Back in the day, I had no money but liked to eat decent food.
One recipe I stumbled on in a moment of enlightenment was “canned pea soup”.
Basicly this consisted of a can of peas dumped into a blender with some liquid smoke and cold cuts added. Heat in the microwave. Salt and pepper to taste.
What sounded like my most gak worthy poverty meal actually turned out damned good.
Anyone have some simple, cheap recipes to help out our ramen eating bretheren?
Slice a coupla’ hot dogs into half-inch coins and fry them in some butter in a skillet. After they acquire a light brown hue, toss in some beaten eggs. Continue cooking ‘til they’re as runny/firm as you like them. Salt usually isn’t needed, but ya’ gotta’ have black pepper on eggs. Dogs is cheap, eggs is cheap, and it tastes good. Some toast and you’ve got a meal. Have a few extra coins, add a well-drained can of sliced potatoes with the dogs.
Canned peas? Good God, I don’t care HOW broke I am, I don’t get near those. Gak-worthy indeed. I wonder if that would work with regular frozen peas, though…
My mother used to praise my ability to “make food out of nothing”. *The cupboard would be almost bare, we were hungry, and neither of us felt like going to the store. Of course, “nothing” generally consisted of a few household staples. Probably my best “food out of nothing” was instant mashed potato soup.
Heat up milk in a pot. Add the potato flakes slowly and allow them to absorb enough liquid that you can see you aren’t overthickening your soup. When the soup reaches the desired thickness add salt, pepper, a bit of garlic powder and some dried minced onions if you’ve got 'em.
Of course, the soup is a lot better if you make it using leftover real mashed potatoes, but if you don’t happen to have any in the 'fridge, the instant mashed potato flakes do quite nicely. I recommend keeping them on hand.
*I used to live in fear that we would have company over and insufficient food to feed them, and she would hand me a can of sardines and a slice of bread…
Or worse, a jug of water…
“Creamed Tuna” is in general rotation in my family and it remains one of my favorite comfort foods to this day.
1 can tuna fish
1 can Campbells cream of celery/cream of mushroom soup
(OPTIONAL) Frozen peas and/or carrots
Drain the tuna and mix it with the contents of the soup can in a large microwavable bowl, or a saucepan on medium heat. Add a bit of milk if desired, but not enough to make it into a soup. The consistency you want is THICK!!! Add vegetables if you want to. Heat until hot. Serve on toast, mashed potatoes, or biscuits. YUMMY.
I like to make potato omelettes.
Put a skillet on the stove on medium heat. Grate the cheee of your choice (cheddar’s awesome), two handful’s worth. For a single person, slice a potato in thin slices (the slice feature of a cheese grater works well). Chop up however much onion and garlic you like. Toss some butter or olive oil in the pan and when it’s melted, toss in the onions, garlic, and some dill weed*. Let them fry for a bit, then chuck in the potatoes. Fry until the taters are tender and put them in a bowl and set them aside.
Take two eggs and break them into a bowl. Add 2 T. of milk and beat until everything is well blended. Toss some pepper in there. Put another T of butter or olive oil in the pan and when melted/heated, pour the eggs in, making sure they cover the entire bottom of the pan. Once they’ve set for about ten seconds, scramble them a little, but not enough to make holes in the finished product. This’ll make the omelette fluffy. Once the thing is set, put a handful of cheese on it. Pour the potatoes on half of the omelette shell and fold the other half over it. Using two spatulas, your hands, whatever, get the omelette out of the pan and onto a plate. Put the other handful of cheese on top of the omelette and let it melt. Voila! Potato omelette. You can use leftover baked potatoes as well – the cooking time isn’t so long.
The same filling (fried potatoes and cheese) is great wrapped in pastry and made into a pasty.
*I raided my mom’s spice cupboard this fall, so I’ve got a ton of dried dill weed and other green dried things. They were free, so I’ve no idea what they actually cost.
My own invention… please do not read if weak of stomach…
1 can tuna (drained)
handful of unsalted mini pretzels
Barbeque sauce (your choice of flavor)
Mix tuna, pretzels and b-b-q sauce in bowl until tired. Then eat!
I still make this every once in a while to gross out my wife.
SFP - nearing the end of my SDMB posting life.
I used to make ramen egg-drop soup. After making the ramen and adding the broth mix, I’d gradually add a beaten egg to the simmering broth and noodles. It was pretty good.
If you already have the olive oil, this is pretty cheap and good, too. Saute onions and garlic in a generous amount of olive oil. Meanwhile, cut up some potatoes and boil. Place cabbage quarters on top of the potatoes. When they are done (about 20 minutes), drain the potatoes & cabbage and mix in the onions and garlic. Proportions are flexible. Adding carrots to the boiled potatoes is optional, and adds nice color. Season with salt and black pepper.
I love doing scrambled tofu, mixed with a bit of soy and then noodles.
It’s much more yum than it sounds.
Cauliflower Soup
3 cups water
1 cauliflower, cut into pieces of any size
1 big potato, peeled and cut into pieces of any size
3-4 chicken bouillon cubes
3/4 cup milk
nutmeg, if you’re feeling ritzy
Combine the water, cauliflower, potato and chicken bouillon cubes in a pot and boil for 15 minutes until mushy. Let cool enough to purée in a blender with the milk.
