Our Favorite Frugal Food Blogs + Recipes

probably the last, but who knows, probably an award show. Yes, we are walking you down the red carpet of recipes and telling you where you should go to find yours, to help with your meal planning, your grocery shopping, lowering your grocery budget, all that fun stuff, and we're gonna tell you why you should love each of our winners. So get ready, put on your favorite ball gown, gusty yourself up, and welcome to the two thousand nineteen Frugal

Friends Foodie Awards. But first, a word from our sponsors, the ones that make this award show possible. Yes, and this episode is also brought to you by the novel Before the Recipe. Do you love finding recipes online and can't wait to make that new one you just found? Slow down, you go get her read this story about the time I went to camp, or how my kids were in this really cool play that somehow inspired this dish.

Don't be in such a hurry to make dinner. Read the novel before the recipe, Yers, I did not read your sponsor before you read it, similar to what you've done to me in the path, but it's amazing. Yeah, these food bloggers, they got to get their seo juice from Google, so they got to write a thousand words of useless, not useless, we ve useless. Yeah, we love you as people food bloggers, Yes, but nobody loves the scroll. I want the recipe. Yeah, so it's a it's a

love hate relationship with the novel before the recipe. But we digress. But before we get too far deep into that, it's time for our awards show. Welcome to the two thousand nineteen Frugal Friends Foodie Awards. These food bloggers are graduating to the next level by being honored by the Frugal Friends, whom they've probably never heard of. But anyways,

we show that this is happening. Eight winners based on merit of a particular genre of money saving stuff, all for you to be able to help you in your cooking, planning, money saving process. So our first category best use of minimal ingredients, you have to make a pause the Stone soup. So again we've got these linked in our show notes. But the Stone soup they give all these recipes have six ingredients or less. So you've got your minimalist recipes.

And I gotta tell you, I'm hungry. I think I'm always hungry when we were or I'm just always hungry. These pictures, man, they look amazing. She's got some very healthy, some low carb options. She's got awesome pictures. You figure out what you want to buy. Zucchini tortillas, halloumi and cabbage hash Oh goodness, gorgeous green tart. Anyhow, all of

them have six ingredients or less. So if you're looking for some minimalist recipes where you don't have to go out and buy a ton of stuff, and we know what minimalism means when it comes to recipes. It also means less time because that's less that you're chopping, less that you're saw telling, less that you're interacting with, more that you are just eating. Yes, we love that. Especially living in an RV jill you get those healthy six ingredient recipes exactly. I've got to have those minimal if

you're doing Keto on a budget. These are great. So thank you the Stone Soup. Your award is not in the mail. There isn't one congratulations. There's us listing you on our podcast, which actually we might charge you all right for our next award best use of a five dollar bill. The award goes to five dollar dinners. This is a blog and she's got meal plans and freezer meals and all that, but what she's really known for is recipes that can be made for the whole family.

And each recipe is five dollars or less. So and she's got not just like dinners, but she's got lunches and sides and healthy snacks, desserts, breakfasts, beverages, so so many things, and you can cook them anyway you want, slow cooker, instant, pot, grill, whatever, lots of freezer friendly stuff, and everything can be made not just for two people for five dollars, but for a family of four. I'm assuming that's what a family is, So that's less yeah, so will not be four point five. That's all I

gotta say. That's all I gotta say to so yes. Congratulations Aaron Chase on winning this year's Frugal Foodie Award for best use of a five dollar bill our only year. And up next we've got best use of numbers budget bites dot Com. So if you like numbers and your calculator makes you happy, this one's for you. Every recipe comes with a price per serving, so you can see where it fits in your budget. Also, what's need about this is you can figure out whether how many servings

you want to make. So if you do have six people in your family and you're not the traditional four person family, good for you. You're breaking out of the box. Do whatever you can figure out how much is this going to cost per person? Therefore, which recipe do I want to choose? So that's a fun one. And then you can all sit around the dinner table and be like Ronnie, this me'll only cost me two dollars and

fifty four cents per person. Uh, And that's super fun when you can compare that to what you might have spent per person at a restaurant. So also your conversation with Ronnie, I don't know, I don't know, Ronnie. Uh sorry, Ronnie, I love budget bites. I have been following her for years and every time I make one of her recipes is always spot on delicious, because you can have a cheap recipe, but you've got to make it delicious to be on the list. And girl nails it all right.

