Dinner on a Budget: Mac 'n Cheese Meals

This week’s “Dinner on a Budget” is brought you by Kraft’s Velveeta Shells and Cheese. Okay, not really, but it is one of my favorite ways to stretch a dollar, or a dollar and fifty cents to be exact.

There are literally dozens of ways to turn a simple box of macaroni and cheese into a delicious dinner for your family. Whether you feel like a cheesy soup or a bubbly casserole, your taste buds (and your wallet!) will never be disappointed.

First, start with a basic box of mac ‘n cheese. Personally, I like using Kraft’s Velveeta Shells and Cheese mix because the cheese sauce is already made and I prefer shell pasta over elbow macaroni. However, they run about $1.50 a box, so I tend to buy them only when I have coupons that make them 50 cents to $1 a box. You can also use cheaper variations of macaroni and cheese…most grocery stores sell them for 40 to 60 cents a box.

Next, pick your main meat ingredient. Literally anything from ground beef, to steak strips, to shredded chicken, to cubed ham can be used. You’ll need about a pound per box of mac ‘n cheese. If you want to make the meat stretch you can definitely use as little as half a pound. I tend to use less shredded chicken (about a cup) for recipes, but more ground beef. It balances the flavors better, I think.

Finally, pick your fillers. This can include anything from veggies (broccoli and carrots are some of my favorites), beans, salsa, extra cheese, and more. You’ll want to add extra milk, sour cream, or water to get to the consistency you desire.

Mix together, season as desired, and voila! An easy, delicious meal that can be made for as little as 75 cents a serving!

And for starters, here are a few of my favorite Kraft recipes:
(If you want to view the recipes larger, just click on the images)
Since I’m less of a “recipe-follower” and more of a “recipe-adapter” I used my own taco seasoning mix (chili powder, cumin, salt, pepper, onion powder), Fritos instead of tortilla chips (it’s what we had), about half the cheese the recipe called for, and leftover packets of Taco Bell salsa. It was delicious! Oh, and the directions to “layer” the dinner can be followed loosely…it’s just as good all mixed together.

This is supposed to taste a bit like a real cheeseburger, and although I’m not a fan of cheeseburgers, it was really good! I didn’t have green onions on hand, so I skipped those, but they probably would have added a nice kick to the dish. I've discovered that I’m not a big fan of tomatoes in pasta dishes, so I probably won’t use them next time.

This dish was perfect with the ingredients listed, but don’t follow the directions exactly if you cook this. A large skillet won’t hold everything…use a medium to large saucepan instead. Also, if you want the broccoli and carrots to be tender either cook them separately or cook the dish longer than it calls for. But if you like them crunchy, the cooking time is perfect.

Life in General...

...has been pretty darn awesome. :) Avery heads back to work today after having the last two days off (our "weekend"). Wednesday morning we went to the free summer movies at one of the local movie theaters and saw "Hotel for Dogs." Cute movie, but it unfortunately didn't hold Shiphrah's attention for long. She sat through about 30 minutes of it really well, but she had already sat through 20 minutes of advertisements prior to the movie starting so she got pretty squirmy. Avery had to take her out and let her run up and down the halls while Kirk (who was sleeping) and I watched the movie. We decided she probably would have done better if one of us had let her run around before the movie started and if it had been an animated film. We'll probably wait until next summer to try again though.

Speaking of the munchkin, she's been a ball of energy, drama, and whinyness lately. I think her teeth aren't bothering her anymore (she has 6 coming in at once...4 molars and 2 eye teeth) but she's just gotten into a really bad habit of whining constantly. She whines when she wants something, she whines when she gets frustrated with a toy, she whines when she's hungry...and over and over and over! It's exhausting for Mama. She's getting more verbal by the day and has starting stringing words together. Mostly it's just two at a time ("hi Kirk" and "eat please" and "Daddy's shirt") but she's put three words together a few times ("hi Daddy, poop!" = excitedly telling him she had gone poop in her diaper).

Kirk is still mostly an easy baby, although he has become a bit more clingy in the recent weeks. He's always happy and cheerful when he's being held, but he gets quite cranky if he's left alone for more than a few minutes at a time. But that's where it's nice to have a 19-month-old to entertain him. She loves sitting down next to him and "reading" a book to him or giving him one of her toys. I love my kids. :) He's still not sleeping through the night...in fact, he's hardly sleeping longer than 3 to 4 hours at a time. My body's adjusting, so I'm not horribly exhausted...I just feel like I'm in a fog much of the time.

In other news, I'm in a couple of weddings this summer. My best friend since elementary school is getting married next weekend and I'm one of her bridesmaids. My sister is also getting married on Labor Day and I'm also a bridesmaid for her wedding. (Buying two dresses at once hurts my wallet though!) In a little less than a month I'm hosting a shower for my sister...I'm doing a 1950's housewife theme and I am soooo excited about it! :) Anyway, it makes for a busy rest of the summer, but loads of fun. It'll just be interesting trying to handle the kids without Avery (he'll be at both weddings, but not for the whole time so I'll be by myself for a lot of them).

Well, that's all I have time for...I've gotta fix lunch before Avery heads to work and the kids and I head to a friend's house for the afternoon. Have a great weekend, everyone!

Dinner on a Budget: Steak and Potatoes

This is the first installment of a new blog series about planning meals on a budget. I’ll try to post one of these dinner ideas weekly, but no promises, I do have two kiddos under the age of two to look after as well. :)

Serving delicious, yet inexpensive meals for your family isn’t difficult. It just takes time and a little extra planning. However, sometimes it’s easy to get stuck in a rut with meal-planning. I know from time-to-time I like to serve slightly nicer meals, but don’t want to break the bank.

