I am about to enter a phase in my life where I will be quite poor and quite busy. I am also growing older and beginning to realize that that in order to eat healthy and cheaply, one generally must do a lot of home cooking.
I have found a recipe that is absolutely perfect for my needs. I figure I need about nine more in order to have a decent regular rotation. Here are my criteria (be prepared: there are many!)
Cheap ingredients (the recipe above uses lot of canned beans and tomatoes, for example, which are not the healthiest things in the world but not the worst foods you can eat either)
Quick to make (1-2 hours)
Easily freezes
Makes about 8-10 generous servings at one time
Can function as a main course
Vegetarian
Healthy-ish (In particular, I would try to avoid simple carbs. Fats and dairy are ok)
Tasty!
Primarily I think most of the things I am looking for would end up being soups, chilis, etc. Although possibly some casseroles/lasagnas type work.
I would be really grateful for any help you all could provide!
That recipe does sound great for what you’re looking for.
The vegetarian crumbles really aren’t worth the money though. They are NOT cheap. It’s better to stay with the beans.
I’m not vegetarian, but my mom and sister are and I’ve made chili for them. With and without those crumbles. They really didn’t notice much of a difference. My uncle always said you can throw oats in too to stand in for meat. (I’ve not tried it, but he can really cook.)
I have no more tips, but if you’re trying to be frugal? Those things (veggie crumbles) aren’t worth it.
If you have a grocery store near you that sells it in bulk, Textured Vegetable Protein can be quite filling for it’s cost, and can be used nearly anywhere you can use ground beef.
You can make big batches of stew with it (hobo stew, as I call it). A standard vegetable stock with TVP, rice and vegetables is healthy, can be frozen, and should be pretty cheap over all while providing lots of protein and will be filling.
Easiest vegetarian dish to make, other than salads and other no-cook dishes, is a meatless pasta. My favorite is very similar to what Clemenza taught Michael but without the sausages and meatballs:
Fry some finely chopped garlic in olive oil. Don’t brown them.
Dump in 1 or 2 cans of stewed and diced tomatoes. You should equalize the weight of the canned tomatoes to the dry weight of the pasta you’re going to cook. Let simmer in low heat, stir.
Add a little tomato paste or sauce to make the texture more consistent (rather than lumpy).
Add torn (rather than chopped) basil leaves. Don’t overcook basil or it’ll turn bitter.
Season with a little salt and pepper.
To serve, put cooked pasta on a plate, drench a little with olive oil, spoon over your sauce, and put a little parmesan. Mix. I prefer the pasta to be “swimming” in sauce.
note: If you find the tomatoey taste too sour and bold, you can deaden it a bit with a dash of red wine, or fruit juice or even coca cola right after you put in the basil.
Put a combo of veggies in pot. Doesn’t matter what they are, although squash works well as a component. Add some dried grain and legume. Season as you like. Simmer with enough water so there’s still liquid left after everything is soft. Now (here’s where the magic happens) add an aliquot of cream cheese and hit it with a hand blender. Yep, right in the pot. Makes simple soupy gruel into instant “bisque.” A big bowl of this with a slab of whole grain bread will do you just fine.
The great things about it are:
Easy.
Done all in one pot.
Good way to get a lot of veg in you.
Good way to use up vegs before they go bad.
Cheap (or not) as you want to make it.
Infinitely variable.
The only potential drawback is you need a hand blender. But I find that is a very handy tool anyway.
Lentil Lasagne (Is that too many carbs?) You can add whatever other veggies you like to the tomato sauce (I add eggplant and spinach, sometimes basil. My mother always adds pumpkin). I skip the chilling in step 4.
1 eggplant
salt
1/4 cup olive oil
1 onion, thinly sliced
1 yellow and 1 red bell pepper, sliced
2 cloves garlic
1 can peeled tomatoes, undrained
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp oregano
pepper
Cut unpeeled eggplant into long strips, then cut strips down to about finger-length size. Put in colander, sprinkle with salt, and let drain for half an hour.*
Heat olive oil. Saute onion in it for 5 minutes, then add peppers, garlic, and tomatoes and stir well. Mix in thyme and oregano.
