Can you feed a family of four for $10 or less a day? Cooks across the county are doing it with careful planning, thinking outside of their daily comfort zones and budgeting—many for the first time. One of my tricks for consistently producing delicious, healthy meals is selecting one affordable main ingredient (today it’s rotisserie chicken), then building three to four meals around it.

Now, are you ready for the best cook’s tip of all? Costco’s three-pound, five-buck birds! Hands down, there is nothing on the market that can beat them for flavor and value. These tasty time savers are moister than any I’ve tried and don’t have added hormones, steroids, preservatives, MSG, glutens, flavors, colors or things that make you glow in the dark. In many instances this ready-to-eat product is close in price to its uncooked counterpart.

A recent trip to the superstore yielded three birds— or nine pounds of roasted chicken – for $15. Compare this to two, two-pound rotisserie chickens that I bought several weeks ago at a local market for $10.99 each—or $21.98. By my calculations, at regular market prices, my Costco birds would have cost $50, which means I saved $35 by shopping smart. What would you do with the bonus bucks? Personally, I vote for a nice bottle of wine or some sinfully dark chocolate cake to finish one of my meals.

With chickens in hand your meal options are unlimited. I try to offer my family a variety of choices based on the season and the weather. If it’s cold and raining outside, a hearty stew or soup offers lots of comfort. Warm sunshine, on the other hand, turns one’s thoughts to crisp salads, tacos and other easy meals that showcase fresh produce.

Day 1: Rotisserie chickens and herb roasted vegetables.

This super easy, elegant meal is ready in 30 minutes. All that’s required is reheating the chicken and chopping some potatoes, carrots, celery, onions and mushrooms for roasting. Put the vegetables on a baking sheet, toss with olive oil, salt and pepper and set them in a preheated 450-degree oven with a couple of sprigs of fresh rosemary and roast for 20 minutes. Halfway through, flip the vegetables over so they’ll crisp on both sides.

Put everything on a platter and decorate with sprigs of deep green Italian parsley for color. Add a basket of warm crusty bread with soft butter and get ready for lots of appreciative oooooh’s and aaahhh’s at the table.

Day 2: Chicken enchiladas with enfrijoladas sauce.

Be different and try a new cuisine. This Mexican classic is quick, easy and great for a crowd or Sunday brunch. All you need is a couple of cups of shredded chicken, corn tortillas and a simple blender sauce of beans, chipotle chiles, bay leaves, browned onions, salt and milk. Whiz, zip and you’re done. Make the enfrijoladas sauce a day or two in advance and let the flavors deepen—assembly is a breeze.

Day 3: Cobb Salad

Bob Cobb, owner of the famous Brown Derby restaurant in Los Angeles, raided the refrigerator for a late night snack in 1937 and found a bevy of treasures: chicken, crisp romaine lettuce, cheese, creamy avocados, crumbled bacon, watercress, tomatoes, chives and hard-cooked eggs. Cobb dressed his salad with French dressing, but I prefer creamy blue cheese.

Pair this complex composed salad with good bread or warm corn muffins and life is good.

Day 4: A hearty homemade soup—you decide.

What are you in the mood for—chicken noodle, Indian mulligatawny or perhaps Mexican tortilla soup? A favorite at my house is chicken-vegetable soup with lots of alphabet pasta thrown in for the kids. Most learned to spell their names eating this soup, while I knew the value of N for nutrition, F for flavor, S for silly fun and C for cheap (we’re talking scraps of chicken, leftover vegetables and homemade stock).

Have you grown feathers yet? If not, know that rotisserie chicken meat makes the best pot pies I’ve ever eaten. Simply combine some chopped meat with cooked potatoes, carrots, and celery in simple cream gravy. Spoon the mixture into pie tins or heat-resistant bowls and top with homemade pie crust for pennies, or best-quality store-bought crust for convenience. Bake to golden flakiness or freeze and bake when you, the cook need some delicious comforting.

