Poor people food (for food snobs)

Cafe Society
21

IMO, as long as you have this outlook you wont be successful. You need to make up your mind if saving money is important to you, or if your “snobbishness” overrules.
There are some really good recipes out there that are inexpensive, you just have to be disciplined.

When my kids were young, I had a budget of $150 max a month to feed the kids & buy formula/diapers & whatnot (I was that broke & refused to live off the state), but I did it without killing anyone.

Use your spices & tenderizers & pick food items that are versatile. A large roast breaks down by making shephards pie (or a beef potpie) with the meat & veggie leftover, and save part of it to shred up and make bbq beef sandwhiches.

I used to keep a couple of cans of beer on hand for tenderizer… and I love beercheese soup/sauce (is really good on pasta or rice)!

Rice is a good filler - you can add veggies for a stirfry, or sauce for a meatless dish or all for a casserole.

Another big saver for me at the time was mixing a mid-lean ground beef with ground turkey & buying in bulk - mix the two then seperate & freeze what you arent planning to use w/in the next couple of days.

Onions - chop some, slice some, & throw in the freezer before they go bad. Same thing with just about any fresh veggie (carrots, peppers, etc)

Fruits - before they go bad, slice/chop and throw in the freezer. In the summertime they make a cool semi-frozen dessert & the juices when it thaws is yummy.

Once a month i would spend a full weekend with the kids cooking/prep. We made our own tortillas, breads, dinners, etc that could be frozen. This was our family time & we made it fun - not work.

It wasnt easy - but getting over the mindset of not having a chef and wait staff and knowing your laziness can only max out at sitting down while you’re chopping or kneading away… well, get over it and bring out your inner chef and bask in the glory of what you accomplish (and I dont mean the money aspect).

22

I make fajitas with just peppers and onions and without meat, and they’re just as good. No, really! Add beans and rice for protein. Three peppers (red, green, yellow) and an onion will feed three college girls with leftovers, so that ought to cover two people fine. I think the last time I did that, I spent around six bucks, but that was winter prices for peppers and I bought fancy tortillas and black bean salsa.

Save the dark meat on the chicken and the carcass and make chicken soup or chicken salad sandwiches. You might want to take a gander at the rubber chicken recipe. I’m sure you have the cookery skills and imagination to think up different ways to implement the theory.

If you at all have a green thumb, you might want to consider planting a couple tomato plants. It would cost you less than $10 now, but for a couple months this summer, you won’t even have to consider buying tomatoes. Or you can do cherry tomatoes in a pot on your patio, if you don’t have a yard or room for a garden.

23

I actually think boneless skinless chicken thighs taste better than chicken breasts, and they’re often cheaper, especially if you buy large quantities and end up freezing some. Where does the dark meat hate come from?

24

For those reading this outside North America, a Crock Pot® is a brand of slow cooker.

25

I was going to make a note about that. You can keep whole spices for up to 2 years in a cool dry place without much loss of flavor. However, you don’t have to buy 1/2 pound at a time if you don’t want to. A lot of these sorts of places will just sell it in bulk. By 1/4 pound if you need to. Or less.

Even so, 1/2 pound of whole cloves costs less than less than an ounce of McCormick’s whole cloves, so it works out cheaper that way, too. If you’re worried about the waste and can’t buy in bulk, find some friends to split them with.

26

“Rib” of celery. :slight_smile:

I have a similar Crock Pot Roast recipe:

One roast
Two cans of Campbell’s Beefy Mushroom or Golden Mushroom Soup, undiluted
One package onion soup mix

Throw it all in the crock pot in the morning, and by the time you come home it will be ready. Add some mashed potatoes (instant, if you must) and green beans and you will have a hearty meal with its own gravy.

27

Eating on the cheap can be really easy if you have a few good cookbooks, and possibly some relatives you can get old standby recipes from. These two come from my grandmother.

“Tuna stuff” on biscuits is a regular at our house.

Make biscuits (from scratch, mix, or refrigerated dough). Set aside.

Mix together:
2 cans drained cans of tuna fish
1 can of cream of celery (or cream of mushroom) soup
1/2 cup of milk
Frozen peas to taste.

Heat this mixture together either on the stove top or in the microwave. Serve over biscuits. YUM. Instant comfort food.

A quick salmon loaf can be very nice and it’s really easy to make too. I don’t have any exact measurements for this recipe, so you might have to experiment a little.
Mix together a can of salmon, some cooked rice, chopped celery, onions and garlic. Mix in an egg to hold it all together and put it all in a loaf pan. Bake it in the oven at 350 for awhile covered in foil. When it’s a little crispy on top, take off the foil, and sprinkle it with cheddar cheese. Put back in the oven until the cheese melts. Enjoy.

Also, do you get a weekly circular with your newspaper that tells you what’s going to be on sale at your local grocery stores? If you do, you can frequently tailor your menu to what’s on sale. It saves more than you think. Also, keeping your pantry stocked with staples like rice, pasta, onions, garlic, canned veggies, herbs, and spices makes cooking much easier, cheaper, and enjoyable. It also helps eliminate those mad dashes to the store when you don’t have something for a recipe.

28

I use roughly the same essentials, but I coat the roast in a mix of flower, fresh ground pepper and kosher salt - then brown it on the stove-top in unsalted butter. Further I DO dilute the mushroom/onion soup mix - with about two cups or thereabouts of white wine ( any will do ). More and ( IMHO ) better gravy.

'course I don’t use ( or own ) a crockpot. Just a big enamalized stewing pot in the oven.

29

Marketing, I think. Somehow, white meat has become synonymous with quality. Don’t ask me why, because it tastes like unidentifiable animal protein to me with the way battery farmed American chickens taste. (Don’t get me wrong, I like breast meat for certain applications, but I wouldn’t accuse the average domestic chicken of having any flavor. I hate to say this, but I often feel like we’ve forgotten what real food is supposed to taste like. But that’s a discussion for another thread.)

