*REALISTIC* BUDGET Dinner Plan in 2024!

if you are looking for some ideas on how to feed your family delicious meals that won't break the bank I've got you covered in this video I'm sharing with you five nights of dinners that I made for my family of five on a budget I am shopping for this meal plan in my local Walmart Neighborhood Market and my goal was not to do a super extreme budget with this video but to do a more modest budget so my aim is to spend around $75 for five family dinners that feed my family of five and that comes out to 25 plates so $3 a plate which is still pretty inexpensive when you're thinking about it especially in today's society in today's economy but also it gives me a little bit of wiggle room to have a little bit more luxury and a little bit more convenience in this meal plan this week I'm going to make a few recipes with beef and I normally would not Splurge in a budget meal plan on the stew meat that's already cut up but in this case I am because I'm going to make two recipes with it and the price per pound on the family pack of the beef stew meat is almost exactly the same as the price per pound on the chuck roast so I'm going to go ahead and take the shortcut because it's basically going to be the same price since I'm using it across two recipes I'm also getting some chicken breast but I scouted out the smallest of the chicken breast packages because I only need about 3 lb this is 4 lb so that's okay we'll have a little extra chicken left over but I'm also splurging on some bacon for this meal plan for a couple of the recipes so I'm going to go with the store brand 1 lb for 4.48 but I don't want the thick sliced I kind of want the the thinner one so I'm going to go ahead and pick up this one even though it's the hickory smoked I need some eggs for these recipes and they're up to $1.96 today at my Walmart but I'm going to pick up a dozen of these you probably already have this but I'm using more than a few tablespoons this week so I'm going to go ahead and pick up a container of grated Parmesan cheese for this meal plant I'm using a a couple sticks of butter in some of these recipes so I'm going to include the cost of one of these two stick packs in my total but I'm actually not going to pick it up today because I have a lot of butter in my refrigerator at home left over from the holidays I also need both beef and chicken broth for this week's meal plan about a quart of each but I actually just made chicken broth in my crock pot last week from the bones of a whole chicken that I cooked so I'm going to include the cost of a quart of chicken broth but I'm not going to pick it up today but you can pick one up and you could use broth base or you know bullon or broth that you already have on hand too but I'll go ahead and and include the cost of both in my total you are going to love what I'm doing with these roads rolls so don't miss it for everything that I purchased today at my Walmart Neighborhood Market the total came to $694 and then if I add in the cost of the handful of items that I did not purchase because I already had them at home my total comes out to $75.60 which I think is not too shabby considering I'm going to make five delicious and easy family meals for my family for this week now it is nearly impossible to buy every single item write down the salt and pepper that you need for any of these meal plan videos so I will pop up a list right here of some of the pantry Staples seasonings condiments that kind of thing that I'll be using in addition to the things that I purchased today maybe there are a few things that you need to pick up but maybe there are some things that I purchased that you don't need sometimes it's a wash it is a cold dreary rainy day so I have already changed into some sweatpants to be cozy and I am chopping up some carrots and potatoes so we can get some delicious beef stew going in the slow cooker I just thought that sounded so good for today given the weather I'm using almost half of my bag of carrots I did go ahead and peel them and I'm giving them a rough chop here I want to keep them you know kind of chunky and I did not peel my potatoes I just gave them a good scrub I picked out the five smallest potatoes from my bag of Y yellow potatoes it's probably about a pound and a half or so of yellow potatoes and I'm just going to give those a rough chop as well I am using a slow cooker with a sauté function so if you don't have a sauté function on your slow cooker you will want to do this first step on your stove and then transfer it to your slow cooker I've got about half of my package of stew meat that I bought this is a little over a pound I'm going to season it pretty generously with salt and pepper I'm using about a teaspoon and a half of salt and then several cranks of pepper and now I'm going to toss it with about 1/4 cup of flour I probably