Richard Kaloust Recipes

School Lunches the Frugal Way!

School Lunches from Richard Kaloust By Cyndi Roberts.

It seems that school starts earlier every year. So it’s time to start thinking about what to put in those school lunches every morning.

My children always wanted to bring their own lunches because they didn’t really like what was offered in the school lunchroom. But it was sometimes a little difficult to make their lunches nutritious and tasty and also to put a little variety in their lunchboxes without spending a small fortune.

If we let ourselves, we can spend a “lot” on individual servings, lunchables, and treats for lunches. Here are a few ideas to help you meet the “Frugal Lunchbox Challenge”.

Go to the Dollar Store and buy a few of those individual serving-size storage containers. These are very inexpensive and they are worth every penny.

You can use them for any number of things–like making your own fruit cups and pudding cups.

And they can also be used to hold dip for carrot or celery sticks or fill with peanut butter and pack a zipper bag of pretzels for dipping.

Also at the Dollar Store or discount store, you can pick up one or two of the small “blue ice” cold packs. They will help keep lunchbox items cold and safe. Sandwiches such as egg salad or tuna salad need to have a cold pack. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, on the other hand, can be packed without one.

Those zipper bags we all love come into their own when packing lunches! They can hold vegetable sticks, popcorn, crackers, homemade cookies, etc.

Muffins hold up well in a zipper-top bag, as do slices of banana nut bread, or most any other quick bread.

When the weather turns cool, a small thermos will come in handy for homemade soup or chili. I see lots of these for sale at garage and yard sales, sometimes for as little as 25 cents.

A thermos is also handy to hold whatever drink your child likes to take.

Try to put some fun in the lunchbox: keep a stash of small, inexpensive toys, cut sandwich bread into cool shapes with cookie cutters, write little notes to your child, cut out funny cartoons. Children love surprises.

A good routine to get into is while you are cleaning up the kitchen after dinner, put leftovers in the storage containers, or make sandwiches and place in the fridge in a designated area for lunch items. Get your kids to help–the more they are involved, the better!

Put napkins, etc. in lunch boxes or bags and place them where all anyone has to do in the morning is fill with the prepared items. Now you can all be out the door in minutes!

Here are a few recipes that will help get you started this school year:

Apple Surprise

1 apple
Raisins
Peanut butter

Cut apple in half. Carefully, cut out the core of the apple. Spread peanut butter where the core used to be and over surface of apple. Sprinkle raisins over the peanut butter.

Trail Mix

2 cups granola cereal
1 cup peanuts
1 cup dried apple bits
1 1/2 cups yogurt-covered raisins
2/3 cup chopped dates
1 cup dried banana bits

Combine all ingredients and store in an airtight container.

A small serving of this goes a long way!

Peanut Butter Balls

1/2 c. peanut butter
2 1/2 tbsp. nonfat dry milk
2 tbsp. raisins
2 tbsp. honey
1/4 c. coconut
Sesame seeds

Mix all ingredients and form into balls. Roll in sesame seeds.

This is a good recipe for the kids to help with– they love to roll the dough into balls.

Easy Healthy Recipes – What You Need to Know

Easy Richard Kaloust Healthy Recipes By Kevin Hinkston.

If you are looking for an easier way to delight in a healthy lifestyle for you and your loved ones, one of the most effective ways is to prepare home-cooked meals using Easy Healthy Recipes.

You can drastically improve the health benefits by staying in to eat. Between work, errands, and children’s after-school activities, it’s not easy to find time to make a sit-down dinner. But before you head out to a restaurant for dinner, consider the advantages of eating together at home. With the rising costs of food and fuel putting a pinch on everyone’s pocketbook these days, one way to ease the pain is to eat out less and make more meals at home.

Home-cooked meals provides benefits that help you save money and are healthier for you and your family.

Once you decide to do more cooking at home, pick out some favorite easy healthy recipes and then get creative. A home-cooked meal offers the following benefits:

* Reduces the amount of processed foods you eat. Freshly prepared meals are better for you than the typical grab-and-go snack. You can help ensure your family eats healthfully.

