Food Stamps and picky eaters:( HELP!

How about some baked chicken, with steamed carrots? (You can buy a whole chicken for less per pound than a cut up one.) Maybe sliced tomatoes in lieu of a salad. If they aren't big on whole grain, whole wheat bread, maybe try the Flat-Out flat breads, as you can use them to make wraps with the left over chicken. For dessert, fresh fruit or berries. When the season changes, you can do frozen fruit and berries instead. Be sure to read the label and get the type without sugar.

If you do a whole chicken, when you have had a meal off of it, and maybe some wraps, you can take the remaining carcass and put it in a large pot with onions, some garlic and other spices and low sodium chicken broth. After you cook it a bit, the remaining meat will fall right off the bones and you have the makings of a soup. Get the bones out of the pot, add some sliced carrots, celery, potatoes or rice, and add seasonings as needed.

Good luck.

I've noticed that a lot of farmers' markets accept food stamps these days. You might look into that. I don't know if it will make a difference for your picky eaters, but fresh produce is always better. Also, you since you have a 2 year old, you should check out the WIC (women, infants, and children) program to see if you might qualify for more benefits.

I just started keeping track of what I eat again a few weeks ago and coincidentally I'm also on a very limited budget at the moment. As a single guy with no kids, I don't qualify for much in the way of food stamps (I think the website estimated $35/month) so I haven't tried that yet, but I have found a few things that might help.

Dried beans are really cheap and really healthy. The trick is that it takes time to prepare them because you have to soak them in advance. I was lucky enough to find a pressure cooker at a thrift store a few years ago and it makes cooking dried beans a snap (about an hour total from dried beans to ready to eat). This time of year, corn on the cob is also a great deal. Just stick the cobs in the husk in the oven right on the rack @350 for 30 min. I may be wrong on this, but I've heard that bean and corn make a complete protein, so for very little money you've the start of a meal loaded with fiber and protein.

The other thing I've realized since I started counting calories is that I used to spend a lot of calories for little enjoyment. Pasta, cheese, rice, bread, etc. were my staples but I've found that I can often leave them out and I don't really miss them. Instead of the usually starch heavy meal, I bought a bunch of corn tortillas at a local mexican grocery store. They are dirt cheap (I think I paid $2 for 90) and have about 55 calories each. You just have to warm them up in a dry pan, microwave, or right on the stove element if you're feeling brave. I have also noticed that the "ethnic" grocery stores tend to have way cheaper produce, where I live now that means the Mexican/Latino stores, but when I lived in Seattle it was the Asian markets. It's worth shopping around to a couple of grocery stores to find the best prices, some will have great deals on meat and at the same time have terrible prices on produce. If you're lucky enough to have some options close by, you can save a bundle by making two stops when you get your groceries.

I will often have a dinner of a small amount of browned ground beef mixed up with beans, sauteed onions, and some corn tortillas with a bunch of shredded lettuce and tomatoes. I add several dashes of chili powder and hot sauce (I like it spicy) which don't really contribute any calories. Tonight I mixed it up by adding some shredded cabbage to the onions and it ended up being a ton of food, even though the calorie count was still pretty low.

I hope that helps. I am a recovering picky eater, so I feel for your husband and daughter. I think the real trick is just to use the foods they love in different proportions and maybe introduce a new ingredient now and then to see how it goes over.

Good Luck.