Super Simple, Super Cheap Recipe Ideas


I'm always on the look out for super-simple, super-cheap recipes for lunches, snacks and using up leftovers. I usually do okay with dinner (there's almost always something tasty hiding in my freezer), but sometimes I run out of ideas for the other eating times during the day, especially on those busy days with little time to cook -- and around my house, that's just about everyday!

A couple of simple things we do:

"Tortilla Roll-Ups" -- just spread cream cheese and a couple slices of inexpensive sandwich meat onto a flour tortilla, roll it up, and enjoy! I also add fresh sprouts or lettuce if we have it around. A friend of mine slices the Roll-Ups into little round Pinwheels for variety -- the Tortilla Pinwheels make a nice snack item for parties, too.

"Fruit Salad" -- fill a salad bowl with large cubes of fresh fruit (apples, oranges, bananas, melons, etc.), and then pour a carton of vanilla-flavored yogurt over the fruit for a sauce. This is so simple, but very tasty. Make sure you use vanilla-flavored yogurt and not plain yogurt.

"Pudding Pops" -- prepare a box of instant pudding according to instructions, pour into popcycle molds and freeze. If you use chocolate flavored pudding, you have super-simple do-it-yourself fudgesycles. Butterscotch pudding is really good this way, too.

Here are some other ideas submitted by readers of my email newsletter, Simple Times:

SUBMITTED BY: MARILYN
Perfect Oatmeal: a cup of water, 1/2 cup of regular oatmeal, a dash of salt and 3 minutes in the microwave equals perfect oatmeal. I came up with this after much trial and error looking for that "perfect" proportion of ingredients.

SUBMITTED BY: A.A.
1) For lunches, stuff a pita pocket with green salad (and shredded cheese if you have it), and then top the whole thing with ranch dressing.

2) For snacks, spread cream cheese on a slice of salami and add a stuffed olive, roll it up and insert a toothpick in it to hold it together.

3) Another snack that I make: top a graham cracker with cake frosting (my favorite is chocolate!). Yummy!

4) Cut a cantaloupe in half and fill with cottage cheese.

5) There are wonderful and usually very economical recipes at the "Taste Of Home" web-page. Their website address is: http://www.Reimanpublications.com

SUBMITTED BY: Jim
Take a can of cheap spaghetti sauce and a can of black beans, heat together and serve over pasta.

The copyright of the article Super Simple, Super Cheap Recipe Ideas in Debt-Free Family is owned by Deborah Taylor-Hough. Permission to republish Super Simple, Super Cheap Recipe Ideas in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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