New Book

Finally we have put together our new book titled "60+ Tips To Feed A Family Of 4 With Less Than $100 A Week".

Rick Henderson

Almond Butter

Almonds have been on sale where I live. I decided to make a batch of almond butter for fun. I spread the bag of almonds $3.99 on a baking sheet and roasted them at 350F until the aroma filled the room. Remove from the baking sheet and place in a food processor with 1/4 cup of peanut oil or any other oil you hav lying around the house. Add 1/4 cup of sweetner and puree in your food processor for approximately 5 minutes. You may have to add more oil and push the nuts back into the mixing bowl. when done transfer to a plastic container and stick in the fridge to cool.

The almond butter will firm up when it has cooled. Sometimes you will have to stir it to blend the oils that may have seperated.  I like mine on an english muffin.

Enjoy!

Day 3 36 Meals for $30

Day 3

The adults started with ¾ cup of quick oats, brown sugar and raisins. To my surprise, there was some extra quick oats. If we ran out of the other foods we could always have a breakfast meal for dinner ( we did it yesterday). For the kids I made a half batch of pancakes (6) and used the last of the home made apple syrup and also brought out the apple slices I had boiled to make the apple syrup. The boiled apple slices were very sweet and can be used to to eat as a topping on pancakes. We have made it through breakfast on the last day and I still have two whole eggs. Lunch was little bit on the lighter side as we had a nice simple but large salad. Most of the leftover vegetables such as iceberg lettuce, green leaf lettuce, carrots, celery, cucumber etc... were used to make the salad.

Day 2 36 meals for $30

Day 2

The morning looked very similar to day one. ¾ cup of quick oats with brown sugar and raisins for the adults and pancakes with homemade apple syrup for the kids. The best part of that morning was I could microwave everything for the kids breakfast which meant a lot less clean up.

Lunch was a huge salad, The oldest did not want to have salad but gave in when she realized it was salad or wait for a late snack before dinner.

Late snack was a nutritious apple.

Dinner started with an appetizer of garlic french fries. My family loves johnny cake and or pancakes and will eat them anytime any place. Last night I combined the two and we had a great big feast of corn cakes. Corn cakes is a simple pancake recipe where you substitute 2/3rds of the flour recipe with corn meal flour and add an extra tablespoon of sugar to the batter mixture. The cooked product is the same as a pancake but the cornmeal gives it a different texture with a slightly sweeter taste from the corn. The only problem is we ate most of the syrup, there was only ½ a cup of syrup left for tomorrow's breakfast.

After dinner I was doing an inventory of who much food we have left as my meal plan changed dramatically without being able to purchase any chicken. Supplies were looking low with only 1 tomato a partial onion and everything else almost gone. I had to remind the family that portion control was going to be essential to having enough food to make this work. Proper serving sizes will help us last one more day.

Last night I made the leftover salad, this basically all the leftover vegetables that is not designated for other meals. My plastic container is now packed with salad for the last day.

Day 1 36 Meals for $30

Pre Day 1

The evening before we started this three day event was going to be crucial. The meal plan had already changed as I was unable to afford chicken that only a few days earlier was $0.66 a pound. The chicken was going to be the base of our meals as a meal, the extra meat would add sustenance to salads and pizza, the rest was be used for a soup.

The night before we started I prepared to make a huge salad that would be stored in a large plastic container. ½ a head of lettuce and red leaf lettuce made the base of this salad. A tomato, and half of all the vegetables I purchased were used to give the salad flavor, texture and color. Everything was put in a large container for future meals.

Next task was to make the home made syrup for the pancakes. 2 cups of water and one sliced apple are brought to a boil and then simmered for a couple minutes before the cup of sugar I purchased at the store is added. I thickened it with some cornstarch and vanilla. This gave me three days worth of apple flavored syrup.

Day 1

Here we go, let the adventure in food begin. The Morning began with the adults eating a combined ¾ cup of quick oats with raisins and a little brown sugar. Since the kids are on summer vacation I let them sleep in for a while. My plan was to make a batch of 12 pancakes which would give them each 3 pancakes with home made syrup. The batch would last 2 days.

Lunch was a simple homemade cheese pizza with salad. The pizza sauce was a combination of 1 tomato, garlic clove, a little bit of red onion, oregano, and vegetable oil. Blend until smooth and spread on the home made pizza dough.