Bones, bones, bones—always save the chicken bones for homemade stock. You may think its way too much work; don’t worry. Yesterday, I filled my stockpot with cold water, halved an onion, chopped two carrots and two ribs of celery, and broke apart a bulb of garlic then threw it all into the pot. A handful of whole black peppercorns, two bay leaves, five sprigs of thyme, six whole cloves and three chicken carcasses soon followed. In less than five minutes, stock was on the stove. So, easy and now there are eight four-cup containers of stock in my freezer for stews, soups, gravies, sauces and rice and bean dishes.

Four healthy, flavor-packed meals make me once again ask, how I can be on a budget when it tastes so good.

As I stood in the Walgreens greeting card section searching for the perfect birthday card, a comedic Bubba Gump Shrimp card caught my eye. Perhaps it was the cold rainy day or boredom, but my mind began dancing with visions of shrimp scampi ladled over beautifully flavored lemon-garlic fettuccini.

The more I thought about it, the more certain I became that this was a good time to rework what I considered an already perfect recipe. My goal was to make the dish more affordable for those on a tight budget. Good friends were coming for dinner—and they’d be perfect guinea pigs.

Originally I bought thawed, cleaned jumbo shrimp from my fish monger for $16 per pound and two packages of freshly made fettuccini from the market at $13. Dry white wine for the sauce averaged $10 a bottle, and the lemons, shallots, and garlic costs a few bucks. Scampi and pasta for four ran just under $45. Could I get the costs down to 20 bucks or less without compromising the flavor?

I headed to our local superstore in search of the best prices and battled the crowds with overflowing carts. Strange, but I had never purchased frozen seafood here, so I was pleasantly surprised to find a two-pound bag of frozen, cleaned jumbo shrimp for $12—that’s just $6 a pound. Even better, another brand offered a like amount of cooked shrimp for $6—or $3 per pound. I was inspired!

You should know that shrimp is extremely perishable and fishermen typically freeze their catch at sea before transporting it to the mainland. “Fresh” shrimp from the local fish monger have usually been frozen and thawed, so their advantage is questionable. Superstores buy huge, frequent lots and negotiate significantly lower prices than their competition.

A big bag of oversized lemons costs the same as one-third the amount at my market. I was thrilled to find more affordable wine for the sauce (not to mention the cook and her friends!). Bulk pasta wasn’t a good idea today as I had a huge stash at home—and a one-pound package of dry fettuccini cost only $2. A quick tally confirmed that I had successfully cut my scampi and pasta dinner for four to $20. Wahooo!

Back in the kitchen, I prepped all of the ingredients. Know that proper advance prep is the key to success with this easy meal. You do not want to be zesting, squeezing juice and measuring along the way as you cook, or your sauce will go south, the shrimp might overcook and the whole dish could be ruined.

Storing and thawing shrimp properly is critical for best flavor and safety. Keep yours frozen until ready to defrost. Then place them in a colander under cold running water until thawed. Never soak them in water or you’ll lose significant flavor. Never defrost the shrimp at room temperature or in a microwave—no exceptions.

If using thawed shrimp from the market, buy it the day you plan to use it. Set the wrapped shrimp in a bowl set over a larger bowl filled with ice before refrigeration. (Most refrigerators are not cold enough to keep shrimp perfectly fresh.) Store for 24 hours or less, and remove from the refrigerator just before using.

When ready to cook, pat the shrimp dry, then lightly dip them in flour. Be careful to shake off all excess flour or your sauce will get too thick. If this happens, thin it with some wine or the hot cooking water from your pasta.

If this is your first time cooking shrimp, do not fear as they cook quickly from gray to a beautiful pink-salmon color in minutes. Don’t overcook them or they will become chewy. With practice, you’ll be able to eyeball doneness like a pro.

Since it was storming outside, I decided to bring everyone to the kitchen table for dinner. All was warm and cozy, informal and fragrant with garlic and fresh lemon. I plated the fettuccini and scampi at the stove. As everyone lined up, I topped each with freshly grated parmesan cheese, Italian parsley, and a thin lemon slice just because.

Everyone dug in heartily and I knew the dish was a success—and cheap. Pouring more wine, I told everyone about my experiment and they were amazed at the huge savings possible with good planning. One friend slurped a noodle lustily and said, “perfection!” In the spirit of the moment, another suggested that I bring the costs down more with Two Buck Chuck wine and making my own pasta for pennies. How low can it go?

