Budget to live and live to budget.

Who doesn't like to save money and know a budget is working? Who likes to eat decent food? Can the two even exist together? Better Homes and Gardens again seems to think so. After all, can anyone truly get enough budgeting advice from Better Homes and Gardens? Their home and garden is better than mine, or yours, or anybody.  

I don't budget down to the last penny. I am guilty of just about everything in this book. 

The overtly bright Betty Crocker trilogy has been completed and now it's time to get back to the great pictures! Though I am not sure it was a trilogy. More books have a tendency to resurface.

Better Homes and Gardens Good Food On A Budget, 1971

Cheesy Meatloaf. The caption reads "if the budget allows, garnish meat with pickled peppers." If my budget allowed pickled pepper garnishes,  I sure as hell can find something better to make than this. Just saying.

Frank and Potato Bake. Hot dogs and sliced potatoes with process cheese spread and reconstituted milk. Seconds please.

I think I am okay with spending over half the money for milk by purchasing actual milk. I will omit any and all milkman and children comments though it's hard.

That's all well and good and I don't like the evils of peer pressure and the psychosocial experiment called school, but I love my children enough that I would not subject them to potential bullying by having them pull a cold cheesy meatloaf, slice of aspic, and reconstituted milk from their lunchboxes. Maybe the bullies win this time.

That's what I want in a drink. I want visible white flecks of cottage cheese floating around tomato juice. Sounds refreshing. I bet it wets the ole palate during these hot Texas summers.

Right. Why only put a few ingredients in a stew when you can get canned stew for less than a dollar. Makes sense.

You know you've hit rock bottom when you are serving frozen fish sticks over leftover rice, pinapple tidbits, and a few other things and trying to pass it off as Fish Sticks Polynesian. This is coming from someone who tried to downplay Tuna Helper as Tuna Noodle Surprise.

Sweet-Sour Beef Stew with enough poppy seeds to get you fired.

This is seriously the most contradictory paragraph in a book. If you are trying to save money and eat better, why would you spend so much extra money on all those garnishes? Who cares about garnishes? I'd rather eat something of quality than admire a radish rose.

Curried Fish Filets topped with gloppity velveeta curry. It's so thick it doesn't even slide off the ladle. Gayag.

There is truly something frighteningly bright about the eggs and cheese. It could be a light source on its own. It reminds me out of something from The Shining. Yellow is not this bright. It's just so yellow.

Forget the comment about the fish stick polynesian. If you have to put your own feces on a bun and eat them then you have hit rock bottom.

Pear-Banana-Lime mold. It's a sad book when this has been the most edible looking food photograph. Even stuffed with lettuce that will not be eaten.

Do I pat myself on the back because I have most of those books?

I feel a dollar short and a day late now. 

U.N.T.