NationStates Jolt Archive

I know that we have had share your recipe threads before, but they do not quite meet my needs. All the dishes in them sound wonderful, but are often time consuming and expensive. I am a student, living away from home on a virtually non-exsitent income, and am getting sick of eating the same few things over and over. Much of it being due to just not knowing what to make withing my pricerange. So, post all of your yummy, but cheap (and preferabbley quick) recipes here. Help out a starving student.

Please?

Nutty pasta type thingy
-----------------------
Boil some spagetti (a plate full or how ever much you want to eat).
In a separate pan put a big dollop or two of peanut butter, and melt (low heat) until you have a sauce like paste (may need a tiny drop of oil depending on the brand). Mix in some garlic puree and some basil/Italian dryed herbs. Finally chuck in some grated parmesan or chedar and mix toghether (but don't let the cheese melt in). Drain the pasta and stir into the sauce. Eat.

Bacon Sandwich:

Ingredients:

Bacon
Bread
Margarine/Butter (optional)
Condiments
Cooking fat

1. Either fry or grill the bacon.
2. Spread Marge/Butter on the bread.
3. Put the bacon between the bread.
4. Add condiments.
5. Eat.

It's crap, but I'll find better ones. Promise.

I know that we have had share your recipe threads before, but they do not quite meet my needs. All the dishes in them sound wonderful, but are often time consuming and expensive. I am a student, living away from home on a virtually non-exsitent income, and am getting sick of eating the same few things over and over. Much of it being due to just not knowing what to make withing my pricerange. So, post all of your yummy, but cheap (and preferabbley quick) recipes here. Help out a starving student.

Does this help? (http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&hs=WDz&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&q=Cheap+recipes&spell=1)

Nutty pasta type thingy
-----------------------
Boil some spagetti (a plate full or how ever much you want to eat).
In a separate pan put a big dollop or two of peanut butter, and melt (low heat) until you have a sauce like paste (may need a tiny drop of oil depending on the brand). Mix in some garlic puree and some basil/Italian dryed herbs. Finally chuck in some grated parmesan or chedar and mix toghether (but don't let the cheese melt in). Drain the pasta and stir into the sauce. Eat.
This sounds like pesto sauce but with peanut butter instead of ground almonds. No?

Sausage Sandwich:

Ingredients:

Sausages (Preferably O'Hagans)
Bread
Margarine/Butter (optional)
Condiments (Salt, Pepper and HP)
Olive Oil

1. Fry sausages.
2. Spread Marge/Butter on the bread.
3. Halve the sausages lengthways
3. Put the sausage halves between the bread.
4. Add condiments.
5. Eat.

boxed macaroni and cheese
frozen peas
can of tuna in water

buy the store brand but not the cheapest stuff. no need to go for kraft
follow instructions
when the time is up on the macaroni, toss in a cup or 2 of frozen peas.

drain

follow instructions on box

drain the can of tuna, toss it (the tuna not the can) into the pot and mix it all up

its cheap and almost nutritious


do the same with ramen but add a bit of left over chicken or beef or scramble an egg and drop it into the boiling water.

I know that we have had share your recipe threads before, but they do not quite meet my needs. All the dishes in them sound wonderful, but are often time consuming and expensive. I am a student, living away from home on a virtually non-exsitent income, and am getting sick of eating the same few things over and over. Much of it being due to just not knowing what to make withing my pricerange. So, post all of your yummy, but cheap (and preferabbley quick) recipes here. Help out a starving student.
I suppose it would help to know where you live so that an adequate ingredients list could be made, plus knowledge of your available kitchen appliances would be good but:

Simplicity is best.

#1 - Find a good discount grocer and never by packaged food (except Ramen)

If you want to be classy, Fire roast vegetables on a cheap brasier.

Get a rice cooker. You can't imagine the varitions of Beans and Rice. Add meat when necessary.

Salsa, Soy Sauce and Olive Oil are your friends. Use lots of the first, some of the second and just enough of the last.

You can never have enough spices - even cheap ones.

Bake whole-grain breads - flour and water is cheaper than packaging - and pounding dough is a cathartic workout.

