Saving Money on Meals

We often do a meatless meal at least once a week. We use beans, soups, eggs, and pasta meals. Soups can use a meat broth and lots of filling vegetables to be satisfying and served with a salad and a crusty bread, you will feel very satisfied with this meal. A hearty bean soup, again, I use a powdered meat flavor for the base to make my husband think meat had been used, and the beans and onions and carrots and celery give a filling meal. Tacos, enchilladas, and any type of wrap are good with beans as your base. I love scrambled eggs with lots of chopped up veggies and a lowfat cheese in them.

You can make omelets, but I find that they are just as well loved as just scrambled eggs with vegetables and cheese. Add a potato patty or some home made home fries with onions and peppers and your meal can be complete. Be creative and see what is acceptable to your family. They may have ideas as well. We even do an omelet pizza, no not a breakfast pizza with eggs; we have no crust. We put many beaten eggs into a well greased pan with anything you would put on a meatless pizza (yep, even tomatoes and broccoli if you so like) we let them cook and start to set up without stirring and then pour on some pizza sauce, sprinkle on cheese and put a top on it all to melt the cheese and warm through the sauce. It's very good. Serve in the frying pan and cut into wedges just like a pizza!

Cooking meals without meat will save quite a bit. One thing I do is I make bean burgers. Mix chunky mashed up cooked beans with cooked rice 1/2 and 1/2 each, be sure they have been drained and are not soupy. Add some chopped onion and celery. Season to your taste, then add an egg, or you could add breadcrumbs or corn starch; anything that will bind the ingredients together to form into patties. You can coat the patties with flour if you like. Then fry them till golden on both sides.

Talk to your co-workers and neighbours to buy in bulk. There are local farms that sell sides of beef, and we get together and split them. Way cheaper, and we know where it comes from!

Also, this past Jan. I bought a pressure cooker. It makes the meat so tender. I dont use the small 1-2" cuts or steaks anymore (more expensive at the store). I've found that using the roasts and larger pieces of meat are excellent in the cooker. Its also really good for ribs (off the bone!)- and quicker to cook too. The best investment I've made.

Greetings! Heres a small tip for small fries learning to self feed. Finger foods for toddlers are $$$$$, so try the canned food section. You can get low sodium varieties of just about everything now, and even the veggies are softer and already cut up for tiny fingers. Chicken noodle soup ( w/o broth ) is my twins all time favorite right now.

A lot of dishes my mom makes are without meat, not because we're vegetarians either. lol She makes what she calls, stuffed shells. You buy pasta shells ..sauce ..ricotta cheese and mozzerella. Boil those shells like spaghetti and stuff them with the cheese mixture along with one egg. She bakes this for about an hour I think, covered with foil. It's really good..

I just make a big pot of refried beans. Just take a bag of pinto beans and soak them over night. Next morning drain water and add water,stick of butter,taco seasoning and simmer all day. Then you just mash and you have yummy homemade meatless meals for that night and in the freezer. makes very good filling for tacos. My husband loves meat and he never misses it with this meal.

Lasagne or spaghetti w/o meat is good. When my kids were younger they never even noticed the difference but since I re-married he wont even consider a meal w/o meat. I think I will start cutting the meat in spaghetti in half and see if he notices. I don't think he will.
My biggest challenge is that he is lactose intolerant so I can't cook a lot of things that I use to be able to do. makes it very hard on me.
How about some homemade mac and cheese? That is good w/o the meat.

I would like to have a sample dinner idea without any meat. We are not vegetarians, but we think skipping meat one dinner a week would help our budget. What do people serve without the main course being meat?