Our Frugal Friday Favorite

For at least the last two months, our Friday dinner has been the same. We make homemade pizza. I've never cared much for homemade pizza in the past but I think that's because we haven't found the right crust recipe. Well, we've found a winner! This is my favorite pizza crust recipe. I have made the garlic cheese sticks too and they are awesome!

I use this dinner as an opportunity to clean out my fridge. Leftover meat, leftover veggies, stuff that needs to be used up soon--all of it goes on a pie! I'm creating less food waste and we never have the same pizza twice!

I also get creative with the sauce. We've used BBQ sauce instead of pizza sauce and my favorite by far is using homemade ranch dressing. I like this recipe.

Fridays are by far my family's favorite day of the week because they love pizza!

Casseroles--It's What's (Leftover) For Dinner!

I love casseroles! They are great for using up leftovers in the fridge. Very little food goes to waste in my house because of casseroles. I use all manner of leftovers in a casserole.

My basic recipe is usually the same:
-a 9 x13 pan
-2 cans of cream of whatever soup (I tailor which cans I use by what I'm putting in it)
If you don't want to use cream of soups you can find a recipe for a cream of whatever in this recipe here.
-about 2 cups of some sort of rice base (I've used white rice, brown rice, quinoa, and cauliflower "rice", or a mixture of 2 of these types of rice)

Then I raid my refrigerator! I choose a meat if I have one (Leftover chicken--yup! Leftover ham--sure!). You could throw some tofu or a soy based "meat" too for the vegetarian folks. Then I look for leftover veggies or any fresh veggies in my fridge that HAVE to be used soon. I've used peas, carrots, mushrooms, broccoli, corn, yellow squash...you name it--I've used it in my casserole. I use common sense here and try to not to put anything that might be weird together in the dish. Be creative--add some bacon, toasted breadcrumbs, anything else that strikes your fancy :)

I mix up all my ingredients and spread in the pan and top with shredded cheese (sometimes I put some grated parmesan in the casserole mixture itself). Then I pop it in a 350 degree oven for 20 minutes. Voila! Easy dinner! You save money by not wasting the food in your fridge! Bon-appetit!

Taco Rice...Easy Without Buying the Pouch Rice

I'll admit that I usually buy the "throw in a pot rice sides." I have noticed however that they are much more expensive at the regular grocery store than they were at the Commissary. I love using the Mexican or Taco rice sides when we do burritos, tacos, or other Mexican dish, however I'm appalled that it costs me upwards of $1.25 or so for just one packet! There are store brand generics but even those are fairly expensive at $.89 or more a packet. So I've been on a quest for a substitute that is just as easy.

Enter homemade Taco Rice. So I looked up recipes for Taco/Mexican rice and decided it took me much longer to locate all the ingredients and cook the rice on the stove, blahdy, blahdy, blah. However, today I decided to throw some medium white grain rice, and part of a ready made packet of Taco seasoning in with the water in my rice cooker. I did mix it up before I turned the rice cooker on. If this works, I can make lots of Taco rice, much cheaper than buying the packets and without having to increase my "workload." I can also control the spices in the rice so my two year old and nine month old can eat it without complaint. I can add as much or as little as I want.

Results:
When I opened the rice cooker, I was hit with the smell of Taco seasoning. The rice itself was tinted a reddish color and upon tasting the rice, it has a very light flavor of spices. It's not the "heavy" taste of the rice packet, but I'd be willing to bet that my version is much healthier for you with much less sodium. Overall, I think this version will be great for my use of leftover chicken for tacos/burritos for dinner tonight. Another plus, I'm saving more money doing it this way too.

Got any suggestions for this recipe? Let me know in the comments!