I'll need to know more about your living situation before I can really say more.

Well, here's a useful website (http://www.cheapcooking.com/).

One of my favorite dishes involves beef, broccoli, rice, and tomato sauce. Just slice up some steak into thin strips and sautee, steam a whole broccoli head and slice into pieces, boil rice, and uncan the tomato sauce. I'm not giving you exact measurements because it all depends on your preferences. Dump the finished rice on to a plate, pour in the tomato sauce, add the steak strips/broccoli, and mix with the rice. A delicious recipe with a lot of flavor!

Nutty pasta type thingy
-----------------------
Boil some spagetti (a plate full or how ever much you want to eat).
In a separate pan put a big dollop or two of peanut butter, and melt (low heat) until you have a sauce like paste (may need a tiny drop of oil depending on the brand). Mix in some garlic puree and some basil/Italian dryed herbs. Finally chuck in some grated parmesan or chedar and mix toghether (but don't let the cheese melt in). Drain the pasta and stir into the sauce. Eat.Chuck the Garlic & Italian Herbs and add Curry & Chili & Mint to make it almost Thai.

Take three cans of beans (kidney beans, black beans, white beans, pinto beans, they all work) and strain and rinse them. When your strainer has stopped producing lots of foam, pour the beans into a food processor. Add a little olive oil to get things to move around a little when you start it. But don't start it yet! Add a small (4oz or so) can of tomato paste. Then add spices like there's no tomorrow (I use cumin powder, crushed garlic, and ancho and chipotle pepper). Then run the food processor until everything's paste - about thirty seconds on high power. You can make this more interesting by putting it on a tortilla with some sliced cabbage, tomatos, grated cheese or salsa picante.

The only ingredient here that might cost you is the olive oil, so you don't have to go for the most expensive brand in the store - if you've cooked with it before, and know what oil is supposed to taste like, then try different products and see how they make your finished recipe taste.

Fry Spam. Works every time.

buy:
1 chicken breast (not that you can, but you can freeze the rest)
1 potato
1 frozen veggie of any kind
1 dry packet of chicken gravy (in the spices section)

toss the chicken into the frying pan. get it cooking a bit. medium heat.
while its cooking for a minute, wash the potato and slice it into "rounds" directly into the pan.

add a cup of water and cover. after 10 minutes, toss in the frozen veggies. cover. dont let the water boil out.

when the potatoes are done, its done. at most another 10 minutes

try to figure up how much water is left in the pan. you want a total of one cup of liquid. mix the dry gravy mix in the water you need to add to make the total of one cup of liquid (water+liquidinpan = 1cup) and pour it into the pan. when it thickens, its done. you may want to add a bit more water but thats up to you

surprisingly yummy.

if youre a cook, slice half an onion and add some garlic at the beginning. maybe a bit of spices like oregano or basil.

Sausage Sandwich:

Ingredients:

Sausages (Preferably O'Hagans)
Bread
Margarine/Butter (optional)
Condiments (Salt, Pepper and HP)
Olive Oil

1. Fry sausages.
2. Spread Marge/Butter on the bread.
3. Halve the sausages lengthways
3. Put the sausage halves between the bread.
4. Add condiments.
5. Eat.

Where have I seen a recipe like that before??? It seems so familiar... :D

Another surefire winner - and one that has the potential to impress the girls if done right - is Stir Fry.

A good basic Wok set is relatively cheap and usually includes a bamboo vegetable steamer. Healthy, healthy healthy, fast and dramatic if you figure out the "Big Frikin Flame-Flare" technique.

If you don't have a gas cooker, getting a propane burner is not too expensive either - especially if you live anywhere near a Chinatown.

Fry Spam. Works every time.
Add Brown Sugar and a splash of Vinegar to make a Sweet & Sour Glaze.