could have just used 2 tablespoons of flour probably didn't need the full4 cup but that's okay I'm going to turn the sauté function on and I want to just Brown the ground beef for a few minutes on each side now I've got a couple tablespoons of butter just going to drop that in and let it melt and I'm going to sauté about half an onion along with that my onions are getting translucent so I'm going to toss in a little bit of minced garlic as well and I'm going to switch over to the slow cook function now this is the point at which you would just move this mixture over to a crock pot I'm going to add some garlic powder probably about a teaspoon some Rosemary my favorite the rest of my time I need to get that on my list about a tablespoon of werer and about 2 tablespoon maybe three of tomato paste I'm going to save the rest of this pan of tomato paste because I'm going to use it in another recipe I'm putting my carrots and potatoes that I chopped into the crock pot and then I'm going to pour in about 3 cups of beef broth that's not quite my whole carton of beef broth I need to save about a cup of that for another recipe and give everything a good stir couple bay leaves and then I'm going to pop the lid on and let this cook on high for probably around 3 and 1/2 to 4 hours cuz I want that beef to get nice and tender I might have to add just a little bit of water to this which would be fine as well yeah just to be safe I want to make sure everything is submerged one cup of water water lid on 4 hours here we go Kenna has agreed to help me make up the cornbread tonight so she is going to take these two boxes of Jiffy cornbread mix and add two eggs 2/3 of a cup of milk and half a cup of sour cream which would be half of my 8 oz container that I purchased so she's going to stir that up and I'm going to show you what else we're going to do to make this cornbread super delicious my oven is preheating to 400 and I have a 9x13 casserole dish here and I'm putting in the bottom half a stick 4 tspoons of butter and I'm going to put that in the oven while it's preheating so that the butter melts and then we're going to pour the batter into the warm pan with the butter and pop it into the oven to bake until it's done I'm guessing it's going to take about 20 to 25 minutes or so but always a good idea to keep an eye on things cuz ovens just cook differently I added a little cornstarch slur to the beef stew when it was done cooking after about 3 and 1/2 hours I stirred together a tablespoon of corn starch and about 3 tbspoon of water and put that into the slow cooker for the last 30 minutes or so and here it is it looks and smells amazing the cornbread also turned out fantastic and I thought this meal was just a little low on like fruits and vegetables so I picked up three pairs that I've chopped up so we can have a little fruit on the side with this meal as well we cannot wait to dive into this I want to take a minute to thank Better Health they are sponsoring today's video and they're offering 10% off your first month for my viewers we all know that therapy can be very helpful and 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help for sponsoring today's video it is another cold dreary day here in Tulsa America and we have one of those rare nights where we actually don't have any activities taking us out of the household in the evening so it's a great night for some comfort food I'm going to be whipping up some carbonara actually I guess I should call it pasta with bacon parmesan sauce because as soon as I call it carbonara and I show people how I make it I'll probably get some comments from people telling me that they great grandmother would totally roll over in their grave if they saw how I was making it I'm going to show you how I make it I'm not not saying it's the best most amazing authentic way it's just the way that I make this particular kind of pasta dish and it's delicious I start off by getting a big pot of salted water boiling and then I will put my pasta in the pot I'm going to cook about 12 ounces of spaghetti noodles for this while that's cooking I'm frying up my bacon I like to go ahead and chop it before I cook it and once that's done I'm going to take it out of the pot and set it aside and here's a trick I learned a while back that made this dish come together so much more easily for me I'm going to take six eggs and beet them well and I'm going to put the parmesan cheese that I have shredded in with the eggs and bead it all together I'm going to shred up about 6 oz of my block of cheese I'm going to shred it pretty fine when my pasta is done I'm going to drain it and I'm going to immediately put it into my big pot that I was cooking the bacon in and then I'm going to immediately begin stirring in that egg and Parmesan mixture and just keep stirring it the heat is either on low or completely off because