Hello everyone! Monday is our day of fresh budget recipe ulam or main dish ideas, and so here I go again sharing with you seven affordable yet delicious and nutritious recipes that your family will love. As usual we advocate home cooking because apart from not being too costly, it is definitely more healthy!

Like our past lists, this week’s suggested ulam recipes cost between P150.00 to Php200.00 to cook for 4-5 adult portions. Hopefully, these ulam recipes could come in handy as we brace for the incoming school year. By the way, if you are on the look out for breakfast suggestions and school snack ideas, kindly check out our website’s section on Baon Ideas and Breakfast recipes. So without further ado, below is our food list for the week:

July 31-August 6 Budget Recipe Ulam Ideas

1. Nasi Goreng. This Indonesian fried rice dish is a one-pan meal that will not only save you money, it will even save you time in doing the dishes! All you need are some chicken breasts, make your own kecap manis or sweet soy sauce from standard toyo and brown sugar, and then you are almost done, done, done! Of course it needs one sunny sideup egg per person, but it is all cool and within the budget. Try Chef RV Manabat’s version here.

2. Egg drop soup and Crispy Fried Tawilis. You can sub Tawilis with any type of fish that you like that could fit within your budget, The trick is to season it perfectly with your favorite seasoning like salt and pepper plus garlic powder. Dredge in cake flour and fry in very hot oil. As for the egg drop soup, follow this easy recipe.

3. Clams Tausi. This is a perfect recipe to cook during palengke day so that the clams are just super fresh! If you are craving for the clams with black bean sauce in your favorite Chinese restaurant then cook this dish! It will be a hit in your own home for sure. Here is a recipe to try.

4. Ground Beef Broccoli. This is the budget-version of the stir-fried beef broccoli we usually crave for! Since tender beef cuts are not within our Php200.00 budget, we are blessed with the option of using ground beef instead. And 250grams or 1/4 kilo can go a long way! We also do not need to buy expensive frozen broccolis because as a tropical country we can buy this vegetable fresh in our wet markets and grocery stores. Try this recipe and make sure to have enough bowls of steamed rice. 

5. Chicken Liver and Gizzard Adobo. I remember this yummy and oily dish from my childhood! Yes, oily in a good way, like “nagmamantika.” The garlicky and yummy adobo flavors greatly complement the taste of chicken liver and gizzard. As long as the gizzard is not chewy, and the liver is not overcooked, then you’ve got one great ulam that will make you reach for the rice pot for more servings of rice. Yum! Here’s my own recipe.

6. Crispy Tuna Lumpia Shanghai and Ginisang Pechay Side Dish. This is a good recipe for older kids to try to cook. Lumpiang Tuna is simply canned brined tuna, some veggies, wrapped and made into a lumpia! It does not sound too special, but when you taste it, it surely satisfies! Pair with a vegetable side dish and you’ve got a good lunch or dinner meal. Here is a budget friendly recipe to follow.

7. Puso ng Saging Burger. Here is a good meat-free dish that does not taste like a meatless dish! I confidently say this because my picky-eating eldest kid did not even had a hint that she was eating a vegetable dish. Although it is a burger, it is best paired with steamed rice! Here is a recipe that my kids love.

Food for the soul

At this point, please allow me to share with you one of my favorite bible verses this time from the book of Psalms:

“The LORD is my light and my salvation— whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life— of whom shall I be afraid?”

Psalm 27:1

Thank you for stopping by and till next post!

A happy homemaker is a Happy Pinay Mommy!

The post This week’s under Php200.00 Ulam Recipe Ideas appeared first on Happy Pinay Mommy.

Hello everyone! Time flies, it is a Monday once again, and Mondays mean that we will have a fresh list of budget ulam ideas that are both affordable and nutritious. If this is your first time to check out our series, I invite you to check out the earlier entries so that you will get to have more budget ulam recipe ideas in your arsenal. Here’s a link to the recipe lists.

For our list today, I included non-meat ideas that are filling and yummy at the same time. Again the main dishes can serve 4-5 adult portions for a range Php150-200.00 per cooking. One of the keys also to serving nutritious yet cheap and cheerful meals is to be on the lookout for discounted items that are of course not suspiciously discounted.

Ways to lower food expenses

Apart from cooking budget ulam recipes. there are other ways to lower food expenses without sacrificing the taste and nutritional value of the main dishes that you prepare. These include looking out for discounted items, stocking on pantry staples, making double batch of food items that can be easily reheated like dumpling, spring rolls, native longganiza, adobo etc. By doing the aforementioned things, we homemakers can further lower the food costs in our home.

