we always like pot pie or shepherd’s pie, made in your largest baking pan (or two pans for a big family). I used to use chicken backs and necks, boil them with saved celery tops, vegetablet trimmings etc. cool, remove the meat from the bones, toss the veggies, strain the broth, skim the fat off. Make gravy from the broth, mix meat with canned or thawed frozen mixed veggies (peas, carrots, corn, limas). Top with either mashed potato, mashed turnip, drop biscuits from Jiffy mix, or role out pie crust and cut shapes from cookie cutters for something fancier. (I had a chicken cookie cutter). Bake until topping is browned and gravy bubbles.
Or you can use shredded leftover meat, or browned ground beef. pork steaks or pork neck bones can be browned in the oven and then boiled to remove and tenderize the meat as well for soup, pie etc.
I saved all veggie trimmings, leftovers, bones and carcasses from chicken or other meat to make stock, and made a pot each week. Strained, skimmed and frozen in quart plastic containers gives you a nutritious basis for soups and stews quickly, more flavorful and less sodium than canned, and cheap or free because you were going to toss that stuff anyhow. The gelatin from the bones oozes out and makes the broth rich in protein. Roasted meat, turkey or fowl, or even roasting soup bones, makes them richer and adds flavor to the broth.
Pork neck bones simmered in your spaghetti sauce from canned or your garden tomatoes also yields some of that gelatin and meat shreds to give the sauce more flavor and protein, stretching the sausage or meat you might want to add.
Save and grate all cheese ends too, even if they get a little hard (just as long as there is no visible mold) and freeze to add to spag sauce to richen it.
A trick from large families from most cultures is some starchy food served with or before the meat to take the edge off the appetite. Yorkshire pudding, pierogie, kuchen, cottage cheese and noodels, mac & cheese, ravioli, rice pudding and similar foods serve this function. A cup of soup, canned fruit or salad does the same thing. I am not a fan of jello but if you are going to serve it, do it with fruit as a salad before the meal to take the edge off the kids’ appetites.
We also had a human garbage can when my kids were small (teenage brother who lived with us). He still laughs about my buying the boxes of generic mac and cheese that were 5 for a dollar, and making a meal with TVP (some gross protein soy thing that was supposed to taste like ground beef or ground ham), with a can of stewed tomatoes. We lived on stewed tomatoes and rice, with one diced hot dog between the two of us as newlyweds (poor college students).
Beans are another great food, look for creative bean recipes: white chili with canellini beans, shredded chicken or turkey, cumin, cream of chicken soup, grated white cheese on top. Black bean chili, franks and beans stretched with some thin sliced smoked sausage or kielbasi to make it fancier, beans and rice, charro beans, every culture has good bean recipes.
If you are making any kind of stew with meat and veggies, or a meat or chicken thing in gravy to pour over rice or noodles, add a can of beans drained to stretche the meat–white beans for a chicken dish, red beans or pink beans for a beef dish (most kids don’t like kidney beans).
tip: never try to hide beans or veggies in a sauce or gravy by using the blender to fool your kids into eating them, they will never trust anything you cook for as long as they live.
ideas from DD
quesadillas, cut in wedges, tomato sauce for dipping, can be just cheese or with shredded chicken or ground beef. she even bought a quesadilla maker they eat them so much, a great after school snack, will even fill up your teenager.
she makes panini sandwiches on that thing (we use a George foreman grill).
individual pizzas with stale bagels or english muffins–make your own
baked potato bar (she does this if she has a bag of potatoes that have not been used up fast enough) bake them, put out chopped broccoli, grated cheese, crumbled cooked bacon or sausage, sour cream, chopped onions, she even uses leftover taco filling (her kids are getting to the stage where they will eat anything).
This was our desperation supper as kids: fritters, corn or apple made from pancake mix and powdered eggs and powdered milk, fried in oil, topped with syrup or molasses, served with applesauce or canned peaches and cottage cheese (all this was USDA surplus stuff handed out when auto workers were on strike or laid off).
