The $1.00 Dinner

Last night we had a soccer game at 6:00 and then Ashley had dance class at 7:15 that lasts until 8:45.  So obviously Ashley needed to eat before she went to dance, but Emma and the rest of us needed to wait until after the game.  Ashley has to go with us to the game because dance is just around the corner from the ball fields, so she had to take a portable dinner and  we needed a dinner that can easily be heated up when we got home from the soccer game.  We don't get home until 7:30 and the younger kids go to bed at 8: 30.  So what do we do?  We make soup and homemade bread.

I did chicken soup out of leftover homemade stock and some odds and ends.  These are the ingredients I used:

In the bag is frozen chicken stock that I made last week from a chicken that we had.  I took all of the meat off of the cooked chicken and then put all of the bones in the crock pot, covered it in water and added a tablespoon of salt.  I cooked on low for 24 hours then I strained it and put it in the fridge for a day.  When it was cold I pulled the fat off of it and put it in the freezer.  I consider the stock free for this meal because I already counted the cost of the chicken in the meal last week.  I then chopped some carrots, celery and onion and added them to the stock along with some poultry seasoning and a little pepper.  I chopped my veggies in the food processor so the they would be really small (the kids don't like chunks in soup).  I also added some chopped garlic and then let it simmer for a few hours.  I also had some leftover chicken in the freezer so I added that too.  When it was done I added the ramen noodles (broken up) and one of the ramen seasoning packs.  Then that was it.  I don't have a finished picture of the soup because my camera batteries ran out, but it looked like soup!

I figured that the stock was free and that I had about .75 cents worth of veggies.  Ramen packs are .12 cents so that makes $1.00.  We also at half of a loaf of homemade bread, in which it costs me about .50 cents a loaf to make.  So you can add another .25 cents for the bread.  This meal feed a family of six and we had three containers left over for lunches.  Ashley carried hers in a thermos to the ball field.  Everyone said that it was tasty!