Quick Inexpensive Meals

[Mistinguett]

Here's my two cents.

Peas - dump a package of frozen peas in a little boiling water (per package instructions, but boil for a couple of minutes less); saute an onion, add 1 small can tomato sauce, 1/4 cup water (or stock if you have on hand), salt and pepper, and (optional) 1 teaspoon sugar and 1 teaspoon white vinegar. (If you have any leftover chicken, you can add it now). Drain the peas and dump into sauce, let boil for 2-3 minutes. Add a good amount of chopped dill (1 teaspoon if dried, more if fresh) and serve. All about 20 minutes.

Beans mezze style - I use Goya butter beans.

Brown an onion in 2 tablespoons olive oil with a pinch of paprika.

Pour the beans in a blender (or if you use a stick blender like I do, in a bowl) add a garlic clove per can of beans and salt and blend until creamy. When ready, top with the browned onion and the oil.

[pjs]

Several months ago I raided my mother's cookbook shelf, which was full of perfectly good, never-used cookbooks she probably obtained through the Book of the Month Club.  Among these books were two of Pierre Franey's 60 Minute Gourmet compilations.  Each page is a reproduced column from the NY Times, in which he gives a main course and a suggested side, usually for about four people.  And these cookbooks might be a little long in the tooth, but I've tried a bunch of things from the first volume and they really work.

While it's true the recipes in Franey's first 60 Minute volume have become somewhat dated--the butterfat in some of them is scary by today's standards--this book is still a classic. Almost every recipe will deliver more than you expected due to the sound technique explained and primal ingredients requested.

My 14th printing of the original Random House is the most worn-out and stained book in my collection. It's nice to see it has been reissued after about ten years of it being unavailable.

But don't take mine or Seth's word. Look it up on Amazon. There are currently 12 customer reviews. One is a three-star. The other 11 are all fives.

PJ

[mixmaster b]

Cheap and fast can be a tough combo. Cheaper cuts of meat usually need longer cooking, and the dried beans, which are almost free, take a while, too. I am considering the crock pot option--I love long cooked stuff, and there have been some great thread/recipes here.

A few more ideas:

Couscous (the instant kind) is fast and cheap. A very nice Moroccan spiced veggie stew can be made quickly as a topping: some carrots (use halved "baby" carrots for the quickest result), chopped onions, canned tomatoes, spices (garlic, ginger, cumin, cinnamon, tumeric, lemon zest), simmer till carrots are tender, then add some green beans, a can of garbanzos, and let the green beans cook. This works with almost any veggie--turnips, carrots, frozen beans, canned artichokes--and all the spices actually make for a nice comforting dinner. I did this last night, and fried up some merguez sausage. For 4, with leftovers, was about 45 minutes.

Couscous can also be thrown into a soup as a thickener at the end: I like thinly sliced onion, carrot, mushroom, sauteed in evoo, add some chicken broth, simmer for a few minutes, then add couscous and some chopped parsley.

Instant polenta is good, too. Tomato sauce, sauteed bitter greens, Italian sausage. This is fast if you make your own tomato sauce, and jarred sauce would make it really fast.

Anne Willan has a quick cookbook, and I make a minestrone from it: sautee onions and garlic, add canned tomatoes, beans (cannellini) , and stock. Simmer till heated. You can throw in some bitter greens or zucchini for your greenery, along with some basil or parsely or oregano. Serve with pasta that has been cooked seperately. (You can throw the pasta in the soup too cook, but if there are leftovers the pasta gets all mushy.)

And pork tenderloin loin is my pick for fastest and cheapest cut of meat.

[Mottmott]

Cheap and fast can be a tough combo. 

Everyone is coming up with wonderful suggestions that put the lie to the old whine, "who has time to cook?"

I suggested confining this thread to relatively inexpensive meals so that everyone could afford most of them. A nice thick porterhouse, steamed lobster, etc., can be quick but not necessarily suit everyone's pocketbook.

[Mistinguett]

Polenta - here's another fav dish, inexpensive and fast.

Make a small pot of polenta, and while still hot layer in a small bowl like this: polenta, feta cheese, polenta, cut up ham (or browned bacon if you wish), polenta and an egg sunnyside up - broil for a minute and serve.

Another polenta dish - scoop some polenta in a small bowl, make a well with the back of a spoon, place some sour cream in the well. Grate feta cheese over and serve.

[memesuze]

on my last supermarket trip, the "reduced price produce" shelves had packages of red and green bell peppers for something like 39¢ a pound.  Most went into the slow cooker with sliced onion, garlic, and a little oil, and came out as 10 jars of piperade

I tried making the piperade in my slow cooker yesterday - about six hours on low - tastes good, but quite a lot of liquid. Is that the way it was supposed to turn out? Could you give more exact directions in terms of low or high, about how long it takes, and what consistency to expect?