College Cuisine - !#@% Ramen!

Cafe Society
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I’m lucky enough to be living in a suite-style dorm this year, which means I finally have access to a kitchen. I plan on taking full advantage of that fact, so I’ve opted against paying for a meal plan; in other words, I’m cooking all of my own food. I like cooking, but I have to acknowledge the fact that I’ll be on a budget as well as the fact that I may not have the time or desire to spend 90 minutes in the kitchen every night. With this in mind, I come to the Teeming Millions for recipes.

Some details:[ul]
[li]My food budget allows for an average daily cost of $10; I’d like to keep it closer to $8.[/li][li]I like a pretty wide range of foods; I don’t shy away from ethnic foods and don’t have any religious/ethical restrictions on my diet.[/li][li]I’d like some recipes that produce a lot of storable and reheatable food, like stews and soups[/li][li]I’ve got a decent amount of cookware, but nothing really specialized: skillets (cast-iron, stainless steel, and nonstick), a Dutch oven, saucepans, and good knives, but no garlic press or lemon zester.[/li][li]I’m willing to go a little over-budget to buy spices that’ll last beyond the meal I’m buying 'em for.[/ul][/li]If anyone has any suggestions for a utensil/gadget that I just have to have, or any general pointers, I’d be most appreciative.

2

Get a good basic and comprehensive cookbook – “How to Cook Everything” by Mark Bittman is good, I also like his book “The Minimalist Cooks Dinner”

$70/week is actually a huge grocery budget. I spend that every other week, for two people (in other words $140/month total). I buy meat on sale and freeze it usuable portions – chicken thighs are about the cheapest meat you can buy, and do well in chicken stews. I also love London broil and buy lots whenever it goes on sale ($1-$2 per pound) – it can be marinated and broiled, cubed and stewed, sliced and stirfried – I cut it into 1 lb hunks and freeze it that way.

When buying fresh vegetables choose ones that keep well to avoid waste – green peppers, cucumbers, cabbage, carrots – frozen vegetables are usually an excellent choice for peas, corn, green beans, and chopped spinach. I indulge in bagged salads although heads of lettuce are cheaper (you gotta be lazy on something, right?)

A recipe – salmon pasta florentine
1 vacuum packet of salmon (found near the tuna)
1/2 box frozen spinach
3/4 cup milk or cream
parmesan cheese
1/2 cup chopped onion
tsp flour

Sautee onion in butter until golden. Add flour, stir to blend completely. Add milk, whisk together over low heat and simmer, sauce should begin to thicken. Add parmesan cheese to taste (a couple tablespoons worth) . Add salmon, breaking it up into flakes with a fork. Squeeze water out of spinach, add & stir to distribute. Serve over pasta of your choice

3

Good advice already from Hello Again. I’ll second the recommendation for using chicken thighs to make stew – when I was dead broke in grad school and had no real kitchen, just a crock pot, that was my staple. A couple of dollars worth of chicken thighs, a package of frozen mixed vegetables, chicken stock, and plenty of fresh thyme.

As much as I like How to Cook Everything, I think that Pam Anderson’s How to Cook Without a Book is actually a better choice for anyone who’s not already a pretty competent and confident cook. Anderson’s emphasis is on learning a range of basic cooking techniques, with a series of “base” recipes and a lot of variations on each, so that you’re able to quickly and confidently assemble great meals with what you have on hand (she provides plenty of advice regarding the sorts of things you should have on hand as well). The book also emphasizes meals that can be made in a reasonable period of time with affordable ingredients – she’s out to teach you how to cook dinner for yourself and your family (if you have one) every night, not once a week for guests when you have days to prepare and a whole day to do the actual cooking.

I’d suggest browsing through * . . . Without A Book* in a bookstore or library – if it seems too rudimentary for you, go with Bittman’s How to Cook Everything. Otherwise, take home a copy.

