Scratching your head to find a good nutritious meal to cook for yourself or your family? If you have many cookbooks on your counter that are either well thumbed through, or pristine, then figuring out some new things to eat can be a tad tricky. We can offer a few tips that may get the creative juices flowing, and also save you a bit of money along the way.
Soups are great for using up leftovers. Make sure that they are still okay. Hopefully, the reactions won’t be the same as in that flooring commercial where a couple sniffs leftovers, then keels over. Store your food well in the refrigerator, or sealed up if it’s in the pantry, and you can make a great meal from it. A little bit of pasta may be added to any veggies and with the addition of a small amount of chicken or vegetable stock, you can create a wonderful minestrone. Serve with cornbread or a crusty bread like sourdough. Adding fresh herbs always livens up a leftovers meal. Tortilla soup is great with a few pieces of leftover chicken cut up small, and then corn kernels are added, a tomato perhaps, and then it’s topped off with a few sprinkles of cheese and corn tortilla chips.
A favorite with families — pasta — lends itself to either a regular meal, or leftovers from a previous day. Pasta, either whole wheat or a wheat substitute, may be tossed with leftover veggies in a “new” sauce, or a meat made into a pasta sauce. Leftover food made into a pasta sauce can be stretched a very long way. Again, the addition of fresh herbs livens up any meal. You can buy herb plants at a store and keep them in your kitchen window. Basil, Italian (flat-leaf) parsley, and thyme are the three basic herbs that will go a long way in your meals. Just snip off what you want and chop it up. The rest just keeps on growing. Don’t forget to water your live herbs!
Another way to make a great meal and to stretch your budget, if you eat meat, is to cook a large pot roast or other inexpensive piece of meat, in a slow cooker. Strain off the fat and then freeze the portion (it’ll be pretty big) of what you don’t use. This can be served many ways and will be great tasting as well, because slow cooking means big taste, especially in soups or stews or meat. If you like chicken, then purchasing a whole, organic and free range chicken and roasting it, will provide several meals. Chicken thighs, also organic and free range are cheaper than breast meat and far tastier. They are great for stews or curries.