My mantra is quickly becoming, “How can I be on a budget when it tastes so good.” The economy may be depressing, but we are all learning new—often better— ways to feed our families and friends.

Print copies of Shrimp Scampi and Lemon-Garlic Fettuccini for your convenience.

What was the first thing that you cut from your food budget when the economy began tanking? If you’re employed and fearing the unknown, it may have been expensive specialty items, prepared convenience foods, take-out and restaurant visits. Those with brutal salary cuts and lost jobs struggled to put food on the table. Home cooks flocked to the superstores to buy in bulk, searched for local specials and downgraded to cheaper generic brands and cuts of meat.

Months later, millions continue cutting deeper and searching for creative ways to “make it.” A once prosperous professional woman confided to me that she no longer can afford fresh produce for her young family. What to do? She is not alone.

I called Dan Avakian, our Beyond Wonderful Produce Expert and owner of Dan’s Fresh Produce market in Alameda and discussed how cooks could affordably maintain all-important fruits and vegetables in their family diet. We agreed that one has to think outside of the box and be open to new ideas.

1. Select seasonal, local produce for best nutrition and value. During the winter months, “local” may include the state and surrounding areas. Wean yourself off expensive, imported out-of-season produce.

Today, citrus, winter greens and beets are plentiful in the markets.

Have you ever roasted beets? They are divine when sliced with oranges and added to greens for a salad.
	Or, chop multi-colored roasted beets while sautéing their green tops with garlic, salt, pepper and a splash of Balsamic vinegar. Sensational!
Try sliced pears or apples with nuts and cheese in a salad of butter lettuce. Treat yourself to homemade dressing, foregoing the expensive, chemically enhanced bottled ones.

2. Locate the small, independent produce stores in your area that maintain a bargain rack filled with older fruits and vegetables and “uglies” with bruises and dings. These treasures go for as little as 49 cents a bag and really help tight budgets. Dan has a very popular one at his produce store that he fills daily. Know that large supermarkets do not have bargain racks, choosing to toss their unsold produce instead.

Just think what you could do with a few apples, a little sugar, cinnamon and spice—apple sauce, apple crumble, and baked apples are just a few ideas. They are all yummy and fill the kitchen with amazing, heart-warming scents.

A too-soft pear becomes a fabulous dessert when cored and microwaved with a cinnamon stick in the center.

3. Organize your family and friends to purchase and share large amounts of produce from superstores, farm stands and local U-picks. A huge bag of onions, garlic or peppers may be too much for your family, but works perfectly when divided.

U-pick farms give you the absolute freshest fruits and vegetables with flavors and scents that you may never have experienced in life.

Last year I picked strawberries at a farm and was positively giddy working in a kitchen that smelled like summer.

4. Buy frozen vegetables on sale, then add them to your rice and lentil dishes for extra nutrition, taste and color.

5. Spring is coming soon, and with it the chance to plant a simple herb and vegetable garden. Start small—a few clay pots of your favorite herbs, lettuce, arugula or watercress. Pick the outer leaves each time you make salad and they will continue growing for months. The alternative is overbuying lettuce and having it rot because you didn’t need the entire head.

Feeling adventurous?—plant tomatoes, squash, beans and more. No matter how bad the economy gets you’ll benefit from the joy of planting, cultivating, harvesting and eating your own food.

6. Trade your homegrown fruits and vegetables with friends and neighbors. My plums and your apricots will make beautiful summer fruit tarts, sweet jam and supply lots of chin-dripping eating pleasure. Now who’s got a cherry or peach tree and wants to swap?

When you start cooking like this you’ll find yourself asking, “How can I be on a budget when it tastes this good?”

Get printable recipes for easy reference.

Apple Crumble

Baked Apples

Butter Lettuce with Pears, Spiced Pecans and Blue Cheese

Pullao Rice

Roaste Beets and Blood Orange Salad

Roasted Beets with Greens

Strawberry Pie

Summer Fruit Tart

Escalating food prices during tough economic times can make it difficult to feed a family, let alone entertain or eat out as in more prosperous days. I’ve been reworking recipes using less expensive cuts of meat and featuring lots of seasonal, locally grown vegetables and fruits for best flavor, nutrition and economy.