Late snack was leftover pizza slices or an apple. We did make a small loaf of bread during the afternoon to have with our dinner.

Dinner was spaghetti with cooked ground pork seasoned with butter oregano and basil. It was simple and filling.

The Scratch is our newest book about feeding a family on a budget. we have made this free book available to help familes like ours get started with three simple dinner meals. These three meals will help you save big dollars when you are ready to start budgeting.

If you would like a copy all you have to do is email me. I understand privacy is a concern for everybody and I promise that I will not share your email with anyone. Everything we do is done manually. I will check my email  a couple times a day and send you a pdf file.

The Book is free and you can share it with anybody you like as long as you do not try to sell it.

Simply put "The Scratch" in your subject line and sent to: rickjhenderson@hotmail.com

The Grocery List

The end result of our shopping trip was I felt unsure if I could afford everything I had in my grocery cart. To limit the embarrassment in case I had to much food and had to pick and chose what stayed behind and what was going to be purchased I used self checkout. The end result was I had to leave the hamburger behind. We had no meat to eat over the next few days, The chicken was its usual low price and scales in the produce section were not very accurate so the apples cost far more than I had estimated. Some tough choices had to be made at the grocery store that left me feeling like I was not providing for my family.

While the feeling of not providing everything my family needed stayed with me. I tried to over compensate that feeling with the fact I can cook and we will get by.

The grocery list was very short. It required many

their income from two jobs

The Grocery list;

To make the most of my $30.00 budget I had to travel to two stores, the first store was important because they have bulk foods. This allowed me to maximize my dollars by purchasing ingredients in the portions I needed to use for the following three days.

My bulk list was 2.5 cups quick oats, ½ cup brown sugar, 1 cup white sugar, ½ cup raisins. Everything else on my list was going to be purchased at the regular grocery store.

My regular grocery store list was 7 small gala apples, 3 small green apples, green leaf lettuce, iceberg lettuce, 3 bulk carrots, celery bunch, 1 cucumber, 3 tomatoes, 1 red onion, 2 cup bag of store brand shredded Mexican mix cheese, 1 block unsalted butter, 1 gallon 1% milk, 1lb of manager special ground pork, 1lb box spaghetti, 5lbs of potatoes and vegetable oil.

What to Eat???

The plan is to live like it is financially tough for us. The scenario for us is to assume our kitchen is almost out of food. The weeks leading up to this event required some easy planning of purchasing less food at the grocery store to empty out the fridge and cupboards. During the past few weeks we were able to make substantial space in the fridge and cupboard to allow a whole shelf in the fridge for our three days worth of food and one shelf in the cupboard for non perishable foods.

Three food items were able to be brought from our current supply into our three day event. The three items could not be the most expensive shopping items as that would just make this task seem to easy. The foods had to represent items that carry over from grocery shopping week to week. For our family the three items were yeast, baking powder and lemons. This may seem like a strange combination but it will fit into our dietary needs.

How tough is tough? We had $30.00 to feed a family of four for three days. 12 meals and only $30.00 to do it with. When I told my family we were doing this a couple weeks ago they just brushed it off and carried on. Yesterday when I reminded them about this three day event they were kind of upset. But I 

explained it as, imagine us running out of money and we still needed to eat until payday. This happens to thousands of families everyday. I would rather learn how to cope while I can afford to eat than learn how to cope because we have no choice. At least we will appreciate what we have.

The shopping trip started with both children going shopping with me. Almost instantly after the doors closed in the first grocery store they asked to get some candy. I reminded them that we are purchasing only what we need for the next three days. The list was small as we planned to purchase only what was needed to feed us for three days. The first stop was the quick oats bulk bin followed by the dried raisins. The kids agreed to eat pancakes for breakfast over the next few days with home made apple flavored syrup. We headed to the bulk sugar bin when the oldest child tried to work her magic asking in her gentle voice if they could get a small bag of gummie bears. I know what she was up to and played the game by asking which meal would she give up so she can have some gummie bears to eat? Her initial response was lunch but after she changed her mind to sacrifice the bears for lunch. We quickly finished getting the remaining items on our list. The first store seemed easy, my list was small and I had relatively a substantial amount of cash leftover.

We left the first grocery store and headed to our last stop where some of the biggest priced items were going to be purchased. The plan was to start with the fresh fruits and vegetables. This proved to be time consuming and difficult. Eat bag of fruit needed to be counted, weighed, and mathematically calculated in my head since I did not bring a calculator with me. The kids disappeared for a while looking for samples to try which really helped.

