Well, frankly I’m surprised too at how well everyone here cooks and eats. It hasn’t been very long for me since I cooked everything according to the instructions on the box.
If you wanted to tell us about your budget, time constraints, and cooking equipment, maybe we could figure out some good stuff for you to eat.
Yes, that’s a fun challenge for lots of us! I’m sure we could think of something you could eat.
Dung Beetle, I can’t speak for everyone else, but personally I just avoid posting in this thread on tuna noodle casserole night, ya know? 
But yes, I think many of us have some experience with eating relatively well on a small budget and would be happy to provide advice. Lord knows I love to talk about food.
Yeah, start a thead, dude!
Anyway, the grocery store had a sale on pork ribs so I grabbed a slab and cooked them according to a few cobbled-together recipes: dry rub meat lightly, bake at 300F for about two hours, maybe longer, let cool, rub with more dry rub, let sit in fridge overnight. Next day, cook up homemade BBQ sauce (ketchup, brown sugar, cider vinegar, etc.) slather ribs with sauce and grill for, I dunno, 20 minutes or so.
I have to say, I didn’t have high hopes at first - the meat when it comes out of the oven smells so … steamed. Ugh. I actually cooked a pot of beans while the meat was sitting in the fridge, I was so sure we’d need something else to eat.
We never got around to touching the beans.
Oh. My. God. So good. The Other Shoe has tried to perfect doing ribs on the grill for years, and we always though pre-baking them was cheating or something. So now - we’re gonna cheat!!
Next time: 3 - 4 hours at 275.
New England clam chowder with sourdough bread.
Supposedly I’m “making” it, but it’s turning into one of those dishes that my husband has a lot of opinions about… he will end up doing most of the work. Fine with me.
PS: a timely blog entry about cheap, easy-to-cook food:
http://indiaknight.posterous.com/cookery-poster
Ah ha, very interesting. I will do my best to find it when I shop tonight.
You guys have the same birthday!?
Tonight is leftovers! Last night our next door neighbor got locked out unexpectedly. She is a freshman in college (!) and doesn’t appear to have any friends. She’s a biology major and very studious, but the poor thing has no network of people to rely on (and thus nowhere to stay until dumb Landlord called her back). So she was here last night, and we felt it awkward to cook and such (it’s a very tiny place) so we got a cheap pizza while she waited for the locksmith.
Leftovers will include said pizza, a giant piece of fish from the SO’s fish n’ chips meal on Saturday, and scrambled eggs and toast if need be. I used to throw away leftovers in my younger, stupider days, but now I make a conscious effort to jazz 'em up so I don’t feel deprived. So I’ll probably mix up a little cider vinegar and really great whole-grain mustard and slather it on the fish. My scrambled eggs are to die for; add a little milk to the mixture, and then put a lid on the nonstick pan while they cook so that they both steam and cook from below gently as well. Not a spot of brown, I say!
Sadly, the meal will not include any fruits or veggies…hence tonight’s shopping trip!
Tonight was simple, grilled hotdogs, with mustard and homemade salsa. The last homegrown tomatoes and peppers madeexcellent salsa. We also had the last corn on the cob, my wife ans sil had theirs traditionally, with butter and salt. I had mine Mexican style, mayo and chili powder,( although I had Frank’s Red Hot sauce) I prefer the flavor. Luckily the garden yielded plenty of ingrediants for canned salsa.
Dinner of champions 
Thai from our favorite local place: Red Curry for the wife, Spicy Fried Rice with BBQ pork for me. Both ordered extra spicy (I want to see the server crying when she brings it out!).
They did not disappoint.
I had a brown rice eel roll and a carton of yogurt for dessert.
Single girl post-grocery shopping meal.
Fast food burgers and fries. And leftover stirfry.
Pork roast with a lot of vegetables. Potatoes, beets, and squash. (My uncle’s a farmer and he brought us a bag full of vegetables.)