Our next award Best Use of Freezer Meals and the two thousand nineteen Frugal Foodie Award goes to the Family Freezer, mostly because I just found her recently on Instagram and uh, she has freezer meal plans. She got paid one, she got free ones, and I have a list of her freezer meal recipes waiting to be made as soon as all this book stuff dies down. I am so excited. They look so good. And she does her freezer meals,

she can do like twenty of them ninety minutes. I'm not that good, but she's got healthy freezer meals, camping meals, crop pot meals, thrilling, like everything can be put in the freezer, and you need freezer meals for those nights that you just cannot make dinner and you just want to have defrosh something in the morning with really for work through it in the instant pot or whatever and

and have dinner later that night. It's great for people that are on the go and for those who constantly have the excuse of I don't have time or life is so sporadic that I don't know if I'm going to be home and able to cook. So freezer meals are great because if you do find yourself at home but no food in the fridge, pull it out of the freezer. And this is something that can be made in bulk and stacked away for those times when life is really busy. So carve out a Saturday or Sunday.

Check out this website and get at it. Get to it. Yeah, all of her blog posts. It's not just one freezer meal, it's like twelve twenty. It's usually twelve seventeen. So it's like all numbers, like doable numbers for you to do in bulk. And yeah, that's how you do it. You carve them all out in one day and then you don't have to eat out for the month. Perfect. Yes,

thank you, family, freezer, Thank you. And up next. Our next category is best use of meal planning, and the two thousand nineteen Frugal Friends Frugal Foodie Award goes to He's changing good cheap eats. So all of her recipes are designed to be a part of a frugal meal plan. So this is for all the people who have difficulty prepping ahead of time, not knowing oh what am I going to make this week? That can be a big

barrier in and of itself. And you've heard us talk about cook smarts and all these different types of resources, but definitely check this article out as well. Uh and be able to plan not just okay, I've got a plan set in place, but is it frugal? Is it nice on your wallet? Is it budget friendly? And are you utilizing all of the ingredients to their max capacity? So this blogger has some excellent ideas as far as planning and prepping for what you're gonna do, how you

can use different ingredients throughout the week. So check her out for meal planning. Our next award as best use of leftovers Because who likes to eat the same thing five days in a row? And right? Not my husband? No, nope, nobody, Well some people maybe some people don't mind. In I really admire those people who just have peanut, butter and jelly every single day of their lives. But yeah, yeah,

not do so for the award. The two nineteen Frugal Friends Foodie Award for Best Use of Leftovers goes to cook Smarts and they're special infographic on sixteen creative ways to use leftovers. This infographic has been a life saver

for me. It's literally so if you if you like charts, like like numbers and stuff like paint my numbers, then you're gonna like this infographic because it lists out all of the things you could have left over, like beef, chicken, veggies, beans, whatever, and then and it gives you essentially like formulas to

make things together. So if you want to make a fried rice, you add eggs, rice, soy sauce, frozen veggies, and then you add your leftovers to those things, and then you've got a fried rice or like a salad, all your greens, nuts of vinigarette, and then these are the leftover things you can add to like add to it. So it's got like a base of staples that you need and then it shows you how to incorporate your

leftovers into each thing. It is great. That's amazing because there's been times where I've wished that I could have a chef on call. Well for multiple reasons. I mean, if they could just come cook for me, that'd be great. Even to be able to say, all, right, here's what I have. Yeah, I've got a tomato, a half of an onion, a jar of this, blah blah blah, what

can I do? And this kind of provides that. Yeah, it's not a personal chef that you have on call, because that probably wouldn't be very frugal, but to be able to look at this and say what do I have and get the creative juices flowing on how you can utilize that to cook at home. Yeah, and it's even got at the bottom, so not just leftover foods, but like five ways you can use leftover herbs and fruits too, so you can infuse them in an herb sauce,

a pesto, an herb butter. And it shows you what herbs will go and what and how to do all these things. So it really is this infographic is just everything. And while the recipes on cook smarts aren't free, you can sign up for cook smarts and get thirty days free off paid plans by visiting cook smarts dot com slash cs and using the code frugal we Love cook Smarts. I'm a cook Smarts user. With an infant, I just

