Saving and Giving has moved to savingandgiving.net! I hope that you'll all join me over at Saving & Giving's new home. I'm planning some fun giveaways to kick things off. I'm still working on the site, and I'd love to hear your input. Let me know which features you want me to keep. You can email me at savingandgiving@gmail.com. If you're currently an email subscriber, you shouldn't see any change in your daily email newsletter. I switched the feed over so that you should continue to receive your daily updates.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Frugal Friday: When You Don't Feel Like Cooking


Last night was one of those nights. You know the ones. You're tired. You don't feel like cooking dinner. Oh, you've got a menu plan alright. And the menu you planned requires some effort on your part. And you don't want to give it. You're seriously wishing you had done a Crock Pot meal. Can you relate?

I only had quesadillas planned. They don't really take that much effort. I just seriously wasn't in the mood to cook much of anything. I almost suggested that we head out somewhere for dinner.

Instead, I went to one of my When-You-Don't-Feel-Like-Cooking meals. I always try to keep one on-hand. It's something that's in my pantry or freezer (or a combination of the two). Tonight's was rotini with meat sauce. I had rotini and spaghetti sauce in my pantry. I had already-cooked ground beef in the freezer. It took me all of three minutes to prep everything and let it cook.

Some of my other favorite When-You-Don't-Feel-Like-Cooking meals are:

Five Can Soup
Tuna Noodle Casserole
Pizza (Homemade Crust, Pita, or English Muffin)
Chili (The recipe HERE is for the Crock Pot, but you can throw it together and simmer it on the stove for a little while too.)

This is one way we try to eat frugally. Plus it's healthier than going out!

For more frugal ideas, stop by Frugal Friday sponsored by Life As Mom.

5 comments:

Niki Jolene said...

Great ideas..thanks for sharing.


:)

Stop over at Free2BeFrugal!

Goat Gal said...

Very good! One of our I don't feel like cooking meals is pitas with tatziki, tomatoes onions and kabobs that were frozen.

Mommy-Wise said...

I totally do the english muffin pizzas!! You gotta love 'em!

Buffie said...

Those mights when you don't feel like cooking really are rough. Unfortunately we tend to just go out and eat or eat something junky for dinner on those nights. It's great that you have a backup plan for those nights. I should come up with a few things for us on those nights. Thanks for the idea.

UnfinishedMom said...

Yep. Spaghetti (or some form of it) is often one of my "I don't feel like/don't have time to cook meals). Gotta have some of those in your pocket for sure.