Corned beef and cabbage, with potatoes and carrots cooked in two phases in a pressure cooker. "Real Chili" with dark red kidney beans and made without tomatoes like they do in the Real Chili restaurants in Milwaukee, served over spaghetti noodles, sprinkle some diced onions and white cheddar cheese over the top. Dried October beans cooked in the pressure cooker with the leftover section of a spiral cut ham, then served with rice. Have to go heat up some chili right now.
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Cooking in a recession
- Thread starter theonew
- Start date
Esav Benyamin
MidniteSuperMod
- Joined
- Apr 6, 2000
- Messages
- 90,915
COOKING is not "off topic" as a survival skill !!! 
We should have more cooking threads, especially: how to use real food, not reheated cardboard lite meals. I used to pick up big slabs of beef and slice some of it thin to broil, some into chunks to stew, a big piece for pot roast.
Chicken soup: cheapest chicken wings or legs tossed into a pot of water with carrots, onions, potato, whatever else I can find like squash, and parsnips are good, too.
Scoop out the chicken, separate the scraps of meat off the bones and skin. Scoop out the vegetables and try not to nibble them all while I'm using a quart of the soup to make yellow rice (add in a package of saffron).
Put the 4 or 5 quarts of soup that's left in the refrigerator to heat up in a cup for a snack coming in from the cold, instead of coffee.
When the rice is done, mix in whatever: the chicken scraps are good, some vegetables too. Vary the mix obviously, day by day.
Maybe :15 minutes of effort for a week of basic nutrition.
* ****** **** ****** *
I couldn't survive without lots of quart containers.
We should have more cooking threads, especially: how to use real food, not reheated cardboard lite meals. I used to pick up big slabs of beef and slice some of it thin to broil, some into chunks to stew, a big piece for pot roast.
Chicken soup: cheapest chicken wings or legs tossed into a pot of water with carrots, onions, potato, whatever else I can find like squash, and parsnips are good, too.
Scoop out the chicken, separate the scraps of meat off the bones and skin. Scoop out the vegetables and try not to nibble them all while I'm using a quart of the soup to make yellow rice (add in a package of saffron).
Put the 4 or 5 quarts of soup that's left in the refrigerator to heat up in a cup for a snack coming in from the cold, instead of coffee.
When the rice is done, mix in whatever: the chicken scraps are good, some vegetables too. Vary the mix obviously, day by day.
Maybe :15 minutes of effort for a week of basic nutrition.
* ****** **** ****** *
I couldn't survive without lots of quart containers.
- Joined
- Oct 18, 2007
- Messages
- 3,018
My wife grew up in an Italian restaurant, so pretty much everything is fair game for cheap food. The tricky part is cheap food made quick.
An A'Matriciana sauce is quick and easy. a little bit of olive oil, 1/4 pound bacon (or pancetta if you can get it) fried in a pan, throw in one onion, 4-6 cloves garlic, some red pepper flakes, saute until onions are translucent. Throw in a can of crushed tomatoes and some parsley and let it simmer for a bit (this type of sauce doesn't need too long, maybe a half hour at most). Serve over pasta. You can switch out the bacon for other stuff - tuna, capers, black olives, etc.
Stracciatella soup is awesome. I'm not sure of the proportions she puts in, but it's sort of an Italian egg drop soup. It involves chicken broth, eggs, spinach, salt pepper, parmesan, and if you want some semolina and/or nutmeg - you'd have to look up a recipe on this one. Takes maybe 20 minutes and it's a real hearty soup. And it's a base of plenty of other things. Throw in some meatballs and you have Italian wedding soup.
Look on the web for No Knead Bread. It takes a while to make (over a day) but it's not labor intensive. You use time, instead of kneading to break down the flour. It results in a real hearty, crusty bread. I love this stuff.
Then there's goulash and pot roast, but I'll save that for another time.
An A'Matriciana sauce is quick and easy. a little bit of olive oil, 1/4 pound bacon (or pancetta if you can get it) fried in a pan, throw in one onion, 4-6 cloves garlic, some red pepper flakes, saute until onions are translucent. Throw in a can of crushed tomatoes and some parsley and let it simmer for a bit (this type of sauce doesn't need too long, maybe a half hour at most). Serve over pasta. You can switch out the bacon for other stuff - tuna, capers, black olives, etc.
