Help! I'm poor and want to make good food!

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Goons with Spoons > Help! I'm poor and want to make good food!

feelz good man: Jan 21, 2007; deal with it

Make jambalaya!

You can make a chicken broth from a whole chicken carcass and from the odds and ends of chopping up the trinity (onion papers, celery stocks, pepper cores, etc), then you'd just need rice, garlic, salt and pepper and some cajun seasonings. Tony Chacheres is okay if you omit any excess salt from the dish, and it's like $1.

Brown the proteins, then remove and add the trinity, then the garlic. Add the rice in and stir around until it's pretty translucent and starts to get kind of brown, then add your cajun seasoning and your homemade chicken broth, then simmer. Easy

# ¿ Oct 10, 2011 07:06

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# ¿ May 2, 2024 09:17

feelz good man: Jan 21, 2007; deal with it

11b1p posted:

Shred up the meat from a store cooked rotisserie chicken and put Frank's Red Hot Sauce on it. Eat it out of a bowl or on a sandwich.

How many bowls in do you have to be to make this appetizing?

# ¿ Oct 21, 2011 07:26

feelz good man: Jan 21, 2007; deal with it

noblesse posted:

I found some whole chickens at Kroger tonight for 39 fuckin' cents per pound. 39 CENTS! I bought the last two they had. They were around 1.50 each for entire rotisserie-sized chickens. Definitely keep eyes on those sales.

nice Wiggles bait

# ¿ Oct 25, 2011 08:24

feelz good man: Jan 21, 2007; deal with it

Pope Mobile posted:

Anyone have suggestions for an alternative to beans? I don't like beans. I'm weird, I know.

Either tofu or enjoy a nice big dinner of carbs if you're really poor.

# ¿ Nov 24, 2011 09:52

feelz good man: Jan 21, 2007; deal with it

Hellwuzzat posted:

1 lb. burger
1 can mushroom soup (Campbell's was good. Store brand was bad. YMMV)
seasonings (I use garlic and rosemary, but you ould try just putting steak spice or pepper)

Wreckus posted:

Seems like a variation of what I make

1 can cream of mushroom (gently caress the haters, I like it )
1lb Ground Beef
2c canned mixed veggies
1/2 Onion
1-2c rice

Cook rice and veggies. Saute Onion, brown hamburger, drain. Mix in Cream of mushroom soup and ~1/4c water to thin the soup. Serve over rice and veggies.

Please avoid all of these hotdish-like approaches to food. It's not the great depression anymore, you can throw away your Betty Crocker food ration books now; the war's over.

# ¿ Jan 4, 2012 18:14

feelz good man: Jan 21, 2007; deal with it

babies havin rabies posted:

I usually drain at least half of it out. I don't know if I'm just doing something wrong but if I leave it all in I get little seperated streaks of grease in the finished gravy.

You don't have to listen to Wiggles. I make country gravy by draining off the fat, then deglazing with a little water and some bouillon powder, then I thicken it with a really quick cornstarch slurry. It's really awesome gravy and you don't have to use all that awful fat.

# ¿ Jan 11, 2012 04:27

feelz good man: Jan 21, 2007; deal with it

Yawgmoth posted:

That's because spam is made with the bits of "meat" they they can only reach by blasting an air hose into the stripped carcass and collecting what meat particles the employees don't inhale (and later die from).

How is it GWS can both praise snout to tail eating and butchering lifestyles, have entire threads dedicated to eating obscure offal, then turn around and be absolutely disgusted by "bits from a carcass" or gland meat?

# ¿ Jan 16, 2012 07:47

feelz good man: Jan 21, 2007; deal with it

Ammanas posted:

http://www.marthastewart.com/318209/slow-cooker-chili-chicken-tacos

I've made that many times and it is wonderful

Salsa chicken rises from the grave once again

# ¿ Jan 23, 2012 23:13

feelz good man: Jan 21, 2007; deal with it

Why wouldn't you just turn your slow cooker to high (which should be around 300 on most models, much higher than the necessary 212 to boil water) and boil the pasta instead of making some horrible slow-cooked starch mess?

