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A few things 1. Know your ingredients. For example, here in New Zealand, the most popular variety of potato in the supermarket is Nadine. Agria potatoes cost the same as Nadines. Nadines are bred for looks: smooth skin, no eyes, even oval shape etc. They cook into a tasteless mess of glue and toenails. Meanwhile Agria make gorgeous, golden oven fries, lovely soups, amazing mash etc etc. If you know your varieties, simple food will be a luxury. You don't need to spend as much, because your ingredients will shine. 2.If you want to cook Chinese food, shop where Chinese people shop, if you want to cook Italian food, shop where Italian people shop. The difference between crappy "student" food and great food is often authentic flavourings. Start stocking up your library of stuff and you'll soon end up with a storecupboard of possibilities. Luckily, authentic stuff is often cheap as balls at little local shops. 3. Grow yer own salad greens. If you have any outdoor space at all (hell, you could even rig up a windowbox), grow rainbow chard, perpetual spinach, and arugula. They're all pretty unkillable, grow year round, and provide random greenery whenever you feel like you're missing it. 4. "Luxury" stuff will make your life cheaper. Buy a bottle of extra virgin olive oil when you can. It will make a few cheap ingredients into a great meal. same goes for flakey sea salt and a bunch of other things. 5. Lump o' meat. Cook a lump of cheap meat on payday, say chinese roast pork, corned silverside, roast pork belly etc. Eat some of it on the first day. The remains can star in: stir fry, fried rice, stuffed potatoes, sweetcorn fritters, potato salad, risotto, pilaf, cottage pie, etc, etc. You can usually get about four days of variety out of one cheap meatlump. 6. Puddin'. Make like it's world war two and serve old fashioned steamed puddings after dinner occasionally. They usually only need supercheap ingredients, and they make you feel happy and warm. Especially if the main course was a bit scanty.
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Oct 11, 2011 07:43
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Yeah apparently there are people who buy meat that is not on special and is not a cheap cut of meat. I am not those people.
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Oct 11, 2011 08:37
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I forgot something important: clear plastic containers in a variety of sizes. Sure you can store your leftovers in an old plastic ice cream container, but then you'll forget to use something up and it will sit around and get terrifying. Also you will always be disappointed that it isn't actually ice-cream. Clear plastic keeps your fridge neat and ensures you actually use your leftovers. Small containers are great for freezing stock, because you can freeze it in 2-cup doses, which is exactly enough for a risotto.
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Oct 15, 2011 02:08
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BastardAus posted:I am one of 'those people' and I probably will be one until I die. Properly treated cattle deserve proper prices at market. They taste as good as they cost. I guess cos I live in a country that only has grass-fed beef I don't think about it too much. Generally I'm getting a cheap cut off the same cow as the expensive cuts.
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Oct 15, 2011 21:44
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Here's a link to an article about a woman who is living for a year on the amounts of food allowed in British WWII rations: http://www.theawl.com/2011/11/mock-goose-and-other-dishes-of-the-war-rations-diet . She's doing it to lose weight but I'd bet it would be cheap and the food would be readily available in even the most whitebread town. Interestingly, it turns out to be a very healthy way to live. I'd add shittons of herbs and spices though.
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Dec 3, 2011 23:48
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Moey posted:
That could be a great meal if you added some herbs/spices and vegetables. You can find ways to incorporate more vegetables into your diet by thinking of the ones you find least offensive and including them in your food. Once you get used to those ones you can start branching out into new ones. It's relatively easy to change your eating pattern this way and you will feel so much better.
