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Fresh Fall Finds
The fall produce is here! Even though it means letting go of tomatoes fresh from the farm or garden, I enjoy switching up my meals to feature what’s in season. Here in Iowa the fall produce is coming in and some people even have it in their gardens. We’ll see dark greens, winter squash, and root vegetables like parsnips and sweet potatoes showing up at farmers markets.
Meals from a Dollar Store
In my home state of Iowa, there are a lot of us who have a significant drive to get to a big grocery store with a wide variety of food. Trips into larger cities take time and money for transportation. In small towns and certain areas of larger cities, we are more likely to find a dollar store that sells a variety of items including some food. Most dollar stores have shelf-stable foods and some have refrigerated or frozen foods too. I gave some thought to what I could make with the shelf-stable foods my local dollar store carries. Here are some of the products that stood out to me as particularly useful and how I would make them into a meal.
Vegetable Dip
Last week our blog was all about buying yogurt. This week we have a tasty recipe using yogurt as the main ingredient – Vegetable Dip. This recipe is very helpful at my house because my youngest son will not eat vegetables unless he has something to dip them in. I like this recipe better than ranch dressing or store bought dip because the yogurt adds some nutrition to those vegetables that he would not get otherwise.
Fast Food Restaurant vs Homemade Breakfast
Written by Kathryn Standing
Give Your Brain a Boost with Breakfast
Written by Amber Baughman ISU Dietetic Intern
Spice it up!
When creating recipes for Spend Smart. Eat Smart. three things we keep in mind are the flavor, the cost, and the nutrition content. We want our recipes to taste good, provide good nutrition, and be relatively low cost to make. To determine if our recipes provide good nutrition, each recipe must meet our nutrition guidelines. One guideline we pay particular attention to is sodium. The sodium level in our recipes needs to be low to moderate. The limit varies depending on if the recipe is for a:
