Dinner 9 – 1 – 1
It’s Wednesday. Are you waiting for payday on Friday? Do your cupboards look a tad bare with minimal things left in your refrigerator?
Sometimes we find ourselves needing to be creative in the kitchen to stretch meals to payday. There’s no need to shop the dollar menu at your local drive through, a healthier alternative is here!
Do you have some leftover ham or chicken in the fridge sitting there all by itself? Maybe there’s an egg or two tucked away in the carton- not enough for a meal. Look in your cupboard and see if there’s a scoop or two left of rice. These 3 ingredients aren’t much on their own but when you combine them with a few veggies (maybe there’s some frozen veggies tucked away in the back of your freezer), you can make a yummy and filling meal of FRIED RICE.
Once I discovered some frozen chicken filets in my freezer that needed to be used immediately. I cooked them up and diced them and put them in a large mixing bowl. I looked around my kitchen to see what else I could add to the bowl. We happened to have some leftover baked potatoes in the fridge that we didn’t use the night before. I peeled and diced those and threw them in the mixing bowl with the chicken. I kept looking…in my pantry I found one can of corn and a can of green beans. I drained both cans and emptied them into the mixing bowl. It then dawned on me that I had almost all the ingredients for CHICKEN POT PIE! All I needed was some cream of chicken (or cream of celery soup), some seasonings and a pie crust. If you happen to have a prepared crust in your freezer (you can make one if you don’t) so I waited for it to thaw and lined my pie pan. The rest was delicious history!
Recently I found myself with a bounty of farm fresh eggs from a friend. My refrigerator was rather bare and I had to get really creative on what to feed my crew for dinner. Why not OMELETS or QUICHE? With a few leftover ingredients from the refrigerator or a can of this-or-that from the pantry you can pull of a great tasting, healthier meal than found in any drive through.
Here’s to creative meals and stretching what we have on hand until payday! What’s your creative solution for tonight’s meal?
I’ve done the fried rice trick, and where we are gluten free instead of pot pie we just make a soup. Some times I make a hit and some days I strike out but it is a fun way to find out what works together and what doesn’t.
Molly says: We use a star system in our home for meals, 5 stars for the family LOVED it and 1 star for “Please Mom, don’t make this again!”
Midge, where did you find hamburger for $2.00 a pound? I am definately making the Porcupine Meatballs, they sound tastey. But I have never seen hamburger for $2.00 a pound at City Market where I shop.
Thanks for sharing,
Lourdes