Cooking in a recession

theonew

theonew

Joined
May 16, 2006
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So I'm in the meat section of the supermarket and everything just doesn't look appetizing. But then I spy a large roast in this sea of meat. It's a bottom round, usually pretty tough, but man it just somehow looked good. It was 2 1/2 pounds, which is on the big side for just my wife and me ([low growling in background] OK, OK and Richard too) but really cheap, $10. After I got it home, I started to have buyer's remorse, I know perfectly well that if I just stick this thing in the oven I'll end up with 2 1/2 pounds of tire rubber. My wife takes one look at it and says "pot roast", she's German, while my dog is thinking, 'my human is just the best hunter' ... sigh :D

So I carmelized some onions and carrots in butter while I seared the roast, and then threw it all into a big pot with some homemade chicken broth, parsnips, mushrooms, apple cider, balsamic vinegar, an almost rotten pear and a bunch of spices and let it simmer for about 6 hours.

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Then I strained off the braising juice and reduced it into a butt kicking gravy. This is just delicious. No question what's for lunch on tomorrow's hike. I've had better results braising in the oven, but just felt like doing it on the stovetop today.

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Either way its yummy :D

So for $10 bucks and since we both enjoy creativity with leftovers, we have delicious meat for 2 or 3 days :thumbup:

Let's hear some of your poorman's "gourmet" tips.
 
Tough cuts are cooked moist , that is braised,with veggies. The way life is - toughest meats are most flavorful, tenderest least flavorful. You'll never see me get filet mignon. You will see me get the toughest like ox tail and make a FLAVORFUL ragu .Or take venison shanks [ usually tossed or ground up] and braise them. But some people can't deal with that much flavor !! I'm happy to make a peasant dish to get something good !
 
I had beans and toast for lunch. A few jalapenos and onion slices added. A little over a buck for four servings.

About to throw some chicken legs in the oven and make some yellow rice for dinner. Looking at a little over a buck there too.

It's so much cheaper to eat at home. I had nothing but fast food yesterday and it was around $30 for sub-par food.
 
When I'm hungry and in a rush, I'm by no means afraid of eating some fast food. But I usually do walk away thinking that it was pretty expensive for the quality.
 
Nice lookin' dinner

and lunch

and another dinner...

Also, I do love me some parsnips. Hearty roots they are. I've got to get to the store.
 
I have never ate a parsnip :eek:. Guess I'll have to try one.
 
Great recipe and thanks for the tip!

My favorite poor mans meal is navy bean soup. I soak the beans overnight. Next day, sautee 2 medium onions, 1 stalk cerlery and a carrot in a caste iron pan in olive oil. I then cube up one of those ham steaks (the one with the piece of bone in the centre) and throw it in the caste iron pan. If I have any, I'll add a couple slices of bacon.

Boil about a quart of water, add beans and large can of diced tomatoes. Dump in the contents of the cast iron pan and let that simmer for about 2 hours. Afterwards, take out about 4 cups, blend it up in the blender to a smooth consistency, add it back to the soup and enjoy.
 
Nice - I've never thought of making a reduction out of the juices after your done cooking the pot roast. Great idea.

I can't say I've ever eaten a parsnip...
 
myright said:
Nice - I've never thought of making a reduction out of the juices after your done cooking the pot roast. Great idea.

I can't say I've ever eaten a parsnip...
Click to expand...

They are like a spicy white carrot! Turnips are great in combo with them in stew.
 
Frankly I'm almost shocked by all this parsnip-phobia. Trust me you really haven't lived til you've eaten some parsnip puree. They are best prepared using a very sharp knife, hint hint :D
 
Turkey legs.

I don't know why, but the A&P always has packages of massive, smoked turkey legs. You get two big legs for $1.50 or so. Each is a meal in itself.

Back when I worked there, I would buy them, wrap them in foil, then go over to the bakery and throw them in the oven for an hour or so while I went back to work in produce. Best break-time meal, EVER.

Crap, now I want one...
 
