ZipList Giving Away $600 to Lucky Wise Bread Readers!
Editor's Note: The contest has ended! We're picking the winners right now. Please keep an eye out for a prize email from Wise Bread or KillerAcesMedia (our parent company). Congrats to comment winners Addrienne Mertens ($150), Anne Mostella ($150), Cynthia C ($50), and Kelsey ($50). Congrats to Twitter winner @Shawnamichelle2 ($100). ZipList User registration winner is Brenda B.
To help us celebrate Thanksgiving, ZipList is helping us give away $600 in prizes!
ZipList is a free online and mobile shopping list and recipe organizer that lets you save all your favorite recipes and automatically organizes your grocery lists. I'm a big fan of this service because:
- You can create and share lists with your family, and allow them to add items or check them off in real time. No more duplicate dishes on Turkey Day!
- ZipList has over 300,000 recipes from hundreds of popular food websites, like Woman's Day, Martha Stewart, and $5 Dinners.
- You can access your list online or via free apps from iPhone or Android. You always have your list with you so no more wasted trips to the supermarket.
3 Easy Ways to Enter $600 Giveaway
1) Comment Entry: $400 Prizes
Simply leave a comment below before end of 11/23/11, answering the question: What's your favorite Thanksgiving budget dish or comfort food? (Answer must be at least two sentences long.)
We'll randomly select 4 comment winners. Prizes are 4 Visa Gift Cards: $150, $150, $50, $50 -- perfect for your holiday grocery shopping spree.
2) Twitter Entry: $100 Prize
To enter, simply do this before end of 11/23/11:
- Tweet this message: Retweet to win $100 from @Ziplist & @WiseBread giveaway http://bit.ly/ziplist2 #zipwin
- Follow @ZipList and @WiseBread so we can contact you if you win.
We'll randomly select 1 Twitter winner. Prize is 1 $100 Visa Gift Card.
3) ZipList User Registrant: $100 Prize
To enter, simply click this link - http://zipth.is/@ztq8dy to save The Ultimate Budget Thanksgiving Dinner checklist to a ZipList account, where you can then create a grocery shopping list, search for personalized recipe recommendations and discover other helpful checklists.
One lucky person will be chosen at random to win a $100 Visa Gift Card.
General Rules
Limit to one comment or tweet per day per person. You can enter all 3 contests to increase your chances but you can only win 1. NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. Legal residents of the 50 United States (D.C.) 18 years or older. Ends at 11:59 pm Eastern on 11/23/11. Winners will be randomly selected and announced on Wise Bread before December 15. If winners do not respond to prize notification within 3 days we reserve the right to select another.
5 Ways to Save Big on Thanksgiving
While Thanksgiving may be the biggest meal of the year, with a little simple planning you can have a stress-free and budget-friendly Turkey Day!
1) Use Checklists to Keep Track of What You Need: Save a checklists to help you make sure you have all of your Turkey Day essentials, like stuffing mix, sweet potatoes and green beans. No need for extra, costly trips to the supermarket. Check out this budget dinner checklist created just for the holidays:
Ultimate Budget Thanksgiving Dinner Checklist Get the most out of your budget by opting for some pocket friendly Thanksgiving grocery items.
2) Make Less Than You Think You Need:
Take a headcount, but then make less. There are so many must-have side dishes - mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole - that guests won't be taking their usual helpings. Make less of each dish and you should still have plenty of food.
3) Save on Side Dishes
It's easy to modify traditional favorites to save money. For green bean casserole, mix frozen green beans with frozen corn. Once cooked, top with Parmesan cheese and bread crumbs. You can also see big savings by opting for brown-and-serve rolls over crescent rolls.
4) Buy a Frozen Turkey
Believe it or not, you can save 30-40% (or more) by choosing a frozen turkey over a fresh, organic or free range turkey. Just be sure to give yourself 4-5 days for the turkey to thaw in your refrigerator. If you choose to thaw your turkey in cold water, allow 30 minutes per pound.
) Bake Your Own Pies
Pumpkin pie is cheaper to make than to buy (and it's so easy to make!). Plus, frozen pie crusts can often be found on sale. Here are a couple of our favorite pumpkin pie recipes to add to your recipe box:
Double Decker Pumpkin Caramel Pie Recipe This pie took first place in a local Fall Harvest Festival pie contest!
Traditional Pumpkin Pie Betty Croker Recipe A traditional favorite made fuss-free with an easy pat-in-the-pan crust!
Good luck with the contest! I look forward to reading all your yummy entries.