30

Learn to love chicken thighs. Seriously.

They are massively cheaper than breast meat (over here at least) and if you get the skinless ones, they’re relatively low-fat, and they have so much more flavour. Especially if you’re making soup or stock with them.

31

The Boy and I are both obsessive foodies, but even with our occasional splurges on expensive free-range meats or organic ingredients, we’re rarely over $150 a month for the two of us.

I agree, meat can be expensive, but there’s no reason to do without. I’m not sure if you have a large freezer, but those tend to be a godsend when you’re pinching pennies because this gives you the option to stock up when a good sale comes along or to take advantage of the giant-sized Costco meat offerings.

You’ll save even more if you buy large cuts of meat and then do some of the butchering yourself - I’ve gotten entire pork loins on sale at Costco for about $10 apiece, which with a wee bit of work can be transformed into chops or roasts or a combination thereof. I also do the same with eye of round, which you can buy in large pieces and then cut into smaller roasts (it’s absolutely delicious if you cook it this way ) And like others have said - don’t fear the dark meat… it really is much tastier than the rubbery bland chicken breasts.

Beans and lentils can be your friends. I can’t say I’d ever try Cheesy Lentil Bake (it sounds scary)… but lentil soup and lentils with sausage are both staples in our house. Add a piece of crusty bread and you’ve got a nice filling meal for cheap. I quite like white bean and kale soup as well - with or without sausage.

Stick to eating fruits and veg that are in season - they’re much cheaper than the out-of-season imports, not to mention tastier. The farm share box sounds like it’ll be a fantastic idea… occasionally, you may find yourself holding something very strange, but don’t be afraid of hopping online to ask people for suggestions on how to serve kohlrabi or celeriac. :slight_smile: You may still need to supplement with extra stuff, but if that’s the case, I would suggest finding a reliable greengrocer - in my experience, they’re often half the price of the large supermarket chains.

32

Have you made no-knead bread yet? http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/dining/081mrex.html

It’s the most gourmet looking and tasting stuff in the world, and it costs next to nothing to make. It will fancy up any meal, and make you look like you spent hours slaving in the kitchen when, in fact, it took all of five minutes to throw together. You must try it.

33

I was reluctant at first, but I must say Costco has surprisingly decent meat.

34

I, too, don’t see why you have to give up meat. You simply have to change your way of thinking of meat from the American style “meat with green shit next to it” mindset. Think of beef, pork, and chicken as their own flavors and ingredients like bell peppers and onions. Start butterflying those chicken breasts–the ones you get in the supermarket are HUGE. I can’t eat more than half a breast in one meal that I combine with all sorts of vegetables, and I spend quite a lot of time in the gym and need protein like most people need water.

Got a vaccuum sealer someone gave you and you don’t know what to do with? Splurge and pick up the largest quantity of beef, chicken, fish, or whatever, and cut it down to individual portions yourself and freeze them. Your wallet will hurt from the initial bump, but it seriously pays off in the long run. And, you always have some form of meat to throw together into a meal if you’ve got veggies lying around about to go bad and don’t feel like running to the store.

Screw everyone else who thinks chicken breasts are bland. You’re just overcooking them. The trick to grilling chicken breasts is to heat up a pan as hot as you can stand it, drop a little clarified butter in it and sear both sides for about a minute each, then finish in the oven at 500 degrees for five or so minutes. I make the best grilled chicken I’ve ever eaten, and it is anything but bland.

35

Ummm…no. I know how to cook a chicken breast so it’s still juicy inside, thankyouverymuch. Compared to thigh, breast is, indeed bland from the typical battery farmed chicken. It’s not the cooking method. I’ve had very good breast from farm-raised free-range chickens (my mother’s family grew up on a farm), and that chicken breast actually has flavor.

I’m sure your grilled chicken is delicious. I make grilled chicken breast too, and it tastes fine. But compared with dark meat, breast meat is bland.

36

Okay, I remembered why I don’t eat much dark meat.

It’s freaking gross! It’s full of nasty bunches of chicken fat and veins and crap! Seriously, is there anything nastier than working with raw chicken? The parts that are good are indeed tastier, but mostly it isn’t those parts.

37

Overnight Casserole

2 cups chopped chicken, ham, beef, tuna, or whatever
2 cups uncooked elbow macaroni
2 cans cream of mushroom soup
1 cup milk
1 cup chicken broth(bouillon will do)
1 small onion, chopped
1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chopped bell pepper

Stir together all ingredients. Pour into a greased 9x13 inch pan. Let set in refrigerator overnight. Bake at 350 degrees for one hour.

If you want to spring for extra ingredients, a little can of drained chopped pimientos. Seasonings can be varied. This recipe is great because it is so simple.

38

Calamari.

39

If that sort of thing bothers you, get the boneless, skinless chicken thighs. They don’t have veins or cartilage or anything like that. (Or perhaps I just don’t notice, since I like chicken fat and nothing pleases me more than eating a chicken straight off the bone.)

40

Thanks, I was about to look that up. Not exactly what I thought it was. My thinking was along the lines of an earthenware pot to put in the oven.

To the OP. It hasn’t been mentioned yet but I cook Thai food quite often. It’s cheap and quick and keeps fairly well for leftovers. Basically you need a good red or green curry paste, some cocunut milk (can be replaced with cream quite well) and your basic flavourings - sweet (sugar), salt (fishsauce or salt), sour (lime or lemon juice, and hot (from your curry paste and extra chillis if you feel like it). You can then experiment with various combinations of vegetables, chicken or fish. Serve over rice or noodles and enjoy.