Down to earth culinary advice and recipes. From a vegetarian perspective, but applicable to almost anyone who wants to eat a little healthier or save a little money.
Trying something different for breakfast (since my oven is busted). I think of it as a kind of vegetarian scrapple but it’s more like some kind of weird Battle Creek refritos, really.
Ingredients are: pinto beans, a little cornmeal, some natural peanut butter, basic seasonings because I wanted the choice to have it sweet or savory when I actually eat it (brown sugar, salt, a little molasses), and an egg to help it set up better and round out the amino acid profile. Ideally, it should set up in the pan like polenta and I can cut it into squares and fry it for a little more texture. Un-ideally, it’ll be moosh.
I had never made Italian bread before, but since my dad needs a low-sodium diet for health reasons and pane toscano is traditionally salt-free, I decided to give it a try.
I used the recipe from Holy Cow! Vegan here, except I replaced one cup of the AP flour with bread flour, and baked it for an additional few minutes after taking the pan of water out of the oven to brown the crust on the bottom. (The undersides of steamed-crust breads tend to collect condensation in my experience.)
It turned out very well, with a lovely fluffy interior and a pleasantly crunchy-chewy crust. My rising times were a little shorter than the recipe’s - I don’t know if I have a warmer kitchen or fresher yeast or if she’s just more patient than I am.
Since summer squash season is upon us in the northern hemisphere, here’s something to do with it that isn’t ratatouille or zucchini bread.
Dries:
1 ½ cups flour, unsifted (I use 1 cup white all-purpose and ½ cup whole wheat)
¼ cup cocoa powder (not dutch processed)
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt (can increase to ½ if the cake tastes flat to you)
¾ cup white sugar (can up it to a full cup, but I prefer it less sweet)
1 tsp cinnamon
other dry spices to taste
a few tablespoons uncooked quick oats (optional, if your squash is very juicy. This helps manage moisture levels.)
Wets:
½ cup water
¼ cup mild vegetable oil
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 tsp vanilla extract (fake is fine)
approx 1 lb/2 cups grated or shredded raw zucchini or summer squash.
Prepare your zucchini. Zucchini tends to have a tough skin and you may want to peel it before processing, but it’s not necessary with tender-skinned squashes. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Grease and flour a medium-size cake pan (the original recipe this was based on calls for a 9x9 inch square, but I used a 6 ½ x 10 1/2″ and it worked fine).
Mix together the dry ingredients (you might need to sift the cocoa to get the lumps out). Add the liquids and the zucchini, stir to combine well but do not beat. The batter should be very thick (the squash contains a lot of moisture), but still a batter rather than a dough. You may want to add a little more or less water, depending on the juiciness of your squash. Put your batter in the prepared cake pan and bake for at least 30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Because of the high moisture content, this cake is better slightly overbaked than underbaked.
Very moist and tender and not at all cloying. Good for breakfast and snacks as well as dessert.
Adapted from a recipe in “Secrets of Fat-Free Baking.”
Makes 1 loaf
1 2/3 cups whole wheat flour
1/3 cup barley flour
½ cup sugar (brown sugar is particularly tasty)
1 ½ tsp pumpkin pie spice
other spices to taste: I add a little extra nutmeg and cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda (add an extra ¼ tsp if you’re using very tart homemade applesauce)
1 tsp baking powder
1 cup unsweetened applesauce
½ cup apple juice or cider
additions - chopped nuts, dried fruit (presoak in apple juice), rolled oats, etc.
Grease and flour an 8x4 inch loaf pan. Preheat oven to 350 F.
Combine the flours, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and spices. Stir to mix well.
Add the applesauce and fruit juice, and stir until all dry ingredients are moistened. You’re looking for a thick batter. If it’s too dry, add a little extra apple juice. Do not over-mix. Fold in your additions.
Spread your batter evenly in the pan, and bake for 40-45 minutes or until done. Stab it with a toothpick if you’re not sure. Even when fully cooked, this is going to be very moist.
Let it cool in the pan for ten minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack if you have one (I use the one from the toaster oven), and let it cool as long as you have patience, then slice and serve. Good with butter.
If you can only get your hands on a limited amount of yeast, remember that yeast is a living thing, and will grow and multiply in favorable conditions. To an extent, you can add less yeast to your bread dough and let it rise longer to compensate. If you’re ambitious, you could try making a yeast culture (not dissimilar to sourdough, except you start with a little cultivated yeast). Or if you bake frequently, use a little of the dough from your previous batch to start a sponge for your new one.
