Half Hour Meals Wants You!

Have you been to Half Hour Meals yet? If you're looking for fast and delicious meals, you'll want to stop by and check it out. If you love to cook, but don't have a lot of time to spend in the kitchen, you'll find a plethora of fabulous recipes to help you get out of the kitchen fast. Categorized by course, ingredient, cuisine type and others like meals on a budget, gluten free or vegetarian, it's easy to find exactly what you're looking for.

Recipes aren't all there is to Half Hour Meals, though. There is also a blog showcase - a spot for food bloggers to list their blog to be found by others and a fabulous community forum filled with foodie discussions on everything from dining out to favorite chefs to our guilty food pleasures.


Head on over today and join the community, whether you're a blogger or not, and feel free to add your own great recipes to the database for a chance to be in the spotlight on our blog, Food For Thought. If you've joined and would like to be featured, let me know - I'm blogging there now! Don't foget to check out the Half Hour Meals Twitter page at http://twitter.com/halfhourmeals - See you there!

More on Food Budgeting

I'm sure for anyone reading here often you've surmised that nearly every recipe posted is of the frugal variety. Other than the occasional recipe that contains an expensive ingredient or two, I stick to what I know: Feeding many for little.

It's no secret that much of what I cook is from scratch with as little processed junk as possible. A few of my favorite budget-minded recipes from the archives:

Homemade Toaster Tarts

Whole Wheat Bread with Honey

Corn Fritters with Black Bean Salsa

Hummus and Tomato Melt (using Hummus and Wheat Pita)

Tortilla Española

Veggie Fajitas with Homemade Whole Wheat Tortillas and Refried Beans

Linguine with Baby Spinach and Almonds

Creamed Peas and Carrots on Toast

Orange-Ginger Chicken Tabbouleh

Lebanese Zucchini

Sausage Sandwich Tart

Fried Green Tomatoes

Stacked Salad

Three Bean Salad

Apple Cake

Wacky Cake

Chicken Recipes

Similarly, nearly everything I've posted to Family.com has been in the frugal family, so take a look there, as well. I'm working in getting recipes tagged properly here so they are easier to search for, but with 3 1/2 years of recipes to sift through, it may take a little time.

Regardless what others may believe, feeding my large family for $150 a week doesn't make me an anomaly. On the contrary, it puts me in good company. I have several friends with larger families (and smaller families) who feed them well for a relatively small amount each week. Lucky for the rest of us, they also blog about it.

Here are several links to frugal family blogs to get you started:

Real Life Living : Not only does Annie share great frugal recipes and menu plans, she also lets you in on how her own family's debt reduction is going (and it's going well!).

Making Do with the Not-So-New : MJ shares leftover food ideas, but beyond that are all sorts of ways to make your money stretch and make-do with what you already have.

Caffey Family Adventures : I think Jaqueline may just trump us all by doing things like feeding 16 for breakfast, lunch and snacks and 6 for dinner on less than $97 a week!

Growlies for the Gang : Kim has a large family (14 in all!) and feeds everyone on budget without making them eat nothing but ramen noodles. Real food, real good, real cheap. Check out her sidebar titled, 'The Freezer' for some awesome menu plans.

Cornbread & Cookies : Ranae, another mom of seven shares her own great tips and recipes for the frugal kitchen.


More on Meal Planning and Budgeting:

Budget Meal Planning
What's For Dinner?

Are you a Great Cook?

If you look to my left sidebar, you'll see the Great Cooks Blogroll widget. Jill of Simply Daily Recipes has come up with this little gadget to compile great food and recipe blog links. There are already several of my favorites there; Chef Tom Cooks, No Fear Entertaining, MomCooks and What's Cooking? to name a few.

If you'd like to join too, click on the header of the blogroll, check to make sure you meet the criteria and fill out your info for Jill. She'll send you all you need to add it to your own blog.