Healthy foods on a budget.

Skinnytaste.com for some great low budget/cal recipes.

Since you said you eat chicken a lot: http://www.budgetbytes.com/category/recipes/meat/chicken/

I've really enjoyed the majority of recipes that I've made from this site. I recommend checking out the section on baking, too, since she's got recipes for things that you might think are luxuries when you're eating on a budget (her naan is to die for!).

:bigsmile: Free Chicken plus beans and rice. You're in great shape. Make chicken stock and use it in everything. The easiest way to do that is to simmer thighs and, or legs for about 45 minutes. Remove the meat and return everything else to the pot with onions, celery and carrots or peppers (poblanos are best). Toss in a couple bay leaves and half a spoonful of peppercorns and simmer for several hours.
Strain and throw away the solids, refrigerate the liquid. After a few hours peel the chicken fat (aka schmaltz) off the top and reserve for future. Whats left will be the consistency of jello when cold but heated, it liquifies, tastes like heaven and is magically medicinal. You can use it instead of some or all of the water to cook your beans and rice. It's the base for world class soups and stews. Master this simple thing now and you'll be a great cook for life.

I like to use the brown meat because it doesn't overcook as easy and you always have a supply of moist boneless chicken for sandwiches, tacos, enchiladas, salads, soups, etc. Of course you can use breasts but I think there are better uses for the white meat and it's hard not to overcook it in a stock.. Backs are great, but you don't get the meat. I don't know what an SO is but if his dad can get chicken feet they are a great addition.

Make it the first time with carrots then, later on try it with poblano peppers. It's a completely different taste which I love, but I'm weird. Your grocery store may have poblanos incorrectly labeled as pasillas. Poblanos are fresh, green, shiny and heart shaped. Pasillas are dried, almost black, long and skinny.

Don't look down on beans and rice. They are a staple in lots of cuisines and cultures. A body could eat like a king on beans and rice every day for a month and never have the same meal twice.

The world's your oyster. Live long and prosper.

We ate a TON of soup while my significant other and I were in college because it was so cheap to make and made SO much at a time. The crockpot was our best friend (but you can also make it on the stove). You can throw anything in there and it (almost always) comes out tasting amazing - and you can freeze some so that it either 1) doesn't go bad before you can finish it, or 2) so that you don't have to eat it every day till you're sick of it -- that way you can have some variety.

We would just cut up cheap veggies (buy the regular old ones from regular produce section that aren't already cut for you or anything-- they are really cheap!) like carrots, baking potatoes, green peppers (cheaper, for whatever reason, than orange or red peppers), etc. We'd toss in a variety of beans (literally any kind of bean works in soup - even chickpeas). Throw in some spices. Sometimes we'd toss in some rice or some pasta.

Cucumber sandwiches = dead cheap and you get a TON of sandwiches from a single cucumber. We used cream cheese with a packet of Italian seasoning mix blended in, bread, and - of course - thin cucumber slices. You only need a THIN layer of cream cheese on each piece of bread to get the flavor, so with the bread + cucumbers + cream cheese/Italian dressing mix it ends up being about ~370 calories or so.

Also, stir fry! Rice, frozen broccoli (super cheap), frozen peas -- really anything -- with some garlic and soy sauce. Cheap and delicious.