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Save Money on Food…Get in the Kitchen and Get Cooking!
One of the top recommendations for saving food dollars is to prepare it yourself. As a dietitian and a mother of four children, preparing food at home has been essential…for saving money and for healthy eating. This doesn’t mean we never eat out or buy convenience foods, but when we do some or all of the food preparation at home, we are putting money back in our pocket.
Skillet lasagna highly recommended!
If you haven’t tried the skillet lasagna recipe from the Spend Smart. Eat Smart website, I highly recommend it. Here’s why I like it:
Kids a Cookin’ – Where kids come first and cooking is fun
Kansas State Extension has a great website for school-age “chefs-in-making” called Kids a Cookin’. The website includes videos of pint-sized chefs who work with Host Karen to prepare recipes that kids can easily make at home. The recipes are not only simple to prepare and affordable, but are an excellent way to share the joys of cooking with your kids.
Fresh apples…
I love them. Crisp. Crunchy. Juicy. And full of flavor.
It’s Cold Outside, Time for Soup
Soup is a great comfort food for winter meals, and so good for you too. Our featured recipe for January is Mexican Chicken Soup. Making this soup takes less time than getting in the car and driving through your favorite takeout place. You don’t have to cook the chicken ahead of time. Just place raw boneless chicken in the pot with the other ingredients. After cooking for about 20 minutes, take the chicken out and shred it into bite-size pieces. Serve it with tortilla chips or bread, apple/orange slices and you have a meal with something from each food group plus plenty of fiber. For extra instruction, check out the preparation video under the recipe instructions.
Kale, the Healthiest Vegetable
My daughter and her husband decided they are going to eat healthier and exercise more. As part of the plan, she is trying to prepare more of the “30 Top Foods” she found in a magazine article. One of the foods she wanted to try from the list was kale. Kale really is a superstar vegetable. Like other leafy greens (collards and spinach) it is rich in lutein, beta-carotine, Vitamin K and offers just about everything else too (calcium, fiber, folate, iron and Vitamin C).
Feed 50 People for $50!
Need recipes that will feed a crowd (e.g. a club, relatives, or a post-event gathering) for $50 or under?
Just Add One Campaign
The Canned Food Alliance has a campaign called “Just Add One” which is short for just add one ingredient to make a recipe healthier. And the one ingredient is usually—you guessed it …. a canned fruit or vegetable.
Grilling Made Easy and Safe
According to a recent poll most of us think that cooking outdoors is easy, costs less, is more economical than dining out and encourages time outdoors.
CHOOSING THE PERFECT CUT
Ok, I admit it. Most of the time when planning a meal I start with the protein food. I think this is a carryover from growing up on a farm and having a freezer full of homegrown beef, pork and chicken to choose from. The type of meat and how it will be prepared (grilled, broiled, oven roasted, pot roasted, stewed, etc.) effects the rest of the meal. My mom taught us the importance of matching the cooking method to the cut of meat. I didn’t make the mistake of turning a great rump roast into a pot roast more than a couple times.
October is National Pork Month
The past couple of weeks when looking thru grocery ads, I’ve noticed some good deals on pork. This is likely related to this summer’s drought. With high feed costs, many farmers are selling their pigs so they don’t have to purchase so much feed. This means there is a lot of supply. However, in an ad this week, I noticed it said ‘Celebrate National Pork Month’. Therefore, many grocery stores are also likely putting pork on sale to highlight National Pork Month.
What’s for Lunch? It’s in the Bag.
A few weeks ago I invited myself to lunch at three different middle schools in Central Iowa. My “hosts” were two of my nieces and a friend’s son. I learned a lot about the changes to school lunches during those visits. I also had a chance to observe some of what I call ‘sack lunches’, although hardly anybody uses paper bags anymore.