::: Download the FREE $5 Dinners Toolbar – never miss a recipe, coupon, deal or meal plan! Learn more. :::

I fell wildly behind these last few days…and in the process my beautifully designed meal plan and food photographs just didn’t happened as I hoped they would! I did manage to make this delicious-ness late last week…using up some potatoes I found in the freezer that I’d bought during the 50% off store closing sale.

This week’s $5 Dinner Challenge recipe can be found over on One Dish Dinners -

Ham and Potatoes Saute with Baked Eggs

And yes, it’s Monday afternoon…still trying to figure out what to eat this week. If you need me, I’ll have my head in our deep freezer…still hoping to have cleared it out…by the end of the week! ACK!

Hope you enjoy this delicious & hearty breakfast, or brinner!

__________________________________________________

Have a Frugal and Healthy Recipe to share?

Post the recipe on your blog and then add the link below. Other guidelines can be found here. To make it easy for other readers to find your recipe, please leave the link that leads directly to your recipe post. Any links that lead to your homepage will be deleted. If you don’t have a blog, feel free to leave your recipe in the comments section!

In Canada, Thanksgiving is celebrated on the second Monday in October. That is often the last full weekend of time that we have at the lake. We come home, tired but happy, and we host the family Thanksgiving feast with all the trimmings. Needless to say, I make as much as I can beforehand. It is a great way of doing it, as much of the food improves in flavour if made ahead.

I make dessert, the turkey and the scalloped potatoes ahead of time. The turkey is simple, roast as usual, cool, carve and debone (it is way easier to carve when it is cold), place in a roasting pan and cover with stock. Chill or freeze. If I am freezing turkey, I put it into zipper freezer bags. To serve, defrost fully (if frozen). Remove from refrigerator one hour before reheating. In an oven proof roasting pan, cover the turkey with a lid or foil and reheat at 350 degrees for about an hour for a deboned 12 pound bird.

This is the chilled bird ready for carving!

Here is my recipe for scalloped potatoes. I love using the evaporated milk as it gives a creamy consistency and also helps keep the dish from curdling. I have to apologize that I somehow forgot to take a photo of the baked recipe! However, I must say it was yummy and all the guests raved about it.

Ready for the oven!

Frugal Tip: While it is wise to stock up early on many items, don’t stock up on Holiday staples until later in the season. Most stores discount Holiday merchandise as the Holiday approaches. For example, I bought Halloween Candy in early September (our park hosts Halloween on Labour Day weekend. I bought candy for $15.00 a box in early September, the week before Halloween, the same boxes of candy were less than $10.00. If I could have, I would have waited and saved money.

Tonight’s $5 Dinner Challenge recipes can be found over on One Dish Dinners.

Twice Baked One-Dish Potatoes…a genius idea from longtime friend of $5 Dinners, Duffy T! Plus, I’m sharing my twice baked potatoes piercing trick too!

__________________________________________________

Have a Frugal and Healthy Recipe to share?

Post the recipe on your blog and then add the link below. Other guidelines can be found here. To make it easy for other readers to find your recipe, please leave the link that leads directly to your recipe post. Any links that lead to your homepage will be deleted. If you don’t have a blog, feel free to leave your recipe in the comments section!

This was always my favourite soup as a child and continues to be one of my favourites! It is fast, easy and inexpensive to make.

Serving Size: 8

Ingredients

1 tablespoon oil
2 stalks celery, finely diced
2 medium carrots, finely diced
1 medium onion, finely diced
3 cloves garlic, finely diced
4 large or 6 small potatoes
1/2 cup dried mushrooms, broken up
1/2 teaspoon marjoram
3 cups chicken stock
7 cups water
salt and pepper to taste
2 tablespoons flour

Directions

In a pot on the stove, heat the oil and add the finely chopped vegetables (except the potatoes). I usually do this in large batches and freeze cubes of the cooled vegetable mixture for use in soups, stews, etc. That is what I did here (the squares wrapped in plastic).

Once the vegetables are soft, add the water to the pot.

Cut potatoes into cubes, add to the water in the pot. Add veggies (if they are frozen into cubes), the marjoram, the salt and the pepper. Bring to a boil.

