Van Life Rice, Asparagus and Chicken Recipe (with video)

 Good day sister saints!

Just doing my Titus 2 duties here and sharing a video of how simple it is to make healthy meals in the van life (tiny house living).  These have been helpful to other saints so we will keep making them as encouragement for them.

I only have one burner so I have to cook things in stages and in one pot, but it really doesn't take much time or propane at all.  Here's a brief description for you to see how simple it is.

Asparagus for .99 cents (on sale)

1 package of precooked rice .99 cents (on sale)

1/5th lb of ground chicken .57 (on sale)

$2.55 for the meal.  Now if I had prepared ahead of time, I could have cooked my own rice for about .10 cents, thereby saving .89 cents on the meal.  But it is good to show that even some convenience foods (like precooked rice) still save people money vs buying your food out.  Normally I use a can of of vegetables (.50 cents) or frozen which run about .80 cents / lb. with 2 generous meals from it. (Asparagus was a treat for us.) So in saying that, a similar meal of rice, vegetable and ground chicken could cost us $1.07 or so. We don't always have meat in our rice so that can cut the cost down to .50 cents to feed 2 people of rice and veggies.  See how you can start with the more expensive ($2.55) which is still a great deal compared to trying to feed 2 people eating out and then by whittling the pricing down, it can get to .50 cents.

I also save on propane by bringing the food to a high heat for a few minutes then turning it off for a while to let the hot food cook itself.  So for instance, when I cooked up the ground chicken, I brought it up to a high heat for a couple minutes then turned it off to cook itself.  Then I turned it back on to high heat again and turned it off, shortly after it was done.  (I cooked the whole package too, then all I have to do is scoop some out for each meal.)  I did the same for the asparagus and to heat it all up after it was mixed together.

I know pricing differs based on where you live but we've traveled all over and even in my unregenerate past of living in big cities (like Las Vegas and Denver for instance) I found good deals in stores.  

Now to explain the last part of what brother Jim said about it being better than a cheese pizza...

He was in the store and saw this on sale....

He held his gospel card up to give me a reference of size and then sent the picture to me (I was in the van working on my sisters post) and asked what I thought. It's a very good deal as far as pizza's go and we thought about it but decided to pass.  Now here's the deal, I can make 7 plain rice and veggie meals for us (@ .50 cents each) for that price.  Yep.

So you see how it pays (literally, lol) to evaluate every purchase you make and see if there might be a better choice.  No, it's not sinful to buy pizza, we have purchased these discounted pizza a couple times, I'm just showing you how, if we are careful and think things through, there are many areas in which we can cut costs and save money especially for some of you who have never been taught how to look a bit deeper into the costs of your groceries.  It's very important for those of you who have a larger family and the food expense is higher, but you can certainly make changes to cut that cost.

By cutting costs and simplifying meals you save not only money but time.  This, for us, allows us to be out here doing what we do (and hopefully encouraging others to do so) to share the GOSPEL with a lost and dying world.

I hope this helps you all and may the Lord be glorified in our daily lives of obedience and faitfulness.

Love in Christ,

Sister Deb

Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. (1 Corinthians 10:31)