# ¿ Aug 28, 2012 06:24

feelz good man: Jan 21, 2007; deal with it

Orange_Lazarus posted:

You guys think these would make good bulk containers for rice/beans?

http://www.amazon.com/Gallon-White-Bucket-Lid-Durable/dp/B00A1LUFK8/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1363882077&sr=8-2&keywords=storage+bucket

DO NOT PAY FOR THOSE

Go to any grocery deli (Safeway, Kroger, etc.) and ask for them. Most places will have an abundance of them and will either hand them to you for free or for $0.50-$0.75. Try the bakery too if the deli is out.

# ¿ Mar 21, 2013 23:45

feelz good man: Jan 21, 2007; deal with it

DrFrankenStrudel posted:

A great low cost snack that I like to make is queso blanco.

Saute up some chopped onion and whatever variety of hot pepper is on sale in a medium saucepan, then add a dash of milk (cream works fine too) and a pound of store brand american cheese and stir until the cheese is melted. Serve with the "99 cents only" tortilla chips and you have a satisfying snack/light lunch to eat all week long for about $6.00.

I also make chili a lot though I change up the meat to keep it fresh.

Simply... Simply Sarah? Is that you?

I thought you had a heart attack and died in your trailer years ago. :gonk:

# ¿ Sep 2, 2013 23:45

feelz good man: Jan 21, 2007; deal with it

BraveUlysses posted:

Spatchcock aka butterflied

Not quite. Butterfly is splitting the keel bone, opening the chest. Spatchcocking is removing the spine, opening the back.

# ¿ Sep 15, 2013 02:23

feelz good man: Jan 21, 2007; deal with it

Chinatown posted:

Is there a slow-cooker thread? I figure this could go in here.

I have a bunch of frozen chicken thighs/breasts/legs and I want to just throw them in a slow-cooker, bones and all, with some broth and other things like spicy things

Spicy things like.......

...salsa?....

:can:

# ¿ Sep 27, 2013 07:51

feelz good man: Jan 21, 2007; deal with it

the littlest prince posted:

I made some cheap-rear end red beans and rice with cheap-rear end smoked sausage once, and boiled the sausage with Tony Chachere's seasoning for somewhere between 4-6 hours as the main cooking step. It was amazing.

Then I did it again for around 3 hours and it was mostly bland.

I didn't measure how much seasoning I used. Is it more likely that I used too little the second time, or that I need to boil it for longer?

(I have some red beans from a white elephant gift and want to try this again.)

The above words with salt level/etc, but also cooking sausages for 6 hours will render all the fat out of them, and they'll turn dry . Try doing the beans first and then adding the sausages the last 30-45min of cooking!

# ¿ Jan 8, 2014 03:32

feelz good man: Jan 21, 2007; deal with it

EAT THE EGGS RICOLA posted:

I can cook pretty well, and I wouldn't have a terrible time feeding myself for $50 for a month, but I would absolutely have to cut back on variety since produce and meat are both super expensive outside of farmer's market season (a single head of broccoli is like $4-5) compared to most of the US.

I want to eat less meat and more vegetables, but it's frustrating when things aren't on sale. Stuff like ginger here went to $5 a pound, and even brussels went up around $4. Meanwhile crapchicken went down to around $1.00/lb or less.

# ¿ Jan 17, 2014 13:48

feelz good man: Jan 21, 2007; deal with it

And then there's articles like this that spread on Facebook like wildfire:

http://thefederalist.com/2014/09/04/complaining-about-home-cooked-meals-is-oppressive/

# ¿ Sep 16, 2014 02:49

feelz good man: Jan 21, 2007; deal with it

detectivemonkey posted:

I always want to get the giant body pillow bags of rice, but I hate the idea of storing them. Any tips? .

