Category: Budget Eating
My Spending Diet: Week Two
Alright, folks … Here we are at the end of Week Two of My Spending Diet. How’s it going? The Plan: No spending from Saturday until the following Saturday. Cash in wallet can only be used in a true emergency. What Happened: Planning-wise I did much better this week. At no point did I feel [...]
Cooking with Kids: Spinach Baked Ziti
Will spends so much time in the kitchen with me that sometimes it’s hard to decide what to talk about on Mondays. Sweets are always a favorite (for me, you, him …) but I love knowing that he’s learning to cook while we are cooking together is really special. Dishes like this one are things [...]
My Spending Diet: Week One
Let me run you through a normal week in my eating life: Saturday: Glance through cooking magazines, cookbooks and notebooks to try to decide what to make this week. Ignore all of it and make a rudimentary meal plan … write a grocery list, trying to remember everything I need. Go grocery shopping with the [...]
Family Favorite: Beef Stew Recipe
Pretty much everyone who knows my family knows that my husband Shawn hates onions … or at least he says he does. The truth? He doesn’t like the texture of onions, but he does appreciate the flavor that a sweet onion can add to a dish. Don’t tell him I told you though, he’s very [...]
Comfort Food: Crunchy Oven Fried Chicken Recipe
There is something amazing about biting into the crispy coating of fried chicken. It crunches between your teeth, revealing layers of flavors. It’s salty and wonderful … Before you know it, you’re biting into juicy chicken, just below the skin. Well, at least I hope it’s juicy. I’ve had a lot of flavorless meat on [...]
Fabulous Fish: Baked Lemon Herb Cod Recipe
Sometimes, you taste something – just a little bite of it – and it blows you away. That was the case with this dish. It was rich, buttery even (although there is no butter in the recipe) and absolutely mouthwatering. It was one of those things that the kids devoured so fast that I did [...]
Five Uses for Leftover Ham
When we were driving to my cousin’s house this afternoon, Will pointed out the brilliant blue sky (“I really like the color of that blue sky.”), and he was right, it was spectacular. It was one of those skies that takes on a breathtaking sapphire hue that makes you want to drink it in while [...]
Making a Plan, Following a Plan
Before I headed off to the grocery store on Saturday, I did something I don’t normally do … I planned out our dinners for the week and made a list of whatever we were out of for those meals. Did you catch that? Yep, I meal-planned for the week. I’ve toyed with meal planning in [...]
The $7 Dinner Challenge, Version 2.0
The $7 Dinner Challenge is now the $10 Dinner Challenge! After reviewing the results of the recent survey we did on the $7 Dinner Challenge (thanks for joining in!), Cate and I decided to make a few modifications to the rules … to make it a little more user-friendly and hopefully encourage more participation. Although [...]
The $7 Dinner Challenge: Survey Edition
It was about a month ago that Cate and I launched The $7 Dinner Challenge. Over the past few weeks, we certainly have learned a lot about planning meals on a tiny budget. But most of all, we’ve learned that it can be done if you try. We’ve decided to take a week off of [...]
