I’ll jump back in and in my usual opinionated way say that anyone who is on a budget and still buying “organic” foods is out of their skull.
This stuff can be so marginal in quality and so very overpriced that it’s insane. Current laws do not define “organic” well at all and you can be getting just about anything for twice the price. The key to cheap healthy eating is a balanced diet of foods that can be prepared and reused. When you make the rice, perhaps make Spanish rice. It serves well with your main course and then jumps into some lunchtime burritos just fine.
Instead of serving a whole roast chicken, slow cook it and bone it out completely. Use the meat in a nice curry and rice or gravy on toast. You get the stock from the cook down, you extend the meat with a rich and nutritious sauce, and the leftover meat can be used in a chicken salad sandwich or a Cobb salad.
When you make beans, make more than one meal’s worth. They keep well and can be used with that Spanish rice to make great burritos that freeze up well. Instead of pintos, consider cranberry beans. I find these to be ten times more versatile in the kitchen. Drop some of the cooked cranberry beans into a home made soup, mash some of them for refrieds and save the rest for burritos.
Learning to cook with tofu is another way to stay healthy and cheap. I get a craving for it every month or so. Pan fry the tofu in a little oil and roasted sesame oil, after browning it a little add some soy sauce and a dash of vinegar. Top a nice vegetable stir fry with the seared tofu and dig in. Low-cal, highly nutritious, what do you want?
In general, look for the amount of packaging on an item, this will tell you about the cost effeciency. Lunchables, however convenient are not cheap. You could have steak in that lunch for the same price. Prepared foods are rarely a bargain. Microwave dinners cost like some cuts of meat and any of them that are cheap usually are laden with fat or extenders. Whatever you do, avoid buying pre-shredded cheeses, salad mixes and things like that. The cost of these products is double to triple of their unprocessed brethern.
One of the most difficult things for Americans to get over is the reliance on fatty foods for flavor. Almost all flavors are transported by fats and oils. In addition the “mouth feel” of fatty foods is more satisfying too. Why do you think this nation eats so many French fries? Mc Donalds is single handedly responsible for almost doubling the yearly American intake of potatoes. When you consider that so much of this is in the form of French fries, imagine the dietary damage being done.
It is for this same reason that I am adamantly against all of the special fat free foods that use olean fat substitute or other such garbage. Replacing the fat with a questionable substance does not change your eating habits and only maintains your being accustomed to the flavor and texture of fatty foods. These products are an abomination. The low-fat cheese and the like cost so much more for so much less and their flavors can be so terrible that I question the sanity of whomever produces or buys the stuff. I realize that there are exceptions to the case, but I’m sure that many will agree about the ridiculous pricing and poor flavor of these “foods”.
Learn to cut back on the amount of fats in your foods. I now use less than half the amount of butter I used to when I make hash browns. I add some oil to the pan instead of more butter. I still use butter for its superior flavor, but just in less quantity. The same can be done in many dishes. I have reduced my butter use by over half and my food still tastes better than most I’m served at restaurants. As to junk food like potato chips and the like, do yourself a favor and leave them out of the grocery cart. I have long since gotten over my fascination with chips and salted nuts and so forth.
Learn to buy strategically. The other day I bought three whole chickens, a flat of thighs, eleven pounds of potatoes and a quart of vegetable oil for less than US$20.[sup]00[/sup]. The discounts saved me almost sixteen dollars off what should have been a $34.[sup]00[/sup] dollar total. Knowing how to shop is almost equal in importance to knowing how to cook.
PS: Biggirl, wash your rice while preparing other foods, it will be fluffier and it will cook faster as well. It should only take 20 minutes to cook a cup of rice.