Garbage soup.
It’s basically a giant pot of vegetable soup made with normal stuff, carrots, potatoes, onions, tomatoes, garlic, cabbage, corn, etc. But I wind up throwing in anything left from the garden, lots of fresh tomatoes and peppers this time, whatever cooked or raw veg that’s languishing in the fridge, a few small pieces of steak chopped, and so on. The base is beef broth and tomato juice.
Smells great and homey while cooking and keeps everyone’s bellies full for a few days.
Found some frozen shrimp in the freezer so I cooked those. I wanted to attempt to imitate my mom’s great sauteed shrimp with lemon zest, parsley, and red pepper, except I didn’t have lemon zest or fresh parsley. Sides were cous-cous, frozen veggies, salad.
Shrimp were thawed, dried, salted and peppered, sauteed in olive oil. Then, I removed the shrimp and added some butter, dried herbs, and garlic to the pan. For funsies, I added some lemon juice to the pan, which cooked off in seconds, and an interesting thing happened: the garlic absorbed the lemon juice and thus was interestingly sour and savory when I bit in to it. I figure I could use this technique to give a lot of flavor to sauteed garlic, shallots, or onions (sautee only a little bit in butter/oil, add liquid, have it cook off).
Chicken noodle soup. Only because it rained today.
I made a Mexican-style casserole.
I browned ground beef and added onions and peppers, and a package of taco seasoning. Added a can of Ro-tel tomatoes. Then I layered some Bush’s Black Bean Fiesta beans in the bottom of a round casserole dish, topped with a flour tortilla, meat on top, then cheese, then a tortilla, and beans, etc. I kept layering, then baked it for 30 minutes.
Spicy and melty - yum!
Sorry - I disappeared for a bit. Anyway, at request:
6 large tomatoes (2 lb.), peeled, sliced (1/4 inch)*
1/4 teaspoon garlic salt
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
1 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup chopped green onions, divided
1/4 teaspoon pepper
12 oz. bacon, cooked, crumbled
1/3 cup chopped fresh basil
1 (9-inch) baked pie crust
Drain tomato slices on paper towels 15 minutes. Sprinkle with garlic salt.
Meanwhile, heat oven to 375°F. Combine cheese, mayonnaise, 1/4 cup of the green onions and pepper in medium bowl.
Layer half the tomatoes, bacon, basil and remaining 1/4 cup green onions in pie crust. Top with remaining tomatoes. Spread mayonnaise mixture over top. Bake 30 minutes or until golden brown (cover edge of crust with foil if browning too quickly).
TIP *To peel tomatoes, cut small “X” in bottom of each tomato. Place in large pot of boiling water 30 to 60 seconds or until skins become loose; place in large bowl of ice water. Skins should slip off with help of paring knife.
8 servings
PER SERVING: 470 calories, 38 g total fat (11 g saturated fat), 14.5 g protein, 17.5 g carbohydrate, 40 mg cholesterol, 705 mg sodium, 2 g fiber
It was really good. I don’t know if the peeling of the tomatoes is absolutely necessary; I did it this time (since it was my first time making this recipe) but I probably won’t next time. Leftovers were just as good the next day. It was a tad greasy; next time I a) won’t use cooking spray in my pie pan and b) will try to drain the tomatoes better. Maybe seed them?
Anyway, the husband loved it.
Last night was the quiche lorraine, held over from last week apparently. Tonight is enchiladas, or we might go out - my FIL is visiting this week, and it’s his birthday Thursday, so we might take him for a nice dinner. And the other two meals I have planned for this week are Zuppa Toscana (the potato sausage soup by the Olive Garden; I have a knock-off recipe that’s pretty good) and garlic chicken with farfalle.
Thanks for sharing! (Where’d the recipe come from, that it includes detailed nutrition info? What a bonus!) Also, by “baked pie crust” do you mean one that’s already been baked blind/empty first?