If you can’t find yeast at all, look for baking powder and make quickbreads! Or failing baking powder, baking soda + cream of tartar or buttermilk. (Powdered buttermilk is very useful for baking if your store carries it.) In a pinch, you can sour milk for baking (including soymilk) with a little lemon juice.
If you can’t find any forms of leavening, experiment with flatbreads. Unleavened bread is very seasonable right now.
Don’t mix your yeast dough too dry. It should be a bit gloppy before you knead it, although still workable - kneading will make it less sticky and hold together better. Don’t add enough flour that it’s easy to work with before kneading, unless you want dwarven battle bread.
If you’re using old yeast, make sure it still works before you bake with it.
If your yeast works, and your dough wasn’t too dry, but your dough still isn’t rising properly, try putting it in a warmer place.
A little gluten flour (1 T per loaf of bread is plenty) improves the texture of rye and 100% whole-wheat breads, which can be a bit dense otherwise.
Rye and whole grain doughs tend to mix up stickier, by their nature. A stand mixer with a dough hook makes things easier, if you have access to one.
When you’ve got a handful of small bills and change and you need to sustain yourself until you get your first paycheck at the new job, or your food stamps come through, or your resources otherwise improve. This isn’t a balanced diet but it should provide the major necessary nutrients.
Rolled oats (cheaper than instant oatmeal and a better texture) - you can get pound cans of quick-cooking rolled oats at the Dollar Tree for $1, or if your grocery store has a bin section, you might be able to get them in bulk even cheaper (our local Fred Meyer has them for 89 cents/pound). Oats will provide calories, carbs, fiber, and some iron, thiamine, and protein.
Peanut butter - the cheapest kind available will probably be hydrogenated. I’ve seen $2/16 oz jars at the grocery store or $1/10 oz jars at Dollar Tree. If you’re a big peanut butter fan or have someone to share it with, larger jars tend to be cheaper per pound. Peanut butter will provide protein and fats.
Milk: Milk is almost always cheaper per glass when bought in larger cartons, so if you have the money, but the largest container you think you’ll be able to drink up while it’s still fresh. Milk will provide protein, calcium, and vitamins A and D. Prices where I am are $2.69 for a gallon, $1.59 for a half-gallon, and $1 for quarts of shelf-stable ultra-pasteurized milk at the dollar store.
Frozen concentrated orange juice: Full of Vitamin C so you don’t get scurvy. If you’re not a big milk drinker, the calcium-fortified OJ is usually no more expensive than the regular kind. $1.49 for a 12-oz can or $1.89 for a 16-ouncer.
Carrots: One of the few fresh vegetables that are affordable the year round, and full of beta carotene/Vitamin A. Big bags of carrots are the cheapest, but if you can’t eat five pounds of carrots by yourself, they should be available for less than a dollar a pound in bulk. (I’ve seen them for 69 cents/lb.)
If you’re going to need to take food with you to work or school, you will want Bread or Crackers for making sandwiches. Sometimes you can find cheap white or half-wheat bread at the dollar store. Otherwise, supermarkets often have some kind of cheap bread for around a dollar a loaf. If you prefer peanut butter and crackers, I have seen saltines for as low as $1/lb, but $1.69 is more common. Dollar stores usually have a good cracker selection as well.
If you have some money left over, I would suggest buying a few bananas (one of the cheapest fresh fruits, consistently available for under $1/lb at every time of year) or potatoes. Both of these are cheap, filling, good sources of potassium, and don’t require elaborate cooking techniques or a lot of other ingredients to be palatable. Potatoes are most nutritious when cooked with their skins on, which is good news for people who are too lazy to peel potatoes all the time. For seasoning, keep an eye out for free salt or ketchup packets.
If you can’t do wheat, and gluten-free pasta is inaccessible, too expensive, or just not that tasty by your standards, there is an alternative. Make polenta!
Polenta is basically the Italian version of cornmeal mush, and has very simple ingredients (water, cornmeal - the gritty stuff, not cornstarch or masa harina - and a little salt), although it takes a lot of cooking and stirring. (Some methods cook it in the oven or slow-cooker, which reduces the amount of stirring involved.) It has a mild but hearty flavor similar to grits or unsweetened cornbread, and it goes well with most things you’d put on pasta - garlic butter, grated cheese, marinara sauce, meat sauce, mushroom sauce, etc.
As you’d expect from a simple high-carbohydrate dish, polenta’s pretty cheap if you make it from scratch. Where I live, cornmeal is more expensive than white or brown rice or store-brand wheat-based spaghetti, but cheaper than gluten-free pasta.
