Poor Man's Diet

[Obev]

Lots of rice, eggs, vegetables, and the cheapest most unappealing mechanically recovered meat that you can legally obtain. Cook it all up in a pot, call it risotto, stick it in the freezer, enjoy at a later date. Om nom. Furthermore, nom.

[Ace-o-fire]

Give ya a hint on how to steal food from Panera Bread.

Call panera bread and bitch about how (Meal of your choice) was shit. say along the lines of it was cold or made wrong. Also use a common name like Dave, Jeff, Jake.

They will take down your name and what food you ordered and you can get when ever you choose for free. Only do it's bi weekly at rotating restaurant.

Also, i lucked out and i live buy a Italian bakery who makes pasta and shit. I would by pasta and just store it away and cook some up w/e i was hungry. I got a 10 pound bag for about 15$ that i'm just now half way through from 6 months later.

[Beckwin]

stir fry is great to make. you're basically throwing a bunch of stuff into a pan and cooking for 10-20 minutes. put it on some rice when you're done; really easy to get a couple meals for 5-6 bucks. good dish for vegetarian too.

1lb of meat or tofu
a bag of mixed veggies, or whatever you have fresh to chop up

seasonings:
-Hoisin sauce and chili garlic sauce: mix this at a 2:1 ratio; more chili garlic if you like it spicy
-Soy sauce
-whatever else you feel like. black pepper, cayenne pepper, ginger, hot sauce, PEANUT BUTTER (seriously, shit is awesome in stir fry. dries up the sauce though so you might want to add some water, extra soy sauce, or maybe some rice vinegar)


Fry the meat or tofu, add some powdered seasoning if you like. remove, then fry the veggies, add in the seasonings when they get done, then stir in the meat/tofu. make some rice to go with, or noodles. tip for rice: microwave it, just barely covering the rice with water. it's kind of a lazy man's steamed rice.

if you use tofu or a cheap meat, you can do this all for 5-6 bucks easy. should get you at least 2 big meals.

[SilverBreeze]

For a long time when I was first starting out, I would go to SAM's and buy one of those giant like 2 gallon bottles of fruit juice, and some frozen fruit and have a smoothie whenever I was hungry. They are really filling and the cost per is really low. Would also use to buy Wheat Thins to eat with this, don't ask me why, but they're healthy and they go well together. Eat a couple crackers then take a sip of your smoothie, it's cheap and it works, and you can suit the fruit to your taste no matter what your taste is. Also, remember bananas, they're good for you and no smoothie is a good smoothie without a banana.

Also, it's been said but the Crock Pot is a winner. I work 12 hour shifts and i can put something in pot at 5AM, come home at 5:30 PM and it's done. One of my favorites is rice, pinto beans, onions, bell peppers, jalepenos, with some browned ground beef and some sausage. I would make this on a Monday and eat it until Thurs/Friday whenever I got home from school. It's good stuff.

[Kyreth]

A decent meat sauce and pasta go a long, long way. Just the taste tends to satisfy.

Likewise, bacon may be fatty and salty, but it's the same deal. Crumble some into a meatless sauce, and it'll end up feeling like more of a meal.

I'm fond of getting those OMGHUGE bags of meatballs, and just using whatever sauces I have handy to mix up tastes.

Spices. There's a helluva lot in this world that feels much better eaten with some garlic salt or hot sauces, and that makes cheap relatively flavorless stuff a thousand times more palatable.

Late-day shopping at bakeries. A lot of places have end-of-day discounts, which means more for the dollar and less for them to toss at closing.

[Vigilia]

Have a good breakfast that'll fill you up for the day, oatmeal or porridge of some sort is the cheapest and healthiest alternative. If you have a microwave it's extra easy... take a breakfast bowl, put in porridge oats, enough milk to cover them all and then some and put into microwave for 2-5mins (until it tries to come over the edges). Throw in frozen fruits/berries if you like before putting it into the microwave, otherwise put your chosen flavorings on after (honey, chopped banana, whatever you like). It'll lessen your desire to snack as well hence cutting down on money put into chips, random choccy bars etc... If you really can't stand the taste of porridge then ignore this but try to find an alternative breakfast that's reasonably low in sugar and high in fibre. Your eating habits have a big say in saving money as well, snacking is expensive.

Pancakes are good too for breakfast but take more time, make them from scratch because they're ridiculously easy. Basic fluffy "American" pancakes for two: pint of milk, 2 eggs, self-raising white flour mixed in until you get that nice thick but still runny consistency. Add in a pinch of salt/sugar and a splash of vegetable oil for the frying pan. Self-raising white flour is a n00b baker's life safer and doesn't cost any more than plain white flour (at least here in UK). If you fancy Crepes/European style pancakes, use non-raising plain white flour so the pancakes keep flat and don't fluff up and use 1 egg instead of 2. My mum taught me the trick of making Crepes with very very finely chopped spinach thrown in to get kids to eat their greens without tasting it. This is assuming you're making crepes with a savoury filling like cream cheese, ham/bacon or scrambled egg etc. Crepes with savoury fillings make for quick and easy dinners too, you can throw in whatever you like, but nothing beats nutella+banana crepe.

Find a really basic cookbook, none of them celebrity chef bollocks ones that teach you how to make lemon custard flavoured haggis or some crap. Home Economics High School study books are probably the best ones that you can get as they'll show you how to do the most basic things.