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As alluded to above, your best friend is your crockpot. Cheap meats and veggies become wonderful stews, soups and such with the right spices and recipes. Buy bulk spices that you use often…you can find a lot of them cheap in plastic envelopes in the “ethnic” aisle of your supermarket. I’ve found that you can realize a 30% savings buy buying spices that way and re-using your spice jars.

Add a rice cooker to your list. Chili and stew over rice is filling, healthy and oh-so-cheap. Buy bulk pasta and make your own pasta sauce. Shop the local farmer’s market for fresh produce. A chef’s salad can be very filling.

Make friends with people who cook, and swap off dinners. You waste less food that way, and company helps keep things lively.

Allow yourself one or two indulgences: fast food burgers, etc. on a regular but limited basis. That way you stay sane. :smiley:

5

Rice cookers are nice for making a lot of rice, and they’re easy, but you don’t need one. Here’s how to cook rice on the stove. If you’re feeling ambitious, you could try your hand at lumpia. It’s a lot of work but the ingredients are cheap.

Garlic presses are pretty useless if you ask me. Half the garlic gets stuck inside the thing and goes to waste, and it’s a pain to clean. What I do is take the clove, cut off each end, lay the knife flat against it, and press down with the heel of my hand. Then the skin slips off easily and the garlic is nicely smashed. You can always mince it more too. If you have a heavy cleaver you can just give the clove a good whack.

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Lentil Barley Soup - tasty, healthy, makes a big pot with inexpensive stuff, freezes great!

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
several stalks of celery, chopped (as much as you want)
3 15-oz cans stewed italian-style tomatoes
frozen crinkle-cut carrots, as many as you like (you can also cut up fresh if you want)
3/4 cup lentils
3/4 cup barley (NOT quick-cooking barley)
6 cups water
3 cubes bouillion - vegetable or chicken work nicely
Oregano, basil, black pepper, and cayenne pepper to taste (yes, it really does need the zing from the cayenne!)

Get out a big pot. Cook onion and celery in the olive oil until they are soft. Add everything else and stir. Bring to a boil, then let simmer for an hour and stir every now and then. Eat! The leftovers will thicken and become more like a stew - yum!

The beauty is that you can substitute/add many other veggies and it will be even better. I like to add some green beans, sometimes some zucchini … anything you like will probably be really good.

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One more small piece of advice – a few convenience foods are good to have. Sometimes we all get sick of cooking. I used to buy those tortellini in the fridge case when they went on sale.

Here’s a really really simple recipe for chicken thighs – we used to cook this for our Russian Club dinners, I think it’s Georgian actually.

Take the skin off a bunch of chicken thighs and/or legs – maybe about 8 (more is fine too). Drop them in a large pot.
Peel the skin off the cloves of an entire head of garlic. Drop those puppies in the pot.
Peel and cut 4 carrots into large chunks. Drop those in there too.
NO LIQUID IS ADDED

Cook over low-medium heat for a few hours. The chicken will stew in its own juice. In the end you’ll have a bunch of stewed chicken sitting in several cups of extremely rich broth. Serve some of the chicken with a little broth and garlic chunks for dinner #1. For dinner #2, strip the chicken meat off the remaining thighs, cook some egg noodles, add them both to the soup and have the richest, garlickiest chicken soup you ever had. (If broth is fatty, skim it when you take it out of the fridge)

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A few random thoughts:
You’re right to stock up on herbs and spices. A tin of tomatoes may seem boring, but with a huge pile of seasoning can suffice as a pasta sauce to serve to several people. A pepper mill saves money, because peppercorns (in large quantities) are much cheaper. Also, I suspect you’re in a climate where growing herbs is a viable plan, even if it’s only in a windowbox or on a windowledge…find a good garden supplier that can supply small plants, and ask about how to look after them.
Meat is expensive, but if you make sure the meal is bulked out with veg and a base of pasta/rice/potato, you won’t need to eat much of it.
Get a good kitchen knife. It’ll do everything you need, and you can laugh at people who buy knives purely for cutting fruit, or whatever. (Golden rule of sharp knives when working away from a worksurface - elbows in. You can safely peel an apple with a 12" blade, as long as your elbows are in to your ribs, because no slip will go far enough to hurt anything important.)
Be an awkward shopper. The cost of simple things can vary drastically from one shop to another.
Enjoy simple things! A good-quality pork chop needs nothing more than a little seasoning. Serve with boiled potatoes, and nothing else. My gran would be pleased with such a meal.