My wife is very frugal and a very creative cook. She seems to take pleasure in "running out of everything." Once we've run out of enough food for my little brain to turn into a decent meal, she rumages around, digs in the bins in the fridge, scrapes something free from a frozen heap in the freezer, finds a can of something way back in the back of a cupboard and sets to cooking. Her "poor old couple" meals, as I call them, are some of the best she makes and she is a great cook to begin with. I have gotten better at it but she is the master. Her soups are one of my favorites, with some biscuits whipped up from a quarter cup of flour hiding in the bottom edges of the canister, a few tablespoons of corn meal from the creases of the bag, and whatever else I do not want to know about, makes some of the best meals I have eaten.

When I was a kid, we ate a "weeds." Dandelions were one of my favorites, and if you cook a woodchuck just right, they can be tasty too. Now, I can't remember the names of or when to pick the stuff we ate. My brother and I would bag a mess of pigeons crapping up the neighbors barn and my Mom would make a meat pie of them ande there was none of this "saving the breast and throwing the rest out." We treated each of those birds as if it were an "expensive" pheasant that cost a 3" mag full of #4s. We had chickens and eggs, ate a lot of squirrel, rabbit and river fish, dried corn and green beans. My Grandparents butchered two hogs each fall and we had Maple Sugar cured hams, bacon,...

The foods I like most are those I grew up with. We didn't have much, by today's standards, but I didn't want for anything and I didn't even realize the economy sucked. I've seen it suck a few times since, but having the ability to fall back on "old ways" always gets us through and I look back and see those times as better than the times when the economy was "good."

This year, when I go deer-hunting, I will have to take it seriously again. I usually just enjoy being out and blow opportunities that I don't much regret because I didn't have to drag a deer out of the woods. I bought an old Troy-Built this summer for $35 from a guy who was sick of looking at it, and it RUNS! We'll be gardening again this coming spring, going through seed catalogs this winter - doing things we "haven't had time for" for a long time.

This thread could mark the beginning of a grand opportunity for all of us to learn or re-learn how to make something out of what seems like nothing and it tickles me to see someone start it with such a great subject. I'm excited about this. "Getting by" is an adventure and is like "survival" as we have come to consider it. The longer we must "get by," the better we get at it and the more comfortable we begin to make ourselves as we adapt to the environment.

Some may think I'm loony, but this is going to be good for us. It's started already - with 2 1/2 pounds of meat someone felt guilty about buying. It's all good.:thumbup::thumbup:
 
Jeff H, nice post. Your sentiments are mine and quite movingly expressed. Just wish I lived in the country :grumpy:
 
i have got in the habit on the weekends of cooking eggs for breakfast lately...

i love to scramble up some eggs and toss in whatever veggies we have laying around. this morning it was green peppers and onions with some "mexican" style shredded cheese (monterey jack and cheddar). in the past i have used various peppers, broccoli (one of my favorites) and various deli meats, among other things.

we also are raising two dozen chickens right now, so starting in the spring-summer my weekend breakfast will start to be essentially free. we also have to deal with about two dozen eggs every day...

edited to add; i don't want to turn this into a political rant, but i agree that i think the economy in the tank will help us, at least until it gets better and we start the cycle over again. i think that maybe we should stop bailing people out so that they can learn to stop making mistakes... i agree, good topic theo.
 
I just started baking bread. A relative taught me a simple recipe. There's a ton of info online as well. It's fun and easy and warms up the house!
 
My family eats a lot of wild game to help cut the cost of grocery meats. My freezer is usually pretty full of deer, wild turkey, quail, dove, fish, frogs legs, precooked mud bugs, etc. Of course, with equipment and tags to get it, it makes you wonder sometimes if it is any cheaper. But once you get situated with equipment, it starts to pay as you become a better hunter and outdoorsman. Tonight, we had stew made from the inside tenderloins and heart of a doe I took with my bow this week. Satisfying in several ways and tasty.

That roast recipe sounds like a good one to try with venison!
 
Myself and my wife also eat alot of deermeat and other wild game. Alot of the time our trips to the grocery store is just for the essentials, Bread, milk and such. We have a 7 month old daughter and her milk and baby food will cost more than our food. I love growing and harvesting our own food and hope to pass this along to my daughter as she gets older.
 
Pressure cookers are a great way to cook. It was the microwave of days past. Works great for beans, rabbit stews and tough cuts of meat. Still use one. I don't like to leave the house with a crock pot turned on and nobody home.
 
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