Stracciatella soup is awesome. I'm not sure of the proportions she puts in, but it's sort of an Italian egg drop soup. It involves chicken broth, eggs, spinach, salt pepper, parmesan, and if you want some semolina and/or nutmeg - you'd have to look up a recipe on this one. Takes maybe 20 minutes and it's a real hearty soup. And it's a base of plenty of other things. Throw in some meatballs and you have Italian wedding soup.
Look on the web for No Knead Bread. It takes a while to make (over a day) but it's not labor intensive. You use time, instead of kneading to break down the flour. It results in a real hearty, crusty bread. I love this stuff.
Then there's goulash and pot roast, but I'll save that for another time.
It may sound kind of redneck but I eat alot of road killed deer. Durring the next few months alot of deer get hit by cars where I live. I have told most of my friends and relitives that if they hit a deer to tell the cops they want to keep it, or if I see some one on the side of the road that just hit one I will stop and ask them. Most of the time I get lucky and wind up with 1 or so every year. Most of the time espicaly if the front got hit you can get alot of meat off of them. It saves money and I hate seeing good meat go to waste. So road killed deer is my favorite "poor" mans food. Joe
I try to buy food when it is on sale and stock up when its cheap. I try to eat as much wild game as possible from walleye to moose and wild meat is much healthier.
Cook from scratch, making hambergers from scratch either from beef or moose or just mix in some ground venison. Buy fresh vegetables instead of the prepared stuff.
Cooking from scratch takes time and effort. To reduce the work load cook up a big meal and divide it up and freeze portions for later. Then simply heat and serve on busy days when time is short.
Cook from scratch, making hambergers from scratch either from beef or moose or just mix in some ground venison. Buy fresh vegetables instead of the prepared stuff.
Cooking from scratch takes time and effort. To reduce the work load cook up a big meal and divide it up and freeze portions for later. Then simply heat and serve on busy days when time is short.
- Joined
- Mar 29, 2007
- Messages
- 5,846
We're pretty frugal. But we are also very picky. For various reasons we won't get very much canned food and do almost no shopping at a regular grocery store.
We recently bought a goat, it was butchered and cleaned, but we got a discount by doing the processing at home- dressed out at $1.40 a pound. About 50-60 cents cheaper since we did the processing. And this for a free range local, ranch grown, halal butchered goat. (I may not be terribly religious in this manner, but halal and kosher generally work for me as being a bit safer than what the USDA permits)
Now, that's a lot of meat!
And it sould have been even better if we'd had the pup at the time.
About the only time we do the grocery store meat thing is after holiday sales. Even then-- we look for the local organic shops to discount turkeys and roaster chickens first. But we'll often grab 2 or 3 large birds and a couple bone in hams at under half price. Last Easter we got hams for .99 cents a pound- cut, carved, made stew and froze several pounds of lunchmeat slices.
For big birds, we do a proper roast, eat, then pull apart and have enough for another 2 meals (remember, 9 people eating here) and start stock for a soup.
Stock is fun- vegetable stock is great fun to make. Take *everything* you trim off your veggies, carrot tops, carrot ends, onion skins, ALL of it, and make your stock.
We recently bought a goat, it was butchered and cleaned, but we got a discount by doing the processing at home- dressed out at $1.40 a pound. About 50-60 cents cheaper since we did the processing. And this for a free range local, ranch grown, halal butchered goat. (I may not be terribly religious in this manner, but halal and kosher generally work for me as being a bit safer than what the USDA permits)
Now, that's a lot of meat!
And it sould have been even better if we'd had the pup at the time.
About the only time we do the grocery store meat thing is after holiday sales. Even then-- we look for the local organic shops to discount turkeys and roaster chickens first. But we'll often grab 2 or 3 large birds and a couple bone in hams at under half price. Last Easter we got hams for .99 cents a pound- cut, carved, made stew and froze several pounds of lunchmeat slices.
For big birds, we do a proper roast, eat, then pull apart and have enough for another 2 meals (remember, 9 people eating here) and start stock for a soup.
Stock is fun- vegetable stock is great fun to make. Take *everything* you trim off your veggies, carrot tops, carrot ends, onion skins, ALL of it, and make your stock.