the heat from the pot and the pasta is going to help cook the sauce the egg and the cheese is going to get it all nice and melty and make this creamy sauce and then I'll toss the cooked bacon in with it at the end and we'll have this really simple but very delicious pasta dish the key to making carbonara using this method is to continuously stir it while you're adding the egg and Parmesan mixture to keep the eggs from scrambling truth be told this time my pot was probably still a little bit too hot I maybe needed to drain some of the bacon grease out but I think it still turned out really great it's it's going to taste delicious and we cannot wait to dive into this I'm going to keep the veggie side for this super simple just steam up some of my frozen broccoli season it with a little salt and pepper and parmesan cheese and call it a day because in addition to the carbonara I'm going to whip up some garlic knots and then a really tasty dessert to go along with this meal tonight I have this package of Roads Tha rice and baked rolls there are 36 in the package I'm going to take 12 of them out and let them thaw and then I'm going to roll them tie them each in a little knot and set them on a cookie sheet to rise when they're doubled in size I'm going to just brush them with a little bit of butter garlic salt and parmesan cheese and pop them into the oven they should take about 8 to 10 minutes to bake at 350 per the usual you just want to keep an eye on it with the remaining roads rolls I'm going to make monkey bread and if you have been making monkey bread with biscuits I think you're missing out because I think it's even better with roads rolls now when it comes to rise time proofing time for bread products for yeast bread products so much depends a bread product that is rising on a kitchen counter in the summertime where I am is going to rise faster than in the winter time because heat is going to make that process happen faster I have a proof setting on my oven so it'll heat my oven up just a few degrees so it's a little bit warmer than the kitchen which will also help the rolls rise a little bit quicker and sometimes I'll even turn on the oven for a couple minutes and just let it heat up just a little bit and then uh turn it off and pop my bread products in there and it'll it'll rise pretty quickly this is not something that I can give you like a finite process in time because the temperatures and kitchens and just the way that bread products act from place to place are different so you're going to have to play around with it a little bit it's almost noon and I am getting the roll products out now to thaw and then in a few hours I'll be able to start the prep process and I'm going to try to time it so that the garlic knots are coming out of the oven right as we're eating dinner and so that the monkey bread is going into the oven as we start eating so that it's nice and warm when we're ready to eat it for dessert after dinner I'm going to let those two dozen remaining rolls thaw and then I'm going to slice each one of them in half for this recipe you're going to need one stick or half a cup of butter melted one package of butterscotch cook and serve Jell-O and then half a cup of brown sugar I'm going to take those roll pieces and I'm going to put them into a bunt pan and I'm going to pour over half of the melted butter and then sprinkle over the brown sugar and the butterscotch pudding mix and then pour over the rest of the butter then I'm going to let them rise until they're doubled in size and then pop them into the oven to bake I've got my amateur filmer behind the camera here we made a little vanilla icing from butter milk and powdered sugar a little bit of vanilla so that they can dip the monkey bread in it I need to thin it out a little bit now now comes the hard part seeing if we can get it out of the pan oh my gosh that looks amazing I'm just saying I just got home from doing something fun but also kind of scary I was on live TV one of the local stations has had me on a few times over the past few months to talk about the same sorts of things I talk about here on my channel making meals for our families how to save money in the kitchen etc etc and it's a lot of fun I'm very grateful for the opportunity but it also makes me just just a little bit nervous because it's live you have to speak off the cuff in the moment so I'm glad I got that opportunity and now I'm going to get something going in the crock poot for dinner tonight I'm going to be making my mom's beef stroben off recipe this is something she used to make all the time when I was growing up it was one of my brother's favorite dishes we always had it on his birthday for sure as well as other times throughout the year and I am changing up the recipe a little bit to make it work in the crock pot mom used to make it on the stove but I'm going to