9

Okay, I’m pretty bland when it comes to food. I don’t like a lot of fancy stuff. I also like to keep it as simple as possible.

As for tools, the microwave is your friend. Crock pots allow for fancier cooking. There are millions of crockpot recipes on the web. Websites devoted to them. I like to take a roast, some new potatoes and dump 'em in the crockpot for a few hours, cook up some broccoli and call it a good deal. I recommend a bake pan. Bake chicken, make enchiladas, make lasagna. A casserole dish allows you to make macaroni and cheese (not from a box!), and all sorts of stews and casseroles.

A lot of things have recipes on the back labels. Campbells soups always have recipes. There are cookbooks of things to make with soup. In particular, Cream of Mushroom soup. Even my can of corn has a chicken recipe.

I remember seeing lots of 3-ingredient recipe cookbooks and “Cooking with Campbells” and “College Student Cookbook” type books at the bookstore.

A lot of grocery stores have started selling meal kits. All the ingredients you need for something. Here in Texas, it’s usually enchiladas (shaved chicken, cheese, tortillas and enchilada sauce). But I’ve seen lasagna kits and fajita kits, and more.

Here’s something filling: Brown a pound or two of beef (some places sell the meat already browned). Cook up some macaroni. Dump together with a 14 can of tomato sauce. Cook until hot. I hate onions, so I don’t put them in there, but my mom did. She served this a lot when we were kids and didn’t have very much money.

Spices and seasonings: The short cut to tasty food. Also, marinades. Buy some boneless chicken breasts, marinate them in a sauce for a few hours. Good eating. As for spices, I like the All Purpose blends they sell as salt substitutes. Here’s what my Mrs. Dash contains: Onion, Black Pepper, chili pepper, parsley, celery seed, basil, bay, marjoram, oregano, thyme, cayenne pepper, coriander, cumin, mustard, rosemary, garlic, orange peel, carrot, lemon juice powder, tomato, red bell pepper. Granted, in small quantities, but you can use it on ANYTHING. Also, there are special blends like Italian, Mexican, etc.

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May I recommend:

A Man, A Can, A Plan

and

A Man, A Can, and a Microwave

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I’ll highly reccomend the friend thing. Its really a good thing to do. When I lived in Germany I had a group of friends that I always cooked with. What happens is that eventually if you make a habit of it, you’ll do it regularly. What you need is around 5 friends like I had, and inevitably a couple don’t want to because they have eaten already, but you usually have a couple of people to cook with. The reasons why this is so great is that A) you don’t have to cook every meal, B) you don’t have to pay for every meal or at least all of it, and C) you get to have a social activity. I really miss the cooking thing a lot, but this was a unique situation. I was living in Germany, and near the dorms there was very little fast food or anything besides grocery stores so you had to walk to town to get quick food. If you can get a group up like this then you are doing well. Its lots of fun and cheap. I can remember the conversations I had with my friend. We’d say what we had and it was always hardly anything but if we combined our stuff we’d normally only need to buy very little. One of our favorites was this Bolognese sauce from the pack that we’d add beer to to give it flavor along with other veggies. It was cheap and good, and it was meat. Oh it was pasta too.

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Thanks for the replies. I look forward to trying out these recipes and will be sure to check out the cookbooks recommended. Unfortunately, my school is rather nervous about heating elements being left unattended for hours at a time, so rice cookers and crockpots aren’t allowed in the dorms. Considering the fact that someone in my building managed to cause a fire with microwave mac & cheese last year, I understand their position.

