Revealing How I Stretch Meals
I love to come up with ways to save money while food shopping and making it last for more than one meal. Today I’m revealing how I stretch meals.
Chicken or turkey are easy to stretch, after you have your main meal of baked turkey or chicken the leftovers can be turned into a pot pie, cut up the left overs in strips for stir fry or make a turkey/chicken salad to serve on bread of flavored crackers. http://themarthareview.com/how-to-stretch-a-chicken/
But stretching beef is one of my favorites. The other day I got Angus top sirloin on sale for $4.99 per pound. There were three good sized pieces in the package so I took two out for dinner and froze the third of another meal. The three pieces cost about $10.00 total and the first meal I used two pieces. I cut an onion in thin slices, sauteed them and removed them from the pan when slightly browned. Next I added the steak to the same pan and sprinkled it with Worcheshire sauce while it was pan frying. Add corn on the cob and rice for a filling meal.
One of the steaks was larger than the other so we had a piece left over. That was another night’s dinner. I prepared this different than just reheating it and adding a potato with it. First I sauteed more onion slices and cut up two small peppers from our garden and tossed them in the pan. We’re lucky and still are picking peppers! After they were slightly browned, I added the leftover steak that I had cut in thin slices. For some reason when you cut up leftover meat it seems to make the meal look more appetizing and even go farther. So I had the onions, peppers, and steak in the pan and this is when I became creative. My granddaughter had made a big pan of rice and seasoned it to go in the gumbo she was making. The extra rice went in the fridge to use with another meal. That meal was the steak! I added the already cooked rice to the fry pan of peppers, onions, steak and cooked on low to heat it up. Talking about smelling delicious! This was what I prepared for my hubby from leftovers!
I had a craving for fried cabbage and bacon so I started frying up my bacon pieces. I cut them in small pieces before frying because it seems easier to have them already cut when cooked. While that was frying, I went to get a a bag of cabbage from the freezer that I previous cut and froze only to realize I didn’t have any left! Oh no, I have my bacon fried and ready to add the cabbage, what now? No problem, once again I became creative. I added cut up cauliflower! Frying that with the bacon smelled so good too! But I wasn’t done, I tossed in some of the seasoned rice and cooked everything together.
Our dinner consisted of two different varieties of home made delicious rice bowl meals from leftovers!
Remember I told you the three pieces of steak cost about $10.00 and we only used two? Well the other piece will go for hubby’s meal when I have my last piece of Alaskan Wild Caught Sockeye Salmon! So for the two meals the first night, the one meal the next night and the one I haven’t prepared yet makes four meals from the three pieces of steak for a meal cost of about $3.00 per meal including the rice and vegetables. Not bad for delicious, filling meals!
Not only am I revealing how to stretch meals but I shared some simple, easy and delicious recipes. I hope you enjoyed them, there will be other meal stretches I’m sure!
Great ideas, Martha!
Thanks Roy, leftovers seem to make interesting meals.
I love meals that I can stretch! I used to love to cook (well, I still do really), but the last few weeks have been so busy that I tend to make something big so I can have leftovers. I wonder if I could get my husband to eat cauliflower if I cooked it with bacon???? He does say “pork fat rules”!
Making large meals is great for portion control leftovers Nancy. I never fried cauliflower but since I didn’t have cabbage I figured I’d be daring. It was delicious, I even added shredded cheese to the rice and it melted over to the bacon and cauliflower!
I love stretching meals as well and we love on a budget so I am always trying to make as many meals as I can out of the items we purchase. Not only that we live around the corner from my mother in law. Several times a week she will cook dinner for her and my father in law. They don’t eat Left Overs so I end up with lunch a lot of days that I didn’t have to get into my freezer or pantry to make lunch for Charlie and I saving us even more money which helps stretch our budget.
How great for you that your m-i-l doesn’t like leftovers! I think they taste better the second time around.
I liked all the ideas you shared about stretching meals.Especially the one about cutting leftover meat in small strips. It enhances taste .
Leftovers are some of my favorite meals Amrita! The fried cauliflower was a first and delicious!
That’s great that you are so good at stretching meals. I need to try to get better at it. I think it just means maybe cooking more during the first meal and saving the rest for later. I have done it with hamburger, cooking hamburgers for the first meal and then saving some for soup or pasta on another night. So I just need to commit to thinking ahead more often.
Cooking more at one time is the easiest way to have leftovers Jeanine. But there are times when I divide larger portions of meat and split it for another meal but use the leftover rice, potatoes or pasta with it. If I have a small amount of ground beef left over when making dinner, I freeze them into patties. That way I can cook a burger with roll or fry one up and crumble it for chili or stuffed peppers.
while we are vegetarian, i tend to stretch some of my meals the same way!!
I’m not a vegetarian but we love fresh veggies. There are many nights I make a big stir fry with all kinds of vegetables, so good!
Great post. I am learning how to meal plan. 🙂
Thanks great Amanda! Meal planning not only saves money but it’s easy to have meals already figured out for a few days or a week. Let me know how it goes.