Cheap Eats

[Saffy]

Well, yet another payday and I can see that the budget is going to mean some penny pinching again this month.

I have quite a number of things in my repetoire that don't cost a lot to make, but would love to hear other peoples favourites for eating cheaply.

Living in NZ our quality of food is really good, but unfortunately it can also be pretty expensive.

just as an example. chicken breasts - $16.00 a kg

tomatos $7.00 a kg at the moment

milk $3.25 for 2 lt

cheese $8.00 a kg

It was interesting .. I went through a " feed your family of 4 for $100 a week " list the other day - it was on an american website and worked out how much their $100.00 list would cost me to buy. It was $254.00.

Sooooo any and all cheap eating ideas welcome!

My family of 5 thanks you in advance.

[tommy]

for the budget conscious, whole chickens are definitely the way to go. if you buy breasts, they charge you and arm and a leg, and you don't even get the arm or the leg.

[jhlurie]

Jason has at least MET Bill Gates. Maybe we should ask him!

[Ron Johnson]

for the budget conscious, whole chickens are definitely the way to go.  if you buy breasts, they charge you and arm and a leg, and you don't even get the arm or the leg.

And, the chicken arm is my favorite part!

[maggiethecat]

One of our money-challenged faves is the "Musakka'a" from the old Time-Life "Food of the World" series, a collection of books and recipes that have stood up amazingly well over the last 30-some years since they were published.

Saffy, I'm not sure about Kiwi food prices...I can always find cheap eggplant here in Chicago. And we have subbed half canola/half olive oil when things were really tight and it was still good. It makes a monster amount, especially when served over rice. And our (few)veg friends like the no-meat thing.

I don't know your children's eating preferences. But even at her pickiest, mine always liked this. And it's even better the next day, cold from the fridge, on a piece of bread. Standing up.

Musakka'a

1 1/2 cups chickpeas (I just buy the big can)

Olive oil

about 2 lbs. (sorry, 1 kilo!)eggplant, cut in 2 inch cubes

3 medium onios, cut in 1/4 in. slices

1 T. salt

Pepper

4 cups chopped, drained, canned tomatoes

1 1/2 cups water (sorry, not feeling smart enough to do the metric conversions!)

Oven at 400. You'll need a casserole thing that can also sit on the flame.

-Get about 1 inch of OO really hot. Brown the eggplant and remove. Transfer them with slotted spoon to casserole and spread in even layer.

-Brown and soften onion slices in the OO. Spread them and their cooking oil in a layer over the eggplant. Add an addiotional 1/4 c. OO over the onions. Add 1 t. salt.

-Spread chickpeas in layer atop onions.

-Cover with tomatoes, the remaining 2t. salt and lots of pepper

-Add the water. Bring everything to a boil on top of stove, then bake about 40 min, until eggplant is very tender. (Don't cover it)

Eat when it reaches room temp. Lots of bread to mop up the sauce and oil is good.

[stagis]

Think rice, in all its flavors...Risotto, even with a touch of wine, garlic and olive oil doesn't cost anything to speak of....

Pasta? With butter, veggies, whatever.

A roasted chicken makes a fine soup the next day and leftover meat goes into a pot pie...

Whatever's on sale becomes the week's menu.....

[snowangel]

Cheap eats are familiar here, too! I'm now a stay at home mom (for variety of reasons), so we have scaled back on the food budget. Beans, whole chickens, potatos are key.

Beans are great. I have several standby's -- chili (you can either go meatless or stretch a 1/4 k. of ground beef a long way). I have one of marcella Hazan's books, and I do her bean/pasta and lentil soups frequently. Refried beans (I do them myself) on tortillas with some chopped up tomatos and a minimal sprinkling of cheese. I also make casseroles by layering tortillas, beans, tomatos simmered with cumin, etc.

Chicken. Buy them whole. I take the breast meat off immediately, and then cook the remainder of the bird in water with onions, and whatever (stock). I usually use the breast meat for stir fries (served over rice). I use stock for soup, and include a bit of the chopped up chicken. The rest of the chicken meat goes for other stuff -- casseroles, chicken salad (I really "beef" mine up with a ton of vegetables), quesidillas (sp?). I do always keep cheese on hand, but tend to use it almost more as a garnish than an ingredient (sometimes all the kids want to do is pick the cheese off).

Frittata. I assume that eggs are not terribly expensive, and with frittata, one can really stretch eggs. It is a great way to use up leftover cooked potatoes, leftover cooked veggies, veggies in the bin that need to be used up, etc.

