The top 10 posts from 2018. See what helped the Cheapskate Cooks save money and eat healthy – and their favorite recipes!
You guys are so smart and interesting. What a privilege to help you save money and eat healthy this year. We’ve chatted on Facebook Live, Instagram Stories, In the Cheapskate Cooks Facebook Group, and our one-on-one coaching sessions.
You make me giddy at how you crush your goals. You feed your people well while paying off debt. You juggle full-time school and pay cuts. You handle food allergies and tight budgets with courage, grace, and just enough scrappiness.
Thank you for letting me be a part of your journey. It is a privilege to serve you every day, and I never get tired of it.
While you smashed the myth that you have to make six figures to eat organic, here are the top 10 posts you found most helpful in 2018.
10. How a 10-Day Pantry Challenge Will Save You Money
Every 3 months or so, our family does a 10-day pantry challenge. Why 10 days, and how does it help us save money and eat
9. Easy Frittata
Or How to Use All The Veggies in the Crisper Drawer
Frittata is like the green smoothie of baked egg dishes. It tastes good, and it tricks you into eating vegetables you would never normally eat in the morning.
It takes 10 minutes to whip together and pop in the oven. It’s completely customizable and 1,000 times easier to make than a quiche. You can load it with nearly any vegetable dying a slow death in the crisper drawer.
Get the 15-minute recipe here!
8. Chocolate “Juicing” Muffins
With Carrot Cake Variation
Between the mountains of fresh produce and the piles of leftover juicing fiber, how can fresh fruit and vegetable juice fit into a frugal budget? I found some answers.
These muffins are one tasty answer to all that leftover juicing pulp. If I make juice with beets in it, I end up with bright red mush. I use this in chocolate muffins because the color and flavors blend well with chocolate.
If I have pulp made mostly of carrots or a blend of carrots, oranges, and apples (common for fresh juice), I make carrot cake muffins.
7. The Easiest Bread You Will Ever Bake
Before you skip this post like, “Who has time to bake homemade bread?!?” Let me admit that I don’t either. Obviously. I am a normal 21st-century person with important demands on my time, like scrolling Facebookand posting food pics on Instagram.
So are you. You have important things to do and important people to feed. Like yourself. And anyone else who needs you to put food on their plate so they can make faces and throw it under the highchair.
However, this bread is different. It only takes 15 minutes (maybe 20 the first time) of active prep time and almost no skill.
6. Hamburger Vegetable Soup
With Slow Cooker, Stove Top, Instant Pot Instructions!
If you’re a frugal cook, you need a Hamburger Vegetable Soup recipe. Easy to adapt to any eating-style: vegetarian, paleo, Whole30, gluten-free, dairy-free. And it’s loaded with inexpensive but flavorful ingredients. Instant Pot, Slow Cooker, Stovetop, and Freezer instructions included!
5. Overnight Oats to Feed a Crowd
Overnight oats are brilliant! Convenient, simple, wholesome. But when you are feeding lots of people, those individual jars are too tedious. Here is our simple hack and some of our favorite recipes.
4. Dinner for a Dollar
Real Food Recipes for Under $1 a Serving
“I would love to eat healthier, but it’s just so expensive.”
If you ever thought that, you are not alone. Eating healthy on a budget is a challenge people just like you wrestle with every day. But you don’t have to! You can feed your people real food for under $1 per serving. It isn’t magic. It’s just the right recipes and a simple strategy.
Dinner for a Dollar was downloaded 5,000 times in the first two months, thanks to you! I hope it is helping you and
3. How to Make Cheap Smoothies
Frugal hacks to help you get the most out of your smoothies and your grocery budget. Includes tips on freezing produce (oranges, anyone?), which vegetables go well in smoothies, and more.
Get the perfect green smoothie formula here!
2. How to Freeze Celery Leaves
And What to do with Them!
What to do with celery leaves and leftover celery. Don’t throw them out! Instead, try these 2 easy hacks that will save you money and grocery trips.
1. Picadillo (Mexican Beef & Potato Stew)
The most popular post of 2018!
An authentic, frugal, hearty, ground beef staple that uses a few ingredients and costs pennies per serving. Picadillo is also gluten-free, dairy-free and Whole30 approved!
Thank you for making 2018 a great year! It’s been a lot of fun. May we save money, eat