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We have a large family, and although our situation is much more stable now, we still have a tight budget. We've also lived on very little, and made it.

Soups and stews have already been mentioned, I just finished off the last of a pot of beans (with a little rice) that I made for dinner on Wednesday. I cooked a pound of pinto beans, added a can of diced tomatoes with the liquid, we use fresh from our garden in the summer, and cooked some more. Cut up eight slices of bacon into little bits and rendered the fat out, crisped it a bit, then tossed in four stalks of celery, sliced thinly, and about eight scallions from our garden sliced thinly, and cooked that up. Put the whole mess into the pot of beans, and cook for another half hour or hour, taste for salt and adjust seasoning.

I made rice with this, cooking onion and garlic in bacon fat that we have saved in the fridge, adding the dry rice to toast, then salsa (either fresh, home canned or jarred from the store, whatever you have). I covered the rice with chicken broth that we made with the carcbuttes of our own chickens and cooked as per normal. If we didn't have salsa, I'd cook it without the salsa. We grew tomatillos this year, and after using what we wanted, still had more than enough to fill our freezer, so we use those for salsa now.

I had bought some flank steak from the cheap meats section, and rubbed it on both sides with a tablespoon of chipotle powder and a teaspoon of kosher salt, to about a pound and a half of meat, broiled it, turning once, and sliced thinly. This whole meal served eight people for dinner, three people for lunch the next day, on Friday we ate something else for dinner, but sent a bowl of beans and rice with the two older boys to school, Saturday, we made burritos with the rice and beans in flour tortillas for the whole family of six that eat solid foods, and I had enough to make one for myself last night as a late night meal and a bowl for breakfast this morning. Counting how many individual servings we ate from those beans and rice, we served 21 servings from a pound of beans, eight slices of bacon, and three cups of rice. Of course, all the additional ingredients as well, but those were the backbone of the meal.

We save veggies and bones to make stock, we make bread from scratch, either by hand. in a mixer or in the bread machine, we make our own yogurt, preserves, pickles, relishes, chutneys, jellies and jams. We cook almost everything from scratch, and eat out of our pantry and freezer. We shop sales, clip coupons, and check the cheap meats, we raise what we can to eat here at the home. That helps a lot.

Also, if I make a pot of chili, we can eat the leftovers, or I can make cornbread batter and put it on top, and we have a whole other meal, that can feed more than our family. Ditto for stews and mashed potatoes. I know cbutteroles have a bad name, but if you use your own fresh ingredients, repackaged, they are quite good. When we have turkey, gravy, the rice dressing I make and veggies left over, we put it all together and bake, and it becomes a nice second meal. Hamburger soup is good, and I often use ground beef in one pound increments with other things to stretch it and use it in burritos or enchiladas, or cbutteroles. We use eggs a lot here, with spinach and cheese, or broccoli, or in frittatas, etc, since a few can go a long way in dishes like that. Also, lentils and rice are great and feed a lot of people for very little.

Something we eat here for dinner occasionally, which even my meat loving husband enjoys, is baked potatoes with cheese sauce and broccoli, it doesn't take much of the milk, cheese, butter, flour, onion or broccoli, but it is cheap, tasty and filling. We eat largely what is in season and on sale, and stock up when we can. We have friends that hunt and they often bring us some of their kill to stock our freezers. We are fortunate in that.

I try to cook meals that can be extended. So, you roast a chicken, eat that, then use the leftover meat for some sort of rerun meal, use the carcbutt for stock, and the stock for gravies and soups. You can use leftover gravies as the "meat" in a lunch or light dinner with biscuits or potatoes or noodles. If I put things together into a one pot/pan dish, it goes farther than if I were serving those ingredients by themselves.

Sorry this is so long. I was just trying to think of the ways I make things go farther. A lot of it is shopping wisely and knowing how to store food, so we have it here already and don't need to buy more. When squash is on sale, we eat a lot of squash for instance. We also have rasied the children to eat whatever is served, since we cannot afford to waste it.

Regards, Ranee

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"She seeks wool and flax, and works with willing hands." Prov 31:13