Packaged precooked and instant polenta also exist, but they are notably more expensive, which I think is kind of missing the point of what’s supposed to be a cheap staple. However, if you really can’t face standing by the stove and stirring for over half an hour, look for quick-cooking (not instant) grits in the hot cereal section. The texture won’t be quite the same, but it’s still a good corn-based vehicle for cheese and tomato sauce, with less than a third of the cooking time.
Burns Night: Homemade vegetarian haggis (made with split peas, among other things), neeps and tatties (mashed potatoes with turnip or rutabaga), mock cranachan (full-fat yogurt, toasted oatmeal, and jam parfait): $1.57/person
Valentine’s Day: spaghetti marinara with lentil meatballs and parmesan, individual baked custard with chocolate sauce, mock champagne (mix apple juice, grape juice, and seltzer, serve in a dollar store wine glass): $1.22/person
St. Patrick’s Day: Vegetarian Irish stew, colcannon (mashed potatoes with greens), homemade shortbread, green limeade (generic Sprite with a splash of fresh or bottled lime juice and a drop of green food coloring): $1.71/person
Purim: chickpea wat (Ethiopian-style chickpea stew), carrot-raisin-sunflower pilaf, apple pie hamantaschen, mock champagne: $1.63/person
Easter brunch: impossible spinach quiche, deviled eggs, homemade hashbrowns or lentil-potato hash, homemade hot cross buns, virgin mimosas (orange juice and seltzer), fresh fruit: $1.50 (with hashbrowns) or $1.60 (with hash)/person
Shavuot: Vegetarian lasagna, carrot-orange salad with yogurt-citrus dressing, mock cheesecake (cookie-crumb crust, filling is cheesecake flavored instant pudding mix made up with plain yogurt instead of milk): $1.92/person
Fourth of July Picnic: Barbecue pinto beans, deviled eggs, potato salad, coleslaw, watermelon: $1.38/person
Rosh Hashanah: vegetarian mock gefilte fish (made with potatoes and cornmeal), chickpea noodle soup, carrot and raisin tzimmes, baked apple with honey and cinnamon: $2.10/person
Thanksgiving: pinto bean “turkey,” bread stuffing with onion and celery, brown gravy, mashed potatoes, candied sweet potatoes, green bean and mushroom soup casserole with crispy topping, carrot and celery sticks, cranberry sauce, impossible pumpkin pie with whipped topping, water, milk, mock sparkling cider (apple juice + seltzer): $2.43/person
Hanukkah: tofu brisket with roast vegetables, potato latkes with sour cream and/or applesauce, french toast jelly donuts (make little jam sandwiches, dip them in egg batter and saute like french toast): $1.55-$2.07/person, depending on how many latkes you can eat and whether you prefer sour cream or applesauce
Christmas: mock goose (bean and lentil loaf), sage and onion dressing, mashed and roast potatoes, brown gravy, homemade applesauce, roasted root vegetable medley, plum pudding with custard sauce, mandarin oranges: $2.30/person
If it’s not too far out of your way, it’s worth checking on the inventory of your local discount stores (Dollar Tree, Big Lots, etc.) fairly frequently because there can be big seasonal variations in what they stock. For instance, the Dollar Tree doesn’t have cloves or poultry seasoning all the time, but they do now. This may just be the stores upgrading their inventory, but it’s probably because this is the time of year people make pumpkin pie, gingerbread, and roast turkey.
Most spices and seasonings keep pretty well in unopened containers, so if you have the extra money and they’re something you’d use regularly, stock up on seasonally-available spices when they’re at their cheapest.
If you have the option, bulk herbs and spices are often much cheaper than buying the little jars. But find a little container with a tight-fastening lid to keep them in! Use old vitamin or prescription bottles if you don’t have spice jars. Seasonings retain their flavor much longer in reasonably airtight closed jars than they do in little plastic bags.
All come out to under $2/person under ideal shopping circumstances where I live (small city in western Washington), and even under less than ideal shopping circumstances, they should still be pretty cheap if you don’t live in a food desert. All menus have at least 600 calories and at least 20 grams of protein. (I was keeping track of calorie counts as a rough estimate of “will this reasonably nourish a full-grown human?” to make sure I didn’t drastically over or under-shoot, but these are not intended to be diet menus.)
