What meals do you cook when very low on money?
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When I was literal piss-broke, there was a college campus near me with an open food court. Couldn't afford the actual shops selling food there, but in that food court was a condiments station that randomly had one of those electric hot water dispensers for making tea, and styrofoam cups. It also had ketchup packets, saltine crackers, and pepper.
Turns out you can make a pretty passable tomato soup with ketchup and hot water. Bit of pepper and a handful of saltine cracker packets, and I had myself a hot meal for exactly $0.00
With some money to spend, rice is where it's at. Hitch a ride to Costco or Sam's with someone who has a membership, and they have iirc 50 lb bags of that short grain fortified rice for like... $15? That's well over 100 meals worth of rice.
Cook that up with literally almost anything that has some flavor or nutrients - whatever's cheap. Or just eat it straight... bland, but it'll fill you up. Eggs go great with rice.
Fair warning, you'll get fat. Cheap food is NOT usually healthy.
I hope you're better off now
️ !The rice comment is 100% spot on BTW, you know you're in dire straits when you can't afford rice...
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Basically pasta.
I don't know where you are, but a 500g pack can be had for significantly under 1€ and is sufficient for multiple meals. Add a similar priced can of tomatoes, onions (optional) and some spices (I assume you have those).
Obviously there are other options for the sauce, many are cheap enough to consider when money is tight.
Even a little bit of butter is great! Also teaches you to cook pasta correctly.
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+1 for the beans (or lentils, or just any pulses fwiw), but why the rice?
Pulses contain carbohydrates, but much more protein than rice and as rice is a hyperaccumulator of arsenic and pulses aren't, wouldn't that make a diet centred around pulses healthy while still affordable?
Put some canned tomatoes, vegetables, onions, garlic, spices or whatever else is available and affordable to the beans and you have a nice enough and quite healthy meal.Because even the poor like a bit of change?
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Even a little bit of butter is great! Also teaches you to cook pasta correctly.
If you're doing anything with pasta that involves butter you're doing it wrong, but you do you.
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Because even the poor like a bit of change?
Makes sense. Maybe I'm just trying to be too efficient.
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If you're doing anything with pasta that involves butter you're doing it wrong, but you do you.
You have luckily never been that poor
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You don't actually need to soak them before you cook them.
I've made plenty of bean dishes, starting with completely dry beans. It takes a little longer to cook because they are rehydrating while they cook, but they still come out great.
Part of the reason to soak is for them to release sone long proteins that are hard to digest. You can achieve the same result by carefully removing the foam they produce at the beginning of the cooking (or replace the water completely after 10-15 minutes of boiling)
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Soak the dried beans over night and the lentils at least for 2 or 3 hours.
Fry an onion and some cloves of garlic in oil. I prefer olive oil, but take whatever is available.
Add a good amount of canned tomatoes to it - canned tomatoes are typically more affordable than fresh ones while tasting better at the same time due to typically being harvested and processed when being ripe. Also they can be bought in bulk due to the long shelf-life.
Put some spices in: pepper, cumin, oregano, thyme, cardamom go well with it, or whatever you like. If the fancier spices are too expensive, just pepper does quite well.
Finally add whatever vegetables are available and affordable: bell peppers, carrots, mushrooms, green squash, whatever you can get and like.
If you can get some minced meat, put it in the pot/pan before you add the canned tomatoes. The same goes for sausages: slice the sausages and roast them gently; it improves the taste.
More affordable than minced meat (potentially healthier than sausages) and a good source of protein (next to the pulses, which contain a nice amount of protein already) would be eggs.
Crack one, two, three eggs into the pan, put a lid on and let it cook for around 10 minutes. The result is close to eggs Benedict
Have fun and hang in there!I had a similar (but much more primitive) dish:
I'd pour a can of tomatoes onto sausages as they cooked. It sort of braised them. Then I'd add basil for a European touch, or curry for something more exotic. Not sure how dried beans and lentils will go, but I'll have to try it. Cheers.
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Basically pasta.
I don't know where you are, but a 500g pack can be had for significantly under 1€ and is sufficient for multiple meals. Add a similar priced can of tomatoes, onions (optional) and some spices (I assume you have those).
Obviously there are other options for the sauce, many are cheap enough to consider when money is tight.
Yeah I'll have to get creative with pasta. I can't just eat rice, dried beans and lentils forever haha. Cheers.
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Consider the food bank too probably.
Bulk dry beans, bulk sack rice, canned beans for chilli when feeling lazy or on sale, meat only on steep discount usually making stew or chilli with the worse less/undesirable cuts. Stir fry when you find better ones. Frozen vegetables and fruit bags. Store brand usually. Basic frozen pizzas, pasta bags with tomato based pasta sauce. Pasta sauce cans are frequently on sale and baseline is a low price.
Bananas, kiwis, and mandarin oranges are usually cheap in Canada anyways for fresh fruit.
I have a meat grinder attachment on my used mixer, very useful.
