My Ultra Cheap Dinner

It’s summer, and although I’m overly proud that we swept the kitchen and did the laundry, other things didn’t happen. Things like freezer cooking and menu planning. But sometimes a girl just has an urge to link to something . . . so I’m linking up to the 5 dollar Dinner Challenge at 5dollardinners.com, an awesome site for recipes that are unbelievably budget-friendly!

And boy is this meal budget-friendly.

Here goes:

Throw into Crock pot:

Cooked Beans (I used ones that I cooked a month or so ago during a freezer cooking day, and I also added in a half-can of ranch-style beans that I didn’t want to go to waste . . . very frugal, right?)

A package of Louis-Rich Turkey Smoked Sausage, which generally run 1.78 at my Walmart. I sliced the sausage into small pieces.

—————–

I put the beans in the crockpot, frozen, with the sausage, at lunchtime, on high. Just before leaving to go swimming at 3:00, I stirred, added a cup of chicken stock to make them juicier, and turned the crockpot to low. I also started some rice in the rice-cooker, my very favoritest kitchen gadget, and turned it on to cook while we were gone. The best thing about a rice cooker is that when it’s done, it will automatically switch to “warm” and keep the rice perfect for when you’re ready. All the little mom and pop side-of-the-road places in Thailand used big rice-cookers, and just scooped it out for individual dishes.

I’m estimating that the beans were less than a dollar, the rice was .68, so the total cost was less than 4.00. Not bad, and it was ready to eat the minute we got home from the pool!

Go check out lots of great ideas at 5dollardinners.com!