I ate a lot of chili mac in my college days. Horrible combination, but it was edible and one of my better options at the time.
Ingredients:
1 package macaroni & cheese, prepared.
1 can chili.
Mix together. Eat.
And I did make ramen with additions a lot too - chopped lunchmeat was good, and I’ll still add sesame oil, hot sauce, and rice wine vinegar to it.
With the several mentions of ramen in this thread I thought it was time to post the link to this thread:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=41937#newpost
I’m not ashamed to say I had it bookmarked.
Mmm… Reminds me of my famous Three Soup Soup!
The Only Soup Made From Three Other Soups
1 can Chili
1 can Chicken Noodle
1 can Italian Sausage w/Vegetables
Heat, Stir and Serve
A box of macaroni and cheese, prepared as normal with the milk and butter/margarine, with a can of stewed or diced tomatoes (including the juice) and reheated to just about bubbling is one of the best cheap foods I know of! It tastes great on top of weiners, too. Or weiners that you’ve sliced down the center and allowed strips of cheese to melt into. And the best thing is, the leftovers taste even better the next day, after sitting in the fridge all night and day. Everything will have solidified a bit in the fridge. Just add a little splash of milk and stir (very often, so it doesn’t burn on the bottom of the pot), to make it a bit more liquid. Not too little, and not too much, and definitely don’t use water for this. Yum!
Leftover Fritters
Chop up leftovers (pasta, cold meats, veges) finely. Mix in a bowl with flour, b.p, eggs and milk until you get a thick pancake mixture. Season with whatever you can get your hands on. Fry on pan. Turn over, fry other side.
Great for hangovers, or if you’re in the mood for grease.
cottage cheese and plum jam…or any kind of jam, really, but I have plum in my fridge right now
I actually discovered this tasty concoction after reading through this thread, realizing I really wanted something sweet, and rooting around my mostly-empty fridge for a while. It literally looks like vomit, but it’s durn tasty!
Ramen and mac’n’cheese both exist so you can add stuff to them. Bok choy or celery and leftover meat for ramen; extra cheese, tomatoes, tuna, black beans, salsa, pasta sauce for mac’n’cheese.
Thea, I make instant potato soup, too, but if I have it I’ll add cubed ham or green peas and butter.
I’m sure I can think of more.
Dill is always free. It’s what gardeners refer to as a “volunteer”: It grows like a weed, but you like having it there.
Meanwhile, I’m thinking that the title of this thread got truncated, since obviously these are all foods which should, in fact, exist.
Ramencraft- the tastiest black art.
The flavor packet matters little, as it is mostly salt anyway. The spicy or creamy versions of the regular article are not without merit, however. (I gotta wonder about the “creamy”, though… non-dairy creamer, maybe?).
It’s remarkably hard to screw it up. You take your noodle brick and toss it in the pot with vegetables and/or cooked meats of your choice. Broccoli and chopped red onions are particularly good. Whether or not to drain the water is strictly a matter of personal choice. If you drain the water, you then have to choose your noodle-lube. Butter or margarine are always good choices (and in fact one of the times margarine is actually superior to butter: it melts faster). I suppose you could use olive oil if you have it handy, but one of my old faves is sour cream. Sounds weird, tastes good.
The fact is, though, no matter how you tart it up, you’ll eventually get tired of ramen. If you’re wanting to eat on the cheap and are truly adventurous, there are two places you can go.
First is Big Lots. Head on back to the food section. You’ll find all sorts of weird crap at cheap prices, and most of it doesn’t taste half bad. The stock is constantly rotating, so there’ll most likely be some interesting things awaiting you back there. I’ve discovered various odd breakfast cereals, including Nesquick cereal in a Spanish box (pretty good, but take note: If there’s a rabbit on the box, your cereal probably shouldn’t consist of little brown balls) and cornflakes called “Country Flakes” with most of the text on the box in Arabic script. Don’t be afraid of the failed marketing ploys you’ll find there; just because there’s a Pikachu on the box doesn’t mean that it’s not perfectly edible. The only time I really got burned there was when I picked up some soda called “Vermont Maple Ale”. Yes, it was maple syrup soda. And it was foul.
You’ll have to hunt around a bit for the other place. They’re usually called “salvage grocery” or “dented-can stores”. You might have to ask around. These are the places where foodstuffs that have been damaged a little bit in transit wind up to be sold at absolutely dirt-cheap prices. Just don’t go there expecting any kind of atmosphere; the last one I went to only had a few shelves, most of the items were in great big cardboard boxes, and the lighting was “less than optimal”. In addition to the dented cans, your local salvage grocery will often also have some of the items that even Big Lots wouldn’t pick up. Eat these at your own risk.
Hope that helps some of y’all. Have a nice day.
Another quick and easy ramen modification:
Make your ramen, but add in some cubed leftover fried chicken and veggies from a bag of frozen stir-fry veggies.
I ate this a lot when I was 17 or so, since my dad refused to go grocery shopping at times.
Also, when I was little, my mom would make jello toast. I’m 24 and still make it, every once in a while. My husband thinks it’s the weirdest thing he’s ever heard of, but it’s good. Toast your bread, add butter and sprinkle a little bit of jello powder on top. Red jello is best.