South American (Andean): Peanut Soup (mashed potatoes, peanut butter, chopped onion, seasonings), salsa, hard boiled eggs, carrot sticks - Total: $1.17 Calories: 687 Protein: 28
Italian-American: Spaghetti with homemade lentil "meatballs" and cheese, cabbage salad (shredded cabbage and carrots with olives and Italian dressing) - Total: $1.25 Calories: 766 Protein: 35
English: Mushy peas, oven fries, carrot sticks, bananas and “custard” (flour, butter, and milk hasty pudding) - Total: $1.03 cents Calories: 812 Protein: 27 Lighter option: skip the custard sauce, sprinkle the banana with a little cinnamon sugar: Calories: 600 Protein: 21
Baked potatoes, lentil chili (lentils cooked with onions and seasonings), glazed carrots (with butter or margarine and brown sugar) - Total: $1.05 Calories: 738 Protein: 25 Lighter option: Plain carrots with a little soy sauce & herbs instead of butter and sugar.
Good brown stew (pinto beans, potatoes, carrots, onion, dumplings), homemade garlic toast - Total: 88 cents Calories: 800 Protein: 22 Lighter option: skip the garlic bread, have veggie crudites on the side.
Lentil meatballs and gravy over mashed potatoes, peas and carrots -Total: 93 cents, Calories: 804 Protein: 30
Chickpea stew with dumplings and vegetables (potatoes, carrots, onions, green peas), baked squash - Total: $1.65 Calories: 671 Protein: 22 grams
Indian: Curried lentils and vegetables (carrots, spinach, and potatoes) over rice, homemade chapatis - Total: $1. Calories: 686 Protein: 32
Central European: Lentil meatballs and gravy, boiled potatoes, sweet and sour cabbage (cabbage with apple, vinegar, and brown sugar) - Total: 94 cents Calories: 747 Protein: 27 grams
Split pea soup (with carrots and potatoes), savory cabbage (cabbage with sauteed onions and barbecue sauce), garlic bread -Total: $1.02 Calories: 708 Protein: 22.5 grams
Egg, potato, and onion omelet, broccoli with garlic butter, cheese toast - Total: $1.17 Calories: 668 Protein: 27 grams
Chili mac (macaroni, lentils, spicy canned tomatoes, cheese, onion), homemade coleslaw (raw shredded cabbage and carrots with sweet and sour mayo dressing) -Total: $1.30 Calories: 751 Protein: 32 grams
Tomato and pea soup, carrot sticks, cheese toast - Total: $1.33 Calories: 652 Protein: 29
Mexican: Spanish rice (rice with canned tomatoes and seasonings), savory pinto beans (pinto beans with onion and barbecue sauce), cabbage salad (raw cabbage and carrots with Italian dressing) - Total: $1.04 Calories: 783 Protein: 21
Indian: Curried split peas and carrots over rice, homemade chapatis, fruit salad (bananas, orange sections, a little cinnamon) - Total: $1.20 Calories: 702 Protein: 23
Italian-American: Pasta with mock alfredo sauce (pureed white beans, margarine, garlic powder), broccoli with herbs and cheese, garlic bread - $1.14. Calories: 775 Protein: 25
East African: Sukuma wiki (cabbage, fried onion, and spicy tomato stew with canned kidney beans) over mashed potatoes, peanut butter-sweet potato pudding - Total: $1.50 Calories: 722 Protein: 26
Macaroni tomato souffle (baked mac and cheese with canned tomatoes and beaten egg), peas and carrots -Total: $1.18 Calories: 796 Protein: 32
Homemade Bean loaf (made with pinto beans and lentils for the protein and oats for the starchy component), mashed potatoes and gravy, peas and carrots -Total: 90 cents Calories: 708 Protein: 26 grams
Breakfast for dinner (pancakes with bananas and cinnamon, scrambled eggs,fried potatoes, orange juice, milk) - Total: $1.18 cents Calories: 869 Protein: 27
Scottish: Burns Night: Homemade vegetarian haggis, neeps and tatties (mashed turnips and potatoes), mock cranachan (yogurt, toasted oatmeal, and jam parfait) - Total: $1.50 Calories: 882 Protein: 25 With one potato: $1.38 Calories: 752 Protein: 22 Using raspberry preserves instead of strawberry spread: $1.57, 872 calories
Indian: Punjabi dal (lentils and kidney beans in a creamy tomato curry sauce) on rice, fruit salad (banana and orange) - Total: $1.62 Calories: 732 Protein: 31
