Cheerful Frugality Cooks Up Fun
It's easy to enjoy frugality when you can also make it fun. Food is a great place to start.
Here are some quick, easy, & cheap ways to add fun to your frugal table:
Do cool things with fruit! This can be as simple as slicing strawberries into hearts, making sunshine eggs with pineapple rays, or letting the kids design fruit-salad-on-a-stick.
Copy your favorite fun food at home.
Make movie popcorn the exciting way--on the stovetop!--and use the leftover bulk kernels like the Momadvice family does for rainy day play. Makes and Takes serves hot dogs up with 8 legs or on a stick. Balancing Beauty & Bedlam feeds a crowd with her homemade pizzas in minutes.
Of course, any meal feels festive when it ends in dessert.
I love the Reluctant Entertainer's ice cream trough for presentation. Frugal Upstate considers Jello Jigglers a cheap classic. And here's what might be the ultimate fun dessert for hardcore scratch cooks: homemade Oreo cookies.
Tell us: what do you cook when you want frugal to feel fun? Feel free to include links in your comment below!
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6 Responses to “Cheerful Frugality Cooks Up Fun”
March 9th, 2009 at 6:52 am
Thank you for the Balancing Beauty …’ link. She’s entirely right about feeding teenagers.
We used to have 3 over for supper every week…gotta get back to that. Surprisingly, (since DH and I would sit up and make the kids say grace), the girls loved coming over.
March 9th, 2009 at 7:59 am
We like to make funnel cakes at home, just like the ones we used to buy at the county fair. They’re surprisingly easy once you get the hang of swirling the batter into the hot oil. But even when you’re a newbie, they might look funny but taste just as good!
March 9th, 2009 at 8:01 am
Had to add this.
I am surprised at the foods that some of my DDs teen friends won’t eat:
Chicken pot pie — because there were mushrooms in it.
Pork chops.
Fried rice.
Calzones (although they eventually came around on that)
The 4 meals that everyone would eat:
tacos
baked potatoes
pasta
quesidillas
March 11th, 2009 at 7:08 am
There’s always a tradeoff between convenience and cost. One way I’ve found to get the best of both worlds is by purchasing a $20 rice cooker. No pots, no pans, just put in rice and water and flip the switch. The per-serving cost of rice is about as inexpensive as you can get, and the cooker makes it convenient: win-win!
March 11th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
I am (hopefully) a card carrying member of this awesome Frugal blogroll! I have posted the blogroll and links over at my blog, Laptop Road Trip!
http://www.laptoproadtrip.com/family-friendly/frugal-hackers/
May 16th, 2009 at 11:47 pm
Going out for Mexican food is a popular and expensive evening out. I cant bring myself to spend the bucks on what I know is cheap, easy food. Learn how to cook great mexican foods and make your own margaritas, and save big bucks.
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