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!

spite house: Apr 28, 2009

In case anyone is confused, when folks say you should buy your spices at Hispanic markets this is what they're probably talking about.

Ethnic groceries carry those ripoff little glass jars just like whitefolks groceries, and they're still a ripoff so beware. The El Cheapo stuff in the cellophane packets is usually in a whole different part of the supermarket. Sometimes even regular supermarkets will have a display of these, but they will definitely not keep it in the spice aisle. Look in the ethnic-foods aisle and on endcaps.

This packet of cloves cost 99c. The quality is fine, but decant your purchases into jars and keep them in the freezer; they tend to go off quickly.

One very cool thing about buying spices this way is that you can try a ton of new stuff without spending a lot of money -- different kinds of dried peppers and so on. This is how I discovered epazote, which is the mystery ingredient in Mexican beans that makes them taste Mexican and also prevents gas.

Moving on, here's my version of a legendary poorfolks dish. It's an Irish potato-and-cabbage casserole and although this method is nontraditional and would probably cause many Irish grannies to roll over in their graves, it's also loving excellent.

Colcannon

Slice up some green cabbage as if you were making coleslaw. Chop an onion. Fry together in a big skillet, over medium-high heat in the grease of your choice. Butter, bacon grease and chicken fat are all delicious. I wouldn't use olive oil, and please don't use margarine ever. The cabbage is done when it's wilted and starting to brown the slightest bit.

Meanwhile, peel, slice and boil some russet potatoes and when they're done mash them with a little milk. Salt and pepper, then stir the mash into the cabbage and onion mixture and mix thoroughly.

Spread in a pan and run it under the broiler to get crispy. You can also put cheese on top, and if you have sausages those are good too. Even crappy breakfast sausages, which are often on sale, are good in this application. Enjoy!

# ¿ Jan 2, 2012 21:36

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 02:36

spite house: Apr 28, 2009

Iron Chef Ricola posted:

Do this, but don't buy pre-ground spices. The same amount of unground cloves will cost the same and will taste much better if ground immediately before use.

Alas, I lack a spice grinder and my husband swears he can taste the residue if I use the coffee grinder. You're right, though.

# ¿ Jan 2, 2012 21:40

spite house: Apr 28, 2009

Iron Chef Ricola posted:

Yes, but making fenugreek coffee by accident is much less exciting.

I learned my lesson with cumin. Not a good look.

# ¿ Jan 2, 2012 22:04

spite house: Apr 28, 2009

indoflaven posted:

Marzetti dressing is the poo poo.

Wait, people buy salad dressing?

At my house we've been eating a lot of polenta since I figured out that 1. you can make it with regular cornmeal, 2. you don't have to stir it constantly and 3. if you add the boiling water to the cornmeal instead of vice versa it doesn't get lumpy. And of course, it is dirt cheap. My cheater, bastardized, heretical polenta is not as good as the stirred-for-an-eternity coarse-grind variety, but it's fine. You make it by mixing up two cups of cornmeal with a hefty pinch of salt in the bottom of a big heavy saucepan, boiling six cups of water in a kettle and then whisking the water into the cornmeal over medium-low heat. When water is all incorporated, turn the heat down as low as it'll go. The polenta should only blorp every minute or so. Stir every so often but you don't have to be neurotic about it. It'll thicken up right away but it needs to cook for at least half an hour before it'll taste like anything, and the more butter you can afford to put in, the better.

I like stewed greens (kale/collards/mustard or turnip greens) on my polenta, with ham in them if I bought the big giant ham on sale. (Buy the big giant ham on sale, if you eat meat. You can get dozens of meals out of one of those suckers.)

spite house fucked around with this message at 01:36 on Jan 6, 2012

# ¿ Jan 6, 2012 01:21

spite house: Apr 28, 2009

Fenchurch posted:

pulled the skin off (1lb of skin) and discarded it

Oooh! Oooh! Don't do this! Render the fat out and save it! Potatoes fried in chicken fat are to die for and the cracklings are awesome too.

