I don't know about you, but sometimes I'm in the mood for a big, hearty meat and potatoes meal. But I need to feed a whole family of seven people, and I'm always looking for ways to stretch that meat-and-potatoes meal to feed us all for less. That's why I love making shepherd's pie - it feels like one of those meat-focused Sunday dinner meals, but it's still frugal and easy to make. If you ask several people how to make shepherd's pie, you'll probably get several different answers. This … [Read more...]

When it comes to fall flavors, I have a hard time deciding between pumpkin and apple. Pumpkin chocolate chip will always be one of my favorite combinations (like in these muffins), but I can't argue with a good apple cider or apple crisp either. If you're an apple lover, these easy cinnamon apples are for you. Cinnamon ApplesServes 4-5 Ingredients: 4-5 apples (I like Gala or Pink Lady, but any kind will work)1/2 cup water2-3 tsp. cinnamon Directions: Slice apples into 8-10 … [Read more...]

I love using my Instant Pot to cook food hands off, and one of my favorite things to make in there is soup. And really, as long as you have enough liquid to pressurize, and you don't overfill the thing, soup is pretty hard to mess up. I like to just keep adding things I think will taste good, and see how many veggies I can sneak in there for my family to eat. This soup was born from one of those times when I just kept adding things, then closed the lid and waited to see how it would turn … [Read more...]

I don't know about your family, but my family loooooooves tacos. Those and pizza we could eat pretty much every week and be okay with it. Repeating other dinners? Not so much. But these two are standbys. And as our family has grown, we've needed to make more taco meat to fill everyone up.  But meat is expensive, and I didn't want to spend a ton more to have taco night. So I started using ground turkey instead of ground beef, and I also started adding cooked lentils to my meat.  … [Read more...]

Sometimes it's hard to convince kids to eat vegetables.  Actually, sometimes it's hard to convince adults that they want to eat vegetables!  But I always feel a little leery about hiding vegetables in food, since I want to teach my kids to appreciate how vegetables taste and what they do for our bodies.  Hiding them just seems to defeat the purpose. That being said, I also want to occasionally eat a meal that no one whines about.  And I knew that I could potentially get that with spaghetti.  … [Read more...]