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Cheap food ideas
Nrthstar
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Registered User regular
Let's clarify right off the start. Saying something like, eat an orange or apple or something is not what I'm looking for. I've been eating cheaply for awhile now (home made chicken fried rice, black beans and rice, ramen and the like) but I want some new ideas. Just spit out your favorite cheap recipe. I'm just looking for a little more variety (and I'm not talking about just PB&J)
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Blantantly stolen from Alton Brown (everyone's favorite food nerd):
1 (2-pound) blade cut chuck roast
2 teaspoons kosher salt
2 teaspoons cumin
Vegetable oil
1 medium onion, chopped
5 to 6 cloves garlic, smashed
1 cup tomato juice
1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
1 cup cocktail olives, drained and broken
1/2 cup dark raisins
Preheat the oven to 190-200 degrees F. Place a wide, heavy skillet or fry pan over high heat for 2 minutes. Meanwhile, rub both sides of meat with the salt and cumin. When the pan is hot (really hot) brown meat on both sides and remove from pan. Add just enough vegetable oil to cover the bottom of the pan then add the onion and garlic. Stir constantly until onion is softened. Add the tomato juice, vinegar, olives, and raisins. Bring to a boil and reduce the liquid by half. Create a pouch with wide, heavy duty aluminum foil. Place half the reduced liquid/chunk mixture on the foil, add the roast, and then top with the remaining mixture. Close the pouch, and wrap tightly in another complete layer of foil. Cook for 3 to 3 1/2 hours or until a fork pushes easily into the meat. Remove from oven and rest (still wrapped) for at least 1/2 hour. Snip off 1 corner of the foil pouch and drain the liquid into a bowl or measuring cup. Add some of the "chunkies" and puree with an immersion blender. Slice meat thinly, or pull apart with a fork. Serve with sauce.
Also, I hate rasins, and they're excellent in this. Try them.
Crock Pot Recipies
Just last night I took the buffalo chicken nuggets from Superbowl Sunday, chopped them up, made some beans with mushrooms, threw that in there, add a little low fat cheese and wrapped it up. Put it in the George Foreman Grill for a bit to get it a bit crispy and melt the cheese. It's pretty awesome...and not bad for you either considering.
1) Spaghetti & meat sauce - brown 0.5-1 lbs of hamburger (along with garlic or onion if you want), then drain, put back in the pot, and dump in a jar of your store-bought sauce of choice, along with a jar of regular tomato paste. I also like to add some red wine (merlot or cabernet), and some parmesan, especially to thicken the sauce back up if you "accidentally" add too much wine.
2) Mac n' cheese - Boil and drain one pound of elbows, put back in the pot. Add about half a cup of milk (I don't really measure, just enough so it's creamy but the noodles aren't swimming in it) about half a (cubed) block of Velveeta, and about 1/2 a normal block each of grated monterey jack and swiss. I also usually toss in about 1/4 a block of grated cheddar, but not too much lest it start getting oily. Keep the whole mix over medium heat and keep stirring until all the cheese melts in.
3) Chicken & Garlic spaghetti - Just what it sounds like. Slice up 3-4 individual chicken breasts into chunks, stir-fry in peanut oil with about 3-4 (or more) chopped garlic cloves until the chicken's done. Toss with spaghetti and top with parmesan. Also good if you stir-fry some mushrooms in with the chicken (after the meat is cooked), and let about half a bag of baby spinach leaves wilt on top before you take it off the heat. Even better if you drizzle some (the fresher the better) olive oil over the mix on your plate as well.
4) Peanut chicken & veggies - Stir-fry chicken as above (though without garlic or onions), then toss in a jar of satay peanut sauce. Serve over white rice along with some cooked mixed veggies (frozen work fine) mixed with butter and sambar curry powder.
5) Cheese dip - brown a pound or so of hamburger with garlic & onions. Melt in the same cheese mix as with the mac n' cheese above, minus the swiss. Also mix in a can of diced tomatos+diced green chiles, and whatever strength peppers you want (I usually use a couple habaneros), properly chopped up. Serve over tortilla chips or whatever, would probably make a decent taco filling too.
My method requires no measuring as it's easy to eyeball everything into ratio.
Comps:
Pasta (any kind, but I usually use ziti)
1lb bag of baby carrots
1 jar of gree olives
1 block of sharp (or extra sharp or seriously sharp) cheddar
1 bottle of Newman's Ceasar Salad dressing
I use about 3/4 of the bag of carrots and cut them up into wheels that aren't super thick. I cube up the cheese and then dump the cooked pasta into a big bowl, dump the carrots on top of that, then the cheese and then the entire contents (that means the liquid) of the olive jar into the bowl. Dump the entire bottle of dressing over the bowl and let it sit for a sec and then stir it up with two big spoons. Refridgerate to store, but will be ready to eat after the mixing.