get it going in the slow cooker right now I took the rest of my stew meat which was a little over a pound and I put it into a ziplo baggie I seasoned it with salt and pepper you can do that to taste I probably used about a teaspoon of salt and about 1/4 teaspoon of cracked black pepper and then about a teaspoon of garlic powder then I added about 3 tbsp of flour and I gave that a really good shake to coat everything now I have it in my slow cooker on the sauté function with about 2 tblspoon of butter that I melted ahead of time and I'm just going to let this brown on all sides for a few minutes before we add the other ingredients my beef is sufficiently browned and I've already switched it over to the slow cook function and now I am going to add 1 tblspoon of Worcester Shure sauce about a tablespoon of ketchup and 1 and 1/2 cups of beef broth or you could use water and then just use a beef broth base or a bullon low and slow for 6 to 7 hours high for 3 to 4 and then we'll come back and finish it up okay this is what four 4 hours on high looks like the meat is done and this actually smells so fantastic I can tell it's nice and tender because my spoon can actually cut the meat that is a sign of some really tender meat right there all I'm going to do now is add half a cup of sour cream mom's recipe calls for a full cup but all I have is a half a cup because I used the rest of it to make cornbread earlier this week and I usually add less sour cream because I find that a full cup kind of makes it taste Bland you know it's going to take a lot of the flavor out of the the beef gravy that we've been cooking this in so I just do a/ cup now we have eaten this over rice we have eaten it over mashed potatoes my mom actually used to serve it over crunchy Chowan noodles it was absolutely delicious but tonight we are going to have it with some egg noodles that I purchased and a s of broccoli and that is going to be dinner if you feel like the sauce or the gravy isn't thick enough you can add a cornstarch slurry I'm probably going to add add a tablespoon of cornstarch with 3 tbsp of water and then just let this simmer together for another 10 minutes or so to thicken up you could also add a couple tablespoons of flour and Shake It Up with a little bit of milk and add that in as well if you like it thicker tonight I am making baked chicken with mashed potatoes and green beans is there any other quintessential stereotypical family meal I'm not sure maybe spaghetti my chicken breasts were kind of large in that family size package that I purchased so I cut them in half and pounded them a little bit just to make make them an even thickness and they are brining and I do that by putting the chicken breast in a container and putting a couple teaspoons of salt in with it and then just filling it up with water and I let them sit for a couple of hours before I begin um seasoning them and cooking them you don't have to do this I just do this with chicken breast when I'm going to bake it especially because I think it makes it more flavorful what I have here in my bowls is some flour probably about a cup of flour and I put about a teaspoon of salt and a little black pepper in there you don't have to season it if you don't want to oops hold on in this one I have four eggs and about 1/4 cup of milk scrambled and then in this one I have a cup of breadcrumbs and about half a cup of this parmesan cheese and I took my chicken breast out of the Brine and I kind of patted them dry they're sitting on this cutting board over here and what I'm going to do is Dredge the chicken in the flour first and then dip it in the egg and milk wash and then roll it in the breadcrumb mixture and put it into my 9x13 pan here I ran out of room in my casserole dish so I had to use one of my pie plates I'm making a little extra so I can have some for lunch tomorrow too I'm going to pop it into a 350° oven and let them cook until they are done and how long that takes depends on how large your chicken breasts are since I cut mine and also pounded them a little bit it's probably going to take about 30 to 40 minutes I'm guessing you might have noticed that I don't do a lot of side dish recipes here on my channel I tend to keep the sides pretty simple I think in our meals usually some kind of starch like potato or rice or maybe some bread if the starch isn't you know mixed in with the meal like a casserole or a soup and then some kind of vegetable and I know the vegetables that my family likes and I just kind of rotate through those for this video I had planned to do like a salad bar and just pick up salad fixings that I could put out each night for everybody to make their own salads to go on with the meals but it's so chilly this week that I was really craving warm vegetables not salads so I picked up some broccoli and some green beans to supplement these meals but you