Meanwhile, soak broken up mushrooms in 1 cup of hot stock. Add to soup.

Boil until tender.

Make a slurry: add the flour to cold water and stir until smooth. Slowly add hot liquid (from the soup) to the slurry to bring the slurry to a similar temperature as the soup. Add this mixture to the soup. If you add the flour (or cornstarch) to hot water, you will get lumps, if you add the cold slurry to the hot soup, you will also get lumps.

Boil for five minutes.

Serve now or tomorrow. This, like many soups and stews, is even better when reheated the next day.

Frugal Tip

Create a gift box, a place to store gifts for birthdays, Christmas, anniversaries, etc. Throughout the year, pick up items for the gift box as you come across appropriate items, especially if they are on sale and you know they will be liked and will fit (you will probably not be able to return them months from now). This allows you to really shop around for the best deals and to spread your gift purchases over the whole year, making it less exhausting, easier to budget and easier to find bargains as you come across them.

Last week before our spontaneous camping trip (more on that tomorrow), I was on a mission to clear out the fridge and use up items from the pantry and freezers. And come Friday night, there wasn’t much left to choose from. I went digging in the freezers and I found the a bag of my favorite taco meat, some shredded cheese…and then pulled out the potatoes from the cupboard…using those we didn’t need for the campfire hobos, and I made this.

To be honest, I wasn’t sure it was going to work. We really enjoy Chili Topped Potatoes, so why not try it with taco meat on top instead of chili. I was nervous. I was.

But we really enjoyed it!

The kids had them cheeseless and didn’t complain one bit. And the ONLY thing I would do differently next time is use shredded Pepper Jack cheese for some extra kick. If I’d had any on hand, I’d have used it. But the cheddar was just fine!

__________________________________________________

Have a Frugal and Healthy Recipe to share?

Post the recipe on your blog and then add the link below. Other guidelines can be found here. To make it easy for other readers to find your recipe, please leave the link that leads directly to your recipe post. Any links that lead to your homepage will be deleted. If you don’t have a blog, feel free to leave your recipe in the comments section!

It is summer time and the living is easy. To compliment that concept, I love to prepare these easy and delicious potatoes for my husband to throw on the barbecue. Marinate some meat beforehand and dinner is ready to go.

Barbecued Potatoes

• 5 medium potatoes
• 1 large onion
• 6 cloves garlic
• 1 tablespoon butter
• salt and pepper, to taste

Directions

Preheat the barbecue to high.

Thinly slice the potatoes, onions and garlic.

Microwave the potato slices on high for 5 minutes, just to start them cooking. 
Or cook briefly in boiling water.

Meanwhile, butter a large sheet of heavy duty aluminum foil (or if you run out of heavy duty, double wrap in regular aluminum foil.

Spread a layer of potato, onion and garlic slices on the buttered foil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, repeat until all the ingredients are used up.

Fold up the sides of the foil over the potato mixture and seal the top and the ends. 
You may need to push the potatoes into an even layer through the foil. Put on the barbecue. Cook on high for 20 to 30 minutes, reduce to medium (or move to top rack) for another 10 to 20 minutes Often, we turn down the potatoes when we turn down the temperature on the meat. The potatoes should cook about 40 to 45 minutes in total. 

Open the foil and transfer potato mixture to a serving plate.

YUM!

Super Easy Marinade for Pork Chops

This recipe is enough for two meals. I marinate the meat, take half out of the bag for dinner and freeze the rest for next time.

• 2-3 pounds pork chops
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 3 tablespoons vinegar (whatever kind you like and have on hand)
• Montreal steak spice (to taste)

Directions

Slip your hand under the rim of a plastic bag and use it to toss meat pieces into the bag.

Pour the oil and vinegar directly into the bag. Shake the steak spice over the meat.

Twist the top of the bag and push the air down, to create an air pocket. Shake the meat to distribute the ingredients.

Let the air out of the bag and gently massage.

Refrigerate until cooking time (time it so that the meat is done about five minutes before the potatoes are done).

Remove the portion for today’s dinner onto a plate. Close bag and put into a zipper lock freezer bag. Label and freeze.