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Dec 4, 2011 07:33
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Swillkitsch posted:My boyfriend and I are gonna have a couple's kind of Christmas for the first time this year since my family's going out of the country. I'm not the best or most experienced cook, but I'm interested in having a nice (possibly even good) holiday dinner on a budget. Can anyone help me out in picking out recipes or recommend me cheap dishes? Traditional food is good, though I'm absolutely interested in branching out as long as the meal feels kind of homey I'd roast a chicken, because it's close enough to turkey. Bed it down on a bunch of chopped up veg (spuds, parsnips, turnips, yams, leeks etc) with a little olive oil, sprinkle it with sea salt, and brush it with 1/4 cup melted butter mixed with 1/4 cup wine. Give a 3 pound chicken about an hour and fifty minutes on 375F. Brush it with its juices regularly and turn it so it gets evenly browned (start it upside down, then turn it over half-way through so it gets crispy boob skin). Yank it out of the oven, put it on a plate under a tent of foil. Scrape the veg out of the oven dish and into another oven tray and pop them back in the oven. Pour about 1/4 cup of boiling water into the now-empty oven dish and scrape all the brown bits up with a fork. Pour the now brown water into a pot. Bring to the boil (skim off the oil on top) then add (2 tsp cornstarch + 1 tsp chicken stock) which you have previously mixed with 1/4 cup cold water. Stir till thick. Take the foil off your chicken, carve it up and serve with the crunchy veg and the gravy. Actually I eat this every Tuesday night (payday) but I'd gladly eat it for Christmas too. You can put rosemary and other herbs in with the butter, but I've found I prefer to let the ingredients shine. A trifle is a good Christmassy dessert. The day before, make a custard, make a jelly (red). Cut up some store bought cake. Put it in the bottom of a bowl and sprinkle it with a mixture of booze (brandy or sherry) and juice (blackcurrant is good). You want it soaked but not bleeding everywhere, but it's not that important. Chop up the set jelly and layer it over the cake. Sprinkle a layer of berries(frozen or tinned) over the top. Pour the cold custard over that. Leave in the fridge overnight. Top with whipped cream mixed with a little booze and icing sugar and serve. It's not the cheapest thing ever but it's stress free and can be adjusted to your budget and skill level (homemade custard vs packet custard, homemade jelly vs. packet jelly etc). Looks festive and tastes good. slinkimalinki fucked around with this message at 08:04 on Dec 7, 2011 |
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Dec 7, 2011 07:49
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Agreeable Employer posted:What's the opinion on freezing various cheeses? All I know is that mozzarella freezes well. I would hazard a guess that this means cheeses down the creamy end of the scale freeze well.
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Dec 30, 2011 23:13
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When you say gravy, what do you mean? The only gravy I know of is the stuff you make with the juices from your roast. It's delicious, but you have to roast something first.
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Jan 9, 2012 21:09
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I think people might not be mentioning fish because the price varies a lot depending on where you live. Fish is fantastic, but it can be expensive in some places.
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Jan 18, 2012 21:02
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ovanova posted:I know I'm going to get people who disagree with me but if the ethnic grocers are all too far and if you don't have access to a solid grocery store, the sad truth is that leafy greens are a loving bitch if you're poor and cooking on your own, Luckily leafy greens are retardedly easy to grow. And you don't need a garden, just a window and a box.
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Mar 13, 2012 02:00
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Chop 'em up, marinate them and stir fry them with veg? Chop 'em up and add them to whatever pasta sauce you have going? Marinate them and make chicken burgers? Coat them in yoghurt and spices and grill them? There's very little you can't do with chicken breasts, though ice cream may be a bad idea. Also, chop 'em up and add them to soup. Edit: ground beef sure can be frozen. slinkimalinki fucked around with this message at 23:08 on Jun 14, 2012 |
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Jun 14, 2012 23:05
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The Lord Bude posted:As far as recipes using it instead of garlic and onion, there is, as far as I can recall, a particular Hindi sect in the Kashmir region that doesn't eat onion and garlic for religious reasons, and they substitute Asafoetida powder, so many recipies that originate in that region would not use onions and garlic. This is however not true of the majority of Indian Cuisine. I believe Hare Krishnas (aka ISKCON)also use asafoetida instead of onion and garlic because they inflame the passions or Lord Krishna doesn't like them or something. People who were introduced to Indian Cuisine through their local Hare Krishna group may believe that the use of asafoetida as a substitute for garlic and onion is more widespread than it actually is.
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Jun 20, 2012 02:14
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neogeo0823 posted:I'd be interested in a bread recipe that doesn't take 2 days to make. I like the no kneed bread recipe well enough, but the sheer amount of time required to go from ingredients to finished product really makes me reluctant to make it frequently. This soda bread recipe is my go-to lazy as hell bread recipe: http://recipefinder.msn.co.nz/article.aspx?id=766180 If you don't have buttermilk, souring normal milk with lemon juice or vinegar works a treat.
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Jul 9, 2012 02:41
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CommonShore posted:What's a good simmer time for a first try then? I'm gonna make some of this poo poo tomorrow. Other method is to bring milk and a little salt almost to the boil, then take off heat and add souring agent (i use lemon juice or citric acid) then just leave to sit for a couple of hours to curdle, then strain. No simmering required.
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Feb 18, 2015 21:12
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