Recession-proof recipes
Healthy recipes to feed a family of 4 for $15 or less?
***Here are a few healthy recipes to eat at home to feed your entire family without hurting your wallet***
Ironically a few days ago, I had a post about cheap food stand foods after noticing a sandwich board announcing a full jumbo hot dog + can of soda pop combo deal as a mistake at $2.50.
If you missed that post, you can still catch it here: The $2.50 unhealthy meal is unbeatable.
I can tell you that I was jumping up and down for joy when my local grocery store put out a flyer with some great recipes for families of 4 people for $15 or less.
Now, don’t worry, I did inspect the menu choices to make sure that we weren’t talking about poor quality foods, but I was quite impressed with the menu.
I should point out that these recipes come from Loblaws grocery store which is one of the biggest grocery market chains in the country. Not only does Loblaws offer an incredible food shopping experience, but they master the art of putting out their own private label foods that keep us all running back to the store for more.
I cannot tell you how many foods in my food pantry are labelled “President’s Choice®”! I just love the quality and price point.
Here are three menus that won’t hurt your pocket book. I have kept the ingredients as generic as possible because I know some of my readers won’t have access to Loblaws private label foods. Obviously, the recipes from the flyer use “President’s Choice ®” ingredients for the most part, but you can easily find all the ingredients listed below at pretty much any grocery store!
So here are a few suggestions to feed a family of 4 for less than $15 and STILL serve good food:
Continue reading: Healthy recipes to feed a family of 4 for $15 or less? »
Healthy Italian food recipes!
Because of the recession, many people are shunning chi-chi French cuisine and all those complicated fusion dishes in favour of simple, comforting Italian fare. The trend is so popular there were articles about it in the New York Times and a number of financial papers. A while ago, I even wrote that business people in wealthy countries like Switzerland were meeting clients at Italian restaurants for meetings and opting for Italian eateries for lunch.
>>> If you missed that post, you can still read it here: Italian food is popular again!
I love everything Italian, so I get quite upset when I hear people say Italian cuisine is fattening because of the pasta. What many North Americans don’t understand is that Italians from Italy do not eat the same size portions of pasta that are served in restaurants on this side of the Atlantic. If you’ve ever travelled to Italy, you probably noticed many Italians eat a small portion of pasta twice a day, and Italian women are as slim and as sexy as ever!
As much as I love French food, my passion for Italian cooking is just as strong. The two cuisines differ in many ways and I think that’s why I like them equally so much.
Continue reading: Healthy Italian food recipes! »
18 Great Tomato Recipes!
What would Italian, Portuguese, Spanish or Greek cuisine be without tomatoes? Europeans who eats a Mediterranean diet consume several kilograms of tomatoes each year.
Tomatoes are not only tasty and delicious, but they contain loads of healthy benefits: they are a good source of fibre, vitamin K, potassium, manganese, folic acid, folate, mangnesium, copper, vitamin E, niacin, vitamin B6, phoaphorus and thiamin; they give you 32 per cent of your daily vitamin C and 25 per cent of your daily vitamin A; they are high in antioxidants (lycopene), which helps your body fight free radicals and they have a lot of water. All of which makes me wonder: Why aren’t more people eating tomatoes?
It’s worth pointing out that genetically-created tomatoes that you can buy at any time of the year, are inferior in taste and freshness. In my opinion, if you buy tomatoes in the middle of December, you aren’t getting the real thing. I limit my tomato buying to the months of July, August and September, when markets and grocery stores are bursting at the seams with locally-grown, sweet ripe fresh tomatoes.
Once the season is over, I turn to canned organic tomatoes which I can buy all year round (they make wonderful sauces). I rarely eat fresh tomatoes during the fall and especially during the winter, because I know they aren’t in season. I’ve bought tomatoes grown in Mexico, Central America and even South America during winter months in the hopes of finding something that tastes as fresh as what I find during the summer, but I’ve always been gravely disappointed because they are picked way too early. Having eaten locally-grown tomatoes in Costa Rica during December, it’s clear the distance they have to travel when they are shipped to North American kills the goodness and the taste. The ones I ate were red, juicy, sweet and delicious.
Continue reading: 18 Great Tomato Recipes! »
Cheap chicken recipes for less than $3 per serving!
A recession doesn’t mean that you have give up good food all together!
There are so many dishes you can make that are very budget friendly and healthy at the same time … you just need to know where to find the right recipes.
It’s true that you might have a harder time creating $3 per serving recipes with beef, veal or lamb, but chicken is and has always been a very affordable meat that contains lean protein.
I found these great recipes from Eating Well and they are ALL under $3 per serving!
Continue reading: Cheap chicken recipes for less than $3 per serving! »
7 tips to cooking good food on a budget during the recession!
The economy might be tight and sometimes plain depressing, but there are still ways to cook healthy and eat well on a budget.
Budgeting might be the MOST popular in the English language nowadays because everyone realizes that if you spend $1 here, you might not have it to spend it there if you’ve lost your job or if you are struggling to make your mortgage payments.
Continue reading: 7 tips to cooking good food on a budget during the recession! »
15 recession-proof recipes for the holidays and for everyday cooking and 15 affordable and delicious weekend stews!
Food shopping for the holidays is going to hit home because when you see that number flashing on the cash register, it will most likely hurt! With inflation being what it is thanks to this world financial meltdown, it’s going to cost a lot more to buy food for your guests this year.
If you are entertaining during the holidays a lot of the ingredients you bought last year will cost you much more this year. You will either have to find more cost-effective versions of your favourite recipes or you’ll have to explore brand new ideas.