Sear the meat on high for one or two minutes on each side and then turn barbecue to medium until cooked through (about 4 minutes per side). Place on serving platter, cover and let rest for about five minutes before serving.

Frugal Tip

Saver, know thyself! OK. There is a wonderful deal on chicken that is close to its expiry date. It is half off its already great price. You buy three chickens: One for dinner, two to marinate and freeze. What a deal. Yes, it is a busy week, but you can save so much money!

Only you get home and you already have dinner made. Oooops. So you put the chickens in the fridge to deal with after dinner. After dinner, you run out to take the kids to sports, after all the taxiing, you are really tired and go to bed early. The next day is a run around day. So it the next. Somehow, by the time you get to the chickens you got for such a great deal, they have already spoiled and you have to throw them away. Hmm, not such a great deal after all.

Really, when faced with such a great deal, I don’t jump on it as often as I would have before. Not because I am not frugal, but because I am realistic. If I am realistically not going to be able to easily deal with the great deal, I pass it up and leave it for some other frugal person to take advantage of and I save myself some money after all.

Here’s a new concept for you.

Twice baked ‘taters.

Except you bake. Then grill.

(Instead of bake twice.)

And when I baked mine, I did so in the slow cooker…out on the porch (a trick I learned from Lynn when I was pregnant with Tyler…I couldn’t stand the smell of cooking food, so I’d put the slow cooker out on the porch to cook and I didn’t have to smell it and get queasy. This trick works great in the summer when you don’t want to heat up the kitchen.)

I’ve been thinking about twice baked potatoes for some time, but couldn’t figure out how to do them in the summer time without turning my kitchen into a oven.

The answer was simple. Bake in the slow cooker. Bake on the grill.

Love. love. love. the smokey flavor they take on from being grilled! And love that I got to use my wild chives from the garden too!

Czech Style Potato Salad

Serving Size: 6

Ingredients

5 medium potatoes
1 small onion, finely chopped (optional)
125 grams ham kolbassa, finely diced
1/2 cup frozen mixed vegetables, cooked
1 dill pickle, finely chopped
salt and pepper, to taste
1/2 cup Miracle Whip light
1 tablespoon mustard

Directions

1. Place the potatoes into a large pot, and fill with enough water to cover. Bring to a boil, and cook for about 20 minutes, or until easily pierced with a fork. Drain.  Peel, cool and chop into 1/4″ (or about half a centimetre).

2. Transfer to a large bowl, and toss with the onion, vegetables, and pickle. Stir gently.

3. Add the mayonnaise, mustard, salt and pepper and stir gently until evenly coated. Chill several hours or overnight before serving for best flavour.

I peel my cooked potatoes by scraping a knife along the skin.  The boiled skin just slides right off. Don’t try this with a raw potato — it does not work.

Do the same for the pickles.

Chop up any large pieces in the cooked and cooled mixed vegetables (usually just the green beans).

Frugal Idea

Frugal tip: Don’t shop as an entertainment! When you go into stores (including Internet stores), even if you are only going in to browse, you will most likely spend money. If you stay away from stores, you will most likely not spend money. Try to find other forms of entertainment that do not involve going into or near stores.

Even if you are in a store or mall to go buy something specific, only go into the sections that you have to to get your shopping done and then leave before you start to browse and spend money.

Just last week I went to a local mall to get a father’s day gift and an ingredient that I had forgotten to put on my list during my last grocery trip.  As I was going from the electronics store at one end of the mall to the grocery store at the other end of the mall,  I slowed down by the display of a new clothing store. They had a nice dress in the front window and I was drawn in. Before I knew it I had tried on and bought a new dress: very pretty, great price (and actually within my budget), but not strictly necessary.  If I had just focussed on getting to the grocery store instead of window shopping as I walked, I could have saved the money on the dress that I really did not need and had no intention of buying when I walked in.

Magda Stryk Therrien is a wife, mother and daughter who tries (and sometimes even succeeds) to be frugal.  She also loves to make things: dinner, artwork, books, crafts, etc. She is starting to blog about these efforts at magdamakes.wordpress.com and at magdamakeswithkids.wordpress.com.