Budget-friendly holiday meal ideas for summer 2020
The holidays are here and it’s time to celebrate the festive season with family and friends. At Libertine Consultants, we are all for that Christmas spirit, but we’ve also had to assist many overindebted consumers who spent too liberally over the Big Days, and later found that they had trouble making ends meet for the rest of the year.
Whole chicken on the braai
If you want to put something on the braai, opt for a whole chicken. Whole chickens are much more affordable than chicken pieces and after the legs, wings and breasts have been eaten, there is still a lot that can be done with it.
Scrape the leftover bits of meat off the carcass, mix it with a little mayo and chopped tomato, and you’ve got a lovely sandwich filler or salad topping for a second meal. Then take the carcass and boil it down with some vegetable peals at low heat, strain it through a cloth and freeze the leftover juices in ice cube trays to be used for soup stock later.
Fresh fruit & veg in season
Shop with the seasons to get the best deals on fresh fruit and vegetables. Summer in South Africa is a great time to indulge in plums, peaches, apricots, strawberries, watermelon, and litchis. Not to mention corn on the cob, baby marrows and beetroot. Chop it up in salads, put it on a kebab stick for a hands-free approach, or pulp it to make ice lollies – the options are endless!
Potlucks & bring-and-braais
One of the most beautiful traditions we have in South Africa is the potluck and bring-and-braai. If you want to invite people over, but don’t necessarily have the budget to feed a whole horde, simply ask them to bring along whatever they have in the fridge – salad stuff, the fixings for braaibroodjies, a tin of tuna or two, some left-over sausage. See what you get and put it together to make a happy-go-lucky meal on the fly. In the end it’s about the togetherness after all!
These are just a few of the budget-friendly meals you can whip up over the holidays. Keep an eye on the blog in coming weeks and months as we share more helpful advice on making wise decisions where your finances are concerned. In the meantime, feel free to reach out to a Libertine Consultants representative to learn more about our debt services and credit services.
