Can You Eat Well On A Limited Budget?

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By : Judy Jantzen Submitted 2009-04-10 17:03:58
Learning to cook from basic ingredients is the big savings! Pressed for time? Cook extra and have it as fast food another day. Simple cooking is just that. It is a learned skill. If you can read, write and use a computer then you can teach yourself to cook. There is a wonderful amount of information including thousands of recipes for free on the web. It is a great family activity. Teaching your children to cook, helps them to appreciate the effort that it takes, as well as teaching them important life skills. You can learn together. Cooking is a great creative adventure! Please do not spend your food money on anything that does not give you good food for your nourishment. Sodas, chemical drinks and prepackaged foods are full of stuff you may not even be able to pronounce, hurt your health and your pocketbook. Yes, they taste good, but they do not nourish you. I like to make extra spaghetti, goulash, pizza sauces and soups to have on hand for fast food meals. A pot of old fashion oatmeal or cream of wheat will get you through several mornings of fast food, by micro waving a bowl full with some milk. It is a complete protein. Some raisins in it, will give you a fruit. Grits [ground cornmeal] with an egg stirred in and a couple of slices of cheese, is quick and easy. Stir fried rice with an egg added is both filling and a whole protein. It will fill you up and keep you going for hours. Vegetables that are easy on your budget are carrots, cabbage, celery and onions. Carrots and celery are so easy and give you lots of chewing, which is good for your need to chew and reduces your risk of strokes. Cabbage is a very versatile vegetable. Think of slaw, salad, leaves used as wraps for meat fillings, steamed and in soup. Onions and garlic are very good for your immune system as are a lot of herbs like oregano, dill, mint, rosemary and sage and they make a lot of foods taste great. Tuck a few of them in your garden or grow in a few pots. Use the web to find out all the medical uses for them. The very best in cutting your food bill, is an edible garden. Research has shown that a nicely set table with nice music gives the physiological perception of the food costing more and tasting better than the same identical food served on paper plates on a bare table. Just because your budget is pinched, does not mean that you can not treat yourself and your family well with the nice things you already have. You do not have to act poor! Try to make one dinner a week a special occasion with setting a fine table and playing some pleasant quiet music. Act as if important company was coming. It will also help your children learn how to do it, their manners and proper conduct, for their future years. Make it a very special occasion, regardless of your menu. It is a great time to talk with your family. Cloth napkins can save a fortune over the years and you are going to do the wash anyway. Biscuits, cornbread, pancakes, etc. are all good for you and easy on the budget. Making your own bread is good for working off stress. The kneading gives you good upper arm and breast muscles as well as saving money. Nothing matches the wonderful smell of fresh bread or cookies baking. Five cups of flour can make one batch of bread, which can give you a great homemade pizza, a pan of sweet rolls and another batch of rolls or small loaf. Fresh bread and homemade soup can make a feast. For desserts remember things like rice, bread and banana puddings. They taste great and are also full of good protein. The more protein you eat the fuller you will feel and the less food you will crave. Do not forget old fashion popcorn that you pop yourself. It makes a great snack for the family for a TV movie night. It is also a whole grain. Making a batch of cookies with your family will make pleasant memories for a lifetime. Author Resource:- Author: Judy Jantzen,is a freelance author who is actively engaged in writing articles for article marketing. Has spent many years in the kitchen cooking for a family of three.Article From New Ezine Articles

Easy No-Cook Meals

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By : Jimmy Cox Submitted 2008-03-17 09:02:56
It will help us little to eat a four- to twelve-course dinner, consisting of the best carbohydrates, fats, proteins, minerals, starches, sugars and pill vitamins if the dinner is overcooked and all the nutrients destroyed. After years of eating overcooked and processed foods of the finest quality, the majority of us suffer assorted ailments, which vary from debilitating children's diseases to those of crippled maturity and old age. This state of our health has become accepted as the inevitable pattern of our destiny. Some of us however, will not give in and frequently, hopefully follow new fads in eating and are just as frequently led astray to some degree for a very simple reason: because no matter what foods or combination of them are advocated in these fads, and no matter how excellent the ingredients, they fail if they are cooked or processed to death and thus reduced to working against and not for us. It is, therefore, not what you eat, but how it is prepared. All foods, as nature produces them, eaten in any combination, are complete, chemically correct and vital, if prepared at body or, at most, at fever heat. It is my conviction that the whole span of our lives from conception on can be free from all ailments, barring accidents or external infections, if we carefully prepare our food so that the vital vitamins and minerals are retained Below are some tasty supper dishes which can be prepared in such a way as to preserve the important nutrients and thus keep us healthy.

Quick Supper Dishes Macaroni

Noodles And Spaghetti 1 lb. semolina type macaroni, noodles or spaghett

4 cups hot, but not boiling water

3 tablespoons coarse salt

2 tablespoons olive oil

A child's favorite. Fixed "al dente" it can provide much of the vitamins and minerals required for protection of body needs for growth and function. Place the noodles, spaghetti or macaroni into hot water with salt and oil, and let stand for about five minutes.