1) Go to a grocery store deli or bakery (decent sized one, like an Alberton's/Safeway
2) Ask nicely if they have a 5-gallon sour cream/mayonnaise/frosting bucket they would be willing to part with
3) Politely say thank you and accept your free 5-gallon foodsafe bucket

# ¿ Sep 17, 2014 04:27

feelz good man: Jan 21, 2007; deal with it

The Lord Bude posted:

Once you've made your own English Muffins, you can then make your own hollandaise sauce, and make delicious eggs benedict as a reward for making English Muffins.

And then you'll be smoking your own salmon or bacon, raising your own chickens for eggs, getting fresh butter from local farmers, etc.

# ¿ Oct 10, 2014 14:26

feelz good man: Jan 21, 2007; deal with it

The Lord Bude posted:

Well the eggs and the butter is reasonable, but the rest is too much effort for my taste.

Smoking is literally just starting a barbecue with the coals further away from the food. It's the king of poorfoods

# ¿ Oct 10, 2014 14:55

feelz good man: Jan 21, 2007; deal with it

The Lord Bude posted:

It would probably be cheaper to just buy bacon.

Actually, pork belly ran me $4/lb and the wood was free. I used maybe $0.50 worth of charcoal and about 4 hours of my spare time

Good bacon at the store that's actually smoked and not just painted with liquid smoke is $10-12/lb so I'll leave you with that :tipshat:

# ¿ Oct 11, 2014 03:42

feelz good man: Jan 21, 2007; deal with it

Adult Sword Owner posted:

e: I made oxtail stew one day and she ate the hell out of it.

Oh hey whatup oxtail friend

The prices here for oxtail went up to $7.99/lb in some places. It was like $3.50/lb last year :psypop:

# ¿ Oct 12, 2014 06:57

feelz good man: Jan 21, 2007; deal with it

butterflygds posted:

Since there has been a lot of talk of bacon here lately, I buy our bacon at Aldi's (this is the only meat I buy there). The one near us carries an uncured, applewood smoked bacon that runs about 3.50 for 12oz and for our family of two, lasts for two meals (usually homemade biscuits and bacon for Sunday breakfast). The same bacon at a regular grocery store is usually at least twice that price and it tastes so much better than the "cured" bacon with all the nitrates.

It would be a safe bet that the label will have "celery powder" or "celery juice" on your supposedly nitrate-free meat. Celery juice is not regulated and could actually have more nitrates than traditionally cured meat, hth

# ¿ Oct 13, 2014 01:35

feelz good man: Jan 21, 2007; deal with it

22 Eargesplitten posted:

I'm not completely poor, but I'm having a hard time staying in budget. And at least for shared dinners, I need to avoid gluten, lactose, beans, added sugar, or pineapple. So it's kind of difficult to find recipes. I got a recipe for sticky rice that I want to try, and I'm going to make fried rice. But I need some cheap recipes for some pretty strict dietary restrictions. Any ideas?

For my own recipes, I'm making chili (with beans) and baked beans, because beans are cheap, and if I'm feeling like it, I can toss both of them on some rice to make it stretch even farther.

A lot of southeast asian food makes heavy use of fish sauce instead of soy, and uses either rice or rice noodles, so there's another option right there for you. Indian food is great too.

Here is one of my favourite vietnamese things and it's gluten free. It's not sugar free though http://www.tarasmulticulturaltable.com/bun-thit-nuong-vietnamese-grilled-pork-with-rice-noodles/

# ¿ May 16, 2015 15:34

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# ¿ May 2, 2024 09:17

feelz good man: Jan 21, 2007; deal with it

neogeo0823 posted:

Am I the only one that hates broccoli stalks with a passion? It seems that every bag of frozen broccoli

Found your problem.

# ¿ May 18, 2015 05:16

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Goons with Spoons > Help! I'm poor and want to make good food!