$10 dinner

$10 Dinner, Mostly Happy & Very Healthy

This meal is from a while back, but the sales it’s based on roll around pretty regularly. My basic formula of meat/fruit/cooked veg/raw veg/starch is still how I tend to think about pulling a meal together, since 2/5ths of the family would very much prefer foods not touch.

(I Daydream of Casseroles.  That’ll be the name of my parenting book.  Chapter titles include: Shoes: How to Keep Track of the Suckers, Snot and the Removal Thereof, What’s that Smell?, and How to Poop Alone. )

IMG_2857

Kid Meal

IMG_2858

Normal Person Meal

  • peaches                   $1.55
  • pasta, 16oz.             $0.99
  • blueberries               $0.88
  • 2 cloves garlic          $0.12       (~70c/bulb, 12 cloves/bulb)
  • tomatoes                  garden!
  • basil                         garden!
  • butter, 2 T                $0.22        ($3.49/lb for 32T)
  • half an onion            $0.11        (8 onions, 3lbs, for $1.79 = 22c/onion)
  • chicken, 1 lb.           $1.99
  • spinach                    $2.50     (half of a 1lb box for $5)

Grand Total:                  $8.36

Clearly, not everyone has a garden, so the extra spent there would but you right about $10.  This meal had everyone happy with the pasta, chicken and fruit, the kids not excited about sliced tomatoes with salt or the steamed spinach, and me glad to have a healthy meal in about 30 minutes.

Stay tuned for the next $10 dinner! Cheep cheep!

Advertisement

$10 Dinner, Coming Up

Summer is my favorite season for meals. It’s so easy to just…not cook. Most of the summer we grill meat and I chop some vegetables. Maybe.  Not that I don’t love me some soup, casserole, and the occasional complicated thing from Marcella Hazan, who doesn’t?

Summer meals can have a certain simplicity that I look forward to as the days warm up.

Cheep, Easy Summer Dinner!

Cheep, Easy Summer Dinner!

For example, this meal involved boiling corn, grilling chicken, and slicing a few things.  A twenty minute meal that costs $10 (seriously, it’s exactly $10. I triple checked) and feeds the five of us and has leftover chicken? 

Cheep Cheep!

  • chicken             $5.52
  • blackberries      $1.54
  • avocados          $0.84
  • corn                   $0.60
  • tomatoes           $1.50

All of this was from one store, HEB, except the basil which was from the front yard.  Everyone had things they liked, and I’ve got chicken bones and skin for future projects.

What, you don’t render chicken skins sometimes when you’re bored? Just me? Ok. I’ll just be over here bagging up chicken skin.

If you’ve got a cheap summer meal you love, please share! I love hearing what other folks are eating.  When DH and I are apart, if he’s eaten a meal the first thing I always end up doing is a food quiz. Where did you eat? What did you order? Was it good? Did anyone else have something good?

Poor guy. I should probably work on my people skills.  In the meantime–did you make a good dinner? What was it? 

Cheep Cheep!