Loss of Income Creates Changes in How We Eat

We all enjoy watching the cooking shows where only the finest and freshest ingredients are used. Cost is no object for their belief of eating what is considered to be the best. For the rest of us, convenience comes at a price that will easily be justified by marketing that it is healthy and quick. As long as we can afford to fund our beliefs nothing really changes.

But something did change. The economy slowed and many families were not able to keep having a dual income family. For single income families they lost all their income and had to resort to using savings or government assistance.

Change for these groups came fast and hard. These people realized very quickly, wasting food is the equivalent of throwing away good money. Forget about dining out as a form of entertainment or as a way to feed a family. With very little extra income dining out is usually the first expense that suddenly becomes expendable.

The transition to cutting back on food expenses usually takes some time. Non essential packaged foods are still purchased but not as much as in the past. For many people the cost of food is just now being realized as before it was a simple get what we want swipe a piece of plastic and sign on the computer screen.

The reality of food costs really hit home when you find the few snacks and packaged foods you can barely afford to purchase only half eaten. Expensive low nutritional valued being thrown away. When times are financially tough you can realize what many low income families already know.

The limited food budget has to achieve maximum value and quantity. Nutrition must be reasonably balanced and waste must be kept to a minimum.

The Scratch is our newest book about feeding a family on a budget. we have made this free book available to help familes like ours get started with three simple dinner meals. These three meals will help you save big dollars when you are ready to start budgeting.

If you would like a copy all you have to do is email me. I understand privacy is a concern for everybody and I promise that I will not share your email with anyone. Everything we do is done manually. I will check my email  a couple times a day and send you a pdf file.

The Book is free and you can share it with anybody you like as long as you do not try to sell it.

Simply put "The Scratch" in your subject line and sent to: rickjhenderson@hotmail.com

$30 to feed a family of four for 3 days (36 meals)

The plan is to survive on $30 for three days worth of meals. The cupboards are almost bare with very little food mostly condiments such as yeast cornstarch and one chicken breast. Many people have great ideas about how they will feed their family on a weekly budget. Most budgets today are based on having enough money to purchase everything a family could need. The more money you have to spend the more outlandish your beliefs can be to justify a budget.

The Scratch is our newest book about feeding a family on a budget. we have made this free book available to help familes like ours get started with three simple dinner meals. These three meals will help you save big dollars when you are ready to start budgeting.

If you would like a copy all you have to do is email me. I understand privacy is a concern for everybody and I promise that I will not share your email with anyone. Everything we do is done manually. I will check my email  a couple times a day and send you a pdf file.

The Book is free and you can share it with anybody you like as long as you do not try to sell it.

Simply put "The Scratch" in your subject line and sent to: rickjhenderson@hotmail.com

Filet Mignon

We can all imagine a juicy, pefectly cooked filet mignon being served at a fancy restaurant that none of us can afford. In our home we occassionaly eat filet mignon.

The difference is we have to do a tiny bit of preparation to make it perfect. First we purchase inexpensive sirloin steaks, we do this when our grocery store is having a sale. The steaks usually come in a package of 5 or 6 individual steaks. We also purchase a small 1/2 package of bacon.

As described in earlier posts we will age the sirloin in the fridge for 4 -6 days by wrapping it with paper towel and changing the paper towel each time it becomes moist.

Each piece of sirloin is wrapped in bacon, held in place with tooth picks. All that is left to do is grill your meat.

I find that we can occassionally eat like we are at a fancy steak house by doing it this way and adding a couple veggies on the side.

Inexpensive Breakfast

If you are like me you have probably noticed the "gentle" increase in the price of cereal lately. Some cereals have gone up by 50% or more.

We have changed the cereal we eat and now we eat Quick Oats as the basis of our hot cereal breakfast. The best part is Quick Oats are low in sodium but high is quality. The cost is 1/4 the cost of regular cereal. In my city I can purchase bulk quick oats for $0.99 a pound.

4 pounds of cereal can feed a family a lot of meals for very little. The problem is quick oats can be a little bland or become boring after awhile. To help make brfeakfast more appealing we change a few things such as;
Cooking with milk instead of water
Adding raising to the milk while it heats up
Sweetening with 1 Tbsp of brown sugar per serving
Adding 1 Tbsp of Maple Syrup (sugar free) to each serving
Topping with fruit (we like banana)

You can even add small pieces of chocolate

For us a  $4 purchase of Quick Oats from a bulk store will feed our family for more than 1 month.

