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Cheap Foods.
Muriden
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For reasons of me being cheap (ie broke from christmas) and bored. I'm looking to set a strict weekly food budget, thinking something like $25-$30 per week. I currently eat a lot of take out and fast food and want to try to curb this trend. I currently have very little in the way of cooking skills other than microwave and skillet meals. What I'm looking for are recommendations on easy to make cheap dishes that will fall under this criteria. I do have a nice 13" deep skillet that I would like to learn how to make stir fries with so bonus points for this.
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Beans
Pasta
Easy things to do with a skillet:
1. Tacos/Burritos - Get one of those little taco packet things (or not, preferably, but it's easier and cheaper if you don't have any spices in the house, I recommend the low sodium ones as they pack a ton of salt). Get ground meat (turkey for healthy, beef for cheap), brown, drain, cook a bit more, then dump into shells/wraps. If you make it with rice, beans, veggies and minimal (preferably none) sour cream, they'll be delicious and relatively healthy. Make a shitload so all you have to do is nuke it every time you need another meal. Should be able to make 3 meals out of a pound of meat, 2 if not running rice/beans. Oh, and do actual beans, not refried.
Also, just experiment with cooking meat based on things you look up online. You'll screw up a bunch, but it's usually still edible and you'll learn a lot.
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/cook_home
Invest in a rice cooker. One of my better buys. Rice generally goes with anything.
And for breakfast, oatmeal and bananas. Real oatmeal that you cook on the stove, not the microwave packets. A little peanut or almond butter in your oatmeal is tasty.
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stir fry is super easy.
Assemble your veggies. I like broccoli and carrots, but really, its up to you. I would avoid leafy greens, but again, its up to you.
Assemble your meat(s). Chicken works well. But again, it's entirely your choice.
Grill the meat until its done. I meat thermometer works wonders, but with practice you'll find you don't need one. Meat is almost universally done when its firm in texture, and the juices coming out are clear. For skillet meals or stir fries, its good to dice the meat first, especially with chicken.
Remove the meat, leave the juices. throw the veggies in. cook until they have darkened in color, then take them out.
If you're going to add rice or noodles, cook those first, then throw everything into the same pan to cook it, and add your sauces at this time. I like a lot of schezuan, about a quarter as much of teriaki and hoisin. But this is also entirely up to you. A little sesame or garlic oil goes a long way here as well.
et viola! you are finished!
You can get enough of the ingredients to make a meal that will last you at least week for about 20 bucks. Maybe a bit more to start with if you don't have the sauces and things.
I will mention that just getting off of fast food will save you a bundle right away. I find that if I make my own food I eat for about a third of what it costs to go to BK and get a meal.
-Current W.I.P.
I've seen lentils and brown rice recommended on here several times, but I have no idea where to find either of those or how to prepare them. Lentils are an entire family of foods, right? Does brown rice require a rice cooker? How do you spice this stuff and prevent it from becoming brownish mush with a side of brownish mush?
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I'm pretty sure white corn flour is cheaper, while peasemeal is healthier. Kasha is also a good choice.
I sub Quorn in meat recipes quite often. It takes flavor well, cooks well in a variety of ways, and the texture is brilliant.
Never seen white corn flour, or peasemeal, so I can't comment on how healthy they might be. I know oatmeal is cheap, filling, high in fibre and low glycemic.
Isn't corn pretty much terrible for you?
HFCS is bad, while corn itself is pretty equivalent to wheat. White corn flour was the standard in Tanzania and Kenya, with yellow being fairly rarely used due to an association with poverty, with millet being a preferred budget option. Either way, you stir until you get the consistency of porridge, add sugar, and eat or keep heating and stirring until you get the consistency of a baked potato (but less crumbly) and serve it as ugali.
I really love potatoes and rice. Cheap and easy. Healthy until you add all sorts of delicious butter and soy sauce.
Actually, there's a lot of evidence that the body processes it differently from other sugar sources, but that's for the many D&D threads that have brought up the issue.
A lot of cheap cooking can be made easier with a few tools. A pressure cooker/crock pot and a George Foreman grill can do marvelous, marvelous things.
Steaks are super expensive but there is a method you can use to make excellent steaks out of cheap "choice" meat. I use that method with prodigious amounts of both salt and montreal steak seasoning in the prep, and then grill them on the George Foreman. The grocery store near me puts cheap steaks on sale from time to time, and discounts the steak that is near it's sell by date pretty heavily.
