please help?!

[xshawneex]

hey all... i'd like to start off by introducing myself, so, hello, my name is shawnee.
second, i have a question:
i need help thinking of easy to make meals that can be "morphed" into various other dishes throughout the week.
i'm running low on money this month and i'm trying to stretch my meals as far as possible.
any help is appreciated!
<3

Comments

[sburke]

If you can get ahold of the latest version of the magazine Real Simple, they did a whole feature on just what you are looking for.

[greeklady]

My favorite is this. I bake a chicken, and after the meal is over I'll sit in the kitchen with the hubbie and pick the bones clean and put the meat into a ziplock back for various other dishes through out the week. ie: chicken enchillada's, or pasta with red sauce and I have stewed the chicken in the red sauce before putting over the pasta. Same with any meat basically. Eat the meal and then the left over meat get morphed into anything else that comes along. Bascially mexican and italian work good for this.

Or you can then take the square raman noodles, mix the packet with vinegar and then add olive oil to taste, pour that with the crunched up noodles over salad and throw the baked chicken (cut up into bite size pieces) with it. Voila, chineese chicken salad!

Don't forget the cheep tried and true stuff, baked potatoe with:
cheese and brocolli
Chilli
ect...

cheap and easy and good.

[rhiannonstone]

I guess this is better for lunches rather than dinners, but whenever I cook any sort of meat I always make extra for sandwiches. Leftover steaks make especially good sandwiches.

[unmutual]

Ground turkey costs considerably less than ground beef; I usually get it at about $0.35 a pound. You just have to season it a lot more than you would beef. It's pretty bland otherwise. But - you can make a meatloaf with it and then have cold meatloaf sandwiches the next day! Mm.

The Cougrr's Turkey Meatloaf RecipeFeeds 3 people

[magid]

If you're making veggies, make extra, and you can add them to pasta, or eggs, or rice, or (leftover) chicken, or a potato, or melt cheese over them, or whatever to make a one-pot meal.

Sample: a tomato-chickpea salad can go into pasta or rice easily. Sauteed greens make a nice frittatta or potato topping. Etc.