Tagged: Food and Drink, Giveaways
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I love eating stuffing, especially warmed-up leftover stuffing. Or after Thanksgiving, making broth from the carcass and having that. Yum.
We always make homemade applesauce for Thanksgiving. I live in NY state, so apples are plentiful and wonderful! We go to one of the apple farms or a farm market and buy utility apples - a lot less expensive, but the results are the same. Because the apples themselves are sweet, we just add cinnamon. So it's a perfect dish for anyone who has to watch their sugar intake!
This time of year rice mixes tend to be pretty cheap and if your store doubles coupons they can end up free. I discovered this years ago so I started to make my now famous "Day after Thanksgiving turkey and Wild Rice soup". Boil the carcass (as if I needed to tell you that), strain and pick our meat, add chopped veggies of choice and two boxes of wild rice mix complete with flavor packs. No need to add salt but add parsley or other herbs. My daughter has her own family now and my grandkids look forward to my special soup. It costs next to nothing but tastes great and is filling, plus you can make it slowly while you decorate for the holidays!
My favorite comfort food is Mashed Potatoes.I remember my mom making these with homemade gravy a couple times a week. I use a pressure cooker and in no time have perfectly cooked mashed potatoes to go with any meal.
The best comfort food for me (vegetarian) is warm stuffing followed by vegan pumpkin pie-always eat too much! We once had a tofurfy soy turkey but didn't follow directions and it was too rubbery to eat.
My favorite Thanksgiving comfort food is sweet potato casserole. I make it every year for Thanksgiving.
We make pumpkin pies from pumpkins we grow ourselves. The most expensive ingredient is the cream since we don't raise our own cows.
The best money saving tip though is go let someone else host. If you can swing that, you can get a great huge meal in exchange for a dish of sweet potatoes.
I love a seasoned roasted squash with parmesan cheese shavings on top. So good and squashes are so abundant this time of year, so they're delicious and cheap! Oh, and it's healthy. What more could you want?
I make a really tasty pumpkin pie using coconut milk and curry powder. I learned how to make my own crust two years ago, and I like them better than the store brands because I can roll them thinner.
Frenched green beans with slivered almonds, and just a very little bit of butter. Can't buy them like that - gotta be made.
I grew up hating yams, so it's kind of interesting that I now look forward to Texas Candied Yams and Apples as much as I do the turkey at Thanksgiving. Maybe the apples help make it more appealing, but it is delicious!
I love, love love the whole schmear. Turkey, mashed potatoes, corn pudding, stuffing -- it's a beautiful combination. I make epic mashed potatoes.
I love Thanksgiving stuffing, and eating the giblets. It just brings back all my childhood memories :)
I really like pecan pie. Store bought or home made, it's very hard to beat!
I always make deviled eggs. The Eggs cost about $2 and then mayo and mustard and spices and wala a yummy app for not very much. For us our Tgiving isnt complet w/o these
We have a large family dinner (20+) at my parents house so we need lots of sides to go with the turkey! My favorite comfort food at Thanksgiving is a garlic broccoli side dish! We infuse diced garlic in a few tablespoons of olive oil then add pine nuts to brown. To cut costs (because pine nuts are expensive), sometimes we substitute with walnuts. We steam the cut broccoli and then toss with the garlic oil and nuts. Delicious!
Mashed potatoes is the ultimate cheap comfort food. All you need is some bulk potatoes, butter, and milk. How much cheaper/easier can you get? Oh, and they're delicious!
I agree with except make less. What is thanksgiving without leftovers? In fact, if I am having alot of people I make an extra turkey just for the leftovers.
In answer to the questions turkey at holiday time is inexpensive so i pick turkey but so is potatoes and green beans. Thanksgiving feast is relatively inexpensive holiday meal.
My favorite comfort food during Thanksgiving that also is budget friendly is defi Italy Mac n Cheese! I have been working to make the best since I had my uncle's who is a chef last year! I'm happy to say that I am getting better and better at making it as time goes on
Our dinner is usually in the mid-afternoon. The best part for me is about 5 hours later, when I can chow down on a leftover turkey sandwich and a nice cold glass of milk. That is the best turkey sandwich of the year.
i love stuffing with sausage in it at thanksgiving!!!
rypm25@aol.com
I like to grow my butternut squash. I cook it with a litle brown sugar and some butter mixed in. It's delish!
Thanksgiving to me is all about the mashed potatoes. It's my dish to make and bring to my parents house. Milk and real butter and my own blend of seasonings. Garlic, pepper and sea salt. Nothing better.