"The Scratch" Free E-Book

Here is a quote from one of my readers,
This is a great little book! Thanks! It is amazing how many people don't know how to make homemade pasta or homemade bread. It doesn't take much time and it saves a bundle. I recently bought a book from Amazon on how to make Artisan bread. It really only takes about 2-1/2 hours from start to finish and hardly any kneading and the bread is amazing. I bought an electric pasta maker at a secondhand store and you are right ...nothing beats the taste of homemade pasta and it costs pennies.

Keep up the great work!

The Scratch is our newest book about feeding a family on a budget. we have made this free book available to help familes like ours get started with three simple dinner meals. These three meals will help you save big dollars when you are ready to start budgeting.

If you would like a copy all you have to do is email me. I understand privacy is a concern for everybody and I promise that I will not share your email with anyone. Everything we do is done manually. I will check my email  a couple times a day and send you a pdf file.

The Book is free and you can share it with anybody you like as long as you do not try to sell it.

Simply put "The Scratch" in your subject line and sent to: rickjhenderson@hotmail.com

How To Make Pancakes Healthier - 8 Tips

We all love big tall stacks of fluffy white pancakes with crispy golden edges.
Not everyone can eat this kind of pancakes.
Here are a couple easy tips to make your next batch healthier while still keeping the flavor and texture.

1) Make them yourself instead of purchasing pancake mix.
2) Use olive oil instead of vegetable oil in your batter.
3) Use butter flavored non-stick spray instead of oil on your griddle.
4) Whole wheat flour instead of enriched, bleached white flour.
5) Add Wheat germ 1/4cup to a batch of batter.
6) Include Quick Oats to your batter, this should be added to wet ingredients.
7) Make your own syrup by boiling fruit (apples, bananas, pears, vanilla) in water then add sugar to sweeten.
8) Use artificial sweetner to make syrup.

Aging A Steak - Make It Taste Like It Was Expensive

You can get your free copy of my mini book "The Scratch" It is three great  meals you can make your family.
Simply send me an email and I will reply back with a PDF. I am doing this manually and I promise not to share your email adddress.
rickjhenderson@hotmail.com

We all enjoy going out to a steak house for a really good steak. The age the steak to give it a nice meaty flavor and cook it just the way you like it every time. The problem is if you are on a budget like we are, yo can not afford to eat at steak houses.
Rather than do without our family will eat at"Chez Henderson's" Steak House. Really it is fancy for eating good steak at home for a fraction of the cost.

Beside meat you do not need all of items to age a steak other than time. Wire rack, plate, paper towel are all you need.

We purchase some low costing sirloin for this one on Monday, wrapped each piece in paper towel, placed on the wire rack stuck it in the fridge for 24 hours.

After 24 hours we removed the paper towel and wrapped with new paper towel and place back in the fridge. If your meat continues to dampen the paper towel you must keep changing it.

Friday we had the day off work and headed down to the BBQ for a nice steak lunch. Asparagus was on sale and the baked potato rounded out the whole meal.

Oatmeal Make My Morning Go!

After most workout mornings oatmeal is my source of food. I really like making it the old fashion way in a pot. Since it only has to cook for 2 minutes it is the quick hot breakfast meal I prefer. I now use skim milk instead of water, I grab a handfull of raisins (loaded with Iron) and add them to the milk before I turn the heat on. A little brown sugar for sweetness without adding sodium and right after I put the oatmeal in the my bowl I add sliced banana on top (loaded with potassium).

You can get your free copy of my mini book "The Scratch" It is three great  meals you can make your family.
Simply send me an email and I will reply back with a PDF. I am doing this manually and I promise not to share your email adddress
rickjhenderson@hotmail.com

24 lbs Gone In a Month

Why am I posting this information on a budget blog/

It seems I may have caught a bug, the running bug. Feeding a family on  a budget is always tough but now fitness seems to have caught on in our family. Fitness requires food as fuel for the body. Similar to a casr engine, the better fuel you put in the better performance.

We are putting better fuel / food in our bodies and still living within our budget.

So far the whole family has lost 41 lbs!