And, assuming that you don't fix fancy breakfast every day of the week, pancakes or waffles can be a great dinner.

Potato leek soup is also very inexpensive. I buy big bags of potatos, which are very inexpensive, and I can get a huge, beautiful leek for US$1.00. I do it ala Julia Child, with water, not stock.

For soup flavorings, I get bacon ends from our butcher. They are quite a bit cheaper than bacon and the flavor is so intense in the local butcher bacon ends that a little go a long way.

On the soup front, I will admit that when I worked full-time outside the house, I used a bread machine all the time. It didn't make the greatest bread, but it was warm when we got home, and the house smelled great. I would doctor up the recipes with spices and herbs according to what kind of soup/stew we were having, so what they lacked in texture was made up for in taste.

Don't forget baked potatos, split open, with a bunch of stuff on them. Leftover meat, veggies, whatever. A bare sprinking of cheese.

Pasta. My kids are often happy with plain buttered pasta and a salad. If you can add a sprinkle of grated romano, that makes it even better.

I'm happier when we don't totally do away with "luxury" items -- like good romano. I've just learned to use them sparingly. Chinese makes good use of very little meat, and you can usually use whatever veg is in season and/or on sale, and rice is usually reasonable.

I noticed the price of tomatos you quoted. Since we are past growing season, I am more pleased with canned tomatos, which I often roast to give additional flavor to dishes.

Salads are a given at our meals, but they may vary from tossed greens. Depends on what looks good and what is reasonable.

I also noticed that it helps to have a dessert. I get creative with this, and have become a big fan of the "reduced for quick sale" fruit bin. Banana muffins, pies with fruit that are past their shelf prime and usually wonderful for dessert. As long as I don't include a lot of sugar in dessert, I don't mind offering it -- it is a good way to get fruit in them when what is available (as we head into winter) is not really very good anyway.

[Suzanne F]

As Snowangel mentioned in all her excellent information: beans. Especially rice and beans. It takes only onions, garlic, and chilies, plus some dried herbs, to flavor beans. If you want, it only takes a little bit of a highly flavored sausage (chorizo, even kielbasa!) to fool everyone into thinking they're eating meat.

By all means, troll the "reduced price" bins. Usually there's plenty of usable product left once you trim away the nasty bits. And you're lucky, your store might even reduce the price on "last day of sale" meat.

And soon it will be summer, with fresh vegetables!

[Kiz]

John Thorne's Pasta with a Fried Egg is a great quick, cheap dinner. You can mix in nearly anything you have -- I'll use pesto when I have some, or just garlic and red pepper flakes if that's all that's in the kitchen.

[torakris]

Oh, a topic very dear to my heart. I am also a stay at home mother with a family of 5 and it seems that my husband's salary is less and less every month. I try to keep our monthly food bill under $500 US, and preferably under $400 and let me tell you in Japan it is really hard.

You really have to tailor it to your country, your season, and the sales at your supermarket.

For me , the things that are cheap in the US are outrageous here, examples:

10 kilos of rice $40+ (and this is our staple!)

100 grams of beans $4.00

2 kg whole chicken $12 (I can buy 2kg of breast for $5.00 and 2kg of thighs for $7!)

ground beef 100g for $2.50

So I focus on what is cheap here and shop only at sales, I have also found that planning a menu a couple of days to a week in advance helps avoid wasting food and enables me to use leftovers creatively.

I also try to put a limit on how much I spend at one meal, I usually cap dinner at $10 and so if on one day we only spend $5, the next day I feel OK to go up to $15.

It can be really frustrating at times because I love to cook and eat and would like to prepare more "gourmet" foods, but I I always stock a couple pricey stples that I find important, romano , good cheddar, and a gorgonzola, kalamata olives, sun dried tomatoes, dried porcinis, etc.

[Saffy]

It looks like I am not the only one out there that loves good food and has to produce it on a tight budget!

We do eat a lot of beans, lentils, rice, pasta and potatos. We are lucky enough to have a good sized vege garden where I grow lots of herbs and organic veges.

The bulk of them are just not quite big enough to pick at the moment. I have tons of swiss chard and celery right now, but not much else. Lettuce and spring onions are a few weeks away yet. But it certainly makes a difference to our food bill when the garden is in full swing!

We are big on desserts in our house too, they help fill up those little corners and a little fruit can go a long way.

I will definately try the Musakka'a. Many of the other things we make already, although Frittata was not something that I had thought of. So I will give that a try this week. We have tons of eggs and get them for free from a friend that has an egg/poultry farm, which is wonderful. There is never any shortage of eggs in our house.

