What's your favorite thing to cook while DIYing?

Mac & Cheese

Spaghetti & Marrinara sauce w/garlic

Bread & salad & WINE! 🍝🥖🥗🍷

Home made soups. Rice and beans, grilled cheese sandwiches. scrambled eggs. Hot dogs. Get cheese ends and melt them and dunk toast points in them. Welsh rarebit.

Chili

Chicken Fried Rice.

Beans and rice. Omlets or other breakfast foods. Mac and cheese. Veggie soup. Be sure to use all leftovers. Fried rice. Baked potatoes, stuffed or not. Tomato sauce and pasta. Quesadillas. Grilled cheese and tomato soup.

Oh this is my area of expertise having had to make do all my life: if you want any recipe for any, please ask, I have good ones and my family all tells me I am a good cook. These are simple, inexpensive, and delicious:

Chicken and dumplings or home made noodles

Ham bone and beans on rice

Home made stew

Pancake supper

Home made hamburger helper

Home made tuna helper

Depression Recipe for Soup with grilled cheese sandwiches

Home made rolls (no kneed)

Home made whole grain biscuits

Home made hamburger gravy on home made bread or toast

Split pea soup home made

Chilli home made

Pigs in a blanket (home made biscuits)

Shepherd's Pie home made

Hash home made with cut pieces of meat, potatoes, onion

Primo Barley and Beef soup from dollar store (just heat)

Tater Tot casserole

Wienies, fried potatoes, pork and beans

Stuffed green peppers

Fried summer squash and hamburgers

Desserts: wild blackberries thickened on biscuits, molasses on biscuits, muffins with fruit, home made puddings various flavors, home made bread or rice puddings, home made banana bread (or zucchini bread just as good),

home made ice cream with fruit in it,

Hope this gets you started. Ask for any recipe. Home made really is the healthiest and cheapest if you have the time. If not, buy the store brand biscuits to stretch the meals.

I make a lentil shepards pie that everyone likes,,, even the non-vegetarians.

I make an asian stir fry with Chow Mein Noodles, a bag of chopped mixed veggies sauted with 5-spice, ginger and a bit of soy sauce.

Some of the inexpensive dishes I make clients are a garlic alfredo and chicken cassarole with bowtie pasta; baked zita (poor man's lasnage); quiche, tamale pie, chicken enchiladas with black beans and rice.

Lots of "make it stretch" ideas:

I buy the huge 10lb chub of ground beef from Walmart (under $20) and use it for Meatloaf (2-3 lb) and fry the rest up for spaghetti, lasagna, soft tacos or chili, hamburger mac and cheese... etc.

Meatloaf, ground beef, 1-2 eggs, bread crumbs or bread stuffing, tomato paste, sauce or "meatloaf sauce"(Hunt's) and seasonings (Mrs' Dash)

Pair with: roasted potatoes (wash, chunk, toss in olive oil, salt and pepper, on sheet pan with sides)... or, scalloped potatoes, mac and cheese etc.

Rotisserie Chicken (most grocery stores/Walmart)... left overs can be Chicken

enchiladas (cream of chicken soup, diced green chilies for the sauce, and

cheese, corn tortillas) ...or...

Chicken vegetable soup (fresh, canned or frozen vegetables, with rice or

noodles.....or...

Chicken and dumplings (add chicken broth and Bisquick dumplings, add

the left over chicken last 10 min to warm up) and the "gravy" can be a

base for the above veg. soup)

Beef Roast (cooked in oven or crock pot) left over, left overs can become

beef vegetable soup (add fresh, frozen or canned vegetables to the juice)

Cup of Noodles beef or chicken, prepared per directions

(add all or part of a package of stir fry vegetables cooked in microwave)

Apple or cherry dump cake (13x9 pan, apple or cherry pie filling, yellow cake mix, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/2 stick butter melted... think pineapple upside down cake.. only apple or cherry or pineapple..

We shop only once a month.. so I vacuum** pack all my meats before freezing and I vacuum pack all my "do ahead" stuff... our climate here in AZ is warmer so keeping fresh potatoes from sprouting is harder.. I will buy 10-20 pounds when they are on sale (like now) and then oven roast or cook and mash them (like normal) or do "twice baked" and vacuum pack into meal sized portions as sides for pork chops or meatloaf later.

This is how I freeze mashed potatoes... place in refrigerator over night so they solidify somewhat... use a small baking scoop or ice cream scoop and portion out onto a baking sheet covered with waxed or parchment paper. Freeze about 2 hours until they become hard. Separate into meal sized portions and vacuum pack (according to machine instructions). To heat use a microwave safe bowl, add a little milk and butter, and microwave until hot, mix well and serve (I got this idea from using Schwann's mashed potatoes, but it is LOTS cheaper)

**vacuum packing will help you save a lot in not losing stuff to freezer burn.