Italian: Pasta e fagioli (pasta, bean, tomato, and onion soup), garlic toast, broccoli with lemon butter - Total: $1.35 Calories: 826 Protein: 28
Thai: Thai Chickpea Salad (raw cabbage and carrot salad with canned chickpeas, peanut butter dressing, and crispy fried onions), Rice, Thai Iced Tea -Total: $1.17 Calories: 728 Protein: 25
British: Shepherdess Pie (vegetarian shepherd's pie with lentils and vegetables topped with mashed potatoes ), Cabbage-Apple Salad with evaporated milk dressing - Total: $1.80 Calories: 857 Protein: 31
Italian: Scallobeanie (Italian-seasoned bean cutlet, coated with egg and crumbs and sauteed), spaghetti marinara, cabbage salad - Total: 91 cents, 648 calories, 30 protein. With garlic bread: $1.05 Calories: 868 Protein: 33 grams
Cantonese-American: Tofu chow mein (tofu, ramen noodles, celery, onion), fried rice, fruit salad (banana and orange), green tea - Total: $1.80 Calories: 906 Protein: 26
Greek: Eastern Mediterranean Bean Cutlet (flavored with garlic, parsley, oregano, lemon pepper, and a touch of cinnamon), Greek salad (raw cabbage with diced canned tomatoes, olives, marinated tofu "faux feta," and Italian dressing mixed with lemon, garlic, and oregano), oven fries -Total: $1.74 Calories: 839 Protein: 34
Italian: Antipasto (homemade hummus (mashed chickpeas mixed with peanut butter, vinegar or lemon juice, salt, and garlic) and crackers, faux feta, marinated vegetables, olives), cacio e pepe (spaghetti with cheese and pepper) - Total: $1.24 Calories: 749 Protein: 26
Salvadoran: Red beans, pupusitas (fat homemade corn tortillas) with cheese and salsa, curtido (cabbage-carrot-onion slaw with a spicy vinegar dressing) - Total: $1.30 Calories: 694 Protein: 34
Italian-American: Fettuccini with golden vegetable sauce (based on carrots, canned corn, and evaporated milk), broccoli and kidney beans with lemon butter, fruit salad (apple and banana) - Total: $1.65 Calories: 845 Protein: 22
Sixties Counterculture: Hippie Bean Casserole (main ingredients are white beans, corn, tomatoes, and brown rice, topped with grated cheese and crumbs), mixed green salad (cabbage and carrots with sunflower seeds and Italian dressing), herb tea - Total: $1.41 Calories: 807 Protein: 31
Central European: Lentil balls with sauerbraten-style gingersnap gravy, fried potatoes and onions, green beans with buttered crumbs - Total: $1.28 Calories: 753 Protein: 28
Oatmeal cutlets, potato salad (with hard boiled egg, pickles, celery, and a mayo-based dressing), oranges - Total: $1.44 Calories: 841 Protein: 22
Italian-American: Bean cutlets pizzaiola (scallobeanie cutlet with canned tomatoes, basil, oregano, and garlic), broccoli and onions with lemon butter, garlic bread - Total: $1.48 Calories: 744 Protein: 27
French: Oeufs a la tripe (hard-boiled eggs and onions in seasoned white sauce) over mashed potatoes, carrots with maitre d’hotel butter (butter flavored with lemon, parsley, salt and pepper), poached pears (canned pears with vanilla and cinnamon) - Total: $1.46 Calories: 799 Protein: 25
Russian: Stringbean stroganoff (canned stringbeans and mushrooms in a sour cream and paprika-enriched white sauce over noodles), stuffed eggs, pickled beets - Total: $1.57 Calories: 743 Protein: 27
Indian: Chickpea and vegetable biryani (rice, chickpea, and vegetable casserole with a lot of Indian spices), raita (yogurt and vegetable salad), mango lassi (milk, yogurt, and mango nectar drink) - Total: $1.71, 739 calories, 26 protein
Norwegian: Norwegian beanballs (white bean based beanballs seasoned like Scandinavian meatballs) with milk gravy, parsley potatoes, sweet carrots, pickled beets - Total: $1, 871 calories, 28 protein
French: Crudités (carrot sticks and olives), Haricots Gratinées (French baked bean casserole - like a vegetarian cassoulet), Pommes Lyonnaise (fried potatoes and onions with parsley) - Total: $1.70 Calories: 809 Protein: 25