Quick Supper Dishes Italian Spaghetti

1/2 lb. semolina type spaghetti, Italian type excellent

2 cups very hot water

2 teaspoons coarse salt and fresh red pepper 6 tomatoes, liquefied

1 chopped onion or 1 scallion

1 diced green pepper

1 stalk celery with leaves

chopped 1 clove garlic

The vegetables enrich this dish with their respective vitamins and minerals especially Vitamin C in tomatoes. Prepare the spaghetti as indicated in recipe for spaghetti. Sear quickly over high heat on film of oil, tomatoes, garlic clove, onion, pepper and celery. Add the seasonings and olive oil. Meat balls may be added.

Spaghetti With Chicken

1 fresh young broiler, cut at each joint

3 teaspoons peanut, corn or olive oil

Dash oregano Basil leaves

2 cloves garlic,

minced Coarse salt and

crushed red pepper as desired

A fun and protein combo.

Quick Supper Dishes

Prepare the spaghetti as indicated in recipe above. Heat pan containing a film of oil and the garlic. Remove garlic when it is browned and saute the chicken which will be seasoned later with salt, pepper, oregano and basil leaves. Turn them over in 3 minutes and leave for another 2 minutes. Cover and remove from fire and serve immediately.

Noodle Chop Suey

1 pkg. noodles

1 chopped onion or scallion

1 green pepper, chopped

2 stalks celery with leaves, chopped

1 cup chopped fresh mushrooms

3 tablespoons olive oil

2 fresh tomatoes, mashed

2 teaspoons cornmeal

Dash oregano

Basil leaf Bay leaf

Coarse salt and crushed red pepper

Saute the vegetables over high flame (1 minute). Add the cornmeal. Remove from flame and add the mushrooms. Place the noodles, which are already prepared in manner described in first recipe, with the vegetables and serve. All these dishes are not only satisfying but healthy. Enjoy!

Author Resource:- Get The Shocking Truth Raw Food Diet Detox And What You Must Do To Eat Healthy! Click Here For Free Online Ebook http://www.rawfooddietdetox.net/Article From New Ezine Articles

Market Your Cookbook

MARKET YOUR COOKBOOK by Pam White

Divine recipes, luscious photographs – this is your first cookbook
and you look forward to those big royalty checks. So what's your
marketing plan for this book? What are you doing to increase sales?

New writers often think the publisher arranges for all publicity.
Not true. As the writer, you have most at stake so it will benefit
you most to take a proactive stance when it comes to promoting and
selling your cookbook.

Much of the research can take place while you are planning and
writing your book. Visit bookstores and study the cookbooks that are
on the shelves. Note the different types of cookbooks and who are
writing them. Discern which books are your direct competition for
sales. Create ways to make yourself stand out.

After your book is at the publisher but before it is released
contact magazine editors, ezine publishers and website owners. Ask
if they will review your book and wait for a reply before you incur
the cost of shipping.

Write articles or offer excerpts from you cookbook to magazines that
cater to your audience.

Tap your local newspaper for interviews and reviews. Pick up the
phone and ask for a feature reporter (look for bylines in the
features, lifestyle, or Sunday special sections) and offer yourself
up as the subject of an article.

Build a website using your name or your book's name as the domain.
Take all those published reviews, articles, newspaper features and
anything else anyone has said about your book and link to it, or
excerpt it. You can also use quotes from reviews in any press
release you send out.

Once your book is published call bookstores as far as you are
willing to travel and offer to do a book signing, cooking
demonstration or reading. Do not give up. Keep calling and planning
and promoting. Bring along giveaways to book signings. Have
bookmarks, recipe cards, or notepads printed up with your name,
website and book cover prominently displayed.

Don't stop with bookstores. Check out cookware stores and gourmet
shops that will stock your cookbook, and who might even welcome you
to demonstrate your recipes on a busy Saturday.

Ask all your friends to help spread the word by joining food-related
discussion lists, setting up book signings in their local
bookstores, and writing reviews of your book.

Contact television and radio stations to see if they are looking for
a feel-good news story or if you can be a guest on one of their
shows.

Having a new cookbook out or being a local published author is
newsworthy, but how do you keep the marketing effort up long term?
Find a way to connect your recipes with events. Dessert cookbooks
are easily linked with holidays like Valentine's Day, Thanksgiving,
Christmas, birthdays, and weddings. Healthy food cookbooks are great
for January (New Year's resolutions), spring (getting ready for
summer clothes) and right after a new medical report comes out about
the danger of fat, meat, sugar, wheat allergies and junk food.

If you want ongoing coverage from local, regional and national news
media send out announcements on your expertise. Include any food
science and nutrition background you have to widen your appeal as an
expert.

Donate your cookbook as a prize or to be auctioned off for charity.
Not only will the lucky winner learn who you are, but so will all
the other readers, listeners and viewers as the contest or auction
is promoted for the weeks leading up to it.

The key to marketing your cookbook is persistence. Try everything
above, then go back through the list again and again. Marketing your
cookbook successfully can be likened to making a snowball. You start
with a few individual ideas, add on more each day or week, and soon
you've got a snowball whose momentum will carry you, and your
cookbook, out into the world.


(c) Pamela White, 2006

Want to use this article in your ezine or on your website? Feel free as long as you include the following:

About the author: Subscribe to the free online newsletter, Food Writing, created for the care and feeding of food writers, at www.food-writing.com . Pamela White teaches food writing and her book, Make Money as a Food Writer in Six Lessons, is available at Amazon.com .