herb roasted pork dinner

I've gotten a little behind in posting my complete meals, so here is one that I made a few weeks ago.

I love this meal because it has only a few ingredients yet is incredibly flavorful! Both the pork and the carrots do most of their work in the oven without needing your attention, so it's also fairly easy. The original recipes state different temperatures for cooking the pork and carrots, but you can cook them both at the same time and at the same temperature. Use the temperature listed for the pork and just decrease the cooking time on the carrots by about 10-15 minutes. Easy!

This meal includes:

Herb Roasted Pork Loin $6.09
Honey Balsamic Carrots $2.39
Boursin Mashed Potatoes $7.55
Total: $16.03

Serves: 4, plus some leftover mashed potatoes!


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pineapple teriyaki chicken meal

With all of the stress of the holiday season, I needed something really simple to prepare this week. The pineapple teriyaki chicken, coconut rice, and tahini kale were all so simple to prepare, crazy delicious, and the flavors matched really well. So well, in fact, that I ended up mixing the rice and kale together and eating them as a single dish! I hope you enjoy this super simple meal as much as I did!

Note: I decided to half the chicken recipe to make the servings more closely match the side dishes. The chicken recipe halves really easily, just buy half as much chicken and half the ingredients for the sauce. You could just as easily double the sides and have enough to feed 8 or more. It's up to you!

This meal includes:

Pineapple Teriyaki Chicken Thighs (1/2 recipe) $4.97
Coconut Rice $2.91
Tahini Kale Salad $2.09
Total: $9.97

Serves: 4


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black bean burger meal

Planning an entire meal with "matching" dishes can be very challenging to the newbie. So, I'm going to let you in on my little formula and this meal is a perfect example.

I always start with the main dish and pick the sides to go along with it. I try to make both side diesh vegetables, one starchy and one not. If that doesn't work, then I'll do one vegetable and one "bread" like rolls or pasta. The other key to picking your sides is to try to hit all sides of the color wheel. You remember the color wheel right? Here's a refresher.

Anyway, this meal fits every part of that formula. I started with the black bean burgers because I love them. I picked sweet potato fries because they're colorful and "fries" go great with burgers. Since the sweet potatoes are kind of starchy, I wanted the second side to be all vegetable and an opposite color from the orange. Red cabbage slaw was perfect! And of course, make sure the "genre" of all of the dishes match. Don't pair a mediterranean salad with enchiladas... because that'd be weird, right?

Oh, one last thing: In the original Black Bean Burger recipe, I had to make the patties huge to fit the extra large buns that I bought, so I only got six burgers out of the recipe. If you make them normal sized, you'll probably get 8 and then this whole meal will make 8 servings.

This meal includes:

Black Bean Burgers $6.69
Spicy Sweet Potato Stix $5.62
Vinaigrette Slaw $4.97
Total: $17.28

Serves: 6-8


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tandoori chicken dinner

One of the hardest parts of beginning to cook for yourself is learning how to combine dishes to make a well rounded, satisfying meal without a bunch of leftover ingredients. So, I'm going to start my complete meal idea series back up!

This first meal is just a combination of a few of my favorite Indian inspired dishes. They're all easy, all super flavorful, and, of course, customizable. Because Indian food tends to be heavy on the spices, the list of ingredients from "my pantry" may seem long, but it's really just a bunch of spices. I don't expect everyone to have a spice pantry as well stocked as mine, so please be aware that you can substitute and improvise. For instance, if you don't have both garam masala and curry powder, you can use either one for both recipes and they'll still be delicious. Also, here is a simple recipe for mixing up your own garam masala spice blend.

Just one special note: the longer the chicken marinates, the better it tastes! So start it the night before or in the morning for best results! Also, buy family sized packs of chicken for the lowest price. Divide and freeze unused portions as soon as you get home from the store.

This meal includes:

Tandoori Chicken Kebabs (double batch) $7.95
Quick Curried Chickpeas $3.16
Yellow Jasmine Rice $1.54
Total: $12.65
Serves: 6


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glazed pork chop dinner

I was in the mood for some down home soul food last week so I cooked up some of my favorites. While the glazed pork chops aren't exactly a soul food classic, pork chops in general are definitely a staple.

Both the Collard Greens and Potato Salad make huge batches that serve anywhere between 6-8 people. If you wanted to double the pork chop recipe and just make single batches of the greens and potato salad you can feed 8, rather than four. If you just make four pork chops you'll have plenty of left over greens and potato salad for the rest of the week!

This meal includes:

Glazed Pork Chops $6.55
Southern-Style Potato Salad $3.63
Collard Greens $5.06
Fresh Tomato (optional) $0.80
Total: $16.04

Serves: 4 plus left over greens and potato salad


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tuscan pasta dinner

Alright! I'm back online so I can finally post the complete meal breakdown for last week's Tuscan White Bean Pasta meal, as promised.

This meal is comprised of four dishes and can be "mix and matched" to fit your taste or budget. If you're vegetarian or just want to cut the cost, you can nix the grilled chicken (while still having a protein packed meal). The dinner, sans chicken, would only be $9.46 for 6 servings or $1.58 per serving (as opposed to $3.03 per serving with chicken). Another option is to skip the garlic bread (since you already have a lot of carbs with the pasta) and cut $1.77 from the total meal costs.