On an unrelated note, can anyone point me to a site outlining how long one can expect various veggies to stay fresh? I’d hate to stock up on something only to have it go bad before I use it.

I can’t believe I forgot to get a baking pan! Thanks for the reminder, Hugh.

Gorillaman: an awkward shopper?

I do like the idea of group cooking. There are about 100 people and 30 kitchens in my building, so with any luck it won’t be hard to find at least a few people who are into cooking. What I’d really get a kick out of is some kind of dorm Iron Chef contest.

Thanks again for the replies so far. Keep 'em coming!

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What I’d really get a kick out of is some kind of dorm Iron Chef contest.

That is a great idea. Get three pairs of cooks together, give them a common ingredient like bulk bologna, and everybody eats the results.

If the dorm frowns on crockpots, then your next bet is a cast iron or cast aluminum dutch oven. Stick them in the oven on low for a bunch of hours, and you got dinner.

Check out the “day-old” bread shop in town, too. Good stuff at half-off. If you are using it all in a few days, no problem. Hit the farmer’s markets on the weekends for fresh veggies.

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(for veggies kept in the fridge)
Onions – keep for a couple months
Carrots – about a month - 6 weeks (can still be eaten if somewhat sprouted but otherwise firm)
Celery – 3-4 weeks (if limp, can be immersed in water overnight to refresh)
Cabbage – 2-3 weeks (inner leaves are good even if outer layer is limp)
Cauliflower – 2 weeks
Zuchini – 2-3 weeks
Green peppers – 2 weeks
Roma (plum) tomatos – 2 weeks

One year in college me and 3 other girls had a little rotation going – we each cooked dinner for the group 1 weeknight (m-th). It’s pretty great to come back from classes or whatever and have dinner on the table, and you only have to cook yourself one schoolnight.

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A few random things:

First, to add a reassuring voice to something that was said earlier: Unless you eat a lot of food or a lot of expensive items, cooking is pretty cheap. I am a college student, do either three medium meals or two big meals a day, extremely meat-intensive (seriously, I love my meat, even though it’s really too expensive), and shop at supermarkets that, while not NYC expensive, are significantly pricier than what I get at home - and I still don’t think I manage to spend $70 a week on food unless I go crazy with the going out.

Some basic spice and other-thing thoughts - really, it depends what you like. Salt and pepper are a “duh”. There’s a bunch of condiment type stuff like ketchup, parmesan cheese, and salad dressing that you’ll likely want to keep on hand. You can add a lot of flavor to all sorts of things with cayenne pepper and some variation of garlic (many garlic lovers will curse the powder, but it’s ridiculously easy and not THAT bad), if you’re into either of those flavors. Of the more specialized cooking type spices, the two I use the most are oregano (great on chicken, pasta sauces, etc etc) and mint (unfortunately, mint is MUCH better when it’s fresh - still good though), but again, it’s a preference thing. Find out what you like and want to use a lot, and it’s probably a good investment.

How are you on fridge and/or freezer space? I know that these resources were quite finite when I still lived in suite-style, and they become the main factors in what you can buy perishable-wise. Along the same lines, this determines in part how often you have to go shopping. As a rule, the more often you hit the grocery store, the more you’re going to end up spending, unless you have amazing self-restraint and good list-making skills.

If you’re a health nut, you probably want to stay away from eggs. If you don’t mind all the cholesterol, there are all sorts of creative ways to turn eggs into meals, and eggs (at least where I am) are really cheap. Pasta is a similar dilemma - tons of carbs, not so great for you if you aren’t doing heavy athletic activity to burn those carbs off… and like a buck for a box that will last you at least a couple of meals, fill you up well, and is easy to make taste good with a simple sauce or olive oil/garlic concoction.