The Foreman is also great for making homemade grilled stuffed burritos. You can make your own refried beans, throw in some rice, some salsa, and some cheese and you're good. It's also awesome for making grilled sandwiches or paninis.
A crock pot lets you buy and cook whole beef roasts when they're on sale (even cheaper beef will taste awesome if you cook it with vegtables and be super tender from the cook time, and you'll have tons of beef for sandwiches), or entire chickens. You can make a huge pot of chili with nothing more than some ground beef, canned tomatoes, canned or dry beans, and a packet of chili seasoning and have food for days. If you have tupperware you can freeze some of it so you don't get burned out on eating nothing but chili.
The easiest way that I've found to lower my food costs is to buy in bulk. Check around and see if there are any restaurant or foodservice supply stores near you. Cheese is pretty expensive, but I can get a five pound bag of shredded cheddar for a hell of a lot cheaper and freeze most of it (I'll freeze it in ziploc bags, this way I can pull out and thaw it a little at a time). A twenty pound bag of rice will last you forever. Buying in bulk means that a lot of the time you'll have to cook in bulk, but like I said earlier some cheap plastic containers (I have a bunch of the ones that lunchmeat comes in) can go a long way. Freeze what you can't eat, and you can thaw it out and microwave it later.
If you're hooked on sweet drinks, kool aid is basically death juice but you can make two quarts of it for about $0.30 , which makes it a hell of a lot cheaper than soda and juice made from actual fruit.
The biggest thing to remember is the more work you do to make a meal, the cheaper it's going to be. Making your own pot of stew will be cheaper than buying it in cans.
Also, get a cheap wok instead of your skillet and learn to stir fry. And learn to love rice and beans.
I guess the thing I need is a list of recipies that I can cut my teeth on, just have no basic cooking experience.
Thanks for all the advise so far. Time to start some kitchen fires!
There's a few different kinds of lentils, but they all prepare the same. As far as where to find them... the store? By the beans and rice? I've never seen a grocery store that didn't have lentils.
As far as rice goes, you don't ever need a rice cooker. Brown cooks the same as white. I've never been picky about my rice, so I just toss it in a pot with some water and let it boil. I'll actually cook lentils and rice at the same time this way. If you run out of water before its done (and it's done when it has the consistency you want, i.e. not hard), add some more water. If it's done before all the water's gone just drain it off like you would pasta. Eventually you'll be able to judge it just right.
For spices? Whatever you got on hand, really. If you've got any meat bits, throw those in. Some salt/pepper is needed. Cumin, tumeric, and coriander (plus something spicy if you want) is your basic curry powder. Worstershire sauce can add some savoryness and depth. Same for things like fish sauce, oyster sauce, plum sauce. Asians make all the best sauces. Toss in some garlic (always good), and onion (also always good). Toss in any other veg you've got lying around while you're at it. Now taste it! Is it bland? Add a little more salt. Still bland? Add more spices. Still bland... add some tabasco and we'll work on getting you used to healthy food >_>
Around my house we've got a saying when it comes to cooking. If someone asks how to make something, the answer is "everything goes in the pot". Honestly this works 95% of the time.
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
Take, for example, Cod-head chowder:
There's also drippings, popular in bread. Saltfish and rice is also a nice, simple dish, although you'll have to find something to replace the cod.
These will be cheaper than any other vegetables in the place.
Don't look for chicken because it's cheap, look for cuts that are on discount, see if their cost per weight is better value is better than the cheap cuts of chicken and buy those if they are.
Freeze them because they are most likely cheap because they are close to expiry, defrost when needed.
PLAN YOUR MEALS. Seriously, a million times this.
Satans..... hints.....
Took some chicken, cut it into small pieces, grilled it. Made a couple cups of rice in the cooker, steamed some broccoli, threw all of it in a bowl, threw some cheese on top, nuked it for 30 seconds to melt the cheese, et voile, meal.
You can go with spices if that's your thing, or even get some cream of mushroom in there to make it a more traditional casserole recipe (with onions and whatever else you like).
Shouldn't start any kitchen fires with that one.
Get a crockpot
Step 2.
Take all those cheap vegetables and beans that you didn't eat all week because you were too lazy. Throw them in the crockpot, preferably with a little beef and some broth. Leave it on for 8 hours.
Step 3. Eat stew! It is suprisingly good.
My real recipe goes something like beef, beef broth, broccoli, peas, celery, carrots, potatoes, garlic, onion. But the whole point is that you can improvise.