Persian/Iranian: Khoresht Gheimeh (Persian meat and split pea stew - using TVP for the meat here - flavored with tomato, onion, lime, and Persian spices), oven fries, pretty pilaf (rice with cinnamon, carrots, raisins, and sunflower seeds) - Total: $1.22 Calories: 761 Protein: 32
Fried wham steaks (bean cutlets with peanut butter, sesame oil, and brown sugar), with milk gravy, fried potatoes, fried apples and onions -Total: $1.49 Calories: 851 Protein: 28
Czech and Slovak: Halusky (buttered cabbage and egg noodles) with a fried egg, apple charlotte (apple and bread pudding served with evaporated milk) - Total: $1.23 Calories: 914 Protein: 25
Tex-Mex: Chili Non Carne (mixed bean chili with TVP, tomatoes, and vegetables), cornbread, carrot sticks - Total: $1.56 Calories: 743 Protein: 32
Indian: Indian Bean Cutlet with spicy tomato gravy, curried rice with peas - Total: $1.09 Calories: 749 Protein: 30
Moroccan: Vegetarian tagine (chickpea stew with as many veggies as you can manage and Moroccan spices) with millet, oranges, cinnamon cookies, mint tea if you have it - Total: $1.86 Calories: 840 Protein: 22
Norwegian: Fiskboller (white bean balls, seasoned like Norwegian fishballs) with gravy, hedgehog potatoes, buttered spinach - Total: 88 cents, 732 calories, 28 protein
Ashkenazic Jewish: Shabbos Dinner: Gefilte Physh (mock gefilte fish balls made with cornmeal and mashed potatoes), Tofu Brisket with vegetables (tofu pot roasted with vegetables and onion soup mix), mashed potatoes, Carrot and Raisin Tzimmes (carrots and raisins with butter/margarine, sugar, and lemon) - Total: $1.88 Calories: 936 Protein: 25
Roman Cena: Olives, Roman lentilburgers (lentil meatballs seasoned with pepper, garlic, soy sauce, mild curry powder, and grape juice) with fried onions and gravy, barley porridge, carrots with "wine and garum" (grape juice and soy sauce) - Total: $1.17 Calories: 676 Protein: 27
Victorian Dinner: Mock Turtle Soup (black bean soup) with egg, celery sticks, simple and delightful carrots (carrots and potatoes mashed together), baked apple with brown sugar, cinnamon, and evaporated milk - Total: $1.86 Calories: 866 Protein: 29
Dining In The Days Of Good Queen Anne: Savoy soup (cabbage and onion soup with dry toast croutons), fricassee of kidney beans (kidney beans stewed with fried onions), pickled beets, rich rice pudding (custard type rice pudding seasoned with nutmeg) Total: $1.28 Calories: 816 Protein: 27
Dining in the Middle Ages: Hanoney (scrambled eggs with fried onions), roasted root vegetables (carrots and turnips) with camelyne sauce (bread-thickened sauce with sugar, vinegar, grape juice, and sweet spices), oatcakes, perys en composte (canned pears in cinnamon and grape juice) Total: $1.85 Calories: 863 Protein: 25
Dining For Victory: Deluxe Woolton Hunt Pie (vegetable and lentil deep dish pie with oatmeal-thickened interior gravy and a potato-cheese pastry top crust) with gravy, cabbage and apple salad with evaporated milk dressing - Total: $1.71 Calories: 822 Protein: 25
Dining For Victory: Hamburg Deep-Dish Pie (lentil-TVP pie with tomato gravy and biscuit crust), Scalloped Carrots - Total: $1.02, 745 calories, 26 protein
Szechuan-American: Szechuan cabbage with tofu (cabbage and tofu with soy sauce, hot pepper, garlic, ginger, and vinegar), dandan noodles (ramen noodles with a sweet and spicy sesame-peanut butter sauce), rice, green or black tea - Total: $1.44 Calories: 911 Protein: 31
American Jewish: Happy Hanukkah!: Tofu brisket, potato latkes (grated potato pancakes) with sour cream and/or applesauce, french toast jelly donuts (jam sandwiches dipped in beaten egg and cooked like French toast) - Total: With sour cream: $1.55 Calories: 754 Protein: 28. With applesauce: $1.64 Calories: 754 Protein: 27
Forget the brisket, let there be latkes!”: 2 Latkes, french toast jelly donuts, sour cream AND applesauce - Total: 98 cents, 715 calories, 20 protein.