couldn't do meal planning like I used to. I love meal planning, wrote a book about it, but I just don't have I don't have the time. Um, and it was honestly from someone who even wrote a book on it. Yeah, and cook Smarts has helped me use up some of the ingredients in my palm tree and experiment with things that I wouldn't have, like recipes I would not have chosen if I was picking my own recipes. So we highly recommend cook Smarts. I just couldn't live without them

right now. I love it. Also up next best use of budget friendly vegan recipes. It's a very specific category, and the winner of the Frugal Friends Foodie Award goes to plant based on a budget. I would have thought so I didn't know how to make that one vague likes use of vegans No, Yeah, I'm glad the title

you went with is good. So on this site, all of the recipes are vegan and all of the recipes are budget friendly, so if you are on a vegan diet, this one is a must see, must use blog because they give some really excellent recipes that won't break the bank, and that can be some of the biggest issues if you are vegetarian, pescterian, vegan, keto, gluten free, you name it. Anything that is specialty can be where we have difficulty with the budget of how do I get all of

the nutrients that I need in my diet. Uh, still eat well, but yet not break a bank every single month. So this is really helpful to give some budget friendly ideas recipes that taste good. Right, somebody else has already tried it out for you. You're not just making this up in your own kitchen and showing you that it can be done on a budget. If this is a diet that you're going for, so definitely check them out. Yeah.

I found that when I didn't eat meat, I could get away with eating like the cheap, unhealthy stuff and it be really really cheap, inexpensive, but not pal But if I was trying to do vegan, then that was a lot harder. You take away all of the tasty cheap stuff except bread. Bread is still good for everybody. Yeah, you could eat French fries all day and a vegan you can, but if you want to not shove your body with French fries all day and yet still be

on a budget. Here you go. If I had a blog called plant based on a Budget, it would definitely just say eat French fries, and that would just it would be one landing page, eat French fries, and that's it, and it would take you to my book, my cookbook, and the cookbook would also just say eat French fries. And you'd probably get tons of visitors to your website and ton of purchases on your book. Yeah. I know, the less you work, the more successful you are. All right.

The last award is we haven't saved the best for last, because all eight of these are the best. But our last sword is best use of pantry staples. Pantry staples, they forget it. They get forgotten a lot, and I forgot it until the very end of the list. So that's why this award is so special. So, without further ado, the two thousand nineteen Frugal Friends Foodie Award for Best Use of pantry staples goes to Don't Waste the Crumbs

dot com. This site has plenty of sauces, mixed recipes, all kinds of things that help you use up random ingredients sitting in your pantry perfectly, And she just has some delicious recipes on here too, like halapeno cheddar biscuits. Seriously, thank you. She's got a lot of breads, dry onion soup mix, Like, how many you have like dried onion powder sitting in your pantry? Me? That's me all kinds of things. That's a good one for That would be another one that I'd want to use when I'd want

to contact my personal chef. But then I realized I don't have one. This would be perfect for me to say, what do I do with that extra catchup packet that Travis stole for me from McDonald's. Yeah, like, what do you do? Eat French Fries? Purchase my book at Eat French Fries. I thought I told you this Eat French Fries dot com. Yeah, this is this is a great one. That's the best. You know what else is the best? The bill? That's right, it's time for the best minute

of your entire week. Maybe a baby was born and his name is William. Maybe you paid off your mortgage, Maybe your car died and you're happy to not have to pay that bill anymore. Duck Bill Buffalo bills, Bill Clinton, this is the bill of the week a Jen and Jill. I wanted to share my bill of the week. I just called and negotiated my airnet bill back down to my original price after they tried to double it on me, and it was surprisingly not a hassle. They were really

nice and I feel like a boss. Happy frugal friends, Ah, that was amazing. But also, did you just say happy frugal friends, because if so, that's the greatest thing I've ever heard, like turning it into like like a birthday greeting or something, just happy frugal friends. Friday to read the transcript, maybe maybe, but just happy frugal friends, that's what I'm doing. But also good work on negotiating. That is our jam. I can't believe that they wanted to

double it. My jaw literally from thinking, you know, we have done the same exertion thing. They wanted to double our internet plan and yeah, you know how many people that works with. So many people are just probably like whatever, Yeah, it's gonna go up. I don't have the time to call. Good for you. Happens to all kinds of people. So if it happens to you know that other people have called in negotiated and gotten the rate that they want. Don't settle for what these companies are trying to do

