Frugal Suppers

I want to post some of my recipes, but for now I'll just do a quick list of some typical suppers we have around my house. We don't eat " commercial" meat, only fish and deer meat that we process ourselves, so you will see many veggie entrees, which is great for your body and your budget!

- Deer chili ( made with ground deer meat, canned tomatoes from the garden, beans and spices)
- Stif fry- Kids and hubby love this! Rice, soy sauce, and whatever veggies we have laying around, cooked in a big skillet.
- Breakfast burritos - scrambled eggs ( from our chickens), homeade salsa, tortillas, cheese, and peppers. The girls skip the peppers, but my husband and I love it.
-Grilled veggie sandwhiches on homeade bread. Made like a grilled cheese, except I add fresh veggies like mushrooms, sprouts, eggplant etc to it. We like it with swiss cheese, or mozzerella.
-Pasta with fresh veggies, and Pesto, PESTO is delicious. I'll post my recipe here in a sec. My 4 year old eats this like it's going out of style.
- Pasta with tomato based sauce, I make this with and without deer meat. I canned a lot of tomatoes back in July and these come in so handy for lots of things.
- Homeade pizza, made with whatever cheeses, veggies etc. we have around.

That is a list of our favorite dinners. There are lots of cheap ingredients in these, and they are easy. I cook a little more complex things ( like Spinach, artichoke lasagna, YUM!!) on the weekends and freeze them sometimes, but above kind of is an idea of a typical week. Beans, grains and ingredients for bread is relatively cheap. The veggies are mostly homegrown, home canned, or bought locally in season, so they aren't too expensive either. Probably the most expensive item we use is cheese, which can be purchased many times on sale and frozen.

Basil Recipe:

4 cups fresh basil leaves

1-2 cloves garlic

1/2 c. parmasan cheese ( grated, not the powdered kind)

Walnuts or Pecans ( pine nuts are traditional, but since we have pecan trees I typically use pecans)

Put everything above into a food processor or blender and then add olive oil until it is the consistency you would like. If I have a lemon, I squeeze one lemon into it, if not, it's okay without it.
This can be put into ziploc baggies and frozen flat, or can be stored in a Jar or airtight container for several days in the fridge.

Great on pastas, pizzas, veggies, sandwhich spread and more.