Budget Friendly Recipes: Peanut Butter Cookies

If you are like the rest of the world and meal planning can be a costly affair then I have a series of recipes I'm going to be posting JUST FOR YOU! These are budget-friendly recipes to feed your family!

Peanut Butter Cookies (Makes 12-16 cookies depending on your size)

2 Cups of Peanut Butter (Harris Teeter Brand is $2.49)*
2 Cups of Sugar ($1.19 for a 2lb bag)
2 Eggs (.89 for a half dozen at Harris Teeter)

Preheat Oven at 350 Degrees. Mix all the ingredients in a bowl. Using a spoon or a 1/2 tablespoon measure cup (I make ours a bit on the small side) spoon your mix onto a greased cookie sheet. You will want to cook these for 7 minutes, check often to make sure they don't burn. These cook very fast!

* Peanut Butter is typically on all WIC vouchers and you get multiple jars a month. You can also get this pretty cheap by using coupons and watching your sales!

And as always, I did quote prices from Harris Teeter. Usually, you can see about a 30% savings by just shopping Walmart branded items or your local Grocery store branded items. Harris Teeter happens to be one of the more expensive grocery stores.

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View Village Bakery for tips, Reviews and Recipes! This site has a ton of information and I love the reviews!

Budget Friendly Recipes: Reuben Bake

If you are like the rest of the world and meal planning can be a costly affair then I have a series of recipes I'm going to be posting JUST FOR YOU! These are budget-friendly recipes to feed your family!

Reuben Bake (Makes 8 servings)

2 cans of Crescent Rolls (Priced $1.99 each for the Harris Teeter Brand)

1 bag of Sauerkraut (Priced $1.19 for the Harris Teeter Brand)

1 lb Corned Beef sliced thin from the deli (get it on sale) (Regularly Priced $12.99/lb for Boars Head at Harris Teeter) *

Thousand Island Dressing (Priced $2.49 for the Harris Teeter Brand) **

1 package of shredded Swiss cheese (Priced $3.39 for the Harris Teeter Brand) **

Put 1 can of the Crescent rolls as a bottom layer in your pan, bake at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes. Take out and Add a layer of Corned Beef, then a layer of Sauerkraut, then the layer of Thousand Island dressing. Add a layer of cheese to the top and then your second can of crescent rolls as your top layer. Bake the whole thing at 350 for 10 to 15 minutes or until golden brown.

Total REGULAR price for this meal: $24.04 which is $3.00 per serving. I know what you are thinking. OMG, Casey, this is NOT Budget Friendly. But it is...check out my *'s for explanations.

* For the corned beef at the deli...they run this on sale all the time, and when they do stock up on it, you can freeze it and take it out when you need it. I've seen run for a low as $5.99. It did drop exceedingly low after St. Patrick's day. You can also just buy the Corned Beef out of the meat department and slice it up yourself. I've done this too.

** Thousand Island Dressing. I put in the cheapest that Harris Teeter caries which is their own brand. They tend to run this on sale 2 for $3 every few weeks or so, also..you can totally buy Thousand Island Dressing at the Dollar Tree for $1.

*** This is one of my FAVORITE Harris Teeter savings. About once a month they run cheese on sale buy 2 get 3 free. Which makes each package about $1.36. You can usually buy 10 packages per trip, so this is an excellent way to stock up on cheese. You freeze it, or make the meals in advance and freeze the entire meal. Any way you do it there is always a savings to be had.

And as always, I did quote prices from Harris Teeter. Usually, you can see about a 30% savings by just shopping Walmart branded items or your local Grocery store branded items. Harris Teeter happens to be one of the more expensive grocery stores.



ENJOY!!

Budget Friendly Recipes: Fried Rice

If you are like the rest of the world and meal planning can be a costly affair then I have a series of recipes I'm going to be posting JUST FOR YOU! These are budget-friendly recipes to feed your family!

Fried Rice (Feeds 3 to 4 people)

1 cup of uncooked rice (White or Brown) (Priced .89 for a 12 oz bag at Harris Teeter)
Half a bag of frozen peas and carrots (Priced $1.49 for a 12 oz bag at Harris Teeter)
2 Eggs (Priced $1.49 for a dozen at Harris Teeter)
Butter (Priced $1.29 for a 16 oz package of Blue Bonnet at Harris Teeter)
Soy Sauce to taste (Priced .99 for the Harris Teeter brand in a 10 oz bottle)

Boil your rice per instructions on the bag. In a separate pan Sautee the veggies in butter until they are tender, and then add the cooked rice to the pan, once that is done push all the rice to one side of your pan, add in the eggs to scramble them, then mix it all together. Add your soy sauce to taste (As much or as little as you like.)
             
Total for the recipe is $2.69 if I add in the entire price of the Soy Sauce. Broken down that is just .67 for four servings. You can't get much more affordable than that! All of these ingredients will have a ton left over to make other meals. You will have leftover rice, frozen veggies, eggs and butter and more than likely soy sauce as well depending on how much YOU like. This is extremely affordable and very tasty. We have it sometimes on its own or bake some chicken to go with it. This is one of our go-to recipes!

Note: All of my prices are pulled from Harris Teeter. You can typically shave a good 30% off by purchasing Walmart branded items or any store branded items. This shows that even at a more expensive grocery store you can have recipes that are very affordable. ENJOY!