to you because they've got a lot of money. They'll send you a letter double your rate and you gotta work for that rate you want. It sucks, but you gotta do it and it can be done. Glad to hear that it wasn't a hassle for you. That it just takes a little some time on the telephone, just a little firmness, firm but kind do it while you're cooking. Yeah, if you want to submit your bill of the week, visit Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash bill, leave us

a bill. Please do we want to happy for girl friends. You'll make us happy. And now the right man, Yeah, I said, I told Rob in our interview every time, I'm going to do it different. So here we go try and we are getting close to Halloween, and that was an appropriate intrail. So get scared. You didn't hope you I hope you didn't pee your pants. I didn't, but I was worried. You've had a baby. Now you

gotta watch it. I know, well c section, Okay, too much biology, we're gonna speaking of we're going to make a seamless move from gross things into food because those things always go to other. We want to talk about our favorite recipes from the cook at Home Challenge that we are getting towards the end of. But you can

do at any point in life. So a recipe that I recently made, and I will say with the two that I'm about to share, I made my own changes to these recipes, so know that you have freedom depending on the ingredients that you have. But this one comes from delish dot com and it is a bruschetta recipe, so your your standard tomato bruschetta. I made it with a baguette that I sliced up. I put some melted butter on it. They use olive oil. You could go whatever I did butter because you know me, but I

love butter. So melted butter. Toasted that right up a bit, put that bruschetta on it, did a cheese board with the rest of it. Uh, that was a fantastic meal again for me. Please, I will absolutely make that you guys. It's so easy. I just sliced up a tomato, did a little bit of leftover onion that I had garlic, olive, oil, salt, pepper, a little bit of balsamic done. It was so good.

And then on bread, and then on some buttered bread butter that bread, butter butter, It buttery, toasted warm bread. How if you're not hungry? Now, how do I follow that? Um? So I'm gonna follow with a salad? Yeah right, but this one's from Budget Bites. And because it's autumn, it's an autumn kale and apple salad. And if you know me, you know I love my kale. I love massaging it and making it all deep green and delicious and then

throwing some apples on it. And she put blue cheese, but I'm not a blue cheeser, so some goat cheese is really where it's at for me. Got it? And then just diving in, Maybe have some grilled chicken on the side and yeah, doing it, or maybe even a rotisserie chicken that I got for five dollars from Lucky's. I'm gonna have that this week. We love food. We might soon just become a food podcast apparently, but you

know what, our listeners love it too. So we're going where you guys go, or you're going where we go. I'm not sure who's leading who, but it's I think we all love it and we're all on board. Blind fleeting the blind, finding the hungry. You'd think that at some point, with all of our taco food, we wouldn't be hungry anymore. But I think it's just it's like food begets food, and you'd constantly need it. So in

sleep training they say sleep but gets sleep. Yeah. Yeah. Also, I have this other chicken sheep pan recipe that I recently made. It's super simple. It's one sheet pan that you get to throw in the oven, so it's breading the chicken. You dip the chicken a little bit of egg, dip it in some bread crumbs, put that on the pan, maybe put some parmesan cheese on top of it, and then some chopped up tomatoes and whatever other veggies you've got, olive oil through the whole thing in the oven boom.

It literally takes I don't know, ten minutes of actual active time, maybe a half an hour in the oven. Super simple, loved it, tasted great good as leftovers. You can throw all that on top of a salad the next day. Yes, I am trying this week. A baked chicken corn on blue because that's the cook Smarts meal plan, and I'm gonna live up some almond meal. I'm just gonna like pulse some almonds in the blender and I'm going to do that instead of bread crumbs. So I'm

very excited to see how that goes. Nice. Yeah, report back. Yes, this next one, I actually haven't made it yet, but it's so interesting that I had to include it before I made it. But I will report back with its efficacy in in meeting my fall needs. Perfect. I don't know. I don't know if I use that word right, says the writer. Um, it's from cheap recipe blog dot com

and it is a pumpkin spice dessert pizza. I almost made a category in the awards for best use of pumpkin spice because I really wanted to give this recipe and award. So but you haven't even tried it yet, and he just feels it's already award worthy. Yeah, because it is like pumpkin spice lattees, pumpkin spice bread, pumpkin spice blah blah blah, but like pumpkin spice dessert pizza.