Last week several friends suggested a long walk through the Marin Headlands to relax before facing another stress-filled week. I agreed and invited them back to my house afterward for a simple early supper. I’d been thinking of making my favorite beef bourguignon, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity.

This classic French stew is braised in Burgundy wine and stock and filled with earthy carrots, mushrooms, pearl onions and herbs. With economy in mind, I passed over my usual favorite sirloin tip for the more affordable chuck sold as stew meat.

I started the bourguignon a day early so that the flavors would meld, infusing the meat and gravy with rich, complex flavor. Plus, cooking ahead would allow me to spend as much time with my friends as possible.

As I seared the big chunks of meat, I had to laugh, realizing how this dish has come full circle. It began humbly in the Burgundy region of France, where the poor used their local wine to tenderize tough, cheap cuts of meat. Over the decades beef bourguignon evolved into a “fancy” French specialty promoted by the likes of Auguste Escoffier and Julia Child. Now today, I turn to bourguignon once more as an affordable-yet-delicious staple.

When I first began cooking, like many, I embraced Julia Child as my guru. Guided by Julia’s books, I found myself cutting slabs of bacon into lardons, dusting, sprinkling, searing and braising meat in wine. Who knew anything could taste so good. My early success with beef bourguignon inspired me to embark on a culinary adventure that continues today, even as I write these pages.

Beef bourguignon is not at all difficult, but it is one of those dishes where patience and attention to detail really pay off. Here are a few suggestions that will make your version a memorable success.

1. Braise your meat until it is fork tender and not a minute less. Patient cooks are rewarded with melt-in-your-mouth morsels, while others end up with chewy mediocrity.
2. Use a nice, drinking-quality wine in your bourguignon. Don’t waste your money on the expensive stuff, but never buy cheap swill or “cooking wine,” as they’ll compromise the flavor of the dish. Burgundy wine, while classic, is not always readily available so I use Cabernet Sauvignon, Beaujolais or Merlot.
3. Know that good quality stock makes all the difference when braising meats. While I prefer rich, homemade beef stock, you can substitute a good-quality store bought chicken stock. Skip canned beef stock as it fails to deliver the flavor you need.
4. Replace the labor-intensive bacon lardons of the more traditional recipes with crisp strips of bacon and their rendered fat for searing the meat and adding a subtle layer of flavor. Know that meats sold today are well-marbled and don’t require lots of extra added fat to flavor them.
5. Buy fresh carrots—ideally at your local farmers market where you can find them just-harvested, full-flavored and economical. Don’t even consider the limp dying carrots in the back of your refrigerator.
6. Add flavor and texture to the bourguignon with pearl onions. I used to buy them fresh at the market and painstakingly cut and peel several dozen each time. Please—life is too short! Head to the frozen food section of your supermarket and buy a bag of them fully prepped. I prefer to thaw and brown them before adding them to the stew, but you can dump them in frozen in a pinch. (But be warned, they will be an evil pinky-purpley wine color in the final dish.)
7. Mushrooms—I love them! Many cooks depend on the white button supermarket variety, but I find the small brown button mushrooms have the best flavor. These are actually baby Portobello mushrooms, and are significantly cheaper than the mature ones.

On the day of our walk in the hills I set the table and organized all the last minute details before heading out to the trails. Later we returned, rejuvenated and appreciative of the beauty and tranquility that surrounds us when we take the time to look.

Everyone gathered in the kitchen for a glass of red wine and lively conversation. I warmed the beef bourguignonne, made a big pot of buttered noodles and some green peas and set out a huge basket of warm crusty bread and sweet butter. For now, the woes of the world were at bay as we reveled in the camaraderie and joy of a simple shared meal.

Get a printable copy of  Beef Bourguignonne—French Burgundy Stew for easy reference.

Hola! Welcome to Yolanda Resendiz’s home kitchen where we cook, style and photograph her classic Mexican recipes for Beyond Wonderful. Yolanda is a talented, self-taught home chef and her kitchen is filled with laughter, lively conversations and shared work. It is the very essence of the joyful sense of community that permeates kitchens across her native land.