- Joined
- Mar 27, 2008
- Messages
- 118
We (family of 5) did buy meat (whole pig and half a cow) from a local farmer this year so +1 to that. I don't think it was any cheaper at the time, but we know it's good quality and we protected ourselves from price increases.
Siguy's post above made me think of one our favorite weekend breakfast dishes. Start with a base of rice (we buy in bulk at the warehouse club), add scrambled eggs, olive oil, meat (bacon, sausage, ham -- or all three), salt & pepper, and scallions. Very filling and quite tasty.
Siguy's post above made me think of one our favorite weekend breakfast dishes. Start with a base of rice (we buy in bulk at the warehouse club), add scrambled eggs, olive oil, meat (bacon, sausage, ham -- or all three), salt & pepper, and scallions. Very filling and quite tasty.
Beans and rice was a staple as a child along with corn bread. Now while I love a god steak I usualy take the cheaper cuts of meats and thoses on sale or reduced and put them in my smoker for a long time on low heat 12-14 hours for a pork but and it is great . Making cornbeef from brisket and canadaian bacon from pork loin is cheap and great as well.
I am going to have to give those parsnips a try the OPs meal loks great I realy like stuff like that.
I am going to have to give those parsnips a try the OPs meal loks great I realy like stuff like that.
- Joined
- Sep 3, 2004
- Messages
- 775
I was waiting to read BEANS AND RICE, we eat a fair amount of beans and rice, I will make a big pot at the beginning of the week and we eat it almost all week, red kidney beans a or pinto or even blackeyed peas are great with some good white rice, little ground cummin , garlic and black pepper...
my wife get our rice from one of her customers (she a barber) and we get a 10 pound bag of rice for $11.00 (the price af a hair cut) he owns a asian market around the corner from there shop.
no Uncle bens around here.
We also use the local produce as much as we can, I live in a farm area and can generally get many food items for really cheap. and then can and preserve, another thing that we do is buying in bulk when its on sale, for meat having a chest freezer is a must to save money. every once in a while the store by are place (no frills ) has dollar days where they have pork tender loin for a buck a pound and packs of hotdogs for a buck, we even picked up ground beef for 1 buck per pound some items have limits so the wife goes then I go, works out pretty good.
reading these recipes make me hungry..
cya
jimi
- Joined
- Dec 22, 2006
- Messages
- 1,277
this is a great thread. So many people today are convinced that if it can not be cooked in 5 minutes then its time for mc donalds.
- Joined
- Apr 24, 2006
- Messages
- 685
Leftover sweet and sour pork chop sandwich. Throw on some melted provolone and mayonnaise, can't beat it.
- Joined
- Aug 5, 2008
- Messages
- 20,082
COOKING is not "off topic" as a survival skill !!!
We should have more cooking threads, especially: how to use real food, not reheated cardboard lite meals. I used to pick up big slabs of beef and slice some of it thin to broil, some into chunks to stew, a big piece for pot roast.
Chicken soup: cheapest chicken wings or legs tossed into a pot of water with carrots, onions, potato, whatever else I can find like squash, and parsnips are good, too.
Scoop out the chicken, separate the scraps of meat off the bones and skin. Scoop out the vegetables and try not to nibble them all while I'm using a quart of the soup to make yellow rice (add in a package of saffron).
Put the 4 or 5 quarts of soup that's left in the refrigerator to heat up in a cup for a snack coming in from the cold, instead of coffee.
When the rice is done, mix in whatever: the chicken scraps are good, some vegetables too. Vary the mix obviously, day by day.
Maybe :15 minutes of effort for a week of basic nutrition.
* ****** **** ****** *
I couldn't survive without lots of quart containers.
man .... that chicken soup sounds really good right about now
Esav Benyamin
MidniteSuperMod
- Joined
- Apr 6, 2000
- Messages
- 90,915
It smells pretty good right now: I went out and picked up a few missing igredients, including two chicken thighs, and it's boiling now.
- Joined
- May 24, 2005
- Messages
- 2,261
Whenever I watch "The Appaloosa" w/ Marlon Brando, I get a bad cravin' for the Old Man Ramos' goat stew.
I just polished off a pot full over the weekend. Nothin' like some birria de chivo, hot chiles and warm corn tortillas on a wet Northwest weekend.
