Soup!

I read somewhere that one of the best ways to trim your budget and your waistline was to serve soup once a week. Now that my kids are able to eat soup without much difficulty, it’s a lot easier to have soup nights. (They liked it when they were smaller, it just meant somebody feeding them. Tricky.)

I thought today was a good day to make soup. So I tossed in the vegetables I had on hand (green beans, green pepper, onion, celery, carrots), some whole-grain rice, water, chicken bouillon cubes, curry powder, and a handful of black beans and red kidney beans. I thought I had a can of chicken lurking in the pantry, but discovered it was tuna, hence the beans.

Soup’s flexible. If you don’t have something, no problem. Leave it out. Substitute something else. It’ll still be soup. Set the crockpot and dinner’s taken care of.

If you’re looking to maintain a healthy weight and a healthy budget without skimping on nutrition, you might try a soup night.