Rinse eggplant and dry it. Add to pan. Cover and simmer over low heat, stirring now and then, til soft, about 20-30 minutes.
Season to taste w/salt and pepper. Can be served hot or at room temperature. We have it on rice and it is superb.
*Since copying this recipe I’ve made it countless times, and at some point I read that salting and draining eggplant isn’t necessary so I don’t do it any more. I haven’t noticed any change in the quality of the recipe.
At our house, we have “stir-fry” around once per week.
Basically I take whatever vegetables we have around or are about to go bad, chop them up, and do a quick saute until they’re softened. You can always add a can of beans, or better yet for thriftiness, dry beans that have been soaked and softened.
I keep different sauces around and add them to the veggies. (fish sauce, soy sauce, a few different teriyakis, curry, sriracha, etc) They keep forever and keep you from feeling like you’re stuck in.a routine
Serve the stir-fry on top of rice and off you go. Simple, cheap, easy, healthy, and even freezable if you want.
Almost once a week we boil up a pot of black beans for our house. It’s about a buck twenty, and we can eat several meals off them.
Directions:
-Rinse and sort beans (once in a long while a bean-sized pebble gets into the bag; you don’t want it to get into your mouth).
-Pour 2 quarts water on top.
-Add a chopped onion, some crushed garlic, and maybe a couple teaspoons of salt, basically to taste.
-Simmer, covered, for about 2 hours, or until you can pick a bean out of the broth, blow on it, and watch the skin peel away.
We do this the night before, then reheat the beans the next day and make burritos (beans plus tortillas, grated cheese, sour cream, salsa, blah blah blah–you know how you like your burritos). The beans are super-low-fat, so you can be healthy even if you add some fats on top, and they’re very savory and filling and delicious.
We’ll often make a pot of rice for the next nice and have beans and rice. I’ll pack a lunch of beans and grated cheese and tortilla chips. All told, there can be as many as 8-10 servings using this one bag of beans as a base. Delicious and healthy and cheap.
I have a vegetarian holiday stew recipe somewhere, but can’t find it, so I Googled. This sounds really, really good — and I could go home and make this RIGHT NOW if I had some butternut squash. Maybe I’ll stop at the store on the way home!
“Chloe’s Kitchen”
Curried Lentil, Squash and Apple Stew
Infused with curry spices and chock-full of wilted spinach, butternut squash and sweet chunks of apple, this unique lentil stew is fragrant and flavorful beyond belief.
In a large pot, heat oil over medium-high heat, and sauté onion and carrot until almost soft. Add garlic, ginger, curry and salt, and let cook a few more minutes until fragrant.
Stir in lentils, broth and tomato paste. Bring to boil, cover and simmer for 25 minutes. Add squash and apple, cover and simmer for another 25 minutes, or until vegetables and lentils are tender. Remove lid and stir in spinach until wilted. Add salt to taste and serve.
Yield: 6 servings. (I would certainly double this recipe.)
I know you’ve already got a chili in the OP, but I suggest you check out Sunset Magazine’s Vegetarian Black Bean Chili. The spice is just perfect. I usually make it in a crock pot because I am extra double plus lazy.
The calories are nutritional profile aren’t bad either.
Bring 2 cups of macaroni noodles to a boil. When they are half way cooked, empty a can of northern white beans (rinsed) in the pot. By the time the water cones back to a boil, the noodles will be done. Pour the noodles and beans in a strainer. In the pot lightly fry some rosemary in some olive oil on low heat.
Take the olive oil and rosemary off the heat and stir in the noodlesand beans. Make sure there is enough oo to cover everything.
Lastly, stir in one sliced tomato and some feta. Add some salt to taste.