Steak dinners at most mid-range restaurants will run you anywhere from $10 to $20 a person. Serving a meal like that at home can seem daunting, especially when you check out the prices of steak at your local grocery store. However, if you plan ahead, you can serve a similar meal for a quarter of the cost. For example, Chili’s Grill and Bar has an 8-ounce top sirloin steak on their menu for $12.99. The steak comes with two sides and a piece of garlic toast. I will show you how you can serve a similar meal for around $3 a person.

First of all, scan your store circulars for deals on steak. If you have a Sun Harvest in your area, they regularly (about once a month) have top sirloin steak on sale for $2.99 a pound. I went last month and bought three steaks, each just under two pounds. (HEB Grocery also runs similar sales, but theirs are a bit less often.) If you do the math on price per ounce, an 8-ounce piece comes out to $1.50.

For my side dishes, I chose baked potatoes, sautéed peas and mushrooms, and dinner rolls. Instead of buying expensive baker’s potatoes, I opt to buy 5-pound bags of russet potatoes and specifically choose bags with several large potatoes in them. Russet potatoes vary in price from week to week (I’ve gotten them for as low as 99 cents), but for our purposes we’ll set the price at $2.49 for the bag. That’s about 25 cents per potato, give or take. The sautéed peas with mushrooms is one of my all-time favorite “gourmet” side dishes. Each serving of frozen peas is roughly 22 cents and a 4-ounce can of mushroom pieces is 59 cents, or about 30 cents a serving. Sauté the mushrooms in a little butter, boil the peas until they’re tender, combine, and season with salt and pepper to taste. Finally, I chose dinner rolls because we had previously bought a bag of Rhodes dinner rolls for $2.99 (roughly 10 cents a roll). These are basically just balls of dough, so they’d be easy enough to make on your own, but for me the convenience is definitely worth the added cost.

Then add about 40 cents a person for baked potato toppings (butter, shredded cheese, and sour cream) and about 25 cents a person for charcoal. And there you have it:

8-oz top sirloin steak = $1.50
Baked potato with toppings = $0.65
Peas ‘n’ mushrooms = $0.52
Dinner roll = $0.10
Charcoal = $0.25

Total cost = $3.02 a plate.

(And if you prefer T-bone over top sirloin, Sun Harvest and HEB occasionally have sales on T-bone steaks for $3.99 or $4.99 a pound, bringing the cost of your meal up a bit.)

And as an added bonus, if you grill extra steak you can use the leftovers to make a delicious beef stroganoff dinner. I found a recipe I loved here: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Campbells-Kitchen-Beef-Stroganoff/Detail.aspx. Just slice the leftover steak and add it to the sauce at the end. Delicious!

Fun with Friends and Family

I fully intended to write an update about all that's been going on lately, but my time is precious. Avery is asleep, Shiphrah is napping, and Kirk actually went to sleep in his pack 'n play, so I don't want to waste all my free time on the computer. :) Plus, it's been so long since I've blogged, I don't think I could remember all that went on if my life depended on it. (I can hardly remember what happened yesterday, much less two weeks ago.)

But we've been busy and in a good way. You know how sometimes you have a million fun things going on and by the end of the weekend you're so exhausted you feel like it just wasn't worth it? Well, for the past few weeks that actually hasn't been us...and it's been so nice!

Basically we've just been enjoying time together as a family and hanging out with friends. We went out to Medina Lake again a couple of weeks ago, this time with some of Avery's co-workers.


We enjoyed a relaxing morning there (we arrived around 9 and left when it started getting too hot) swimming and eating and chatting with friends.


We bought Shiphrah a float so she could enjoy the water and she had a blast as well. (It’s frustrating though that none of the floats allow the kid to actually reach the water with their hands…I guess it’s a safety thing but still, it just makes her annoyed.) Avery also brought his inflatable boat and paddled around a bit.


He took Shiph for a ride too, but she didn’t much care for it (I think it scared her). Oh and what is it with swim diapers? I swear Shiph always decides to poop as soon as she has one on. Yuck!

For the holiday weekend we hung out with my parents and my sisters at the zoo on Friday.


During the summer the zoo has early hours for members-only so we got there early and left before it got too crowded (and too hot).


Shiphrah is really starting to enjoy watching all the animals and roaring or oinking (which sounds more like a grunt coming from her) at them. It’s adorable.


On Saturday we relaxed most of the day and then headed out to the Valdes house to celebrate the Fourth with some family.


Shiphrah played in the pool for a few minutes, but got bored really quickly when she realized the other kids could hop in and out of the pool as they pleased.


We had to leave rather early to get Avery to work (his first day out on his own!) but that worked out better for the kids anyway.


Other than that, we’ve had a few friends over for dinner and have gotten to know the sweet family that moved in across the street from us. I love, love, love being able to spend time with other families like ours…there’s nothing like good fellowship between believers! It was also nice to meet another couple with family values like ours. I really am looking forward to getting to know them better over time. Not that I don’t love the friends we have now. It’s just that outside of family, we really only hang out with one other couple and one other family. And we can only bug them every so often. :)

Well, I’m going to spend the rest of my free time working on Kirk’s baby book. I finally got around to starting it yesterday (the poor kid is almost 4 months old…bad mommy) and I’m remembering how much I really enjoy scrapbooking, even if I’m not very good at it. :)

Happy Independence Day!

I know I've been remiss in blogging lately and I apologize. We've been busy adjusting to Avery's new schedule and hanging out with family and friends. I promise I'll update soon. :)

We hope you all are having a fabulous holiday weekend!!!