My first attempt to beat the cooking Credit Crunch

(well, sort of...)

An earlier post gave a recipe I found for Beef Stew, which claimed a total cost of under $5.00 (under 3 quid). It had the least amount of ingredients, and being a simple person, seemed simple enough for me.

I doubled the recipe, as my goal was to fill freezer containers for later dinners, so here is the actual price breakdown.

Fred Meyers store 7 Nov 2008

Stew beef- approx 1.5 lbs $5.50
Carrots 4 really long ones 1.28
2 cans tomatoes 1.06
1 sm bag frozen green beans .99
1 onion (lg, used 1/2) .90
2 lg baking potatoes .95

Bag of rolls from discount cart .79
(used only one per meal)
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Total $11.47

Not bad!! Besides getting 6 x 1-cup freezer containers filled and in the freezer, I had 3 more meals with what was left in the pot.

Side notes:
-Added 2 boullion cubes to the mix
-Used part of the onion to cook when braising the beef cubes before adding the rest of the meeting.
-I already had a jar of chopped garlic, and used a healthy tablespoon to the braising step also.
-Added about 4 cups of water, enough to cover all the vegetables, then used corn starch towards the end to thicken.
-Used the entire bag (16oz) of green beans, which probably brought the cost up by .50.
-Very important to salt and pepper to taste, I added a tablespoon of powdered curry just for fun. If I'd had it, I might have added cooking sherry, or worchester sauce.

A nice touch might be to get some bread bowls, hollow them out, and serve hot in the bread!

I'm very pleased with the results!!!