So without further ado here is this week’s list of budget ulam recipe ideas:

Budget ulam recipe ideas for the week

1. Almondigas with Patola. Take advantage of the rainy days and let your family enjoy piping hot misua soup with beef balls and patola. It is a complete meal in itself, but as Filipinos, we can still pair this with rice. 300 grams of ground pork is enough to make this dish meaty and yummy, making our budget cut for this week’s cheap and cheerful meals. Here is a good recipe that I have tried before.

2. Crispy Galunggong and Upo Guisado. Deep fry some galunggong fish and make it extra crispy so that the kids will enjoy. Make a side dish of semi-soupy upo gisado and serve with a smile! If you are feeling generous you can serve a side dish of red egg and tomatoes with this dish.

3. Chicken Basil. Yes it sounds like a Thai restaurant main dish but really, this is a very affordable ulam to serve to your family. Just buy some basil leaves and then your favorite chicken chop up to 3/4 kilograms! Surely, this new dish will tickle the tastebuds of your family. At least we can serve something that is out of our usual menu or kitchen repertoire. Try this recipe. 

4. Tinolang Clams or Mussels. Whatever is available in the palengke or grocery, grab any of this two shellfish and cook this comforting native soup recipe! I remember having this every weekend when my Mom goes to Farmer’s Market in Cubao. I think it is really her happy place because she just shares the joy to all of us through the yummy food she asks Manang to prepare the whole week! So whether it is Tinolang Halaan or Tinolang Tahong, just make sure that it has a lot of ginger so it will be really soothing and yummy at the same time! You can also up the nutritional value by adding some malunggay and sayote. Here is a happy recipe to try.  

5. Gyoza plus sweet and crispy dilis side dish. Gyoza may seem like a foreign dish that is expensive but do you know that you can prepare this for your family on a normal weekday? All you need is half a kilogram of pork, chives, cabbage, and gyoza wrapper and you are all set. Almost all other ingredients are pantry staples so you do not have to worry about staying within our P200.00 budget. Cooking is also easy, imagine all you need to do is fry and steam for less than 15 minutes? The good thing here is you can make extra batches for easy freezing, and cooking for when you need to have food ready right away! Try this recipe.

6. Liver steak. They say that eating internal organs like liver can be healthy from time to time. So why not take advantage of the fact that pork liver is relatively cheaper compared to other cuts of pork, and is considerably healthy if eaten occasionally. As a child, I liked eating liver seak too so why not try serving this to your family? Check out this recipe.

7. Tofu and Fish Fillet with Tausi. Relax, I know you think that the recipe is over and above the P200.00 budget but let me propose this to you — You need not use up the whole bag of fish fillet for this recipe. Use the other half for another recipe for later, and then use tokwa. You also need not use up the whole pouch of Tausi or black beans. You can just refrigerate it and use it for other dishes like clams with black bean sauce, pata humba, and other dishes. Follow this fun restaurant-style recipe.    

So there you have it. I hope you get to try the recipes that I have suggested for this week.

Food for the soul

At this point, I hope you can allow me to share with you one of my favorite bible verses, this time from the Book of Lamentations:

“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”

Lamentations 3:22-23

Thank you for stopping by and till next post!

A happy homemaker is a Happy Pinay Mommy!

https://happypinaymommy.com/2023/07/19/how-busy-moms-can-start-reading-the-bible/

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Are you up to it? Make way for Happypinaymommy.com’s Month-long P100.00 Weekly Filipino Budget Meal Plan Challenge.

Like my Filipino weekly meal plans, this Month Long P100.00 Weekly Filipino Budget Meal Plan Challenge is long overdue. I may have not promised you a timeline as to when Ill publish this, but this has been in my “to write” list for the longest time. As you know, we have been publishing annually P100.00 Budget Ulam Ideas, and these blog entries have consistently been topping our stats. Which now brings me to this four-week meal plan challenge.

Four-week P100.00 Weekly Filipino Budget Meal Plan Challenge

The Filipino meal plans that I will be featuring in this blog post all cost P100.00 to prepare. Hence I call this set – the P100 Meals Month Long Challenge. Yes, all the dishes here can be prepared under P100.00 – enabling you, my fellow homemakers to stretch the family finances further.

Disclaimer though in these P100 meal plans is that there could possibly be some variations in pricing depending on:

1. Cost of Living in your area (for instance, groceries in the Makati area are much more expensive versus those in the provincial areas)
2. Where you choose to buy your food or ingredients (supermarket prices and wet market prices vary).
3. The season of the year – Fish and other seafood are usually pricier during lent. Meat is pricier during the Holiday Season, and Chicken is on sale during the New Year.
4. The year you read this post – I published this in Feb 2018, so if you are reading this after three years, well, costs have changed definitely.
5. The number of family members partaking of the ulam recipe. These cheap ulam recipes are for a family of four – two adults, and two grown children (not babies or toddlers – if you have babies and toddlers, they sure can share with the ulam too!). Of course the rice is not computed along with the P100.00 because it is for ULAM alone.