You can do a lot with apps like Paprika or Supercook. You add stuff you already have and it spits out only recipes with what you have on hand already. Helps me use up what I buy efficiently and stops you from getting bored of eating the same stuff. Less food waste and flavour bordeom is always good for mood and wallet.
If you have space, gardening. Fruit trees alone fill a deep freezer eventually.
I'm growing potatoes, carrots, shallots, parsley and dill - and something called "mother of herbs" that I don't really know how to cook with yet.
I'll check those apps out, cheers.
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I cook beans and rice regardless of how its going. Nothing can beat that. And you can add anything you want, which makes beans really flexible.
I can cook rice OK, but it's never really enjoyable to eat. Always too bland. Never tried cooking with dried beans and lentils so I'll have to explore that. Cheers.
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While pasta might contain calories and some protein, there's a lack of other nutrients.
I advice going for pulses instead of pasta.
Dried pulses have a long shelf-life so they can be bought in bulk to reduce the price per meal.You can get nutrients from the sauce. IMO tomato sauce is very tasty and can be pretty cheap as well. Probably the cheapest would be tomato paste and water as a base. Or canned tomatoes. Depending on how cheap you want to go you can add vegetables to your liking. Onions are always great but also carrots or peas.
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Burritos. Beans, rice and whatever else you can get that's on sale it cheap. Make a batch Sunday night. The poorer was the more I would cook.
Yeah, this is it.
Any grain, any bean, any vegetable u can find and then slap that bitch into a tortilla. Or don't, If the tortillas aren't in the budget that week.
Yoghurt plus garlic makes a cheap sauce. -
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Sandwiches and soup. I always preferred tuna, but grilled cheese or ham and cheese are solid too.
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Rotisserie chicken. Cheapest thing in the store most times, and they're pre-cooked, pre-seasoned, ready to devour
I also lived on chicken nuggets for a while, but I can't recommend those.
Other comments remind me of potatoes! So many simple ways to prepare them. my favorite is microwave baked potato.
Rinse it off, stick holes in it with a fork several times, coat it in oil, salt it, and microwave until you can smash it with your fingers (through a napkin, or use the fork). Then bust it open, add whatever sounds good that's on hand, and eat it up.
If you don't add salt to a baked potato, then it pairs well with most oversalted foods. Like pour a can of baked beans over the opened potato.
One of the best tricks I've learned in my time is how to process down a rotisserie chicken. After you strip it of meat, you can toss the carcass, the skin, and the dripping in the bag into a pot and make around 2 gallons of broth or boil it down and freeze it.
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+1 for the beans (or lentils, or just any pulses fwiw), but why the rice?
Pulses contain carbohydrates, but much more protein than rice and as rice is a hyperaccumulator of arsenic and pulses aren't, wouldn't that make a diet centred around pulses healthy while still affordable?
Put some canned tomatoes, vegetables, onions, garlic, spices or whatever else is available and affordable to the beans and you have a nice enough and quite healthy meal.wrote last edited by [email protected]Because rice and beans together make a complete protein. Link: https://www.livestrong.com/article/351077-the-protein-in-rice-beans/
To reduce the arsenic in your rice, first give it a good rinse. Place the grains in a fine mesh strainer and pour water over them until it runs clear. Cook the rice in excess water, at a ratio of one cup of rice to six cups of water, and drain any extra leftover once the grains are tender.
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Ramen. Spaghetti (sauce optional). Rice. Oatmeal.
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Life of Boris has a funny (and actually useful) series on budget cooking if you're into that. Great watch imo
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Seems like I need to educate myself on lentils and dry beans. Any EASY recipes welcome!
1bag dried black beans
1half onion
Vegetable oil
Bay leaf
Red pepper flakes
Garlic
Salt
Water
Pick out any bad looking beans, then place them in water to soak over night. Next day, drain the water, put beans in a pot with 1tbsp oil, salt, bay leaf, half an onion, and enough water to cover. Cook for about an hour or until beans are soft. This can be divided into 4-5 quart bags and frozen to store. Do not throw out the water, store it with the beans.
Add about a cup of veggie oil, 1 tsp garlic, 2 tsp red pepper flakes to a pan. Cook over medium hear until aromatic. Add about 4 cups of beans and juice or 1 bag thawed. Stir carefully until it thickens, then mash with a slotted spoon/spatula/potato masher.
The first half makes beans that goes great with basically anything, the second is true, authentic refried beans. As a honky boy who only ever had then from a can, the refried beans were life changing and I married the woman that taught me how to make them.
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Rice and beans. Together they make a complete protein so can make up a larger bulk of your diet.
Pork loin, those gigantic big ones, are cheap per pound. Cut it into three for three roasts, freeze the other 2.
Try to get Multivitamins and magnesium. Long term you want those vitamins and minerals. Fish oil too. It seems expensive but it's cheaper than fish itself.
+1 For rice and beans. Add some drops of ketjap manis or soy sauce/salt for flavour. If you just eat rice and beans all day everyday, you're not even that far off a complete nutritional package. If you love in a potato country, switch out the rice for taters, even better nutrition but might still be a hit more expensive.
