Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Doing more with less

We're trying to cut our budget right now to increase our savings. We don't have what I'd consider an extravagant lifestyle. Our only car is a paid for, beat to hell pick up truck, for example. So we've been looking for creative ways to live more frugally, without making us feel deprived of something we enjoy.

One of the blogs I've become a fan of recently, is Cheap Healthy Good, which is, as it says, about cooking that combines all three elements. A few month's ago, they had a great post about roasting one chicken and using the leftover meat for the rest of the week. I'm a fan of that approach. I've done this before with chickens and turkeys, and even hams. This week, I used a pork roast. Here's the menu for the week:

Sunday:
Dinner- Roasted pork with fingerling potatoes and a salad.

Monday:
Lunch- Left over pork, potatoes and salad
Dinner- Veggie lo mein, with chopped, leftover pork added

Tuesday:
Lunch- Left over lo mein (my husband), salad of romaine lettuce, carrots, broccoli, cucumbers and chopped roast pork (me)
Dinner- I had a banquet to attend for work, so the husband was on his own. He had more left over noodles.

Wednesday:
Lunch- Salads for both of us, witch chopped roast pork.
Dinner- Loaded baked potatoes, using roast pork as the protein.

So, not nearly as inventive or nutritional as CHG, but not a bad way to use up eight dollars worth of meat. I shall continue playing with this concept.

2 comments:

Alicia said...

How big was your roast? For adult family of two I can get one meal, and two left over meals out of it. (my girls don't like roast so they won't eat most of the time).

I can stretch a chicken for three full meals but that's using the bones a stock base and having a soup.

Hams I just need more to make with it. I've still got 1/4 of it in my freezer from last time. So I'd love suggestions there.lla

Unknown said...

So I LOVE that the title of her post has "no mayo" in it! My lord everytime I look for something cheap and quick to do with Chicken or turkey or tuna or even canned salmon everything is drenched in Mayo. Not that I don't like Mayo, I do, but Zee Mayo causes thigh expansion, Blech!

Thanks for this post. I'm going to follow that blog as I now am right back in the same "less money" boat and I'm tired of my old standby recipes. I need new inspiration! Plus Maizy would greatly benefit from a touch of that chicken too!