Budget Friendly Recipes: Salisbury Steak

If you are like the rest of the world and meal planning can be a costly affair then I have a series of recipes I'm going to be posting JUST FOR YOU! These are budget-friendly recipes to feed your family! Check back every Monday for a new recipe!

Salisbury Steak (6 servings)

1 6-count Ball Park frozen fully cooked hamburger patties  (Priced $8.99 at Harris Teeter)

2 18 fl oz jars of Savory Beef gravy by Heinz (Priced $2.79 each at Harris Teeter)

1 jar of sliced mushrooms drained (Priced $1.99 at Harris Teeter)

Water (about a half of the mushroom jar, I just use this to rinse out all the juices, so double duty) (FREE)

Put it all together in a big deep pan and bake it 350 for 40 minutes. We serve this on a bed of rice.

Total price for this meal is $16.56 but it does provide 6 separate servings. Divide that down to just $2.76 per serving. If you add in rice that may bump it up a few cents more. A bag of rice is around .89 and you would cook 1 to 2 cups out of that large bag. This is a very affordable dinner and would be wonderful if you are a meal prepper as well. 

NOTE: ALl these prices are pulled from Harris Teeter, you could probably save up to 30% off if you buy the Walmart brand items or any other Store brand items. Harris Teeter is one of the most expensive grocery stores but even this recipe is affordable and could be broken down to feed a family of 2 up to a family of 6.

Budget Friendly Recipes: Chicken Pot Pie

If you are like the rest of the world and meal planning can be a costly affair then I have a series of recipes I'm going to be posting JUST FOR YOU! These are budget-friendly recipes to feed your family! Every Monday I will release a new recipe just for you guys! ENJOY!!

Chicken Pot Pie (Makes 2 pies)

1 29 oz can of Homestyle Veg-All (Priced $2.69 at Harris Teeter)
2 12.5 oz cans of Swanson Chicken (Priced $3.69 each at Harris Teeter)*
1 22.6 oz can of Campbell's Cream of Chicken (Priced $2.89 at Harris Teeter)
1 2-count Deep frozen pie shells (Priced $2.49 at Harris Teeter)
1 2-count Regular frozen pie shells (Priced $2.49 at Harris Teeter)

Mix all the canned ingredients together and spoon into the deep pie sells, half in each deep shell.
Take the regular pie shells and cut the center out and put it on top of the deep dish pie shell, making your pot pie crust. Bake at 375 degrees for 30-40 minutes or until crust is golden brown.


Total Price of the meal: $15.05 for two pies. This is just $7.53 per pie and each pie feeds a family of 4 very easily with leftovers. You can make one to eat tonight and one to freeze. These are always kid friendly and kid approved. So if we cut this pie into 6 servings that is just $1.25 per serving which is amazing!

* You can substitute the large can with 4 small cans of chicken, and I've also seen canned chicken at the Dollar Tree.

Note: I used Harris Teeter for Pricing. They are one of the most expensive grocery stores, you can probably get this meal made for up to 30% less using Walmart branded items or other Store branded.

Aphrodisiacs Everywhere!

I was at the Goodwill yesterday and browsing through the books (really wasn't much there I wanted this time around) and ran across a book Everything Romantic for Lovers, I looked for it online couldn't find it though to show you a photo.

The book is quite cute, it has lists of romantic movies, the meaning of varieties of flowers, and even lists of romantic songs. The one section I found most interesting was the aphrodisiac chapter. Did you know that the French once thought that Cheese was an aphrodisiac, and a lot of people still believe it is? There are even recipes that promote themselves as Cheese aphrodisiac recipes. Those include various kinds of fondues, spreads and pastries. In fact here is a quick awesome cheese spread for you, it's a recipe I made myself with various ingredients during a recent baby shower, women went NUTS over it so maybe the French are right!

1 block 8 oz cream cheese
1 wheel of Brie cheese
3 basil leaves
Bacon Bits (either real bacon crushed up or the real bacon bits)

Open your cream cheese and put it in a bowl, take your wheel of Brie and cut it in half. Take one half of the Brie and cut it up into cubes, then sprinkle those cubes over the top of the cream cheese, put both in the microwave for about 30 seconds to soften them. Once that comes out of the microwave then stir really well so that both cheeses are blended, then cut your basil leaves up and dump that in there, and then sprinkle a generous handful of the bacon bits on the top of that, then mix all of that together (use a nice wooden spoon, I love wooden spoons and don't say "Casey, they are SO expensive." Because they are not! You can buy them at the Dollar Tree.) Once it's it's been mixed go ahead and taste it, it's heavenly!

Put your other half the cheese wheel in the fridge. What I did was spread the cheese on toasted French loaf chunks and add a slice of tomato and a slice of olive. I had to make about 2 dozen of these and they went quickly, the girls enjoyed them and it was pretty damn good if I do say so myself. Oh, you don't want to use the Baco bits that are little rock like ones, you want to use the ones that say REAL BACON and look like little bacon chunks. We aren't making a salad!

So yeah, now I'm totally into cheese recipes, I have a fondue pot and I'm going to figure out a GREAT recipe for that, I'm sure I can (Imagine me winking here!)

On a side note I'm now reading The Fire King by Marjorie Liu about a one armed heroine and a man who changes and then has scales, not too far into it so I'm a little confused but I'll tell you all about it when I'm done!