Many others already said this but I don't think it can be repeated enough... buy foodstuffs in bulk. A huge sack of rice/potatoes/pasta costs a lot less than same amount in small bags. I don't know if you have them in the States, I assume you do, but Asian food shops are crazy cheap places to find basics for all kinds of cooking this side of the pond, especially rices, noodles and various sauces. You get 10kg sacks of rice for the price that local supermarket sells 500g for. Swap from brand names to shops' own brands. Do not fall into the trap of making many little trips to the grocery store. Make one trip a week and write a list of what you need before you leave the house and try your best stick to it. It's funny how easily doing 2-3 little trips a week you can spend twice as much as you would with just 1 big trip. Like the others said, learn to cook and don't buy ready made, ready made meals are usually really bad for you (high as fuck in fat, sugars, preservatives etc.) and expensive for what you're really getting. Eating healthy foods is cheaper than eating rubbish. You can get a big bag of apples for the price of a bag of sweets and the bag of apples will last you far longer (and you can make apple crumble or pie out of it too).

If you have a freezer, awesome. Buy frozen vegetables, frozen fish, chicken, meatballs, burgers etc. in large family-sized packets or 2 for 1 multibuy offers etc. They'll keep in freezer for months and you can take your time eating them. Aside from learning to cook, learn not to be squeamish about raw meat. For example a whole chicken is cheaper by far than ready sliced breast/thigh fillets. I buy a whole chicken, put it in the oven on a roast tin with some onion, garlic and spices over it for hour and a half and spend the next few days eating it in sandwiches, in risottos, and with salad. Or you can chop it up yourself, freeze in little freezerbags and then make stir frys or other yummies. If you do plan on cutting up your own meat while it's still raw invest in a very sharp knife and remember basic food safety... wash anything you used to cut it up in very very hot water/proper washing up liquid and preferably use a designated chopping board for raw meat only. It's not as hard as it seems, always remember to cut across the grain of the meat and not lenght-wise. Big slabs of sirloin that you cut your own steaks out of are also obviously cheaper than ready-cut and single-packaged. But yeah, chicken is the cheapest and simplest meat.

If you have any access to a garden or even a patio/balcony and it's in a sunny spot, buy a sack of cheap compost and some salad seeds. Put the sack of compost flat on the ground, cut long slits into it and sow the seeds. Keep moist and you'll get a summer-long supply of salad. Same for tomatoes, potatoes and many other things that you can just grow straight from a plastic bag and a little soil, but with salad and herbs like coriander, parsley and basil the cost of buying from supermarket vs. cost of growing them at home ratio is more worth it. Tomatoes and potatoes tend to be dirt cheap anyway and take longer to grow.. plus they need more attention and are picky about watering. Salad and basic herbs are up and ready in a couple of weeks. I had a variety of beer glasses brought home from pubs full of garden herbs growing in the student house I shared throughout my college years, added a lot to our pasta bakes to throw some fresh basil and parsley over it.

[Azalee]

Meat/Pasta sauce always works as someone said above.

Seriously, buying frozen meatballs an amazing thing to do, and you can use them for multiple things.

Making Meatball subs like I said above
Adding to pasta to make it more filling
I've even just microwaves meatballs then stuck them in a pan to brown them and glazed them with a bit of BBQ sauce... AMAZING as well, and full of meatyness. Haha. The frozen meatballs are nice because more often than not, they are pre-seasoned.

Also, buy a spice rack. It will turn bland foods into amazing, delicious foods.

[Obev]

chicken

My parents used to tell me how they could make a chicken last about two weeks when they were students, using every single bit of meat on it. As far as meat goes, buying it when it's about to go off is the best time: I hang around in the supermarket in the early evening until they lower the price of stuff because it'll be unfit for human consumption tomorrow. Then I buy a solid kilogram of prime beef steak for about £2.50. Go home, freeze it, thaw the pieces whenever you want to use them. Freezers are awesome.

On the topic of supermarket own-brand stuff, I was pleased today in the queue: the mother and daughter in front of me bought some ready-meals, pies and cat food, perhaps enough food to last them two days. I bought enough groceries for the next two weeks. Theirs cost £15, mine cost £13. Take that, capitalism!

[Iremire]

Peanut butter sandwich with 7-11 whole wheat bread.

Or. Stand outside the campus mess hall and ask people to swipe you in. That's how our school worked.

[Waef]

Kinda late to the discussion, but personally my favorite reasonably priced frozen pizza is the store brand stuff from HEB. It has a certain flavor that I suppose some people might find odd, but I really like the stuff. Digiorno is better though, but a lot more expensive.

But anyway, I'm not living on my own yet, so I haven't had to cook much for myself yet. Although this thread is giving me good ideas. :D

[Vade]

Kroger has the best self rising frozen pizza ever...Only about 3.50

[finalwolf]

grate some cheddar cheese
lettuce
tomatoes
black olives
salsa if you like
flour soft shell or crunchy corn shells.

cooking the potatoes:
scrub the outside, leave the skin on, dice into cubes.
put into a pot with water and boil, usually takes around 20-30minutes.
want the potatoes to be cooked, edible, and soft, but not to soft that it would easily break apart if lifted.

drain the potatoes.

in a frying pan, put some oil and place the potato cubes in it. while the potatoes are cooking, add some garlic powder, not a lot and add cumin powder. Cumin powder is very aromatic, but not as strong in flavor, need to sprinkle cumin all around.
Let the potatoes fry until nicely brown on sides (doesn't have to be all sides), they are crispier this way.
i use the brown paper bag method of draining excess oil from the cooked potatoes.


~a recipe I gave to a fellow ls member