So if you're wondering what's on it. It's like a strusl topping with some icing, and uh, since this is cheap recipe blog dot com, they say, use a whole pumpkin, and since I'm gin, I'm like, I'm using canned But I am so interested in trying this and it makes more icing than the recipe needs and they say it

freeze as well, so I'm very interested in. And then pizza obviously, and we don't need to say anything else, right, Sure, I would be upset with you for trying to make me eat all the sugar, but you did also give us a kale recipe, so I guess the good altwaighs the bad. Yeah. See, you gave an appetizer, I gave us salad, you gave an entree, and then I gave a dessert. We did not plan that. We did not even plan that. I will say, though, what is your appetizer?

Is my meal? So I mean, but for the general public too. But you could eat all these things together, and that's true, so there you go, just meal. Well, you don't have to eat the whole bread, the whole loaf of bread, but I will because it's buttered. That bread is buttered, so you know, you know, you got to eat the rest of that. Yeah. So that was our That was our recipes and our awards. We hope

that you loved them as much as we did. So we're going to recap the winners of our Frugal Friends Food Awards for Best use of minimal ingredients The Stone Soup dot com. Best use of a five dollar bill five dollar dinners, Best use of numbers, budget bites dot com. Best use of freezer meals The Family Freezer dot com. Best use of meal planning Good sheep Eats dot com, Best use of leftovers, cook smarts dot com, Best use of budget friendly vegan recipes, Plant based on a Budget

dot com. Best use of pantry staples, Don't Waste the Crumbs dot com. So congratulations to all of our winners. You're so proud. You're so proud. We're so thankful, and we are also thankful for our Frugal Friends Book Club. Yes, this month, we are wrapping up retire before Mom and Dad by Rob Burger or Burger. We're not sure it Burger is? We are You're sure? Okay. I live in a community where a lot of people have this last name and they pronounce it Burger. But oh well, maybe

we're not sure. Maybe everybody's been saying it wrong to me. Well, anyways, we're reading this book. The book is the same, and it has great stuff and it's so dive in. Yes, and if you want a free copy, we are giving away a copy for every five reviews that we get. You can do that by it leaving us a review on iTunes or Stitcher, screenshotting the review and sending it to Frugal Friends podcast at gmail dot com. We'll select the winners on the last day of the month, one

for every five reviews. And you know, Jen, I we've come across some really great literature on the reviews sites, on iTunes and Stitcher and even on our Facebook groups. So I'd like to share an excerpt from a review. This one comes from a Patrick one and they gave us five stars because that's that's a good example that they wanted to literature, and they said realistic personal finance. Thank you so much, Jen and Jill for your energy

and enthusiasm for personal finance. You have been an inspiration as I work to dig out of student loan debt. Along with focusing on spending money more wisely on experiences that truly serve me. I appreciate your realistic approach and both the small and drastic ways that you suggest to help manage money and time. Good luck digging yourself out of student loan debt. It can be done. And thanks for your review. Yes, thank you so much. And this was as a short one jam pack look of things.

You check out some of these blogs. Hope they help you with your meal planning and saving money on your grocery budget. Until next time we out Tia. Frugal Friends is produced, edited and mixed by Eric Syria, although you can also share some of your own recipes and things that you like Frugal Friends Facebook community group. Oh yeah, you slid that one in there. You're so good. I'm so slidey, sliding into people's d ms ear drums, d slide into I don't even I don't know what I'm doing,

slipping and sliding. Uh. Brought to you by our what was the one the Slippings lied? We did that for our Frugal Friends Summer Fun episode Slide down the Slippery Slope to Financial Freed. I am so hungry. I so it's lunchtime here, and um, I'm gonna make b L T s with Chipotle Ranch mayo or something Chipotle. I'll have to throw an avocado on there. That's a good idea. Avocados make me throw up. It's like this weird allergic reaction, which stinks because I do like avocado. It's just that

I vomit. But I'll also do like a fried sometimes I've I've done fried eggs, but I've also done hard boiled eggs. Both are fantastic. Okay, little little extra extra at the end of the episode, well protein will protein vori a little extra protein. I hope you enjoying your baalty. I don't know. I haven't picked up my groceries yet. Today you're so hungry. I am so hungry. And and

once I pick up my groceries, I won't be hungry anymore. Okay, Yeah, this grocery shopping online thing has really changed my life. And uh it's it's good. I'm excited to do that. Yeah, all right, bye bye