You can use more ingrediants. I've used salami and pepperoni and I've also substituted out the Ceasar dressing for vinagrettes because Ceasar has anchovie paste in it and I was making for a vegetarian. Try adding in celery or cherry tomatoes as well.
This dish will taste better the longer you let it sit in the fridge. That is, when I take the bowl out to eat some, I make sure to stir up the stuff first so the dressing is redistributed and eventually the pasta soaks it all up.
This. I got one for Christmas and made a badass venison stew with just some stew meat, a package of frozen vegetables, and one of those packets of seasoning that you can buy at the store.
-Small red potatoes, quartered - enough to cover the bottom of your casserole dish. Drizzle a little olive oil over them and sprinkle some pepper.
-Next put a layer of onion slices to cover the potatoes
-Next, cut 6-8 breakfast sausages (I prefer turkey ones, personally) into bits and throw them on top of the onions. Drizzle a little more olive oil and toss on some garlic powder.
-Last layer is slices of baking apples (like, Empire)
-Pour 1/2-2/3 a can of chicken broth into the casserole dish (depending on how big your layers got to be)
-Sprinkle a bit more garlic and some sage on top.
-Cover and bake at 375ºF for an hour.
One pack of the McCorrmicks Hot chili seasoning (You can mix up your own but this is an easy start)
2 pounds ground beef (You could do chicken I would pan cook three breasts and chop them)
2 fine chopped jalepenos
1/2 fine chopped white onion
2 cans kidney beans, I like dark
1 can tomato sauce
1 can fine diced tomatoes
1/3 dark chocalate bar, the kind at the checkout counter
a half a beer
Put a little olive oil in a pot and sautee the onion and jalepeno until tender, push to one side of the pan and cook the meat. Once the meat is done add all the other stuff and stir it up, bring it to boil then lower the heaat and let it simmer until it is the thickness you like. This will make 10 or more servings depending on how big a serving you like. Cost is around $15
Ingredients:
Macaroni (or any other kind of pasta, for that matter, but I just think it works best with macaroni)
1 Jar of Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto
a few cups of Tomato Juice, Vegetable Juice (V8 or similar) or Clamato (extra-spicy clamato is how I prefer it)
Bacon (works well with those real bacon bits you can buy at the supermarket, but if you're going to use "proper" bacon, cook it beforehand.)
1 medium onion (or more if you like) chopped
Olive oil (you can also use a little butter or margarine along with the oil, if that's a flavor you tend to like.)
Garlic
Salt, pepper, and any other herbs and spices you think would fit, such as parsley, oregano, basil, cumin, crushed chilies or tabasco if you want it spicy, and so forth.
I'm not really giving proportions, because it's better if you eyeball things. When I'm making it for myself, one medium onion, 2-3 garlic cloves, and about 2 cups of clamato work well. Also, in that case, I use about half of the pesto from the jar, which probably comes to about 5-6 TBSP, I would guess.
Cook the macaroni, then drain and leave in the strainer (assuming you have one, otherwise, keep it aside in a bowl or something.)
Heat up the pot you used to cook the pasta again, then add some olive oil (just enough to coat the bottom of the pot). When the oil is hot, add your chopped onion and cook this until the onion has gone transparent . Add the garlic, and keep cooking until the onion is just starting to caramelize / show brownish spots, but before any black appears. That's when the onion is at its best for this dish.
When the onion looks good, pour in your clamato/vegetable/tomato juice. Then plop in some of the pesto, and stir. If the mixture is not thickening much, add some more pesto. Then add in all the other herbs and spices you want, a small amount at a time. In particular, if you're going to use cumin, do it a small pinch at a time, as that stuff adds lots of flavor even in minute amounts.
Keep stirring as it all heats up, and once it starts bubbling again, reduce heat and let it simmer for maybe 5 minutes, to let it thicken a little more, still stirring regularly. When it looks ready, drop in the bacon, stir again, then either serve on the macaroni, or drop the macaroni into the pot and stir it into the sauce before serving.
This can easily scale to larger amounts, and it's really tasty, thanks to the pesto and bacon. And as long as you don't burn anything, and go easy on the herbs and spices on your first try, it's hard to mess up. The worst would be if you put in too much bacon and the result was too salty, but even then, you can just add some tomato juice to the mix, heat it back up, and the saltiness will be reduced.
Also, I've never tried this, but I suspect it would make this even better: when the onion and garlic is cooked, but before adding the juice, pour in a few ounces of wine, let it boil for a bit, and then proceed with the recipe. I bet that would be pretty good.
