It's possible to feast on a tight budget

The challenge was simple: Cook a good meal for a family of five, and spend no more than $10 on the whole shebang.

For my family, this wasn't much of a challenge at all. My wife, Kelly, and I could rattle off 15 or 20 meals that qualify. When you're feeding five people on one income, as we have been doing for years, it is the meal that costs more than $10 that becomes the rarity. Dining out? Even rarer.

Luckily, we have three children who will eat pretty much anything that's put before them. But maybe it's not luck. It's by design - we've been feeding them fennel, chickpeas, sweet potatoes, and raw vegetables since they were in high chairs. They've never set foot in a McDonald's or a Burger King. If it's not nutritious, it's not an option.

One of our favorite cheapo meals is butternut squash lasagna. Cube and roast a whole squash, and then concoct a light cream sauce that's flavored with rosemary and garlic. Combine it all, then spread between layers of no-boil lasagna noodles, sprinkle with Parmesan cheese, and bake. The ingredients barely total $5, and a family of five will get leftovers for days. Put a vegetable on the side, and you still don't approach $10, and it stretches the leftovers even further. (You can find recipes for variations on this meal and others mentioned here at sites like www.epicurious.com, www.cookinglight.com, and allrecipes.com.)

Here are a few of our family's staples to get you started. None of them costs close to $10, which is why you won't find a lot of meat in here. We get most of our protein from other sources, which is good for the body and has the nice side effect of keeping the grocery bill down. Most of these are fairly basic, but in these harried, stressful times, we sometimes forget that a homemade meal can be not only cheaper than takeout but just as quick.

Sweet potato burritos: Season a can of black beans with garlic, onion, chili powder, cumin, prepared mustard, cocoa powder, cinnamon, and cayenne pepper. Layer the mixture in a flour tortilla with mashed sweet potatoes and cheddar cheese. Bake it and devour.

Bibimbap: OK, maybe this isn't precisely the Korean dish that's become all the rage, but it's close enough - and it's fast. Once the pot-cooked rice is in a bowl, the dish is open to interpretation. Our version calls for blanched, julienned carrots; cucumbers seasoned with rice vinegar, sesame oil, and sesame seeds; sautéed spinach; and an egg or two - fried or poached - broken over the top. A dash of hot sauce gives it a nice bite.

Greek pasta toss: This is a meal we often resort to when suddenly it's 6 p.m. and we realize we need to eat. You dirty only two pans - one for the pasta (farfalle), and one for the sauce, which uses diced tomatoes, olives, white cannellini beans, olive oil, oregano, and a lot of garlic. We serve it over a bed of baby spinach leaves, but you don't have to.

Tostadas: This one requires a lot of pans, but it's worth it. Our kids love this meal, largely because they get to assemble it themselves at the table. You've got a mixture of black beans, tomatoes, and onions flavored with cumin; a pan of corn sautéed with chives and lime juice; guacamole made from fresh avocado; a pot of rice; a bowl of lettuce; and yogurt to spread on crisp, baked tortillas. Pass the bowls around, and stack it high.

Pizza: Yes, pizza. Once you've perfected homemade pizza, you'll never again have one delivered. The key to our version is in the baking. Most people put a pizza in the middle of the oven and cook it for 20 minutes. That's why theirs comes out the way it does, which I like to call "not good." We preheat a pizza stone on the top rack at 550 degrees for at least 30 minutes (while preparing the toppings). Once we've topped the dough (homemade, of course), we slide the pizza off of a bed of corn meal onto the super hot pizza stone and bake for four minutes - still at 550 degrees on the top rack. This simulates a high-heat brick oven, and this is the way to get a pizza-parlor-quality pie. If stretching your own dough is too time-consuming or frustrating, you can buy a large, perfectly rolled out dough at some pizza places - Bertucci's sells one for about $2 - and just put your toppings on at home. Fast, easy, and still a lot cheaper, better, and hotter, than delivery.

Macaroni and cheese: I'm not talking about that Kraft-in-a-box business. This is the real deal. Hands down, this is Liam, Aidan, and Amelia's favorite meal. Our version uses cream cheese, cheddar cheese, and milk, and we usually throw some veggies in - broccoli, peas, or whatever else is sitting and the fridge and is still a day or two away from the compost pile.

Steve Greenlee can be reached at greenlee@globe.com.