# ¿ Jan 6, 2012 01:54

spite house: Apr 28, 2009

I recently found a recipe that is so simple and fast it looks like a joke or a mistake, but it turned out AMAZING. Maybe not the cheapest thing in the whole world, but it comes together in less time than it takes to make the rice, which is a big deal when time is money and the alternative is ordering takeout. Here is how it's done:

Heat some neutral oil in a skillet and in it stir-fry the garam masala you bought for a pittance at the Indian grocery. How much depends on how spicy your masala is; they vary. I use a very heaping tablespoon. Cook until masala is highly fragrant, about a minute.

To the skillet, add one can coconut milk and one can diced tomatoes with green chiles. Simmer gently, stirring occasionally, until tomatoes are breaking down and mixture has thickened, maybe 10 minutes.

Add protein -- boneless skinless chicken, el cheapo frozen fish fillets from Costco, shrimp if you're ballin', or tofu. Cover and simmer until protein is cooked through. Salt to taste. Garnish with chopped cilantro unless you hate it.

Rice, cucumber-and-onion salad, dinner, done.

I think you could use skin-on bone-in chicken, which is much more delicious, provided you brown it first. Also you could do kind of a Goan thing with the thin-cut pork chops that make everyone angsty because they're so cheap but impossible to cook. Anyway, this fed two of us for a couple of days and was delicious all out of proportion to the cost and effort.

spite house fucked around with this message at 03:10 on Jan 24, 2012

# ¿ Jan 24, 2012 02:55

spite house: Apr 28, 2009

Eggie posted:

Anyone know any recipes for cheap marinade? My meat-cooking needs an upgrade.

Soy sauce, pressed garlic and black pepper is all you will ever need. Maybe with a sweet element, like pineapple juice, for pork.

RareBrit posted:

I think probably the cheapest tastiest cooking in the world is french provencial. Basically french peasant cooking.

One of my favorite el cheapo, impressive chicken dishes is assembled as follows:

Get some bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs and rub them with garlic, salt, olive oil and herbes de Provence. (Pick up this herb blend in the bulk section at the fancy market. It has thyme, savory and lavender among other things, is cheap, and is also excellent on popcorn with grated Parmesan.) Set aside. Roughly chop some tomatoes (you can use pretty mediocre tomatoes for this and it'll be fine), shallots or onions, some more garlic, and pitted olives -- Nicoise are authentic but green or Kalamata work great too. Toss with olive oil, salt and more herbes de Provence, dump into a roasting pan, pour over a few glugs of white wine, arrange the chicken skin-up on top and bake at 425 until chicken is done. You don't need anything with this but bread, and it's really very good.

VVV Oh yeah, I only ever marinate for an hour tops. Listen to this person if you like to leave your meat overnight or anything.

spite house fucked around with this message at 06:59 on Mar 5, 2012

# ¿ Mar 5, 2012 06:48

spite house: Apr 28, 2009

MuffinShark posted:

I live in Los Angeles

There you go. Produce here is dirt goddamn cheap, a thing I didn't appreciate until I moved away for awhile, probably because the vast majority of it comes from within a couple hundred miles. My local Frankenstein Latino/Armenian supermarket has Meyer lemons for $1.29/lb right now, Persian cucumbers $99c/lb, and avocados 4 for a buck.

It's been mentioned many times before, but if you have the great good fortune to live in a city with a substantial immigrant population, shop at their stores and stay the gently caress away from Von's, Ralphs, Safeway or whatever the local giant supermarket chain is. These stores will probably be full of fruit flies, they'll smell funny, and angry grandmas from The Old Country will throw elbows into your ribs to get you out of the way when they're lunging for the nopales or chicken feet or whatever. Get over it and save you some money. (This advice applies to meat, produce, and bulk things like beans and rice only; name-brand prepared foods are always more expensive at these places but you shouldn't be buying that poo poo anyway.)

Chicken feet, incidentally, make a really great stock.

spite house fucked around with this message at 01:06 on Apr 19, 2012

# ¿ Apr 19, 2012 00:59

spite house: Apr 28, 2009

Sir Prancelot posted:

Go to the thrift shop in a good part of town. I usually have pretty good luck thrifting for kitchen goods that yuppies impulse buy and get sick of.