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Putting chili over steamed rice will double the number of servings and double the deliciousness.
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I don't remember exact measurements here, but this is close
1 Can o' tuna in water.
Couple of tablespoons mayonnaise.
About 4 sundried tomatoes
Basil Pesto - couple of teaspoons
Some Parmesan cheese (actual Parmesan is ever so much better than powdered)
Chop of the tomatoes, drain the tuna, mix everything but the cheese together.
Works great cold or hot as a pasta sauce or sandwich ingredient. The pesto if you buy it is not terribly cheap, I used Buitoni brand, and neither are the tomatoes, but one small jar of tomatoes lasts for about 8 batches and a thing of pesto last for 3-4 batches of this at least, and you can usually get 2-4 sandwiches or large servings of pasta out of a batch.
Crock pots are the best.
Basically myself or my roommate would stop at the local supermarket, where they would often have the beef that was on the verge of being unsellable on a big discount (sometimes like 1/2 off). At this supermarket that beef was most often various cuts of steak, so we'd buy one or two of them, some celery, green pepper, onions, been sprouts, and just make up a huge ass stirfry with a shitton of different sauces (Teryaki, Hoisin, BullsEye, HP, A1) mixed together.
I think the total cost was like $10 and it made about 6-8 servings. You could stretch it even further if you made rice to go with it.
Drain the meat.
dear god drain the fucking meat
I had a roomate that had this idea of chili, but didn't drain it at all.
grease soup
Speaking of corned beef hash:
With some salsa, cheese and scrambled egg, you can make a serviceable breakfast burrito with it. Not a great one, but it'll do.
Electronic composer for hire.
You need:
1 onion
1 lb bag of lentils
olive oil
cinnamon
allspice
garlic
cumin
1/4 cup lemon juice
a saucepan/pot
Chop the onion and sautee it in olive oil in the pot until the onion pieces are kind of softish. Add the lentils, stirring so they get coated in the oil, and then add about 5 or 6 cups of water. Simmer this for about 40 minutes, and then add the spices to taste. I like lots of allspice and garlic, but it's hard to put too much in, and they all blend together nicely anyway. Oh, and add the lemon juice. Simmer again, stirring pretty often, until the water is mostly gone and the lentils are all puffed up and squishy. Eat!
If you have the spices, the whole recipe costs about $1.50, and it can feed four or five people. Plus, it's delicious cold the next day.
1 box of your favorite flavor noodle roni stuff
At the time in the recipe that you're supposed to add flavorings, throw the tuna in as well. Awesome, makes two servings easy, and costs about $2 (not including the milk & butter).
Also
1 pound of potatoes
1 pound of ground beef
1 sweet onion
1 egg
as many carrots as you like
Garlic, 1 clove fresh or 1 tablespoon minced
1/2 cup of breadcrumbs
Mix the beef, egg, breadcrumbs, and garlic together, and make a loaf-shaped mound of meat. Cut up the potatoes in a pan, with the carrots mixed in, and onions laying on top. Drizzle a bit of olive oil on top, as well as any spices you like (I'm a whore for oregano and garlic). Put the veggies in a ring around the outside of the pan, with the meatloaf in the middle. Cook at around 350 until done. Depending on your oven, you may need to cook the potatoes for up to 1/2 hour on their own beforehand... just throw the meat on afterwards.
We like to add A-1 to the meatloaf mixture, and create a little channel on the top of the loaf to add some extra A-1 to. It's tasty. Also, you can replace the ground beef with ground turkey... A-1 still works well, but some Sweet Baby Ray's honey BBQ or some such is even better.
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Peanutbutter Marshmallow sandwiches
fill a cookie sheet with bread slices
pre-heat oven to 180 F (if you do this now oven will be hot enough by the time you are ready)
spread creamy peanut butter on one side of each slice
add mini-marshmallows to top of peanutbutter
put in oven for 8-10 min or untill top of marshmallows are brown
Remove and eat while hot.....mmmm tasty.
3 or 4 polish sausages
4 bacon strips
flour
a dash or two of caraway seeds
1 large apple
1 large potatoe
2 table spoons brown sugar
chop potatoe and apple into cubes about the size of bullion cubes and set aside. fry bacon untill extra crispy. set bacon aside and add flour to the grease untill a paste is formed (no lumps).
Place saurkraut apples and potatoes in a larger pot (or crock pot) . Crush up bacon and add. sprinkle carroway seeds and sugar in there and stir in the paste you just made. Cook on low heat untill potatoes are well done.
It takes a while to make but you get a hearty and delicious meal that can be equally enjoyed hot or cold.
Thank you Poland.
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