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What kinds of food does your family like? If you message me one of the recipes you use now, I can help you to skinny-fy it. Chicken is cheap and good protein. Pasta is also very cheap-lots of times it's on sale and you can also use a coupon and it can be free or nearly free. Frozen veg is often cheaper to buy than fresh unless the fresh is on special and has good nutritional value. Oh, and if you look in the Hispanic/Latin section of your grocery store, you may be able to find bullion for super cheap. Soices that way too. Surprisingly, I often buy spices at the health food stores, too to save money. Vitamin Cottage has packages of lots of different herbs/spices and because they are in plastic bags instead of jars, you can save a pile of money.

So, recipe number one-homemade chicken soup. Whole chicken. Boil it with some spices/seasonings that you like. When it's cooked, remove the skin and bones and pull apart the meat. Save the water you boiled it in and cool it off in the fridge or with a big container full of ice water-sit the cooking pot into the cold water bath. Once it's cold, the fat will rise to the top and the good brothy stuff will get kind of gelatinous. Heat the broth and add back in the shredded chicken meat, some veg, onion, garlic, etc. Whatever kind you like. If it needs more chicken flavor, add some bullion. More seasoings/spices/herbs if you want to. When veg are tender, add uncooked noodles. When the noodles are cooked, dinner is served.

How healthy it is depends on whetherit has lots of veg and chicken and just a little bit of noodles, or whether it's mostly noodles. There is a spot on here where you can add your own recipes and it will figure out the calories. You'll see a tab to click on when you select "add food" in the diary section.

Also, if you let the kids help you cook and even try some of the veg (or anything that is different) as they work along, they will be more likely to try new things.

Hope that is a start for you. I love to cook and I try to eat healthy stuff most of the time. You can look at my diary and see the kinds of things I eat. You'll have to ignore what I ate today, LOL! And my wine and cheese most evenings don't count.-I do extra miles to "earn" those. I'm gonna make a sign to wear around my neck: "Will walk for cheese!"

I love smoothies for breakfast. It's good if you're craving something sweet. My favorite is the strawberry, banana smoothie. This recipe calls for 4 cups slices strawberries, 1 banana, 6 ounces of vanilla yogurt, and 1 cup of ice. You put everything in a blender and mix it all together. 2 cups of this smoothie is only 216 calories. This recipe will make 4 cups of smoothie. The next recipe is Creamy lemon, banana smoothie. 1/2 a peeled lemon, 1 banana, 1 cup of ice and 6 ounces of vanilla yogurt. You can also add a half a cup of milk. If you like a certain consistency, use more or less milk as desired. I'm not sure about the calorie content of this smoothie, but it definitely isn't a lot. It's very healthy and a great way to start out the day. And, if you're not in the mood for a smoothie, try a parfait. It's basically just yogurt, any type of fruit and granola. But I use a trail mix instead of granola. I use 1 cup of yogurt, three sliced strawberries, a handful of blueberries, and a tbs of walnuts and dried apple. It is delicious and you can eat it with just yogurt and fruit if you do not like granola. Hope this helps.