As Hello Again mentioned, you need to have a few things on hand that you can just throw together for a really quick and easy meal when you’ve gotten home really late after one of those days. Frozen dinners, easy mac, whatever - there will be a day when you are too tired/mad/sad/whatever to cook, and you’ll still need to eat.

May add some more stuff later - I sort of slumped along with cooking and meal plan when I was doing suite living, but over the last year in my house with a full kitchen and free reign, I developed a minor passion for cooking (one which all of my friends make fun of me for, until they are eating my food). Like I said though, I am sort of meat-biased, and that probably drives my average lunch and dinner costs up by a few bucks a day - but it is SO worth it :smiley:

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Even though I often find my tendencies for teenage rebellion as equally bizarre as the next constituent, I still have to offer the following: can you in anyway put the crockpot outside? All you need to crockpot is an oulet, which can easily be accomplished via extension cord. Or, ask the cafeteria if you can borrow their wall outlet for a day. A lobby would work, as well. After all, if they do not allow it in the building…

Other then that, I would suggest hitting up the frozen section pretty hard. I eat a lot of frozen meals for less then a dollar each. Boxed pasta meals, while being nowhere near as good as home cooked pasta, can actually be tasty as well. I had a fairly decent angel hair and parmesaen one tonight that only needed water, milk, and butter to cook. Even Mrs. T’s frozen periogees are damn tasty - just boil and brown. Kielbasa is one of my favorite meats and keeps forever frozen. Tastier than hotdogs, too. Gnoccis, tortenilli, and raviolli are all simple to make and easy to store. In fact, they are sold already frozen a lot of times. Curry, I think, can be made ahead of time and stored indefinitely. If tired of soups, go for the curry.

Basically, shop at the largest Wal Mart around. For some reason, they always offer tons of really basic foreign foods and an endless variety of frozen foods that are slightly bland at times but filling none-the-less. Save your change, watch the sales, check for coupons, and generally be a smart shopper all around.

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Whenever I’m forced to get stingy with my grocery bill, I get by on cheap, pre- or easily prepared things… ramen being one of them.

Nothing wrong with a good old PB&J sandwich or two. For a couple of bucks you can pick up a tub o’ peanut butter, a few more a jug o’ jelly, and less than a dollar a loaf of bread… and that will last you forever.

Canned soup and the ever-present mac and cheese are good fill-ins too.

About a week of that though and I’m dying for some meat. As some one said, pork chops are a good way to go. You might be amazed at how good a simple pork chop is with just some seasoned salt (a must have spice btw, IMO).

Cereal too is a good way to go. People complain about a box going for 3, 4 or 5 dollars, but the way I see it: that’s 3 or 4 meals so it works out to be pretty cost effective.

I’ve also found that snacking continually rather than eating several large meals is a cheaper (and supposedly healthier, depending on what you snack on of course) way to go about it. The grocery store near me almost always has boxes of the “healthier” crackers on sale, 2 for $4 or something similar.

Another poor-man’s standby is spaghetti (or other pasta, I prefer bowtie). Good with some salt and butter melted over it, or with a tomato sauce. If you can find some ground beef on sale, fry it up and drop it into a basic tomato sauce and you’ve got a fairly hearty meal. Oh, and as Kiros said, eggs are a good too. Around here you can get 18 for less than $2. Not sure how well they keep though and personally, eating them for two days gets me sick of them and half the carton goes to waste.

If money is really tight, go with bread products. Bagels, rolls, a loaf of sandwich bread, heck, even a loaf of french bread are all amazingly cheap. By themselves they’re filling, but added to a dish of spaghetti or soup or even easy-mac, it breaks up the monotony of a single dish and helps fill your tummy.

Another piece of advice is to not be afraid to buy the store brand. For most things, like frozen vegetables, the quality isn’t noticable from a name brand, and the savings add up.