Egyptian: Hummus with flatbread (homemade chapati), mujaddara (lentils and rice with fried onions), Egyptian coleslaw (raw cabbage and carrots with a lemony sour cream dressing): Total: $1.47 Calories: 843 Protein: 33
American Southern: Oatmeal cutlets with milk gravy, butter beans (with sesame oil, brown sugar, onions, salt, and hot sauce), Southern-style greens (cabbage with soy sauce, garlic, red pepper, vinegar, salt, and hot sauce), cornbread - Total: $1.48 Calories: 894 Protein: 26
Louisianan: Red beans and rice with marinated onions, hors d’oeuvres (olives and celery sticks), Louisiana-style greens (cabbage with onions, garlic, red pepper, etc.) - Total: $1.22 Calories: 714 Protein: 21
South American (Andean countries): Locro (cheese and potato soup), salsa, ensalada de acelgas (cold cooked spinach with lemon juice and olives) - Total: $1.70 Calories: 754 Protein: 28
Shore Dinner: New England physhcakes (as Norwegian Bean Balls, but replace some of the oats with mashed potato and season like New England fishcakes), corn oysters (little pan-fried corn kernel fritters),sugar and vinegar coleslaw - Total: 99 cents, 744 calories (764 if you put catsup on your corn oysters), 27 protein
Store-brand cheap white bread can be kind of soggy and is really only good for making toast, and good bread can be unreasonably expensive. What to do?
Keep an eye out for sales and stock up. Bread goes on fairly often, in my experience, and it freezes well.
Find a bakery outlet store. They generally have good selections and are a lot cheaper than supermarkets. If it’s out of your way, buy a lot at once and freeze what you can’t eat immediately.
Learn to bake. Flour is cheap.
If you want to make yeast bread, however, you will need to find an affordable source for yeast, because buying it by the individual packet at the supermarket can get rather pricey (Trader Joe’s has the best prices I’ve seen so far). If you bake a lot, yeast by the jar is cheaper per loaf than yeast by the packet. Yeast is also a living thing which will grow and multiply under the right conditions, so if you know what you’re doing, you can make your yeast culture go further through judicious application of warmth, moisture, food, and time. (I have not personally tried this.) Yeast bread is time-consuming to make but not particularly finicky or complicated, despite the long sequence of steps. If you don’t kill the yeast, burn it, or put in salt instead of sugar it is hard to ruin yeast bread. If you like fancy health-foody multigrain breads, you can save a lot of money by baking your own, as well as being able to customize the recipes.
If you don’t feel comfortable with yeast baking or don’t have the time to wait around for bread to rise, invest in a box of biscuit or corn muffin mix, or try making quickbreads from scratch. If you like Indian food, chapatis can be made at home without special ingredients or equipment.
If you have allergies or other dietary restrictions, learning to bake can seriously increase your options. You can control the levels of sugar, fat, and salt in the recipe, and there are specialized baking mixes and flour blends available for people who can’t use wheat flour. (Bob’s Red Mill makes a low-carb baking flour and several gluten-free mixes.)
If you have average gardening skills and an average-size yard, you probably won’t be able to supply all or even most of your food with gardening, but it can still help you save money, especially if you’re a vegetarian or vegan. Because unless you’re really into quinoa and nut cutlets, the basic staples of a vegetarian diet - canned beans, peanut butter, lentils, rice, pasta, etc - are quite cheap. But you can spend buckets of money on fresh produce. And fresh herbs are even worse. It is quite possible to make a nice pot of chickpea stew where the herbs to season it cost more than the rest of the ingredients put together. With a little research, you can discover what expensive-at-retail crops are likely to do well in the ecosystem of your particular garden.
Small greens that don’t store well are probably always going to be overpriced at supermarkets, just because they don’t stay in salable condition for very long. But fortunately, that doesn’t matter if you’re picking them out of your own garden the day you want to eat them. Most of the small fancy salad greens are, in my experience, no harder to grow than lettuce, and in some cases they’re easier if you have the right climate.
Green onions usually are not terribly expensive in terms of first cost, but they’re still a bit extravagant when you consider how much actual food you’re getting for your money. If you have a friend who raises topsetting/walking onions, they would probably be more than happy to give you some bulblets to help you get started growing your own scallions. Walking onions are easy to grow, easy to propagate, and perennials, but they have one major flaw - after the flowering stalk comes up in early summer, they stop making new greens for the year. There may be a way to circumvent this, but I don’t know it. But still, they don’t take up much room in the garden and free green onions every spring are nothing to sneeze at.
Kale has a hipster/foodie reputation nowadays, but it got its start as a peasant green and if you live in a cool, mild climate it is hardy and easier to grow than heading cabbages.
So these are both “Aw Fuck I’m outta real food” meals BUT ALSO: if you’re learning how to cook, these are great “baby steps” meals to learn how to cook basics into something enjoyable without “wasting” anything expensive. Though I maintain that even cooking screw-ups are valuable in terms of lessons learned.