Personally, I think getting the feast below for only $3.03 per serving is still a pretty fantastic deal so I decided to post the whole sha-bang. Alter the meal as you see fit!

This meal includes:

Tuscan White Bean Pasta $5.67
Grilled Lemon Pepper Chicken (instructions below) $8.74
Lemon Butter Green Beans $2.02
Garlic Bread $1.77
Total: $18.20
Serves: 6, $3.03 per serving



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chicken enchilada dinner

Here is the complete meal that I prepared for myself last week. It's a classic Mexican-style restaurant dinner: enchiladas, beans and rice. Of course the Budget bytes version is about $1.50 per serving as opposed to the $7.99 that you'd pay at the restaurant... I'm just sayin...

The Chicken Enchilada recipe makes 10 enchiladas. Combined with the beans and rice I can only eat one at a time which would be 10 servings. But, if you're a two-enchilada-eater, you'll get five servings. My guess is that some of your family will eat one, some will eat two so lets call it a 6 serving average (don't ask me what kinda math that was). If you make all three recipes you'll have enough for about 6 people, perhaps with some left over.

Remember to buy your chicken breasts in large packs, divide them up and freeze them to get the most bang for your buck. When I buy 5 lbs. at a time they're about $1.50 less per pound than if I were to just buy the one pound needed for the recipe. Plus, it's nice to have chicken waiting to be used in the freezer the next time you're ready to cook.

This meal includes:

Chicken Enchiladas $9.67
Quick Seasoned Black Beans $1.74
Simple Spanish Rice $1.92
Total: $13.33

Serves: 6, plus 4 left over enchiladas (tomorrow's lunch!)


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summer cook-out

In preparation for Memorial Day weekend, I thought I would share with all of you my favorite summer time dinner. I love getting together with friends, cooking outdoors and leisurely enjoying evening. The picture of the plate below is from the first cook-out that we had this summer. Since I was busy enjoying my friends and a nice bottle of wine, I didn't get the costing done for that particular meal.



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greek chicken dinner

Here is the complete meal that I made this past week with the Greek Chicken Stew (sorry about the delay). Although the chicken stew needs to simmer for a while, the meal as a whole is super simple and very inexpensive! This meal packs a ton of protein (chicken and chickpeas), vegetables (tomatoes, aromatics/onions/garlic, spinach), and carbohydrates (rice and pita bread). To make this meal leaner, make the stew with boneless, skinless chicken breasts and use a low-fat milk for the creamed spinach. You can also substitute brown rice for the white rice in the stew (increase cooking time) for added fiber and nutrients.

This meal includes:

Greek Chicken Stew $9.38
Creamed Spinach $2.93
Whole Wheat Pita (1 pack of 6) $1.24
Total: $13.55
Serves: 5



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beef enchilada dinner

This meal is one of the easiest and most satisfying you'll ever make. The warm, gooey enchiladas are truly comforting, the cilantro lime rice adds substance and a ton of flavor while the guacamole salad offers a fresh, cool, bright contrast to the hot enchiladas. The three dishes go so well together that you can even use the guacamole salad as a topping for the enchiladas or add some of the rice inside the enchiladas before baking. See the notes below for a vegetarian option!

This meal includes:

Beef & Been Enchiladas $10.32
Cilantro Lime Rice $2.08
Guacamole Salad $4.81
Total: $17.21

Serves: 6, plus 4 left over enchiladas (tomorrow's lunch!)




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red beans & rice dinner

I'm going through a bunch of the old recipes and trying to put together some meals with grocery lists to save y'all some time. This first one is a basic, soul-food style southern meal. This may not be up everybody's alley but don't worry, I have more "complete meal ideas" on the way!

The complete meal ideas will usually include one main dish and at least one or two sides (a vegetable and a starch unless the main dish is heavy in one or the other). When you prepare a well rounded meal in this fashion, it is more satisfying and you'll feel less "deprived" over not having a fancy (and expensive) meal served to you at a restaurant.

This meal includes:

Louisiana Red Beans and Rice $8.48 recipe
Stewed Okra and Tomatoes $2.88 recipe
Cornbread (no recipe, follow box directions) $0.76 (prepared)

Total: $12.12

Serves: 6, plus 4 left over servings of beans & rice (tomorrow's lunch!)



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bbq chicken dinner

This week I wanted to do a simple, classic, American meal. After discovering the insanely low price of chicken leg quarters ($0.74 cents / lb.) I knew I had to work them into my menu. I bought a pack of three HUGE leg quarters, which was almost 4.5 lbs worth of chicken. The pack contained only three leg quarters but because of their tremendous size, I would say that this recipe will easily feed four (that's still more than 1 lb. of meat per person). If you need, you can split the chicken before cooking to make more pieces.

The price listed in the title of this post is not only for the BBQ chicken but also the Chili Roasted Broccoli and Rosemary Roasted Potatoes that I made to go with the chicken. The BBQ Chicken itself only cost $5.03 for the recipe and $1.26 per serving!


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