Before you throw that away…
Frankie Celenza | June 2026
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Food is the third largest category I spend on. Walking through the aisles, I think about the money as much as the food. I heard this stat recently that threw me for a loop: 30% of all groceries end up in the garbage. That’s a lot of money. The answer isn’t always cheaper. It’s smarter. |
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So here’s the idea: I buy three key ingredients — bacon, eggs, cheddar — and they show up in five different dinners this week. A little planning goes a long way. Less struggle, more strategy.
I’m Frankie Celenza — I make a show called Struggle Meals about making genuinely good food without spending a lot of money. After ten seasons, I’ve figured out that a little creativity and a smarter shopping list can do more for my week (my wallet, my time, my dinner table) than any complicated recipe ever could. New episodes are back weekly on Sundays. If you want to see how I actually make this stuff, come watch.
Week one: five dinners, one pack of bacon, a dozen eggs, a block of cheddar. Here's how to use all of it. —> Get it.
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Recipe one
Bacon, Egg & Cheese
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—> Save the recipe <—
Breakfast for dinner is not a cop-out. Ask any kid. It’s one of the most reliable moves in the playbook. Everyone comes to the table, nobody complains, and you feel like a genius for spending twelve dollars. The BEC is a breakfast sandwich, but it’s also a philosophy: bacon, eggs, and cheddar, done right, are the foundation of everything else I’m making this week. I grew up eating these in New York, and I’ve never fully left that part of my life behind. The simplest possible ingredients. Good bacon. Real cheddar. An egg cooked in the fat the bacon left behind.
When I’m feeding more than just myself, I skip the cast-iron pan and do the sheet-pan version. Eggs whisked with cheddar bake on parchment, bacon cooks on the tray next to it, and everything gets cut into squares, done in twenty minutes. Same sandwich, zero stress, feeds four.
Took me a while to figure this out. Forward this email to someone who could use it.
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Recipe two
Fancy (yet approachable) Carbonara
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I think of carbonara as bacon and eggs in a different outfit, which is exactly why it’s here. Same pack, same dozen, completely different dinner, and one that’ll get requested again next week. |
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SHARED INGREDIENTS
eggs bacon
DINNER WIN
kid approved
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Recipe three
Chipotle-Style Chicken Burrito Bowl
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I make this when I want to eat well without feeling it in my wallet. Chicken thighs, black beans, cilantro lime rice, homemade guac, corn salsa — all made at home. I always cook a big batch of the rice and make use of it later in the week. |
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SHARED INGREDIENTS
cheddar jalapeños
DINNER WIN
kid approved
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Recipe four
Penne with Bacon Tomato Sauce
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Bacon in a tomato sauce sounds simple because it is, and that's the whole point. The Italian version of this, Amatriciana, is what really got me into cooking, and it’s easy to see why even before you taste it: the fat renders, the tomatoes go in, the pasta water makes it silky — and twenty minutes later I’ve got something that tastes like it took all day. It’s also the last of that bacon we bought, earning its keep. |
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SHARED INGREDIENTS
bacon
DINNER WIN
under 30 min
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Recipe five
Fridge Clean-Out Fried Rice
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The best fried rice is made with leftover rice. That means the batch I cooked for the burrito bowl becomes Friday's dinner without doing anything extra. I add eggs, whatever veg is left in the fridge, soy sauce, and sesame oil. Past me did the work, and Friday me just eats. |
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SHARED INGREDIENTS
eggs
DINNER WIN
under 30 min
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Ingredients pulling double (or triple) duty this week: |
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Bacon — BEC, Carbonara, Penne Eggs — BEC, Carbonara, Fried Rice Cheddar — BEC, Burrito Bowl |
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Jalapeños — BEC, Burrito Bowl Parmesan — Carbonara, Penne Rice — Burrito Bowl, Fried Rice |
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