My last belt tightening phase had me scrounging for food money and I discovered a frozen bag of pre-breaded, pre-cooked chicken strips… 20 decent sized strips to a bag for about $5 in the freezer section of the local grocery store. Drop 5 or 6 of them onto a baking sheet for 15 minutes and slap some BBQ sauce or lemon juice on them, or between two pieces of bread, and you’ve got yourself a meal. They were actually so good that I’ve started keeping a bag of them in the freezer for just whenever I want some.

Yet another trick of the perpetually broke, and it’s not something I’d advice unless you absolutely needed to, is caffeine. It’s an appetite suppressant. It’s not the best way to go about things, but if you ever find yourself on a Thursday just dying for some food with no means of purchasing any until Friday when you get paid, a big cup of coffee with some milk or creamer goes a fair way to at least shutting your stomach up for a while.

As to actual recipes, I only have one to offer (apologies about the lack of measurements, I do it by eye):

-saute up some diced onions and 1 or 2 sliced green peppers (both very cheap) in a little oil
-when they get going, add some garlic (also cheap)
-when the garlic is properly sauteed, add some quartered pieces of italian sausage (mild is my preference) (relatively cheap, depending on brand or sales. can probably expect to pay about $4-5 for a package of 5)
-cook over a medium heat, reduced as necessary to avoid oil popping, turning sausages as necessary and stirring vegetables occasionally
-when sausage is done, veggies should be faintly crisp but mostly floppy. fork a bit of the concoction onto a fresh roll (french bread works just as well) and enjoy

Cooking all 5 sausages for one person should leave you with enough for a reheatable (and it does reheat well) sandwich for lunch the next day.

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(I love to cook so I feel like I should add some more. I apologize for all this useless crap, but it is my nature.)

If you are cooking with tomatoes, use basil. The dry stuff is fine, just put it in some water before hand. Otherwise, vegetable oil, olive oil, flour tortillias, bread, eggs, butter, salt, garlic, pepper, water, basil, rosemary, Rotell, and oregano get used in my kitchen the most. If I am baking, this list would include yeast, flour, and baking powder.

And now, some recipes:

  • Flour torillias are great. Simply add scrambled eggs and sausage and you have a filling breakfast. With beef, cheese, beans, black beans, rice, onions, peppers, tomatos, chicken, or any other random combination there-of, you have dinner and lunch. Quesadillas, burritos, enchiladas, tostados, etc - the list is endless. Mole sauce is great with Mexican style dishes, as well. Rotell is also your cheapest best friend.

  • In fact, buy some cans of whatever like salsa verde, salsa rojo, black beans, rotell, refried beans, and whatever else then combine in a skillet until cooked. Melt on some cheese, put in a tortilla, and you have one tasty meal.

  • For more tortilla fun, cook a roast for awhile and inject it with salsa verde at random intervals. When the meat is cooked, pull apart and add to a torilla.

  • Mac and cheese, some sausage, eggs and more cheese on top in a 9" pie pan makes an awesome quiche/edible circle.

  • Cheese and bread crumbs make cheese sticks. 'Nuff said.

  • If you cook some potatos for awhile and knead in some flour, you have instant gnocci. Boil it untill they rise, add some sauce gravey, and enjoy.
    And, well, I think I am good for now.

19

Fruits and veggies last all different amounts of time, depending upon many variables. How fresh it was when purchased, how it’s stored, how often the refridgerator is opened, for example. I’ve got an apple in the crisper that’s been there since shortly after easter, my nectarines are perfectly ripe after buying them last friday, I believe. Very generally, sometime about a week, but keep an eye on them. What I do, when it turns out I’ve bought too much, is freeze the stuff, if at all possible.

Rice is easily made in the microwave as well. Double in liquid the amount of rice, cover, cook for twenty minutes. You might need to fine tune it, as all microwaves are a little different.

Have coupons been mentioned? Not even trying hard, my mom saved about twenty bucks a week, back when groceries for four barely topped a hundred dollars. I was once behind a woman using double coupons and such, whom the store *owed * money by the time she was through.

20

Rice, 20lb. bag = $5