Posts Tagged ‘Meal’

Mr.CBB’s Rustic Country Ham Vegetable Soup

Posted: November 25, 2012 in Mr.CBB's Frugal Kitchen
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
29

Rustic Homemade Vegetable Soup

As the days and nights get colder homemade soup during the winter months always seems to be on the menu. Some of our favourites are broth based but we also like cream of broccoli, potato and ham, and pea soup. I am passionate and well-known for creating and throwing things into a pot to see what I can stir up but I’m rubbish with naming my creations. Today’s easy to make soup name was created by my mate Beth Ann better known as (Aunt B on a Budget) who jumped at the opportunity to name this soup. Each night on Facebook I post my “What’s For Dinner” post and I share what frugal meal we are making and ask the fans to do the same. Well I’m thrilled to see many fans cooking homemade meals and wanting to try new recipes. It’s a great way to connect with the fans as well as learn different meals that we can create in our own home.

Budgeting and Food do go hand in hand as it is part of that Umbrella I talk about in my Best Financial Tip post. I’m sure any foodies will tell you that making soup at home is cheaper than cracking open a can plus it’s better for you. If you are spending money on something it’s all part of the budget. So, after asking my fans last night to help me name my new soup Beth Anne instantly came up with “Rustic Country Vegetable Soup” then I added in the ham part. Thanks Beth! So today I bring to you this quick, easy soup that doesn’t come from a can it comes from my kitchen to yours. I hope you enjoy this simple soup recipe as much as we did last night. We enjoyed this with some fresh buttered Italian bread or you can make your own like my olive bread recipe that matches  well with this soup.

What are your favourite types of homemade soups?

Tools:

  • Big Soup Pot
  • Small pot
  • Strainer
  • ladle
  • spoon
  • can opener
  • peeler
  • chopping board
  • knife

Time:

  • 15 minutes to prep
  • 45 minutes to cook

Ingredients:

  • Left over vegetable peels- I used carrot peel, onion peel, celery tops and fennel tops or 6 cups of vegetable stock
  • 4 tablespoons/cubes of chicken bouillon or 4 cups of chicken stock
  • 1 Fresh basil cube (**if you don’t have this, 1/2 cup fresh chopped basil or 1/4 cup dry basil**)
  • 4 cloves of garlic minced
  • 1 medium onion chopped
  • 2 carrots chopped
  • 1 tomato chopped
  • 1 cup of chopped celery
  • juice of half a fresh lime
  • 1 tablespoon freshly chopped ginger
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon of pepper
  • 1 tablespoon of dry parsley or bunch of fresh chopped
  • 1 small can of tomato paste
  • 1/2 cup orzo pasta
  • 1/2 cup of pearl barley
  • 2 cups of  dry black beans **dry-soak over night than boil for 15 minutes or use canned black beans** (you can use as much or little as you wish)
  • 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
  • 2 cups of chopped ham chunks

Preparation:

  • Put the black beans that were soaking over night in a small pot of water and boil them just until tender, remove and rinse.
  • While the beans are cooking take all your peels and pop them into a pot with 6 cups of cold water. Boil until the peels are tender and the broth takes on a yellow or golden hue. Strain the vegetable stock and compost the vegetable peels.
  • Put the beans inside the pot of vegetable broth along with the basil cube, and the chicken bouillon or chicken stock then bring to a boil
  • Add in your vegetables onions, celery, carrots, tomato
  • Add in the minced garlic
  • Add in the chopped ham
  • Add in the pearl barley and orzo pasta
  • Add in the salt and pepper
  • Add in the juice of half a lime
  • Add in the fresh ginger
  • Add in the fresh Parsley
  • Add in the tomato paste
  • Add in the extra virgin olive oil
  • Stir and simmer on medium heat for 45 minutes or until the barley is cooked
  • Enjoy!

It's Not About How Much Money You Make It's How You Spend It

Are you NEW to Canadian Budget Binder?

If you are new to Canadian Budget Binder >>>Start here!

LIKE or Follow Mr.CBB on Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest or you can also sign up for email notifications Here

Related articles
About these ads

Reader Question: Meal Planning For The Budget

Posted: August 6, 2012 in Reader Questions
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
56

Meal planning and budgets go hand in hand but not everyone takes the time to do them. Although meal planning is a weekly chore the more you do it the easier it will get for you. For people who want to stick to a grocery budget creating a simple meal plan helps them to be creative in the kitchen while saving money in their wallets.

This week’s reader question pertains to my nightly “What’s For Dinner” post on my Facebook fan page. If you follow the blog regularly you know that we have a Grocery Budget of $190 a month.

