#cooking while poor

[dduane]

Petersfield Bookshop on Twitter

“This book is in about a hundred pieces and can only be thrown away but before that happens I feel we should all rejoice in the cover.”

Off this thread at Twitter (glances at @petermorwood) We need to do an investigation into / celebration of books for Cooking When/While You’re Poor.

ETA: if you’ve got a recommendation to be included here, please mention it in the comments.

(Disclosure: As freelance writers, we have [singly and jointly] not only [repeatedly] been poor, but are sometimes poor now. [shrug] To quote John Watson: “It’s never dull.”)

[glitterandsalt]

How I make food:

Cook meat, throw in pot

Open can of homemade salsa, can of hot tomato sauce, can of beans, can of corn - pour them all in pot

Throw chili seasonings in, mix well & simmer for however soupy or thick you want it to be.

I chopped up half an onion and threw it in for more vegetables. Also had to throw in some ketchup and lime juice to cut the firehotburning spice level.

BOOM DONE

I'm still gonna have to throw in some cheese and sour cream when I eat this. And maybe a few glasses of milk to help me get it down without sweating through my clothes but its fucking delicious to me.

[dragon-knight1990]

So my girlfriend is making "coffee pot" ramen. I'm not sure if I should be concerned or not. Side note: our stove in the apartment doesn't work.

[kathleenbrook]

So tomorrow is Food Day at the Brook House, and things have been a little tight for the past day or so. (This is actually good, there have been months when we didn’t budget right and ran very low a week early) A quick inventory turned up frozen hamburgers, pasta, and plain tomato sauce. A quick google visit told me how to cook pasta right in the sauce (add water once you’ve got your sauce tight and let it cook uncovered for a few minutes), and I threw together a pretty damn good Not Hamburger Helper. I am proud of myself. And no longer hungry.

[meditationsonpoverty]

Foodbank recipes time: Cheesy potato soup

I got this big bag of frozen seasoned potato wedges from the food bank once.  I don't know why I grabbed it.  It was one of my first visits, and I felt like if I passed something up, I was being ungrateful.  So it sat in my freezer for a long time, and then I was told I needed to start clearing out the freezer to make room for Thanksgiving stuff.

I really didn't want to bake them and eat them as is.  So I looked up recipes for potato soups and eventually came up with an idea.

Forgive me, but I don't measure anything for these recipes.  I just put some water on to boil and threw in some vegetable bouillon, onion powder (didn't have any real onions), and whatever seasonings I thought might be good (just a little, since the potatoes are already seasoned).   I cooked the potatoes in the microwave for just a minute so I could break them into smaller pieces and put them in with the broth, then added some vegetarian meat crumble alternative.

I brought it to a boil and then cooked it on medium heat for about half an hour.  My plan had been to thicken it with some flour and milk, but whatever they used to season the potatoes thickened the soup (there were no ingredients on the package).  So I just turned down the heat and stirred in the cheese.  I didn't need to add any extra salt or seasoning at the end because what was on the potatoes was pretty strong.

It was a very thick, slightly spicy, hearty soup.  I wished I'd had some broccoli when I made it (I didn't think of that until after I started).  I have to eat it with a salad or it sits to heavily in my stomach.  But it made up enough soup to last me the week!

[meditationsonpoverty]

Because I had a bad weekend: let's just talk about cooking today

My employers had a bunch of portabella mushrooms that they hadn't gotten around to using.  The use-by date was two weeks ago, and they looked kind of sad, but not like they'd gone bad.  So I made mushroom noodle soup.  Which I think is a great way to use mushrooms that look a little icky (as they often seem to from the food bank).

I just filled up a pot of water and chopped up the mushrooms.  I had some dried shitaki I could add too.  Then I simmered it all for a couple of hours to get a nice mushroom broth.  When I'm ready, I boil whatever pasta I have in it and throw in some salt and whatever else sounds good (rosemary this time).

I haven't mentioned this before, but I'm as vegetarian as I can be (it can be hard to be 100% vegetarian on a budget).  I added some fake meat stuff to my soup

I theorize that cooking the mushrooms that much will ensure there's nothing on them that will make me sick.  Haven't gotten sick yet!  I have had a huge aversion to throwing out food for a loooong time, so I eat a lot of things I think most people would throw out (or donate to food banks, apparently).

[meditationsonpoverty]

Cooking while poor

I meant to talk about this more.  I'm used to cooking healthy, tasty meals for myself and I want to continue doing that.  Fortunately for me, my job gives me time to cook, and the house I live in has a fridge and big freezer so I am able to store food.  I also have good friends who like to give me things like veggies from their gardens (and the friends I live with give me leftovers a lot).

But it used to be that I could find a recipe I liked, then go out and buy all the ingredients, and cook up a storm.  Now, I can't really just go buy a bunch of stuff every time I want to cook.  I need to work with what I have and can get cheaply.  So I figure I'll write about the meals I put together.

Like I said, I'm lucky in a lot of ways.  Not everybody living in poverty has the access to fresh fruits and vegetables that I do, not everyone has the space to store food so they can't buy in bulk and save money in the long run, and not everybody has jobs which give them time to cook.  Hell, there are plenty of people living in poverty who don't even have an oven.  I am blessed and privileged in a lot of ways. 

That said, here's the first recipe I made up:

Frozen chard (leftover from when I got a bunch of greens from someone that I couldn't eat right away, so I blanched and froze them)

Tomato sauce (actually pizza sauce, leftovers from my friends' dinner the night before)

Parmesan (left over from when it was on sale last week and I made alfredo)

Fresh tomatoes (they were on sale)

Dried mushrooms (also on sale, have had them in the cupboard for a while)

Bouillon cubes (or whatever broth you have)

Mix the broth, dried mushroom, tomato sauce, and frozen chard.  Bring to a boil and then simmer for about 30 minutes.  Season with whatever sounds good to you (I had pepper, basil, oregano, and parsley). Add the fresh tomatoes near the end and cook until heated through.  You might need to add salt to taste depending on how much is in the broth.  Serve it in a bowl with the cheese sprinkled on top!

It's super delicious.  The mushrooms weren't strictly necessary, I just like mushroom broth. I figure I could make this with any kinds of greens, any kind of tomato sauce, and probably mozzarella cheese would have worked too.