Become a vegetarian. It's hella cheap, and it'll ensure that you eat at least some vegetables. Potatoes, pasta, rice, cous cous, millet, chickpeas... Any starchy staple and frozen vegetables equals a meal. If you bake your own bread, you'll just save that much more. It was $0.12 a loaf, last time I did the calculations. Twelve cents Canadian.
If you like the idea, I will take the time to type up a few of my favourite recipes.
Another good idea is to shop at ethnic grocery stores. That's where you'll find the best prices on staples, and you'll probably get some good ideas, too. Be creative, don't be afraid to try new things, and do your own baking. My grocery bill is always less that $100, and that includes the occasional dark chocolate bar or tropical fruit.

It's that time of the year when gardeners all over the country are overloaded with zucchini, so here's one:

cold boiled potatoes, sliced (always boil some more than you need)
ground beef or venison
zucchini, cubed and uncooked
onions, diced
cheddar or other brick cheese (not parmesan)

In a large skillet:

saute onions, add beef and cook until done
add potatoes and zucchini
when zucchini is half-done, add grated or cubed cheese
season with Worcestireshire Sauce, salt, pepper

It's done when zucchini is tender and cheese is melted.

It's cheap (a half-pound of meat can feed six) and makes good leftovers. Plus you get rid of that pesky zucchini.

Syniks mentioned home-baked bread - it's a great way to get cheap nutrition that's far better than storebought. I bake sourdough bread once a week for a family of four.

There's this stuff called "Spike Seasoning" full of 80 zillion herbs and spices. You can put it on ANYTHING and it suddenly tastes good. Like magic. I'll eat the stuff straight, given half the chance...

Also, Mr. Noodles, but drain the water before putting the powder on and add cheese. Try some of the knockoffs, but I find anything with asian writing on it tends to not go quite so well with cheese.

Discover the wonders of honey mustard. You will eat many sandwiches.

There's this stuff called "Spike Seasoning" full of 80 zillion herbs and spices. You can put it on ANYTHING and it suddenly tastes good. Like magic. I'll eat the stuff straight, given half the chance...

Also, Mr. Noodles, but drain the water before putting the powder on and add cheese. Try some of the knockoffs, but I find anything with asian writing on it tends to not go quite so well with cheese.

Discover the wonders of honey mustard. You will eat many sandwiches.
great suggestion about the spike. buying bunches of spices can be a big investment and spike really IS a good general cooking seasoning.

Hey, talking about cooking is a fun change from arguing about politics!

Off topic, but I don't know when else I could get this in: home-made sourdough bread is sometimes tolerated well by people with celiac disease and other intestinal ailments - often they can eat no wheat bread. Many threads ago there were some people on here with problems, but I can't remember who.

I had some problems tolerating gluten and the sourdough works for me. Plus you can make it heavy to rye flour, which has less gluten. Apparently the bacteria in the culture changes the gluten in some fashion.

Sorry for the sidetrack, just wanted to reach out to the bread-deprived.

Anyone wanting to know more about sourdough baking can TG me, I'd be happy to help you get started. It's a daunting project the first few times you do it, but well worth it.

I suppose it would help to know where you live so that an adequate ingredients list could be made, plus knowledge of your available kitchen appliances would be good but:

Simplicity is best.

#1 - Find a good discount grocer and never by packaged food (except Ramen)

If you want to be classy, Fire roast vegetables on a cheap brasier.

Get a rice cooker. You can't imagine the varitions of Beans and Rice. Add meat when necessary.

Salsa, Soy Sauce and Olive Oil are your friends. Use lots of the first, some of the second and just enough of the last.

You can never have enough spices - even cheap ones.

Bake whole-grain breads - flour and water is cheaper than packaging - and pounding dough is a cathartic workout.

I'll need to know more about your living situation before I can really say more.

Have many appliances, very experinced cook, just want other people input on cheep good food. Maybe add a little variety that hadn't occured to me. I also agree with everything you just wrote. Especially the bread thing.

Chuck the Garlic & Italian Herbs and add Curry & Chili & Mint to make it almost Thai.
and soy sauce. I'm not a big mint fan. But something extremely simalar was my first idea upon seeing this.

Porridge oats in the morning and then scavenging through the bins next to shops after closing time have got me through many a thin month.

