The Top 5 Healthy Meals on a Budget from Pinterest

Check out these Healthy Meals on a Budget

New Year”s Resolutions to eat better, or spend Less Money?  Well, here”s the deal.  We have Christmas dinner at our house, and it is one of those times when I do it up, BIG.  Use those recipes with nine ingredients- to make green beans.  Pull ALL the food out of the pantry to try to make an unique appetizer tray- which really just ends up being a Shrimp Ring, with random pretzels, and pistachios.

Yeah, I don”t know how people put that all together and eat it, either, but it keeps them out of my kitchen while I’m cooking, and they have to figure out if they should wrap the shrimp around the pretzel, or eat the good stuff until it”s gone, and then move down the line.

The point is, by the time this week’s grocery visit came up, my cabinets were bare.  So I’m starting like you, and need a week”s worth of healthy, cheap meals.

Let’s make 2013 one of sharing.

No doubt I will share my secret tips with you as well.

Top 5 Healthy Meals on a Budget from Pinterest:

1. Chicken Taco Chili–  This was one was so easy, the recipe was posted as a comment.  (With my Edits) 1 can black beans, 1 can kidney beans, , 16 oz tomato sauce, 28 oz diced tomatoes, packet taco seasoning, 1 tbsp chili powder, 3 boneless chicken breasts (See Note *). 6 hours high or 10 hours low in the crock pot. I tried this with frozen tomatoes and this sort of pureee I had made from my summer garden tomatoes. It was kindof stringy; Still working on that.  But the good news about canned tomatoes is you can always find them at theREALLY cheap grocery stores.  Stock up next time you visit.  See that corn in the picture? “We” can”t eat corn.  Strike that one of the list, $$s going down.

*Note on Chicken?  I buy a big pack, about 6-8 boneless skinless breasts.  I HATE chicken. The raw part, and the cooking it part.  But some dishes just need chicken, for a good base. . So I buy the one pack, dump it all in the CrockPot one day, season, cook, and shred. You”ll find after shredding, you can make about 3 meals with this amount of chicken. Separate and package, freeze extras.  And you never have to touch the yucky gross chickies.

2.  Spinach Potato Hash.  The original recipe, here.  Lots of fancy instructions, I basically roast my potatoes, cook the sausage and throw in the spinach at the end to wilt, and add a few eggs on top. Potatoes? Always have a few spare ones lying about, right? Spinach?  Notice how I always throw that in? Eggs? Cheep. (See what I did there?)  Your “bank breaker” is your sausage.  But even the all natural turkey kind is much less than a pound of ground beef. As if we”d be eating that. ;o)

3.  CrockPot Italian Chicken.    4 chicken breasts, One Serving of Shredded Chicken  1 packet Zesty Italian dressing seasoning  (Or your own preference of spices including garlic, thyme, parsley, onion, Italian seasoning,, 1 8 oz. cream cheese (softened),  2 cans cream of chicken soup Sub 8 oz. Greek Yogurt; Cook on low for 4 hours. If sauce is too thick, add a little milk. Serve over pasta.  If you need a “recipe,” here ya go: http://jamiecooksitup.net/2012/05/italian-cream-cheese-chicken-crock-pot/

 

4.  Roasted Cauliflower and Aged White Cheddar Soup.  Don’t Judge. It’s  the New Year, ‘member?  This is goooood. Bonus points on healthy and cheap for being meat free- and sometimes you can slip that in on the kids without them knowing it”s missing. Oh yeah, kids love soup.

5. Creamy Slow Cooker Tortellini Soup.  Then I got around to making this soup. We don”t do mushrooms.  We obviously use 1 cup of greek yogurt, and 1/4 cup fresh grated parm instead of the  white sauce mix.  I added some of that shredded chicken from above (see, told you it makes three meals?), and for spices, I just used whatever came close I could find in my pantry.  Mmmmmm. Yummy. I even ate the leftovers.

Now that I”ve saved you a bundle of time and money, feel free to invite  me over for dinner.  I won”t even bring my kids. This time.

Stay Thrifty, my friends!