Another helpful way to achieve the P100.00 target expense for every ulam is to have a pantry that is well stocked. Condiments like pepper, salt, paprika, soy sauce, cooking oil, vinegar, bay leaf, hot sauce, patis or whatnot is assumed to be available in the cupboard. Other ingredients like black beans, cornstarch, flour, peas, raisins, ketchup, oyster sauce, or butter can be considered “investment ingredients” because you do not get to use up all of the contents of a single package for the recipe, and you can use the remaining contents for future dishes. Ingredients though like a whole can of evaporated milk, all-purpose cream, pineapple juice, tomato sauce, pineapple tidbits or slices, cheese, soda, or the like are computed together with the other ingredients to make it to the P100.00 ulam target.

So what I am saying is the cost can be a give or take P20.00 less or P20.00 more due to the above-mentioned factors. If you are not convinced that the recipe will just cost you a hundred, then by all means skip it and just browse our other pages for more budget meal recipes or choose from any of the meals in the weekly Filipino Meal Plan included in this challenge and just make a “repeat performance” the day it is scheduled.

(Post continued below)

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You may also want to read:

• One Month P100.00 Weekly Filipino Budget Meal Plan Challenge
• Budget Ulam Recipes under P100.00 – 2018 Edition
• Eight Filipino Recipes under P100.00 — 2016 Edition
• Seven Filipino Recipes Under P100 — 2015 Edition
• Lunch Baon Ideas for Kids Part 2
• Filipino Lumpia Recipes under P100.00
• Filipino Dessert Recipes under P100.00
• Filipino Veggie Dishes under P100.00
• Meatless Meals for the family
• Past Weekly Meal Plans
• How to Start Meal Planning

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So without further ado, here are the four meal plans, representing each week of our four-week P100.00 Weekly Filipino Budget Meal Plan Challenge. Pinoy weekly meal plan #1 features yummy heavy breakfasts that will surely perk up the whole family. It also features veggie and meat recipes. A great budget saving tip I have learned as a mother of three is to utilize left overs. Either you serve it a second time, or re-purpose the food for the next meal. Just make sure that left overs are immediately packed in a vacuum-sealed container and refrigerated or frozen accordingly.

Week #1 Meal Plan: P100.00 Ulam Recipes Month Long Challenge:

Week #1 Meal Plan: P100.00 Ulam Recipes Month Long Challenge

If you find it hard to save the meal plan from the website, please do not hesitate to head over to our Facebook Page because most likely, by the time you are reading this, I have already uploaded the album for this 100 Peso Ulam Monthly Challenge of ours.

Going back, here’s the matrix for our second week.

Week 2: 100 Pesos Pinoy Budget Ulam Guide for the week (second week of the four week long P100 meal challenge):

Week 2: 100 Pesos Pinoy Budget Ulam Guide for the week (second week of the four week long P100 meal change)

If you notice, I have included afternoon merienda in our weekly meal plan. This is because this is is really one thing that we cannot skip especially if we have children coming home from school. Most of the merienda items that I have specified are either available in groceries, supermarkets, and palengkes or your neighborhood panaderia or bakery.

Here’s our third meal plan, in our month-long P100.00 Budget Ulam Recipes.

Week 3: Filipino P100 Budget Ulam Recipes:

Week 3: Filipino P100 Budget Ulam Recipes 

Our last meal plan also has select Pinoy recipes, that could even be comfort food for some. For vegetables, check out blanching techniques, or even wrapping veggies in brown paper to keep it fresher for a weekly shopping interval.

Fourth Weekly Meal Plan for the Budget Meal Plan Challenge:

Fourth Weekly Meal Plan for the Budget Meal Plan Challenge.

So there you have it. I hope I have somehow helped you plan budget-friendly meals for at least a month-long period. If you have suggestions or new P100.00 budget meal ideas do let me know, you can reach me via FB or IG.

Again I will endeavor to resume my weekly posting of meal plans. I will be updating as well the meal plan album on our FB Page so if you have time, and you want a compilation you can save on your mobile devices, please check out our FB album here.

Meantime, if you wish to scour great dessert recipes, you may want to check out Good Housekeeping’s Dessert Cook Book featuring Brownie Recipes — buy it here

Please drop by my facebook page or Instagram Account for feedback, comments or recipe suggestions. Check out as well on Pinterest!

Looking forward to hearing from you. A Happy Homemaker is a Happy Pinay Mommy!

Leaving you with this video tutorial on how to cook a P100.00 meal idea – Arroz Caldo — from Kitz Clutzina, the husband of my favorite vlogger, Anne Clutz:

Under P500 Buffet Restaurants for Baptismal and Birthday Parties (Part 1)

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