Ask the Readers: What's Your Favorite Frugal Comfort Food?
Editor's Note: Congratulations to Forrest, Jennifer, and Alex for winning $20 Amazon Gift Cards and Angie, Becky Greene, and Guest for winning a copy of Little Old Lady Recipes!
Everyone has a comfort food they crave from time to time. Whether its something your mom used to whip up or a special treat from your favorite restaurant, chances are there is always one comfort food option that can put a smile on your face and brighten your day. If your favorite comfort food happens to be a frugal option, even better!
What is your favorite frugal comfort food?
Tell us about your favorite frugal comfort food and we'll enter you in a drawing to win a $20 Amazon Gift Card or a copy of Little Old Lady Recipes: Comfort Food and Kitchen Table Wisdom!
Win 1 of 3 $20 Amazon Gift Cards
We're doing three giveaways — one for random comments, one for random Facebook "Likes", and another one for random tweets.
Or Win 1 of 3 Copies of 'Little Old Lady Recipes: Comfort Food and Kitchen Table Wisdom'
We are doing three extra giveaways for a chance to win a copy of Meg Favreau's new book!
Celebrity chefs? Exotic ingredients? Immersion blenders? Who needs 'em?!? Little Old Lady Recipes honors the extraordinary women who create pot luck dinners, church socials, wedding banquets, and the best desserts you've ever tasted. Ever page features their simple, no-frills recipes for pot roast, meat loaf, dumplings, corn bread, fried chicken, bundt cake, and other mouth-watering favorites, along with gorgeous photography of the chefs at work and generous portions of their kitchen table wisdom ("Butter comes from a cow. Tell me where the heck margarine comes from, and then maybe I'll eat it!").
These Little Old Lady Recipes are simple, delicious, and ridiculously cheap and easy to make. So ditch the food processor, stop wasting money on overpriced organic frozen dinners, and start enjoying the 70 classic dishes, plus variations, that our auntiesi and grandmothers have made for generations!
Mandatory Entry:
- Post your answer in the comments below
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Giveaway Rules:
- Contest ends Monday, November 7th at 11:59 pm Pacific. Winners will be announced after November 7th on the original post. Winners will also be contacted via email.
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Good Luck!
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I liked you and your post on Facebook.
Oh there's so many! If I really had to pick one, I'd say a dish of macaroni. But there's also meatloaf, stuffed peppers, southwestern mac and cheese...the list goes on and on.
Responded on Twitter. http://twitter.com/#!/1bets1/status/131809010113454080
Simply frugal . . . a potato! Bake it, smash it, slice it, add a bit of fat in whatever form, and I have an extremely low cost, highly tasty bit of comfort. MMmmmmmmm . . . .
My personal favorite is tortellini in butter sauce. Buy frozen bag of cheese tortellini $4, 1/2 stick of butter, bag of store brand frozen peas (2 cups) $3, and grated parm cheese (1/2 cup $3.
*Boil the tortellini
*pour over peas in strainer
*Dump back in pot and add butter and parm
*Stir until melted
I found this on a frugal website and have been addicted ever since. The leftover peas and parm will last another tortellini dish. So even though you spend $10 dollars today, you will only have to spend $4 another.
Pancakes! Hot off the griddle with just a bit of butter, then rolled up, picked up, and munched. Add a glass of milk on the side, and I'm as close to heaven as I can be on earth.
I love to dip rippled potatoe chips in soft cream cheese with pineapple. The salty and sweet really complement each other.
I just made turkey noodle soup last night and it was delicious. Egg noodles, carrots, a leek, onion, celery, prepared chicken stock and half a cut up rotisserie turkey breast from the grocery store. I think soup is always the way to go when you're on a budget. All in all, the ingredients for the soup probably cost about $8 since I saved half the turkey breast and used only half a bag of noodles.
I hope I win the book, it looks super cute!
Oatmeal! :D
A bowlful of smashed graham crackers covered with milk and eaten with a spoon.
Chips with melted American Cheese on them! Any kind of chips will do, but our favorite are either BBQ or Doritos. Sometimes we even make a sandwich out of them! Yummm
Homemade Mac and cheese using whatever is left in the cheese drawer.
Breaded Tomatoes
2-3 Toasted and buttered white bread
1can tomatoes
pinch of baking soda
Half and half or cream
Toast and butter bread. Cut into cubes. Heat one can tomatoes and juice that are squished into small pieces. When tomatoes are hot, add a pinch of baking soda. The baking soda is there so that the cream doesn't curdle from the acid of the tomatoes. Don't add to much or it will taste like baking soda.
Slowly stir in enough cream to make a creamy base. Add enough toast cubes to soak up some of the cream. I like just a sprinkle of sugar on a serving.
This tastes best on a rainy night when you have driven home after a chaotic day.
pulled pork in the slow cooker. $13 worth of pork, ten meals.
Steel cut oats for breakfast. Just $.99 per pound and I don't eat anywhere near a pound in one serving. Top with a few golden raisins, raw walnuts and shredded coconut from the bulk grain bins. So cheap and so good!
Crab cakes, but made with canned salmon. It's so inexpensive, but so tasty. And being short on both time and money, these can be pre-made into just the patties and frozen for pan-frying later.
I love whole wheat pasta with sun-roasted tomatoes, basil and a little olive oil. It is easy and quick to make, and very yummy!
My family's traditional comfort food derives from German peasant fare. One-pot potatoes, kale, and sausage.
Mine is a PB&Honey with a cold glass of milk. Slam dunk every time.
Crockpot vegetarian chili. My kids love it over spaghetti noodles.
Pinto beans and corn bread. It's extremely inexpensive and wonderful. Also liked on Facebook.
Rare steak....like REALLY rare.....with whisky :)
Banana bread made with over ripe bananas
My husband and I love making "kump" - Norwegian potato dumplings. The biggest expense is the salt pork, but even that isn't much. Otherwise it's just potatoes and flour. Oh, and the butter to eat with it :)
tweet: http://twitter.com/#!/cmouse01/status/133018497637818370
mac and cheese
Strange as it may sound when I need a comfort food, I reach for a slice of hard salami with a cup of strong sweet tea. Since salami is not part of our regular diet, I have to keep a stick in the freezer. This actually works well for controlling my cravings: one can't easily cut hard frozen salami and also one has to wait before partaking in this unhealthy and pricy comfort snack, so the stick goes a long long long way :)