can change out the vegetables you know according to what your preferences might be that's just what I got for this week so it's the next day and I wanted to come on here and say in the interest of full disclosure that about half the chicken turned out the way it normally does I've made chicken like this before and it the taste and texture was the same as normal and about half of it just turned out kind of odd like the taste was fine and it was fully cooked but the texture was a little off so I don't know if it's something that I did or if it's the chicken I picked up because typically those family packs of chicken from Walmart or Aldi I'm turning into like Crock-Pot meals or soups or stews or something where it slow cooks and then I shred the chicken up when we make baked chicken or grilled chicken and other cuts of meat like steak we're typically using our stuff from good shop so I don't know if it was a quality thing or what but I'm all about being realistic and letting you know that you know sometimes I have a fail or a troubleshoot and for what for whatever reason the chicken was kind of a mixed bag last night I don't know maybe one of you noticed something I did that I shouldn't have done I'm sure you'll let me know if I did tonight we are having a creamy chicken noodle soup I discovered this recipe years ago under the title crack chicken noodle soup because it has a lot of the same ingredients as that famous recipe with chicken ranch seasoning bacon cheddar cream cheese but it's a soup and I have tweaked it over the years to use uh the ingredients that we prefer and also to make it in the slow cooker so let me show you how I'm doing that I have my multi-function slow cooker on the sauté function you could of course do this on the stove and then transfer it to your slow cooker and this is about six pieces of bacon and I used my kitchen shears just to chop them up into little bite-sized pieces and I'm just frying those up I need about a cup of chopped carrots and I did buy carrots this week for this meal plan but I've had this little package of Julian carrots in my fridge for longer so I'm going to go ahead and use those up in this and I'm putting those in with the bacon while it's finishing up just to let them kind of sauté with the bacon a little bit and soak up some of that yummy bacon grease because um there's no other like oil or butter in this recipe I have switched my slow cooker over to the slow cook setting so I've turned the sauté function off so it'll be cooling down pretty quickly and I put two fairly decent sized chicken breast in here it's probably a little less than a pound of chicken breast I'm going to add a packet of ranch dressing mix and about six cups of broth I'm using chicken broth that I actually made in the slow cooker last week when I cooked a whole chicken you have already seen that video I got a lot of broth out of the carcass from that chicken so I'm going to be able to use some of it in this recipe this week and last but not least half a block or 4 oz of cream cheese I'm just going to set this right on top so it can soften and it'll be super easy to stir into the dish I'm going to pop the lid on and let this cook on high it will probably take my chicken about 3 to 4 hours to cook completely I just want it to cook until the chicken is done and I can take it out and shred it up my chicken is done and I took it out of the slow cooker and I shredded that up and it's sitting aside here we'll add it back in in just a minute I'm just sort of stirring this up to incorporate the cream cheese and now I'm adding 4 oz of spaghetti noodles and I broke mine up you don't have to do that you can put them in hole I just think it's easier to submerge them when they're broken up like that one cup of milk with 3 tablespoons of cornstarch stirred in and you want to stir the cornstarch into the cold milk and then add it to the slow cooker because heat will make the corn starch start to thicken immediately so if you try to sprinkle corn starch into a hot pot you're going to end up with like lumps of corn starch put my chicken back in and then I'm going to pop the lid on and let this cook on high for another 20 to 30 minutes until the noodles are done cooking and then it'll be ready you can stir the cheddar cheese about a cup or so into the soup into the big pot but I prefer just to shred the cheese up and let everybody add however much they want and I had just a little bit of bacon that I set back just to sprinkle on the top there for anybody who wants it and some toast and that's dinner tonight yum for more dinner ideas check out one of these videos next and I'll see you there

Channel: See Mindy Mom

Views: 61,898

Keywords: seemindymom, see mindy mom, see mindy mom youtube, budget, frugal

Id: v2lSyqhAU-w

Length: 24min 8sec (1448 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 18 2024