Torakris I can only imagine how expensive things must be in Japan. We had a Japanese exchange student for a while, and he was always saying how cheap everything here was in comparison.

Tonight I think we will be having a fish pie, since there is some fish in the fridge at the moment, teamed up with some tabouleh. I always try to have bulgar wheat and couscous in the cupboard, since they can be made to go a long way without too many additionsl to make them interesting.

Torakris, like you I find it frustrating, I love to eat well, and sometimes I just wish I could hop down to the local store and pick up some salmon steaks, or a bag full of mangos without worrying about the cost. But I guess we just have to make the most of it and cook and think creatively

Thank you everyone for the suggestions and inspiration

[Saffy]

Refried beans (I do them myself) on tortillas with some chopped up tomatos and a minimal sprinkling of cheese

Snowangel would you mind sharing your refried beans recipe? I have one here but I have never been all that happy with it. My family all have fire proof mouths and love things nice and spicy!

The recipe I have here just does not seem to have enough taste, easy to increase the heat with more chili, but there is something lacking in the flavour. :/

[snowangel]

Although I've tried cooking the beans (I use dried ones) with various things, I think the real flavor comes when I fry them. Once the beans are cooked, I mash them up (leaving a bit of water in them) with a masher (I don't like them totally pureed). Then, I start by sauteing some chopped onions. Once that's sort of done I add chopped garlic, cumin (I use both ground and seed), chili powder and some crushed red pepper. Be careful that you don't burn the red pepper. Then, add the beans and cook for a while, adding more water if necessary. Lime juice is nice, too, and salt is important. I don't salt the beans when I am "hydrating" them, just when frying them. It is best if you can use some kind of animal fat, but if not, use vegetable oil. For some reason, olive oil isn't appropriate. Play with this a bit -- I don't have a hard and fast recipe, but I think that frying the spices -- enough so that they are fragrant -- is key. At the end, I add some hot sauce (I prefer Cholula). I've also experimented with making my own chili powder with toasted dried mexican chiles and some paprika.

[Rachel Perlow]

I found a lot of recipes on Epicurious.com with eggs as a main ingredient. Being that they are free to you, here's a bunch of things that sound good to make with eggs:

Appetizers/Hors d'Oeuvres/Side Dishes/Misc:

• Deviled Eggs (lots of recipes for various Stuffed Eggs)
  Homemade mayonaise, aioli, salad dressings
  Cheese Puffs
  Yorkshire Pudding
  Corn Pudding
  Spoon Bread
  Spaetzle
  Latkes
  Kugel
  Popovers
  Fried Rice
  Fritters - pancake batter with any kind of cooked veggies, fry by the spoonful
  

Main Dishes:

• Frittata
  Strata
  Tortilla Espanola
  Omelets
  Crepes, pancakes
  Fried Eggs, over easy, etc.
  Shirred, scrambled, coddled
  Hard Cooked: Egg Salad, add to liver pate, down the center of a meatloaf, grated onto vegetable salads
  Souffle - Any kind of Cheese
  Soups - Egg Drop, Tomato Soup with Poached Eggs, Garlic Soup, Avgolemono
  Egg Foo Yung
  Vietnamese Egg Casserole
  Japanese Tomago (rolled omelets) for sushi
  Quiche
  

Desserts:

• Zabaglione
  Creme Brulee
  Custard - tarts, pies
  Flan
  Meringues
  Pavlova
  Floating Island
  Sponge Cake
  Angel Food Cake
  Lemon Curd - cookies, pies, tarts, pastry filling
  Pots de Creme
  Baked Alaska
  Souffles - Chocolate, Lemon
  Semifredo, Gelato, French Ice Cream, Frozen Custard
  Bread Pudding
  

[torakris]

Last night I had one of those super cheap-o dinners. My husband had a late meeting so it was just me and 5 children (my 3 and 2 I was babysitting for). We had

bow tie pasta 500g $.55 (68yen)

with tomato sauce with bay leaves and garlic and tuna

3 cans of (400g) whole tomatoes $.55 each(68 yen each)= $1.65

garlic and bay leaves about $.50

can of tuna about $1.00

dessert

apple crisp

with apples given to me by a friend

about $1.00 for the topping

Grand total = $4.15

[Saffy]

Thank you Rperlow!! I use the epicurious site a lot and I never actually thought to look for egg recipes.. sometimes I am a bit slow!

[Saffy]

I found another lovely cheap dinner recipe last night

for a vietnamese chicken salad.. very tasty and uses cabbage as the base cabbage seems to be one of those veges that is eternally cheap here.