Strawberry Salad

How to create this recipe for almost no cost:

Strawberry Salad:

Serves: 4

1.) Pick a small head of lettuce from the garden, rinse, chop and put into a mixing bowl.

2.) Add halved or quartered strawberries that you obtained for free.

3.) Add 4 or 5 tablespoons of vinniagrette.

4.) Toss it all together and serve.

Price:

Minimal if you grow the lettuce and can find a free source of strawberries. It will only cost a few cents to prepare.

Serve with:

Sandwiches at lunch.

Soup at dinner.

Garden Vegetable Salad

This would make a great side salad to any meal, or even a wonderful snack.  If you can keep it cold, you can even pack it for school or work lunches, or as part of your picnic meal.

This salad is easy to prepare, and can be almost completely free if you grow everything yourself. If you purchase the items needed, you should look at spending about $15.00. You will have leftover ingredients to use with other meals.

Adding salads to an already vegetable rich meal is a healthy way to get in all of your vegetable servings each day. I have read that we should be getting in about 9 servings of vegetable a day, rather than the 4 or 5 servings that we are all used to.

Garden Vegetable Salad:

Serves 4:

4 cups cabbage, shredded

4 cups lettuce, shredded

1 cup snap peas, uncooked

1 cup beans, uncooked

1 cup carrots, shredded

1/4 cup fresh chives, chopped

1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped

20 cherry or grape tomatoes

1 cucumber, sliced

1) Combine everything into a large bowl.

2) Toss and serve.

Vegetable, Chicken and Egg Salad

Yet another yummy salad from the lover of salads herself, LOL. Yes, I love to create salads. Why? Because I do not like to eat the same thing over and over again. I like to change things up, try new combinations of food.

This salad makes a complete lunch or dinner salad, and would be even better with corn on the cob and some garlic bread. Dressing is not necessary.

Vegetable, Chicken and Egg Salad:

Serves 4

4 cups lettuce, shredded

1 cup Radicchio, shredded

1/4 cup fresh parsley, shredded

1/4 cup fresh chives, shredded

1 cup carrots, shredded

4 pieces cold chicken, chopped into bite size pieces

4-8 hard-bolied eggs, sliced

1) Combine everything in a large bowl and toss together.

2) Serve with dressing if you like

 

Price:

You could make this completely free if you visited the food cupboard, depending upon what you came home with. The whole kit-n-caboodle wouldn’t cost to much if the herbs and vegetables were grown in your own garden. Expect to pay about $16.00 for ingredients if you purchase everything. You will have plenty of fresh produce left over for other meals.

Vegetable and Egg Salad

I love salads during the summer months. They are lite meals, and can be very quick and easy to make.

If you happen to use the food cupboard, then you likely have a lot of produce that needs to be used. Salads are a great way to use these items up, without a lot of fuss and without heating up the house too much.

If you happen to grow some of your own food, then you can utilize this gift by growing salad gardens.

This salad could be eaten with a meal, or as lunch. Why? Because the eggs make the salad more filling and give you needed protein.

Vegetable and Egg Salad:

Serves 2

2-4 hard-boiled eggs, out of the shell and sliced

lettuce, shredded

carrots, shredded

cucumber, sliced

cabbage, shredded

sunflower seeds

1.) Simply toss everything together in a bowl.

2.) Dish this up and add dressing of your choice.

I do not use dressing.

 

This recipe would be great served with garlic or Italian bread.

Price:

Could be next to free if you grew the food or went to the food cupboard. Otherwise, look at spending about $8.00, which will give you plenty of leftover food for other meals.

Tomato Soup Idea #3

You may realize by now that we love tomato soup here. It is great on the chillier days that we are still having, especially after a walk or yard work.

I regularly come up with ideas for making soup more wholesome. I do this very cheaply, either by using leftovers or by purchasing items on sale. Sometime, the entire meal is free. This happens when everything has come from the food cupboard and/or friends or my own garden.

Tomato soups are easy to make:

1 can tomato soup

1 can milk or water

corn

tomatoes, diced

 

You can serve this soup with oyster crackers or a grilled cheese sandwich.

What interesting things do you do with your tomato soup?

Shannon

Tomato Soup Idea #2

I wanted share another soup idea with you today, again using tomato soup as the base. Tomato soup is high in sodium, so you may want to try to find a brand with less sodium for optimal health effects.

I regularly come up with ideas for making soup more wholesome. I do this very cheaply, either by using leftovers or by purchasing items on sale. Sometime, the entire meal is free. This happens when everything has come from the food cupboard and/or friends or my own garden.

Tomato soups are easy to make:

1 can tomato soup

1 can milk or water

peas

celery, diced

 You can serve this soup with oyster crackers or a grilled cheese sandwich.

What interesting things do you do with your tomato soup?

Shannon

Tomato Soup Idea #1

I regularly come up with ideas for making soup more wholesome. I do this very cheaply, either by using leftovers or by purchasing items on sale. Sometime, the entire meal is free. This happens when everything has come from the food cupboard and/or friends or my own garden.

Tomato soups are easy to make:

1 can tomato soup

1 can milk or water

carrots

broccoli

 

You can serve this soup with oyster crackers or a grilled cheese sandwich.

What interesting things do you do with your tomato soup?

Shannon

Vegetable Plate for Lunch or Snack

This serves 4:

4 stalks of celery, sliced long

4 carrots, sliced long

8 cauliflower flowerettes

peanut butter as a dip placed in the center of the plate, mixed with sunflower seeds.

Vegetable Mix-Up Stew/Soup

I will be posting a couple of other recipes for the Vegetable Mix-Ups that I explained in the previous post. Here is a nice one with variations for a soup/stew.

Ingredients:

1 container frozen veggie mix-ups

enough water/stock/broth to cover mix-ups

 

1. Add the frozen mix-ups to a pan with the liquid.

2. Cook on medium to medium high heat until vegetables are thawed and warmed through.

Very simple.

Variations:

• You can add noodles, or noodles and chicken. Don’t add the noodles until shortly before you want to serve the stew/soup.
• You can add dumplings.
• You could add another kind of meat: Ground beef, ham, turkey.
• Add any herbs and spices that you would like five or 10 minutes before serving.

Enjoy!

Shannon

Freezer Mix-Ups

I feel very blessed to have been able to freeze some produce for winter us. Today I froze:

• 3 bags vegetable mix-ups
• 1 bag fruit mix-ups

So, what are mix-ups?  Well, to make a mix-up, all you do slice/chop fruits or vegetables for freezing. These will likely be different each time you freeze, with different types of produce and different amounts of each.

Here is how I make a vegetable mix-up:

• Take out a large mixing bowl and a cooking spoon for mixing.
• Get you your cutting board and a sharp knife.
• Take the vegetables out of your refrigerator that you are worrying about going to waste. Produce that may not be the freshest, but could be used in a stew or something.
• Chop up all of the vegetables and throw them into the bowl.
• When you are done with the cutting, throw out the trash (or compost it!) and then mix up what is in the bowl.
• Judge how many freezer containers you will need, get them ready and label them veggie mix-up.
• Spoon the vegetables into the container(s) and freeze.

To make fruit mix-ups, take the same steps above and use the fruit mix-ups for smoothies.

These are great ways to help your frugal life along. It is frugal to also use leftovers in the same manner, adding even as little as a teaspoon of corn or pees to a freezer mix-up will save you money in the long run.

Shannon