When you have a tight budget, meal planning and grocery shopping has its challenges. When you have a tight budget and you’re dedicated to eating healthfully, it’s even trickier.
We’ve talked about each of these topics quite a bit in the past, and every time our readers have responded with so many great tips and suggestions. Here are 10 of your smartest tips that make eating well when you’re strapped for cash feel like a piece of cake (or a kale salad!).
A traditional advent calendar keeps a daily countdown exciting with chocolates or confections, and sometimes even beauty products and trinkets. But for wine-lovers, there is a new option in town this holiday season that promises to shake things up: Grocery chain Aldi has a booze advent calendar that houses six bottles’ worth of wine.
(Image credit: Maria Siriano)
Do you love pasta carbonara, but get a little intimidated by the step that calls for thickening — not scrambling! — the pasta with eggs? Love risotto, but don’t want to spend all that time stirring at the stove?
Here’s a much easier riff on both carbonara and risotto, made possible with the help of that teeny, tiny, rather magical orzo pasta. This is your 30-minute dinner tonight!
You need more easy chicken recipes in your life, right? Of course you do. These weeknight recipes prove that it doesn’t take a lot to make a totally delicious chicken dinner. Whether juicy thighs speak to your soul or you prefer lean breasts, each one of these easy recipes comes together with no more than five ingredients (you get oil or butter and salt and pepper as freebies).
(Image credit: Joe Lingeman/The Kitchn)
Among the recipes that friends and family ask about most frequently, including how to make a proper pot of rice or how to cook perfect chicken breast every time, how to make a decent pot of oatmeal is always up there on the list. It seems that every home cook is chasing that elusive ideal pot of oatmeal: thick but not mushy, and fluffy but not chewy. Making good oatmeal can happen without much brain power (even while you’re still waiting for the coffee to brew) — this recipe will show you just how to do it.
(Image credit: Faith Durand)
While I wish I could say I am a master meal planner like some of my colleagues, that would be so far from the truth. The reality is I get lazy on weekends and roll into the week without a clear plan. There is, however, one thing I always try to squeeze in on Sundays: I roast a baking sheet or two full of vegetables. It sets me up for healthy eating, regardless of how prepared or not I am for the week ahead, and takes up hardly any of my precious leisurely weekend time.
My younger brother just bought a slow cooker and texted me late one night asking for advice on classic slow cooker recipes he should know. Of course I sent him a few links to favorite recipes, but it got me thinking about the basic but brilliant things that a slow cooker can churn out for everyday eats. Here are the 12 slow cooker classics that every home cook should know by heart.
(Image credit: Ambitious Kitchen)
Forget Raymond — Everybody Loves Pancakes should have been the name of the show. After all, have you ever met anyone who doesn’t love pancakes? I mean, what kind of monster wouldn’t love a warm, fluffy stack of hot cakes with maple syrup and a pat of butter melting in tantalizing rivers down the tower?
When my family’s apartment flooded, we — my husband, 10-month-old daughter, geriatric rabbit, and I — decamped to my parents’ house. As we waited for insurance companies to settle the bill, we divvied up dinner duty: My mom and I took turns during the week and on weekends, my husband would cook, or my dad would get takeout.
In some ways, it was easier. I cooked less frequently, if for more people, and that meant sometimes I could enjoy feeding little bub instead of trying to make dinner at the same time. Even still, it’s awkward cooking in someone else’s kitchen!
As a work-from-home mom, I’d already developed some strategies to get dinner on the table, and they came in very handy as we all learned to get along. Here’s how we made it work.
The official first day of fall is just around the corner, and temperatures are starting to drop around here, finally giving me permission to cook the cozy cold-weather fare I’ve been craving since August. This week’s meal plan is all about welcoming fall with some of our favorite foods. They’re always easy to make and devoured by adults and kids alike.
