I love to be able to cook for families who are in need of an extra meal. Most often they have had a new baby. Other times, someone in the family is facing a chronic illness or they have had a recent loss. But every time, I struggle to plan a menu that will be manageable for my budget and my schedule. This weekend, we have the joy of moving some of our dearest friends into our neighborhood. I will be taking them dinner, and I thought you might be interested in what I have planned and how it fit into our budget.
The menu:
- Crockpot Ribs
- Garlic Rice
- Fresh Green Salad
- Corn
- My 11 yr. old DD will be making a cake for dessert.
The ribs can go in the crockpot, and the rice can be thrown in my rice cooker. One of my kids can prep the lettuce, and the corn is the steamable frozen variety. All in all, the cake is the time consuming part, and baking is still a big treat for my daughter. She is happy to do it, and it will only require a small bit of "follow behind her" clean up.
What about the budget? After all, we will be cooking for a family of eight (several very young).
Ribs- I purchased the ribs while they were on sale last week at HG Hill for .99/lb. I will prepare about 4lbs for their family, so that's about $3.96. The barbecue sauce was a moneymaker this week at Publix, +.31). I will use onions from our CSA share, so the cost is hard to calculate.
Garlic Rice- The rice is Mahatma from Publix, .19 w/ coupon. I'll use some butter, a few chicken boullion cubes, and some green onions (in place of garlic) from the CSA.
Salad- CSA lettuce will form the base of this salad. If I had to purchase the lettuce, my target price would be about $1.69 for a head of lettuce. (About .85 worth to share) Croutons were free during triple coupon days at HT and Kroger. I'll toss in a few carrot curls for color.
Corn-Frozen veggies are easy to come by during the winter. My target price for these is .25 a bag or less.
Cake- .11 cake mix was a great deal around Easter. I have a little free icing that I picked up during triples days. The eggs my daughter used to make the cake came from our friend's chickens. My son has been chicken sitting for them this week.
The basic cost of this meal is around $5. If you count the green onions, butter, and bouillon cubes, you might be able to get the total up to $6.
I know you may not have friends with chickens or a CSA share. But, I hope you can see the possibilities that stockpiling can open up. Do you have a favorite meal you like to share? Please leave a comment and share it with the rest of us!