We work with this number to create healthy, quick, frugal meals whilst trying to get the best bang for our buck. We often have people ask us how to grocery shop because they want to learn how to save money in their budget. It all starts with a commitment otherwise you may make it through the first week and return to your old ways.

You also know that we like to use coupons but only on items that we know we will use in our meals. We have gone back to basics and have saved so much just by cutting out the “wants” and replacing them only with the “needs”. Planning takes time so don’t give up if you feel overwhelmed start slow and work your way up to a full weeks meal plan.

Here is our reader question… 

How do you feed 5 people for $5 and have a complete meal? I’m single and I can’t eat for $5. Even if I buy a pizza slice and pop that costs me $5.50.

What am I doing wrong?

Signed,

Dude, Please Help me

Once a week we like to splurge on something that we want to eat that we wouldn’t normally prepare. I don’t believe in depriving the human body of its desires, especially food. We aim for $5 meals or less but sometimes we spend more but that’s OK  The last thing you want to do is be a Meal Drill Sargent and stress over not creating a $5 meal every night. Cut yourself some slack until you build up a recipe stash that holds all your favourite frugal meals.

Cost Breakdown Of A Meal

I don’t calculate every spice I use to a “T” but I believe I have a good estimate in price. Pasta with a Sauce made with sausages, onions, mushrooms, peppers… will feed 7 people. This is our cost using coupons and flyer sales.

Cost: $5.25 approximately 

  • 2 boxes of pasta sale $1.00-$0.75 coupon=$0.25 each
  • Sausages sale $1.88
  • cans of  Aylmer tomatoes  sale with coupon $0.50 x 2
  • can tomato paste $0.59
  • onion $0.15
  • 1 carrot $0.09
  • fresh mushrooms Sale $0.99
  • 6 cloves of garlic free from father-laws garden
  • 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil Approx $0.25 = $5.45 as I forgot the oil in the original post at approximately $5.25
  • I also tossed in some herbs from the garden, fresh basil and parsley.
Meal Planning For The Budget

Not all our meals are this frugal as it really depends on our meal for the night and how much the ingredients cost us out of pocket. We like to eat quality food so sometimes we have to bite the bullet and deal with paying a higher price. We have worked hard this year creating new recipes and cooking homemade meals.

It’s been fun but we also realized how much convenience foods cost us in the grocery budget. We started posting our shops in The Grocery Game Challenge to help us to be accountable for our grocery budget for 2 and to motivate others to stick to theirs. I hope you will join us and post your weekly shop and save along with us.

We are not full-fledged weekly meal planners but we are working on it slowly and so far so good. Some weeks we have the entire week completed and others we simply throw together using what we have on hand. I print out our free weekly  MEAL PLANNER and sit down with Mrs. CBB to see what meals we can create using our stockpile in the  Pantry and Freezer  and by reviewing our Pantry and Freezer inventory lists.

Once we know what we have to work with we look at the weekly flyer specials and try to match up coupons if we can. Sometimes we just want to try something new so we put the ingredients we need on the shopping list.

My friend Dennis makes a weekly meal plan with his wife and I have learned quite a bit from Dennis who blogs at What to cook?. They cook nutritious meals that don’t compromise on flavour and easy on the budget. We also check out Aunt B on a Budget out of Duncan, British Columbia who always has some great recipes up her sleeve.

Meal planning takes time but after a while I know we will get the hang of it. Eating out vs eating in like the reader suggests they have done will always cost you more money. When someone does the work for you, your pocket-book will pay as it’s no secret that convenience costs money. Learn to cook at home and eat out as a treat once in a while if you are hoping to stick to a grocery budget.

Frugal Meals 

Some of the frugal meals we’ve created and prepared are below. You can also find many other sweet treats and recipes from the CBB kitchen in the Mr.CBB’s Kitchen Category.

I can’t tell you what your budget should be or when you can and can’t eat out, only you can make that decision. When meal planning if you have to ask yourself, “How much should my grocery budget be?”, working out a personal budget first is probably a good place to start.

How do you meal plan in order to stick to your grocery budget?

Quote-Budget and Money

Are you NEW to Canadian Budget Binder?

  • You can Follow Canadian Budget Binder on Twitter  or Facebook and Pinterest.
  • You can also subscribe to Canadian Budget Binder so you don’t miss a blog post. Fill in your email address on the HOME page of the blog off to the left where it says “Subscribe Via Email”

Photo Credit:123RF

Related articles
Older Entries