This Thanksgiving I'm going to put together some quinoa, red rice, and vegetable stuffing. It will be a lot more nutritional, not too expensive or hard to make, and is quite different than the usual! (and great for vegetarians like me!)
Homemade stuffing - we use bread, potatos, potato water, milk, eggs, celery, onion, tons of butter, parsley, salt and pepper. You have to toast the bread before tearing it up and mash the potatoes. It is a time consuming dish, one year my mom messed up and put in celery seed instead of parsley and another year she forgot the eggs....both were a disaster and had to be tossed. My grandmother started this recipe and now that she is gone we are continuing on.
My favorite comfort food is stuffing and mashed potatoes. I love stuffing of any kind. Once my father-in-law made a version with smoked oysters. YUM. And for mashed potatoes, I mix in mayonnaise (gotta be Hellmann's!) to make it fluffy and yummy.
This is so easy and delicious (and even people who say they don't like lima beans like it):
frozen lima beans
sliced green olives with pimento
garlic
dried rosemary and oregano
olive oil
red pepper flakes
salt and pepper
Mix them all together in a shallow baking dish. The beans should all be covered in oil but not overly oily. (I have never measured anything for this recipe.) Cover the baking dish tightly in tin foil and bake at about 375 for 45 minutes.
So good. And it reheats beautifully in the mocrowave or on a stovetop as left-overs.
This is so easy and delicious (and even people who say they don't like lima beans like it):
frozen lima beans
sliced green olives with pimento
garlic
dried rosemary and oregano
olive oil
red pepper flakes
salt and pepper
Mix them all together in a shallow baking dish. The beans should all be covered in oil but not overly oily. (I have never measured anything for this recipe.) Cover the baking dish tightly in tin foil and bake at about 375 for 45 minutes.
So good. And it reheats beautifully in the mocrowave or on a stovetop as left-overs.
Stuffing! It's budget friendly because stuffing makes great leftovers for days =)
I love cranberry sauce, but didn't know how easy it was to make. Warm water, cranberrys, and sugar (Splenda, Equal) over a medium flame until the berries burst. So good, and easy to make.
My budget stretcher is stuffing. I start saving bread ends and stale bread and rolls a month before and that way I don't have to worry about buying extra bread.
I like Simple, and I also like adding a touch of creativity. Every Thanks giving I must make green bean casserole using French's onions, and Campbell's cream of chicken soup. along with some canned green beans. however i also make a duplicate dish of this with a twist. Instead of cream of chicken, i use cream of mushroom! It is delicious, and always gives me a good feeling after the big meal.
Stuffing! Or "dressin"as we call it in Carolina! Since i normaly make bisciuts anyway, i always save a few, crumble them up add sage and a few other spices. MMM I cant wait for Thanksgiving!
My favorite Thanksgiving dish is Oyster Dressing - we use Sav-a-Lot's store brand stuffing mix - saute some onions, celery and green pepper, then add to the stuffing mix. Add some oysters and oyster water, and yummy!!!
My favorite homemade Thanksgiving dish is homemade cranberry sauce. I make it from fresh cranberries. Delicious! The other one we all like is candied yams with brown sugar, butter and marshmallow. More dessert than side dish, but we love it!
Verl
i love turkey with gravy all over it. i want just basic turkey roasted with butter and salt, no other seasonings. this is how my mother always made turkey. of course the cavity was full of stuffing for added flavor.
Dinner Rolls!
Turkey and dressing.
Its all about the stuffing in my house. Usually make two different kinds, one that we stuff in the bird, and then another one that is baked in the oven. I like to put frozen cranberries in it, and then when you bake it, they explode with cranberry goodness.
I never liked sweet potatoes until I read about putting chipoltle chilies in!
Now I love them
Baked sweet potatoes would be my favorite budget side dish. It is also both healthy and fulfills my sweet tooth!
I'm Chinese so my family does a pseudo-Thanksgiving every year. We may have turkey, we may have ham, but we always have hot pot which is a pot of water or broth and you just throw in vegetables and meat slices of your choice and cook while you eat. It's a great time to just hang out! Plus since it is mostly vegetables, it's cheap.
To go along with the good old turkey I love a simple can of cranberry sauce. It's best to eat the sauce on the turkey, not separate. I'm not sure if that's normal or not, but I sure enjoy it that way and it's cheap.
LOVE my organic green bean/spinach casserole. Always a hit at every event I take it to.
My favorite Thanksgiving comfort food is cornbread stuffing. I add onions, celery, roasted chestnuts, sage and thyme. It's delicious.
