Budget Stretching Meals and Recipes:Fast And Healthy Family Favorites

Fast food can be healthy food if you know where to look. And the easiest place to find healthy fast food in your kitchen.
Menu in a Box 100 Day Planning

Fast food can be healthy food if you know where to look. And the easiest place to find healthy fast food is in your kitchen. The new "Pillsbury GOOD FOR YOU!" cookbook can help families with the daily challenge of making fast, healthy and flavorful dinners despite today's busy schedules. The book features 170 healthy, delicious recipes that contain less fat, sugar and salt than regular recipes. All can be prepared in 35 minutes or less, with more than half of the recipes taking 20 minutes or less. Here's a tasty "Super Express" sample:
 

Spicy Chinese Chicken Tacos

Start to Finish: 20 Minutes

1 box (4.6 oz) taco shells (12 shells)

3 boneless skinless chicken breasts (3/4 lb), cut into thin, bite-size strips

1 teaspoon grated gingerroot

1 small clove garlic, minced

2 tablespoons soy sauce

1 tablespoon honey

1 large green onion, sliced

1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

11/2 cups shredded iceberg lettuce

1. If desired, heat taco shells as directed on box.

2. Heat large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add chicken, gingerroot and garlic; cook 3 to 5 minutes, stirring often, until lightly browned.

3. Stir in soy sauce, honey, onion and pepper flakes to coat. Reduce heat to low; cover and cook 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until chicken is no longer pink in center.

4. To serve, place scant 1/4 cup chicken mixture in each taco shell. Top each with lettuce. Serve immediately.

6 servings (2 tacos each)

Serving Size: 1 Serving

Calories: 180, Calories from Fat: 60% DV, Total Fat 7g, Saturated Fat 1g, Trans Fat 1.5g, Cholesterol 35mg, Sodium 260mg, Total Carbohydrate 18g, Dietary Fiber 2g, Sugars 4g, Protein 14g, Vitamin A 4%, Vitamin C 0%, Calcium 4%, Iron 6%, Exchanges: 1 Starch, 11/2 Very Lean Meat, 1 Fat; Carbohydrate Choices: 1

Besides delicious recipes, the cookbook also contains quick tips for better nutrition, on-the-go dinner ideas, easy-to-assemble fruit desserts and a pantry makeover. Look for it wherever books are sold.

Click Here for the 100 Day Menu in a Box

Budget Meal Plan: How to Eat For Less Than 20 Dollars Per Week

by Doug Smith

When people ask me how I save so much money, they never believe how
simple the answer is. Simply cooking your meals at home has such a
profound impact on your budget, it has got to be the number one way to
cut costs without sacrificing anything. By simply cooking more meals
you will absolutely save hundreds of dollars per month. Depending on
your habit, you may even save more than hundreds of dollars per week.
You don't even realize that on an average day, where all you get is a
fast food meal and starbucks in the morning, you've already dropped 10
dollars on horrible food. That's already 300 dollars per month - Do you
get where I'm going with this?

Here are some things you NEED to
pick up and start working with in your kitchen. These are basic staples
that can be used to create thousands of different recipe ideas, and
help you learn how to be a better cook:

Eggs
Bread
Oil (sunflower, vegetable)
Rice
Pasta
Canned Beans
Various spices (salt, pepper, a few others)
Tomato/Pasta sauce
Meat that's ON SALE
Vegetables that's ON SALE

For
breakfast (god forbid you wake up 5-10 minutes earlier) you can make
dozens of things with eggs. Overeasies, scrambled eggs, poached eggs,
500 different omelletes, on bread, by themselves, etc.

For lunch you can make pasta, rice, chicken/turkey sandwiches, anything - And you can bring it with you to work.

For
dinner, pasta and rice combined with various meats, vegetables, and
spices can be combined into thousands of dinner ideas. For specific
recipes simply google "chicken dish", or "cooking with rice". It isn't
complicated - there are hundreds of recipes that are nearly impossible
to screw up, even for virgin cooks.

Some of these meals will
only cost you 50 cents when you look at the ingredients. Rice is dirty
cheap and a staple around the world, yet neglected in the west. The
possibilities are endless - Believe it or not you can eat well for less
than 3 dollars per day. If you get a drink from starbucks in the
morning, eat lunch out somewhere, then pick something up for dinner (or
make a frozen meal), you're spending close to 15-20 dollars without
realizing it. That's 600 dollars a month. How much can you save?

You do
the math. I just recently got a good friend and my sister on this plan,
and they're paying their rent with the difference.
For a more in depth look at this as well as sample recipes and other amazing secrets on saving money at the grocery store, visit Budget Living

Originally published on SearchWarp.com for Doug Smith Friday, April 03, 2009

Article Source: Budget Meal Plan: How to Eat For Less Than 20 Dollars Per Week

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