You can get your free copy of my mini book "The Scratch" It is three great  meals you can make your family.
Simply send me an email and I will reply back with a PDF. I am doing this manually and I promise not to share your email adddress
rickjhenderson@hotmail.com

Chicken Roasted Two Different Ways

Roast chicken,

Roast chicken can save w grocery budget when you are trying to feed a family. As a follow up to my last entry. The grocery store had a sale on chicken that was so great I could not refuse to purchase some.

I picked up three chickens for a great deal. I put one in the freezer for future use and cooked the other two at the same time in my giant roaster.

To roast the chicken I decided to do two different styles;

The first chicken was very simple, was pat dry with paper towel and run with olive oil.

The second chicken I made a by combining equal parts 1 tablespoon of garlic powder, onion powder, poultry seasoning. I added ½ tablespoons of oregano and chili powder for some kick and finally 2 tablespoons of brown sugar for sweetness. I found the best way to mix spices is to use your hands.

I repeated the process of washing the chicken in cold water and patting dry with paper towel. I finished the second chicken by rubbing by hand my spice rub all over the chicken.

Here is a picture of the cooked chicken.

The meat has been used for chicken salads, sandwich meat, stir frys, and as part of roast chicken dinner. The bones will go into the slow cooker later for amazing chicken broth / soup

Sometimes The Grocery Store Will Dictate What You Eat!

I am all for clipping coupons to save money while grocery shopping. Unlike the extremists who can create major savings, my savings come mostly from spend $25 and receive $5.00 off.

Sometimes the grocery stores have loss leaders to get us in their store that are to good to be true. For example my local store had Iceberg lettuce for $1.49 a head. A competitor had the same lettuce for $0.33 and fryer chicken for $0.59 lb.

Without boring you another grocery store had an amazing sale on produce and vegetables.

I could not pass up on these deals, with $25 in my hand we shopped and we will be eating alot of chicken and vegetables this week.

Lasagna - full of flavor taste and texture

You can get a free copy of our book "The Scratch" by sending an email to rickjhenderson@hotmail.com I won't share your email with anybody.

This Lasagna is flavorful, tasty and the kids end up eating a lot of vegetables.
We like this recipe because it gives us a low fat, low sodium meal that is full of vegetables. The ingredients are very simple but the taste is powerful.

My ingredients are:
Olive oil
Red and yellow peppers
Celery
Garlic
Tomato
Onion
Oregano
1 pound of ground turkey
Grated Cheese
Whole wheat flour
2 eggs

First step is to cook the ground chicken in a non-stick skillet with a fat free spray. while the turkey is cooking begin making the pasta by breaking the eggs adding some olive oil and then the flour mix and knead.

While the dough is resting roughly chop 1/4 of each pepper and a cup of celery, place in a bowl. Cut up two tomatoes and place in a blender with two garlic cloves, onion and oregano. Turn the blender on and add olive oil. Blend until smooth and pour into bowl with chopped veggies and mix.

Begin heating a pot of water to cook the pasta noodle in.  roll the pasta dough into thin strips and place in boiling water for 30 seconds. Remove and oil so it won't stick.

Chop the cooled cooked ground turkey.

Place 1/3 third of the vegetable sauce oon the bottoom of the pan, then a layer of ground turkey, then a layer of shredded cheese, followed by a layer of pasta noodle. Add dollups of home made Greek style yogurt cheese.

Repeat and finally add shredded cheese to cover the top and bake at 350 for one hour.

Soup Salad Grilled Chicken and Whole Wheat Pasta

You can get a free copy of our book "The Scratch" by sending an email to rickjhenderson@hotmail.com "The Scratch is about three great super inexpensive meals you can make for your family, the flavors will make you a hit with the family the savings will definetly ease your pocket book.
Privacy statement: I won't share your email with anybody.

What an amazing week!
April 27th I took up running. First day was 120 yards with a break in the middle. Today
I reached my goal of running 100 60yard runs.
The food we have been eating lately has been really health oriented.
similar to pizza salad can be made with anything including grilled chicken, hummus and Greek yogurt cheese.
The bones and skin from grilling chicken  wer put into a slow cooker to make an incredible broth. The soups I made with this broth were packed full of veggies. I used half a bunch of celery stock and my kids cleaned out the slow cooker. Good broth is everything!

Picked up a bag of whole wheat flour and made 100% whole wheat pasta, truly it was an amazing meal.

We are still under budget and eating fine.

On a side note the family has dropped a combined 32 pounds in the last three weeks.