:( Become a vegetarian. It's hella cheap, and it'll ensure that you eat at least some vegetables. Potatoes, pasta, rice, cous cous, millet, chickpeas... Any starchy staple and frozen vegetables equals a meal. If you bake your own bread, you'll just save that much more. It was $0.12 a loaf, last time I did the calculations. Twelve cents Canadian.
If you like the idea, I will take the time to type up a few of my favourite recipes.
Another good idea is to shop at ethnic grocery stores. That's where you'll find the best prices on staples, and you'll probably get some good ideas, too. Be creative, don't be afraid to try new things, and do your own baking. My grocery bill is always less that $100, and that includes the occasional dark chocolate bar or tropical fruit.
Like veggies, already cook/bake from scratch (cheaper, and SOOOOO much better), have no ethnic grocery stores here :( . But yeah, I'd love some recipies, just to expand my repitiore (the more the merrier, I have lots of recipies and do lots of cooking, but I wanted you peoples ideas to)

Take one rat (dead is optional).

Soak in alcohol.

Eat.

If you want some free bread, just go to a baker's at closing time, ask them for free bread. If they say no, just wait out the back till they put it in the skip (industrial garbage container) and then get it. Mmmmmm free bread

Or you could try a fast food shop.....

You get a few sheets of pastry dough from your super market.

Then you take two or three such sheets and stick them together with some egg & milk mixture on their ends, so that you get one longer sheet.

Then you put pizza toppings to your liking on top.

Then you roll it up, and cut it into pieces.

Then you put some more egg stuff on the outsides of the pieces and put them into an oven of 200°C and leave them in until ready.

A friend of mines mom use to make something she called Shepherds Pie(not sure if it's the real shepherds pie). Consisted of hamburger, green beans and fake(boxed) potatoes. Cook the burger. Cook the potatoes (add some hot water and butter to them and stir til the flakes all dissolve). Then get a baking dish big enough to fit it all in.. put in burger, then green beans on top of that, then the potatoes. Bake. Sometimes she put cheese on top. It was pretty cheap to make and filled ya up.

You could pretty much what ever veggies you had available at the time in this dish and it would come out eatable.

And for breakfast, just eat plain old oatmeal, easy to make, cheap and good for you.

Five-cent package of Ramen noodles + three minutes + water + heat = Heaven ;)

Really, you can never go wrong with Ramen, or get sick of the dozens of types they put out. Not to mention it is dirt-cheap.

Yorkshire pudding.

It's cheap, and I love it.

This is a traditional Puerto Rican meat seasoning recipe. This isnt a complete meal, but rather a seasoning mixture that works well with all manner of meats. I have personally tried it with pork, chicken, and lamb. Depending on where you live, two of these seasonings (adobo and sazon) may be difficult to find locally, but you can order them online and I have provided one such link. If your city has a hispanic population you can probably find these spices readily available in Walmart or any local supermarket in the latin section (sometimes called mexican, ethnic, hispanic, or latin). Oregano, basil, black pepper, salt, vinegar, and garlic powder can all be found in any supermarket.

1. Sprinkle some vinegar over the meat. Use the vinegar of your choice (white wine vinegar, red wine vinegar, apple cider vinegar, rice wine vinegar, whatever...). If you are making lamb chops or another meat that has a strong taste of its own, choose a light vinegar such as white wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar so you wont drown out the natural taste. Pork and chicken can use stronger vinegars or light ones. You could also try vinaigrette instead of vinegar.

2. Cover with Sazón. Having too much sazón wont ruin the flavor, it will simply be wasteful, so err on the side of putting too much until you learn how much is enough. There are a wide variety of Sazóns available, this is the one I use but you can experiment with others if you like:
http://www.latinmerchant.com/productdetail.asp?ProductID=SCM0068

3. Sprinkle adobo over the meat. Too much adobo will make the meat salty but not enough will leave it bland. This is one you need to experiment with until you find the right amount for you. Personally, I like to sprinkle the meat liberally but being careful not to have more than just a fine layer of adobo on the meat. This is another seazoning that you will find a wide variety of. Personally, I like to use this one:
http://www.latinmerchant.com/productdetail.asp?ProductID=SCM0073


4. Sprinkle a tiny bit of salt. You only need a very tiny touch of salt to give it a slight kick since the adobo already has salt in it.