My favorite Thanksgiving comfort food is actually a simple butternut squash soup. My trick is to add in a little chipotle powder, which gives the sweet harvest vegetable a savory, smokey kick and warms you up on an chilly Autumn day!
My favorite dish is green bean casserole, but I make it with crackers and onion flakes instead of french fried onions, it cheaper that way and I think it tastes better. I use the reduced fat cream of mushroom soup and usually use left over packets of soy sauce from Chinese food.
Pumpkin pie! Yum!
My favorite Thanksgiving comfort food it stuffing. I love it when it is cooked in the bird. Regular stuffing please, not a big fan of the kids with sausage, fruit or nuts in it.
Back when I was first on my own, I became a huge fan of the Reynolds cooking
bags. They had recipe cards in the box and I tried everyone! Today I still
make some of my favorite. Not always using the cooking bag, but just in a
skillet or in a crock pot. I took one and created my favorite potato dish
that's really inexpensive. I would quarter/slices/or cube potatoes, cream of
mushroom soup, can of cheese soup, and onion and simmer together. I would
switch it up occasionally, however, the cream of mushroom soup was the
constant. I think I might try the cream of mushroom with garlic soup this
year!
My favorite Thanksgiving dish probably qualifies as both a budget dish and comfort food: mashed potatoes with chives, coarse-chopped garlic, butter and sour cream. While it may not be the healthiest or most nutrient dense part of the meal, it's the glue that holds everything together for me! Throw some gravy on top and I'm feeling the holiday spirit in no time!
My favorite dish is defiantly mashed potatoes. They are creamy and good, and make me feel full and happy.
My favorite thanksgiving dish is either corn casserole or plain old mashed potatoes with my stepmothers amazing turkey gravy. Her gravy is amazing and I can never make it like her!!
Mashed potatoes are such an inexpensive side dish! Just add some garlic salt, butter and sour cream, and everyone's happy.
My favorite recipe comes down to a tie between corn pudding and cranberry sauce made from whole cranberries. Both are super easy to make, require very few ingredients (especially cranberry sauce) and are great as sides, or are sweet enough to be desserts (for me anyway). We love watching the cranberries pop in the pan, and end up eating every ounce of it because you can put it on everything.
My family's favorite budget Thanksgiving dish is macaroni and cheese! All ages love it! The adults have left it off the menu in previous years. But the kids demanded we have it every year on our Thanksgiving menu!
Green Bean Casserole! My mom makes it every year, and it's delicious, easy to make and only requires a few ingredients.
My favorite budget dish is the home made stuffing found in a turkey. We use bread, numerous spices and after hours of cooking inside a turkey, the stuffing is delicious. Man I can't wait until Thanksgiving hahah.
Q: What's your favorite Thanksgiving budget dish or comfort food?
A: Mine is both budget-friendly and comforting to me, dressing! I make it mostly from scratch, and use lots of fresh veggies and everyone raves over it. I freeze odds and ends of bread loaves, buns, french bread, etc., and use a Jiffy corn muffin mix.
My favorite budget and comfort dish both is turkey. Our local store always has turkeys for $4 and $5 depending on the size. At that price I always get and extra one for later on.
My absolute favorite thing about Thanksgiving (besides being able to read in peace while the football nuts in my family are busy) is pumpkin pie. I can eat one by myself! They are really affordable- I coupon like crazy, and super simple to make. We make multiples.
My favorite comfort food combination is home cooked rice and beans with picante sauce and a side of buttered cornbread. Yum! It's perfect for meatless Mondays too!
My favorite Thanksgiving budget dish is deviled eggs. They are cheap because it is only one dozen eggs split in half and we add pickle, mustard and mayonnaise.
I've always loved the canned jellied cranberry stuff at Thanksgiving. That's my favorite budget dish and comfort food on that day. I like real cranberry sauce too, but you can't beat the satisfying whoosh as the entire can-shaped mass of cranberry slides out. :)
my sister makes broccoli casserole.. i only eat it once a year, and its sooo freaking good!
My favorite is homemade rolls!! It's so relaxing to make them by hand, and if you make them from scratch you can make a ton for so cheap. Definitely makes the difference in a Thanksgiving dinner.
Pumpkin pie from Costco. It's like 5 or 6 bucks and eating it transcends my existence. I don't know what the Kirkland Signature food genies are doing in their factories but they're doing it right.
My favorite Thanksgiving food is Pumpkin pie! I could eat an entire one all by myself!
I love mashed potatoes. They are cheap and it's so wasy to make!!