Thrift shops can be great for equipment, and discount clothing stores like Ross and TJ Maxx (if you're in the US) are also excellent for picking up kitchen gizmos on the cheap. You sure don't want to buy pans or knives in those places, but they're awesome for cutting boards, wooden spoons, measuring cups, all kinds of baking poo poo like muffin tins and bundt pans, etc, for a fraction of what you'd spend at Williams-Sonoma or even Target. The Ross near my house keeps having these awesome Pyrex bowls with rubber lids for less than ten bucks a three-pack, and it's revolutionized my leftover storage. (Tupperware and its knockoffs suck so hard compared to glass.)

# ¿ May 16, 2012 22:30

spite house: Apr 28, 2009

Greater Los Angeles Area folks, if there is a Jon's supermarket near you, GO THERE. I was afraid of it for years but it turns out to be awesome despite looking like a lovely Vons knockoff. Their produce is loving beautiful and jawdroppingly inexpensive.

# ¿ Jun 14, 2012 08:36

spite house: Apr 28, 2009

MuffinShark posted:

Moving to Austin,Tx from LA. I am a little afraid that I have become very dependent on the cheap produce here in LA. Anyone have any luck getting great deals on produce in Austin? Thanks for the help guys.

Fiesta Mart on the northbound I-35 frontage road, at about 45th. The only way to fly. It's a big cheerful Mexican market that strongly resembles the Cancun Wal-Mart. Sometimes they get in avocado and mango price wars with the HEB in the Hancock Center on the other side of the highway.

If you want to splurge on fancy produce or pick up great, cheap bulk spices, go to Central Market on Lamar, emphatically not the Whole Foods mothership. CMart is cheaper and the downtown Whole Foods is even more infuriating than Whole Foods usually is.

Wheatsville Co-Op sometimes has a free box.

(And it's "y'all", not "guys". Might as well get used to it now.)

spite house fucked around with this message at 07:31 on Jun 19, 2012

# ¿ Jun 19, 2012 07:27

spite house: Apr 28, 2009

Doh004 posted:

Umm excuse me, but ?

You can use it as a splash/cologne thing. I like orange-flower water much better for this, as it does not smell like Grandma.

# ¿ Jun 19, 2012 21:21

spite house: Apr 28, 2009

dino. posted:

Wait, what? Why would they do that? I thought they're supposed to be this public service group.

I got your funny joke dino.

# ¿ Sep 5, 2012 06:12

spite house: Apr 28, 2009

We were spending way too much money on prepared hummus because I could never get the texture right when I tried to make it myself, but those days are gone since I discovered Yotam Ottolenghi's hummus method. Results are perfect -- it's all about the baking-soda step -- and you can get an astonishing amount of hummus out of a pound bag of dried chickpeas. Tahini can be a little spendy but I find I don't need as much as that recipe calls for, maybe 3/4 c.

You can also quick-soak the beans if you forgot to soak them overnight. Boil hard for 5 minutes, remove from heat, soak for an hour, drain, proceed.

# ¿ Dec 12, 2013 08:42

spite house: Apr 28, 2009

Recently discovered a strange but awesome poor folk recipe -- Ozark Pudding.

Yes, those measurements are correct. No, it doesn't look like it will work at all, but it does. I think it's better for breakfast than dessert, and it's good left over. You can make it in a greased cast-iron skillet if you don't have a baking dish.

Pecans are expensive but walnuts are just as good if not better.

spite house fucked around with this message at 19:37 on Sep 17, 2015

# ¿ Sep 17, 2015 19:35

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 02:36

spite house: Apr 28, 2009

Astonishing Wang posted:

When you say you roasted the peppers and tomatillos on the stove top do you mean on the burner in a pan with oil?

When I make that kind of salsa I put 'em right on the gas burner or, even better, roast them under the broiler. They don't have to be solidly blackened, just well-browned and scorched in spots.

# ¿ Dec 29, 2015 02:21

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