Our photographers and I are veterans of Yolanda’s marathon, multi-dish cooking sessions and have become her dedicated prep assistants; peeling, chopping and preparing fresh produce and herbs, roasting and peeling chiles and marinating and roasting meats. At the same time we’ve taught Yolanda—an instinctive cook who does not use measuring cups or spoons—to precisely measure all her ingredients so we can write accurate recipes for your kitchen. This is a challenge when she’s moving quickly, juggling 10–12 recipes in various states of completion!

Since most of Yolanda’s more involved recipes include illustrated, step-by-step how-to pages, I assign one photographer to record each step of a recipe. Having the images also helps me back at the office when I’ve missed something in all the activity.

I’m currently working on recipe and how-to pages from our latest session that began early Saturday morning. We arrived and got settled at Yolanda’s long kitchen table piled high with all the ingredients needed for the day. As I went over the schedule with the group, Yolanda served a Mexican breakfast of scrambled eggs with cactus, beans, warm tortillas, and unlimited mugs of steaming hot coffee.

Fortified, we got our prepping assignments as Yolanda checked her bubbling pots on the stove. I find that there is always one dish that stands out from the rest—the one that I make in my own kitchen later. Today’s was barbacoa des res, or steamed beef shanks wrapped in roasted maguey (century cactus leaves). This popular Mexican dish is a party favorite and gets its rich flavor from the cactus—so don’t even think of trying to skip that element.

Maguey is not something that you pick up at the local supermarket or Mexican market. Instead, you have to find a plant nearby or substitute banana leaves that are readily available, and also yield fairly good results. Yolanda and I walked to a neighbor’s house to cut the leaves from a huge, ancient plant. She told me that all the neighbors share their garden bounties with each other. Today we took the cactus; tomorrow the neighbor would receive a bag of freshly picked apples.

Yolanda surveyed the plant, picked four, four-foot long leaves and cut them at the base with a sharp chef’s knife. I didn’t have a clue what to do with these gray-green giants, but when Yolanda handed them to me I quickly became aware that they had nasty looking prickles around the outer edges.

We hauled them back to Yolanda’s garden where her husband, Tomas, had set up two large camp stoves. This is not an exotic way to process these leaves, but simply a necessity because all of the burners on the inside stove were in use. Yolanda removed the prickles from the first leaf and started roasting it on the open flame. Soon the leaf softened and turned dark green. “Barbara, you want the leaves to bend so that we can wrap the meat in the steamer.” I was impressed. “All right, it’s your turn, you finish trimming and roasting the leaves and I’ll get the steamer ready.” Things moved quickly and brightened significantly when Tomas brought me an ice cold beer.

Yolanda arranged the roasted leaves in the steamer basket, added the beef shanks and covered them with the protruding ends of the cactus. Tomas helped Yolanda seal the steamer so that it could slow cook for five hours. I asked if one could use other cuts of meat and learned that lamb and pork are good choices, or cow’s head if you’re truly adventurous. “You get the best flavor from a cow’s head,” Yolanda assured me. “Just have the butcher at a Mexican or Latin market cut it into pieces and cook everything the same way.” She told me that in Mexico, they dig a big hole in the ground, add a heat source, lay in the roasted maguey and then slow cook the meat for hours. I thought that sounded very cool, and was told it got even better when you put a pan under the meat to catch the juices. “Barbara, it’s the best juice—so rich. It makes a great consommé.”

As the steamer pot did its work, we moved on to a slew of other delectables; roasted goat meat, caldillo soup, apple and pineapple salad, Mexican Kahlúa flan and pitchers of prickly pear juice known as agua de tuna (no relation to the fish).

Five hours later, we opened the steamer pot, peeled back the cactus leaves and inhaled the most wonderful scent. The meat was fork tender and amazingly good. I decided right there to make this at home—with the whole cow’s head. Life should always be an adventure, and there is a large maguey growing wild at the bottom of my hill.

Get a printable copy of barbacoa des res for easy reference.

Read more about Beyond Wonderful’s International Home Chef, Yolanda Resendiz and her classic Mexican recipes.