Over the years there have been recipes I have not even tried because they contained ingredients that didn’t fit my tight budget. That wonderful spinach artichoke dip, as delicious as it can be, was full of  too expensive things like artichokes, sour cream, and “real” Parmesan cheese, so I just enjoyed it when it was…

Our local Aldi started carrying dried kidney beans, at a very attractive price, so I bought a few pounds and then cooked up two pounds of them for a weekend of chili making–two large crowd events with three batches of chili would call for a lot of beans. Not, however, quite as many as I…

Several of us were asked to bring a Chicken Enchilada Casserole for a large gathering recently, so I volunteered to make a vegetarian version. The organizers wanted all the casseroles to have the same appearance so they had provided a recipe to follow and asked that I make my vegetarian contribution to look as much…