5. Sprinkle a little black pepper onto the meat unless you used a type of adobo that already brings pepper.

6. Sprinkle some oregano on the meat. You can use basil instead if you preffer. You could even use both if you wanted. Personally, I use oregano alone on my chicken and pork chops but I use oregano and basil on my lamb chops (oregano on one side and basil on the other side).

7. This last step is optional and should probably be omitted until you are familiar with the rest of the recipe because it could easily ruin the taste. Sprinkle a little bit of garlic powder over the meat. Be sure not to use too much because garlic can be overpowering.

8. If you were preparing the meat to be cooked later, put it in sandwhich bags and pour the juices (composed of the excess vinegar and spices remaining on the plate you were seasoning on) into the bags with the meat. Put the bags in the refrigerator until you are ready to cook.

Although it looks like a lot of steps on paper, in real life that takes all of about 3 minutes to do. Alternatively, you can pre-season all of your meat and put it all in the freezer already seasoned, then whenever you want to cook something it's ready to go, no preparation involved other than thawing it out (I recommend lowering whatever meat you are going to cook from the freezer to the refrigerator the night before).

After seasoning a meat this way, you can cook it in whatever way you normally cook your meats. Fried, baked, steamed, or whatever. If you are going to pan fry, you may want to drain the meat a little before you put it on the pan because the vinegar will make the oil jump and can be messy. If you know you are going to be pan frying the meat, you can even omit the vinegar step if you preffer to err on the side of keeping the kitchen clean and your arms unburned.

Here is a recipe for cooking lamb chops. It assumes you seasoned the lamb chops in the way previously described and that the lamb chops have been thawed out to refrigerator temperature rather than freezer temperature if you had previously frozen them:


1. Season both sides of the lamb chops as previously described.

2. Put the lamb chops in a pan that you have a lid for and pour in all of the excess juices (composed of the excess vinegar and spices from the plate you seasoned them in).

3. Add 1 tablespoon of water.

4. cover the pan and turn the stove on to medium.

5. Allow it to cook for 8-10 minutes

6. open the pan carefully (the steam will burn your face if you are not careful) and flip over the lamb chops. Add another tablespoon or two of water if all of the fluids had already dried up, and cover again.

7. Wait 5 minutes.

8. The lamb chops should now be ready. What remains is simply to beautify them. Take the top of the pan off, raise the temperature just a little bit, and monitor the lamb chops, flipping them over as necessary until the outside is a nice bronzed color.

9. Turn off the stove and serve the lamb chops with whatever else you had planned (rice and vegetables, mashed potatoes, baked potato, garlic bread, or whatever).

Preparation time of this recipe (assuming the meat had not been previously seasoned): 3-5 minutes
Cooking time: 15 minutes
Total: about 20 minutes

If you are lazy, you can buy yourself a rice cooker at Wal Mart. You can toss some rice, water, and salt into the rice cooker, turn it on and forget about it. By the time the meat is done the rice should be too and you have a complete meal. If you are willing to put a little more effort, you can make some vegetables too, or mashed potatoes instead of rice. Maybe some garlic bread to go with it. The choices are endless.

Spaghetti aglio e olio:

Your personal amount of pasta...cook
Heat (gently) olive oil, two chilís (dried), lots of garlic, some salt
Stir pasta with oil, add fresh grated parmesan

Eat hot...cheap, quick and dirty...but very tasty!

The ingredients sound kinda funny.....but its amazing...thats where the "suprise part comes from. ;)

2 slices 7-grain bread
3ish slices sandwitch roast beef
several tablespoons gargonzola cheese
2ish leaves of lettuce
1ish tablespoon rasberry preserves

toast bread. put ingredients between the slices of bread. eat. orgasm. repeast.

p.s. also tastes good on a toasted croissant.