My favorite Thanksgiving dish is pumpkin cheesecake. It's the perfect end to the turkey feast!
my favorite thanksgiving/comfort food is Banana bread with semisweet choco chips (leave banana chunks) and walnuts. if you substitute the oil for applesauce..equal parts it also has less fat!
My favorite is green bean casserole. My Mom makes it gluten free now and instead of using fried onion strings, she uses Funjuns :)
My favorite Thanksgiving comfort food is cornbread dressing. I found a wonderful vegetarian recipe for it a few years ago, along with a recipe for delicious vegetarian gravy, which is poured over the dressing. It's a bit of work to make, but I really look forward to it each year.
Stouffers mac and cheese
vmkids3 at msn dot com
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There is nothing better than yams on Thanksgiving! They are great baked with a little brown sugar and butter. They are a favorite side dish when baked in a casserole with marshmallows melted on top. They are also very economical and packed with nutrients. They are a win/win on all counts!
Has to be bread and potato stuffing. I save the unused bread for weeks and use potatos from my garden. Thanks for the chance.
I like everything about Thanksgiving meals. The early afternoon meal--turkey, stuffing, gravy, cranberries, green beans, and the rest. Then later in the evening turkey, stuffing and cranberry sandwiches. The second meal is the reason to serve the first meal. Leftovers, yeah!
Pumpkin pie with vanilla ice cream on top
I have two favorite budget dishes for Thanksgiving, and just think about them makes me hungry!
First is green bean casserole, with fresh (or canned) green beans, cream of whatever soup (we like half cream of chicken and half cream of potato!), salt, pepper, and crispy onions. Easy, and amazingly delicious!
Second is what we've always called "green rice", which is just cooked rice, chopped broccoli, cream of broccoli soup, a jar of 'spicy queso', salt, and pepper!
I can't wait for Thanksgiving now!
I love my mom's red cabbage dish that she makes at Thanksgiving. It's vinegary and sweet all at the same time, and it's as cheap to make as they come.
Last year a friend told.me about this slow cooker recipe...sweet potatoes and granny smith apples. Approximately 2potatoes to 1 apple. Chunk and add to slow cooker. Can't recall how long we cooked this...but it was awesome. A different and refreshing side.
I like sweet potatoes in almost any combination. I discovered that as leftovers they work great steamed or stirfried with noodles and Chinese, Indian-, Japanese- or Thai-influenced spices.
My favorite Thanksgiving comfort food is my mother's turkey stuffing. She's given me the recipe and I've watched her make it many times but I just can't get it exactly the same.
My favorite Thanksgiving comfort food is my Mom's sweet potato casserole dish. The creamy sweet potatoes and the yummy marshmallows on top are so delish and comforting in my tummy!
My favorite dish is cornbread stuffing. I add the usual celery and onions and chestnuts. It's delicious!
My best Thanksgiving comfort food is warm homemade pumpkin pie with walnuts along with a big helping of fresh whipped cream on top of it. A side dish of breyers vanilla ice creams doesn't hurt things
My favorite Thanksgiving budget dish is green bean casserole. It is a simple side dish to make and the ingredients are inexpensive. You can get the recipe from the Campbell's website.
I love the turkey stuffing. I can even eat it cold the next day.
dolniaks at consolidated dot net
My favorite thanksgiving comfort dish is canned sweet potatoes. Some chocolate pudding pie with gramcracker crust is great too!
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mrcheapo
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My favorite Thanksgiving comfort food is homemade creamed spinach. It's one of the last dishes made an it's always a staple at our table. I would say it's better than the stuff you get at Boston Market, but hey, that's just me reaching!
My favorite comfort food is Chocolate balls, i prepared them by melting dark chocolate with at least 60% cocoa, half cut almonds and dry blueberries, its a healthy sweet easy to carry food on the go.
Mashed potatoes are both a budget and comfort dish. Add some butter, sour cream, fresh dill, salt and pepper and you’ve got yourself a gourmet treat!
My favorite go to or budget dish would have to be mashed potatoes. It's affordable and so easy. I love changing it depending on the mood. Either cheese or bacon bits, anything works!
im also partial to the frozen punkin pies the sell at the grocery stores. all you need to do is pop it in the oven and it turns out great! no fuss no mess!
I think dressing is the absolute greatest comfort food. Mom makes the best with lots of onions, celery and pepper. I can't get enough of it!
My favorite budget dish is mac and cheese. I like to have mixed veggies on the side.
tweeted 11/2 http://twitter.com/#!/oshkoshbgosh123/status/131893215493234688
Candied sweet potatoes are my all time favorite. They go with any and everything and they are so so so yummy!!