the family AND the extra guest. 5. If you have had to add unexpected dinner guests and are afraid that there's not quite enough, take a hint from the restaurants: start with a small salad or soup or appetizer BEFORE serving the main course. Core and thinly slice an apple (Gala apples are GREAT served this way!), wash and slice a naval orange, and add several small slices of cheese and crackers arranged on a pretty plate. Allow your guests to munch on these or some carrots, celery and pickles before serving dinner. These munchies will begin to satisfy your guests even before the meal and you'll find your main course will go further.

Can you feed four people with one pound of ground beef? Sure you can. Several ways, in fact. Let's try ground beef steaks and gravy. First, break the ground beef apart and place it in a mixing bowl. Dice a medium onion and add to the mixing bowl. Next, add 1/2 cup or so of bread crumbs (I like those with Italian seasonings). Sprinkle the following seasonings on the meat mixture in the mixing bowl: black pepper, garlic powder, salt, onion powder and a GENEROUS palmful of dried chopped parsley. In a separate bowl, whisk two eggs, two tablespoons of water and two heaping teaspoons of Wyler's beef bouillon granules. Now, pour the egg mixture into the mixing bowls and work well until all ingredients are combined. Roll balls of the meat mixture about the size of a medium lemon and then flatten with your hand until these are about 4 inches across (this should make 5 or 6 patties). Cook over medium heat in a skillet with just a little olive oil, until the meat patties are brown. Remove the steak patties to a plate and add about two cups of beef bouillion-flavored water to the skillet, stirring free any remaining browned bits of the meat. Once this is boiling, add 2 heaping forks of corn starch to 1/4 cup of WARM water and stir until smooth, then pour into the boiling beef broth. Once this has thickened (it'll just take a few seconds), reduce the heat and add the steak patties back in to simmer for about 15 minutes before serving. Actually, this is great served beside mashed potatoes with the beef gravy drizzled over both the meat patties and the potatoes. Dinner for four for about.... $4.

For more budget-friendly family meals, see www.lincolnentrees.com.