Heart of the Matter 28: Budget-Friendly Foods

If you’re in the U.S. or many other parts of the world, you’ve no doubt heard about The Recession for months now. Many people are tightening their belts and making changes in their lifestyle to try and conserve funds or prepare for uncertain times. But no matter where you are, it never hurts to be a bit frugal occasionally or to have a few meals in your repertoire that can stretch your pocketbook a bit further if needed. Thus, the theme for this month’s Heart of the Matter is “Budget-Friendly Foods.”

Your challenge this month is to come up with a meal that is budget-friendly AND heart healthy…either using ingredients that don’t cost much (or perhaps you grew yourself?) or even ingredients where a little goes a long way. Be creative and share with us how you save money when you cook! What’s your go-to meal at the end of the month or before payday comes? What do you make when you have a lot of people to feed but not a lot of money?

After the round-up, we’ll all have a suite of meals that we can use to help stretch our budget next month…And who knows, maybe that extra money you’ve saved could go towards a trip later on in the summer or spent on a bushel of extra juicy peaches while they’re in season?

After you’ve made your meal and blogged about it, send me the link before midnight on Friday, July 31 at phillipslayden AT gmail DOT com and stay tuned for the round-up a few days later.

Remember that your entry should be low in saturated fats (lean meats and fish), be low in salt (sodium), and that you can be abundant with vegetables or fruit. If you want to get more information, check out the useful links in the right hand marginal of the HotM website. Please only use your entry for this event so that we can keep things centered on heart-healthy recipes.