I made it up myself :) messy but delicous if the tomatos are good.

some thick slices of firm, dense white bread (ideally a baugette)
several really nice, firm tomatos (squishy ones wont work)
soft white goat cheese from france (if you can't find any use feta instead)
eggs

slice enough tomato to cover the bread
spread/crumble on cheese
fry egg and place on top.

enjoy!

pita bread
pizza sauce
mozzerella
toppings

put pizza sauce, cheese and toppings on pita. Put in oven until the cheese melts. eat.

this recipie kicks ass and its really easy

Raspberry-Swirled Cheesecake

chocolate pie crust
1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese, softened
1 cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon lemon juice 1 teaspoon vanilla
]2.5 cups thawed nondairy whipped topping
.25 cups seedless raspberry jam
mint leaves, raspberries, and chocolate drizzle (optional)

Beat cream cheese in large bowl with electric mixer at medium speed until
creamy. Add sugar; beat well. Add lemon juice and vanilla; beat until
smooth. Add whipped topping; stir with mixing spoon until blended. Pour
into prepared crust.

Make 20 to 25 holes in cheesecake with teaspoon. Stir jam until smooth.
Place jam in holes. Gently swirl jam with tip of knife. Refrigerate
cheesecake 2 hours. Garnish with mint leaves, raspberries and chocolate
drizzle, if desired.

Ive got a lot more i'll post later...I'm poor, buisy, and hope to be a chef so i've got a lot of recipies you'll probably like ;)

Anything with pasta in it! Especially any variation on Spag Bol. Replace the mince with bacon offcuts (really cheap, and tasty) and extra garlic for Garlicky Bacony Spaghetti. Don't cook too long or it goes too salt.
My family's not good at names, ok?

Here's another:
Peculiar Curried Mixture

Leftover roast pork
Dried pasta tubes/spirals/shapes
Onion
Garlic
Stock
Curry spices/powder/paste
Other Stuff; raisins, mushrooms, whatever you like curried.

Fry onions and garlic, add pork, then any Other Stuff that might be best fried. Add the spices, stir, add the stock and any remaining Other Stuff, leave to cook a bit, add the pasta, when the pasta's cooked eat it. Nice with big lumps of bread.

Veg + Pasta + cheese: Tasty, cheap, quick.

Bubble and Squeak: Mashed leftover vegetables (including lots of spud), fried.

Black and white pudding are a cheap and tasty alternative to meat, too :)

Onion
frozen fish filets (the cheapest available)
potato chips ( if you have the very thin sticks chips it goes better)
some garlic
some eggs
pepper
olive oil

Fry the onions until almost yellow on thin slices
Mix the garlic the fish fillets in small pieces and let them lose some water
When cooked join the chips and cover the pot (in order for them to go softer you can add some water if the mix is getting sticky )
Mix the eggs in a bowl and throw them inside when the chips are softer
Let them coagulate and mix some minced parsley and some olives.

This is a portuguese dish. We normally do it with salt-dried codfish but othe fishes dont ruin it. Think cheap.

Don't have any cheap recipes, but to get cheap food, do the following - go down to your local market (assuming you have one) around 4.30pm, just when all the fruit and veg stalls are closing for the day. Buy very cheap fruit and veg (40p for 5 bananas is an average deal at my local market). Not so sure about how to get cheap meat, as I'm vegetarian. Try getting a job in a supermarket, you'll get staff discount.

1. Cook a pot of rice - you can eat out of the pot for a whole day.

Rice is cheap, and it mixes with other things.

Example:

1. Buy a can of corned beef (bully beef) - the cheap ones are just as good.
2. Buy a cabbage (it's cheap).
3. You'll need half a stick of butter.
4. Onions, if you like.

Chop the cabbage roughly, and boil in water for 15 minutes. You can throw the onion in there too, roughly chopped. Drain, and let the butter melt in it.

Dump the beef into a bowl and microwave for 90 seconds, or until warm.

Take a good amount of the cooked rice and put it in a bowl. Mash the corned beef into it in chunks. Stir in the cabbage and onions.

You'll need some salt, and I always like to put cheap hot sauce on it.

A very, very filling meal.

You can substitute boiled potatoes cut into chunks if you like.

Thanks all.

Especially for the rice and past stuff. I've been living on past for a month now, and have just about run out of sauce ideas. But thank you everybody....