Also they’re great for when you get absorbed in something and you realize your blood sugar is dropping and you need to make something Quick.
Try looking for dry beans at your local discount grocery or dollar store, especially if you don’t live near a supermarket with a good bulk foods section. I’ve found cheap lentils and split peas at Big Lots and cheap pinto beans, black beans, red kidney beans, and great northern beans at Dollar Tree.
Something to be aware of with budget cookbooks and menus
Work out the calories. Not for anything to do with weight loss, but to make sure it has enough.
It’s easy to plan a healthful, varied, and delicious-sounding $4/day menu if you’re cooking for Stuart Little. Not all cookbook writers, in my experience, have made sure that their menus were sufficient for the needs of full-sized humans. (Either that, or they and their families have exceptionally efficient metabolisms.)
It can be very useful to keep non-perishable staple foods on hand, especially if your income is unpredictable. A little stockpile of dried TVP, dry pasta, canned tomatoes, frozen vegetables, powdered milk, etc. can be very handy if you’re short of cash or don’t have the time/spoons to go grocery shopping. Just make sure you eat it all up before it goes stale or the weevils get it. Some people (a lot of whom seem to be Mormons for some reason) get really into food storage and write whole books about it.
You can also preserve food yourself. This is probably not going to be practical if you’re really poor, unless you have well-equipped friends who can lend you equipment or freezer space, but it can be a lot of fun in a Little House Books sort of way and might actually save you some money.
Fresh produce is the big item for home preserving - mostly fruit, in my experience, but also vegetables and herbs. Home meat preservation is also possible, but I have never tried it and know nothing about it.
Fruit: Fruit can be canned, dried, frozen, or made into preserves. Freezing takes the least special equipment - you just need containers and a freezer - but it’s dependent on how much freezer space you have (the more applesauce and strawberries you have in there, the less room for frozen waffles and ice cream), and leaves your food supply vulnerable to prolonged power outages. Berries can be frozen whole, larger fruits should be sliced first. Be sure to label all frozen food containers with the contents and the date.
Unless you like playing MacGyver in the kitchen, you will probably need a dehydrator if you want to make dried fruit. There are many models of dehydrators out there - some fairly affordable and some decidedly not. Apart from the initial investment, home-dried fruit has a lot of advantages: it’s compact, it doesn’t take up space in your freezer or fridge, it’s simpler than canning, and you don’t have to worry about giving yourself botulism. Many kinds of fruit can be dried - in my experience figs, apples, Asian and European pears, strawberries, bananas, and prune plums work particularly well.
Home canning is pretty involved and you need special equipment (glass jars with proper canning lids and a canning kettle, at minimum), but if you do want to get into home canning, fruit is probably the best place to start. It’s a lot more forgiving than meats or non-acidic vegetables. Remember that canning involves cooking the fruit, so you’re not going to get a just-off-the-tree experience no matter how good at it you are.
Vegetables: Unlike fruit, most raw vegetables do not freeze well. (Raw onion is the major exception to this - if onions are very cheap and you don’t think you can eat them all before they go bad, you can chop them up and freeze them. You can also freeze sliced raw mushrooms.) For most vegetables, you want to cook them first. Cooked greens freeze very well, and if your garden has more kale than you want to eat right now, freezing is probably the best way to preserve it.
Dried vegetables were more popular in the pre-refrigeration era than they are today, but it’s still an option if you have a dehydrator. I’ve had good experiences with dried green beans (better texture than frozen, in my experience) and dried tomatoes.
Tomatoes and tomato products (like homemade spaghetti sauce) can be canned at home, but use modern government recipes. Modern tomatoes aren’t as acidic as the older varieties and you need to compensate.
Herbs: Many varieties of herbs can be dried, and you don’t even need a dehydrator for herbs - you can use the microwave or a hot car in the summertime. Rosemary, sage, thyme, any kind of mint, lavender, tarragon, marjoram, savory, and lemon verbena all dry well. Basil can be dried, but making it into pesto or blending it with some oil and then freezing it preserves the aroma better. The more delicate bouquets of chervil and lemon balm don’t come through drying very well and these herbs are better fresh, although you can make also make chervil into herb-oil goop and freeze it, like with basil. Chives do not freeze well in my experience - they get stringy.
Of course, if you’re a gardener with a surplus of cherry tomatoes, strawberries, sweet corn, snap peas, fresh basil, or any other seasonal delicacy, the best use for it is probably to share it with your non-gardening friends or the food bank, if your local accepts fresh produce donations.