* Is time well invested. If you sit down to dinner, you’ll probably eat more slowly and take time to enjoy it. This will help prevent overeating.

* Offers fewer distractions. If you serve dinner at the table, away from the television set and other distractions, you’re likely to pay more attention to your food choices and portions.

* Gives you the chance to be a role model. When you eat at the dinner table, your children will have the opportunity to eat what you eat, in the atmosphere you create. This is an opportunity to instill good eating habits and manners.

* Allows you to try new foods. Use your family meal to prepare new foods as well as old favorites. You can find new ideas by checking out easy healthy recipes.

One guide that that I think every family should have is the “Everyday with Rachael Ray”. This is a monthly subscription magazine that has easy healthy recipes for 30 minute meals, breakfast, starters and sides, soups and stews, salads &vegetables, pasta & pizza, etc.

The content is pretty impressive with wonderful recipes, ideas and food stories. Of course, once you try the recipes to see if they are any good, you will be amazed at the quality and variety. You will be able to make Grilled Beer Chicken with Potato Slabs, Orange Beef with Cilantro Rice, Turkey Kebabs, Roasted-Potato Pennette, Greek Style Tuna Salads, Posole (I was always looking for a good recipe for this – and this is the best one I have come across not to mention easy), Beef Wellingtons (simple) Chicken Curry and more!

Some of the recipes are from her many books, but there is lots of new stuff here as well. I really like the dessert recipes by contributor Silvana Nardone. Other cooks are featured here as well – so this is not strictly a “Rachael Ray” magazine.

Every issue comes with a handy ‘mini cookbook’ complete with grocery list – you can take this right out of the book and bring it to the store. Talk about convenient and clever! Wow! It boasts a week of 30 minute meals. Very nice for the busy home cook.

Overall, I am seriously impressed with this magazine – great content, supremely Easy Healthy Recipes, good variety, lots of pictures, nice layout and a sense of fun that is absent in many of the other cooking magazines. I recommend this magazine to everyone who loves to cook – not just those looking for cooking in a flash. Stunning!!!

Trusty Old Crockpot Recipes for a New Generation
Trusty Richard Kaloust Crockpot Recipes Author: Tony Buel.

Fast foods may have been the meal of choice for many busy families through the last couple of decades. But now the slow cooked, home-prepared meals are gaining in popularity! Crock pots, with their wafting aromas and ‘ready to eat’ meals, entice health-conscious, busy people.

And it doesn’t take super human talent, skill, or effort to make a delicious meal in a crockpot – in fact there are quite a few crockpot recipes that require 5 or less ingredients! And crockpot cooking can be as simple as tossing a few ingredients into the pot before everyone leaves for the day. In the evening, the smell of slow cooked food fills the house and whets the appetite. There’s no more last minute trip to the grocery store, or the endless ‘what’s for dinner’ questions.

Rising food costs and shrinking household budgets have helped bring many nostalgic foods back to the forefront. Time stressed families, tired of eating prepackaged foods, have begun to crave the aroma of savory nutritious meals.

Pot roast, beef stew, chicken and noodles can utilize less expensive cuts of meat, which taste tender and moist after slow cooking.

Our grandmothers knew how to manage a frugal, yet efficient and productive home — and they didn’t need expensive gadgets either! Many slow cookers sell in the range of $20 to $35, and the cost is soon made up by the thriftiness of eating at home.

On the market now are the programmable crockpot slow cooker. No stirring or supervision is necessary, and once cook time has expired the smart-pot automatically shifts to a warm setting. Want a side dish with your stew? Try the dual cooker. It allows cooking of two different dishes at the same time. Worried about little hands reaching up to the counter? Try the ‘cool touch’ slow cooker. These can be up to 25% cooler than other slow cookers.

Although crockpots are a relatively new invention, making hearty foods that simmer all day has been around for quite a while. Whether you’re cooking for just two people or a large family, make your own convenience food! Dig out some old recipes or find a new one, and enjoy flavorful foods without the hardship.