Help! I Have a large family and I can't fill them up!

22 years ago

I hAVE A LARGE FAMILY, I can't keep up with the groceries!

I have resorted to making sure there is ample potatoes, noodles, or rice atr every meal. To no avail my skinny starving teens sneek up at night and polish off any leftovers. I save all my gravies and meat drippings so I can make soup when I run out of everything. I need some really hearty stick to your ribs kinds of meals any ideas?

I read one string that said a gal had 20 lbs of hamberger and was making freezer meals ahead? Pleas point me in the right direction for those recipies. Or any other recipies with chicken.

Thanks

Comments (4)

ruthieg_tx
22 years ago
Loni check out this earlier thread....

Here is a link that might be useful: Favorites
eecolbert_about_com
22 years ago
I have a lot of empathy for your situation. I've been there and I don't miss the hole in my wallet. My boys used to raid the fridge in the middle of the night and clean me out. I finally started freezing pancakes, biscuits, bean burros, cooked burger patties, and fruit turnovers. They are now 24 thru 30 now and still skinny as brooms. They don't eat like horses any more.

What I finally figured our was that I couldn't keep them full because they really needed the calories during those growing years from about 13 to 17. You can't fill teenagers up at dinner no matter what you serve--they really are hungry an hour later. Okay a half-hour later.
When I froze pancakes, I made them from scratch and put all sorts of stuff in like oatmeal, cornmeal, wholewheat flour. The point was to make them heavy and filling. They would microwave them and eat with butter and jam or syrup.
They'd eat biscuits and gravy. I made gravy and froze it in margarine tubs. Good luck.
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lolart_ivillage_com
22 years ago
Loni
Here are some cooking ideas. Recipes are easy to get on the internet.
Chicken and dumplings
Chicken and stuffing
Add oats to your meat loaf instead of bread or cracker it will be more filling
Chicken pot pie
Hope these help.
lolart
sunshine_amy
22 years ago
We don't have a large family (yet), but we recently catered our own wedding, with 70 people, so I learned a few things! The smartest thing we did, was to shop at a wholesale, discount place. We went to Costco's (others: "BJ's" and "Sam's"). I noticed a lot of people with large families there. Not only is it cheaper, but the large sizes really inspire you to do batch-cooking.

Here was one recipe we loved, which freezes well, is easy to reheat, and was well tailored to the portions at Costco...Quesadillas (similar to fajitas):
1 large bag of grated cheese (about 5 lbs for $11!)
20-30 tortillas
any combo of pre-cooked veggies or meat

We went vegetarian, using onions, mushrooms and peppers--but try spinach, zucchini, chicken, anything that's on sale! Even just plain cheese works. Fill the tortillas with the stuff. Fold them in half (omelette-style). Then, stack them and put them in a bag and freeze (I put saran wrap between each one to keep them from sticking together, but it may not have been necessary). To cook, just grill, fry, or toaster-oven them (I like to thaw them, then toaster-oven for 10-15 minutes). Microwave probably works too. We bought a big-sized container of salsa to go with it, and some sour cream.

These are soooooo yummy, I promise your kids will love them.
Total servings: 20-30
Total cost (at Costco's): $20-$30, including veggies & salsa

Help! I Have a large family and I can't fill them up!

Comments (4)

ruthieg_tx

eecolbert_about_com

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