When a tightened budget tells you have to stretch your dollar and when a tight schedule means you don't have hours to give to food prep, here is an approach to make meals that are filling, quick to make, calling for ingredients that are easy to get.

Disclaimer: If you're a gourmet cook and/or your budget for groceries is generous, God bless you. But for those of us unable to go upscale for every meal, the following tips come from years of feeding three daughters on a single mom's paycheck.

Mix and Match: This strategy calls for stocking your kitchen with some basic ingredients. These ingredients can be mixed and matched with other ingredients to make casseroles and side dishes. The only limit is your imagination.

Soups: tomato, cream of potato, cream of mushroom, cream of celery, onion soup. The packets of dried onion soup are also multi-talented. These are basics for using either as a sauce for meats such as ground beef or turkey or fish or for side dishes. Example: one can of cream of mushroom soup blended with some frozen peas and you have a yummy side dish. One pound of ground beef or ground turkey, blended with tomato soup, some green peppers, some chopped onion, and mushroom bits makes a quick casserole. Take some fish filets; cover them with cheddar cheese soup and you have a nice variation.

Green peppers: Use them in salads, omelets, or casseroles.

Peanut butter: Good source of protein, as found in sandwiches or spread on celery sticks.

Ground meat: Good for spaghetti, hamburgers, meat loaf, or chili. Here's a soup quickie I found in a soup cookbook: Press a pound of ground meat (thawed, obviously) into a pie pan. Spread a can of vegetable soup over the meat. Bake at 350 degrees (for 25 min) and when almost done, add shredded cheese on the top. This creation can be sliced like a pizza; it's a quickie when you need to feed the kids but don't have a lot of time.

Macaroni and cheese mix: Cook the macaroni. When the macaroni is tender, add some cream of mushroom soup, maybe some diced green peppers, and a can of tuna. Bake long enough to let all the flavors blend.

Applesauce: This is good as a side dish by itself--kids usually love it. You can sprinkle some ground cinnamon on the top to dress it up a bit.

Celery: Use as celery sticks (with or without peanut butter or maybe cream cheese) for a side dish. Chop it up for salads (tossed salad, potato salad).

Tomato sauce: Use a small can or two in casseroles where you're using tomato soup. It stretches the "tomato-ness" and adds to the quantity when you need to feed several people. Add seasonings such as dill, basil, oregano, etc.

Mushrooms: Look for the small cans of mushroom stems and bits. They're the least expensive, but when they're mixed in a casserole, who cares if they're in bits? Use in omelets or mixed with green peas or in casseroles (using ground meat, tomato sauce, onions, etc.)

Onions: These vegetables go lots of places in your meals: chopped up for hamburgers, casseroles, maybe even scrambled eggs.

Cheese: Use chopped up in omelets or scrambled eggs. Shred cheese to make a topping for vegetables, casseroles, or even on top of pineapple slices.

Beans: Kidney beans, lentils, black-eyed peas, etc. are nutritious and they stretch casseroles. They do well with tomato sauce and ground meat.