Tag Archives: stretching meals

Emergency Meal Stretching 2

We are talking about some techniques for stretching meals in an emergency, from hosting unexpected company to having to make due with the food resources that you have. If you missed part one, click here: Emergency Meal Stretching. Vegetables are a good choice when you don’t have time to really cook extra food. Canned or frozen, and even fresh, they are generally easy to prepare. You can have large helpings as a side dish or make the vegetable the main ingredient. And here is a trick to make it seem as though your meal is larger than it is. Offer … Continue reading →

Rubber Chicken: Stretch that Bird!

Have you ever heard of rubber chicken? No, I’m not talking about a real rubber chicken that used to be all the rage among 80’s comics. Nor am I talking about a badly prepared chicken dish, like the one you might get from the hospital cafeteria. No, having a rubber chicken means stretching out one little chicken to make several meals. In other words, stretch out that chicken until there is nothing left that you can get from it. There are a couple of ways to do it, but this is how my family generally stretches a chicken to get … Continue reading →

Four Delicious Ways to Stretch a Meat-loaf

Meatloaf is a great meal when it comes to being frugal in the kitchen. With a little bit of thought, it can be stretched out to serve more with less meat, the most expensive ingredient in the dish. Here are five general ways that you can use the humble meat-loaf to make some delicious but frugal meals. For this exercise in stretching a meat-loaf, I’ll assume that you are already doing your frugal best by using less expensive choices in meat. I usually make a meat-loaf using ground turkey, which I can get pretty inexpensively on sale and in bulk. … Continue reading →

Frugal Food: Cornbread

In our house, cornbread is usually available. It is very easy and inexpensive to make from scratch, a great frugal food. It also freezes well, but since it is so easy to prepare, I usually make it fresh. Cornbread can be used in many ways. My two-year-old is eating it now as part of her breakfast, and I packed a piece in my son’s lunch. The kids just love eating cornbread for snacks, and we save lots of money when they do. They love to eat it straight, but I often have it with butter or jam. Another way I … Continue reading →