I thought I would share a few of my favorite frugal recipes. I have a personal experience with being poorer than many people and might have the odd experience in enjoying learning how to eat well on nothing! <p> Beef Stew
1/2 -1 lb of beef (you can use any kind of beef, stew meat, round steak or whatever. I used 2 pieces of round steak last night. I paid about 3.15 for 4 of them so it was about $1.60 for the meat) chopped into small squares
2 potatoes, diced 1 carrot,
sliced 1 stalk celery, diced 1/2 green pepper,
diced 1 onion, diced flour salt pepper water
1 T oil 1 t. beef bouillon Toss meat with flour.
Heat oil in pan and brown meat until light browned. Add 1 qt. water. Let simmer 1/2 hour Add diced vegetables and 2 c. water, beef bouillon, simmer for 1 hour or until beef is tender Serve with french bread (store bought is .98 or homemade is really cheap)
<p>Spanish rice
3 T. olive oil 1 medium onion chopped
1 clove garlic minced 1 green pepper chopped seeded
1 c. long grain rice 2 c. boiling water (which if you are using brown add extra)
2 t. chicken broth granules 2 T. tomato paste 1/2 t. cumin
Saute onion garlic and green pepper until limp in oil add rice and brown until lightly browned. mix rest of ingredients and add Cover and cook 20-25 min (longer for brown) Top with chicken breasts or pork chops if you want and bake until done. Or you can mix in cooked ground beef and serve with cornbread or tortillas and salad
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Enchiladas
corn tortillas or flour tortillas whichever you prefer
meat- cooked chicken, beef or pork
cheese
enchilada sauce (I get one little can of enchilada sauce for .69 and make a large pan of it using this recipe below) You can fill the tortillas with whatever you want, but I usually use leftover meat and some cheese and roll them up, placing in a pan with a bit of sauce on the bottom. Fill pan then top with more sauce. Top with grated cheese. Bake until warm and bubbly at 350 or in the microwave on lower power setting for about 10 min.
<p> You can serve the rice recipe above without the meat in it for a side dish. <p>
Black Bean Chili
6 chicken breast tenders 2 15 oz. cans black beans undrained (or homecooked ones)
2 cans of diced or stewed tomatoes 1 c. salsa mild or Medium
14 1/2 oz. can tomato sauce 2 t. chili powder 1/2 t. cumin
1/4 t. garlic powder tortilla chips 2 c. grated cheddar cheese
Sour cream
Combine all ingredients in crock pot/slow cooker except chips and cheese. Cover, cook on low 8 hours. Just before serving, remove chicken breasts and and slice into bite size pieces. Stir into soup. To serve: put handful of chips in bottom of bowl, ladle soup over chips, top with cheese and sour cream. It was really good! You could use more or less chicken if you want. You could also skip the chips, but my boys love this with chips even though they don’t like tomatoes much so I use less of those because of them, I also used less salsa I think and it was mild. <p>
These are a few of my favorites! You have to remember when you look a frugal recipe though on the area you are shopping in and the amount of people you are feeding. It may be a cheap recipe when feeding 2, but very expensive to feed 6.