We are well below the poverty level.  Living with friends right now, in 
fact.

Suggestions for cooking, then?

68 responses total.

Good to see you online again!  The Jeff Smith series of cookbooks, probably
available at the libraty, is full of hearty peasant (poverty) food.  Also,
cookbooks for impoverised students, talked aabot in various othter items here,
are full of poverty level ideas.

Frugal Gourmet, eh?  I should have thought of that..

I'm sure you're also referring to "Help! My Apartment Has A Kitchen," 
but for my apparent laziness, could you list the others?

I would also appreciate anyone's recipes.  Some I've seen in the conf 
look marvelous, but some seem to have exotic (and expensive) 
ingredients I can't get, especially with foreign food.

Buy bulk through a buying club.  We get flour for about 1/4 what the local
coop is charging for it.  Don't buy prepared foods.  Eat oatmeal.  (Remember
when you visited us in Ann Arbor:) ).  Buy from local farmers - I think you
may be in a potato growing area.  Ask them if they have any that are not
pretty enough to sell to stores, cheap.  Get a bread machine.  Buy 50 pounds
of dry beans and soak them overnight before pressure cooking them.  

Buying bulk through a buying club is not an option here.

We can't really buy from local farmers much unless we buy carrots, 
really-- nearby Prosser is a national carrot growing area.

We have a bread machine, but our roomies ask that we buy bread from 
where the husband works.  They are lazy as far as cooking.

Things will be easier when we have our own place.

buying in bulk is only an option for those who have more than adequate storage
space.  For me, the cost per square foot of obtaining more storage space, is
far more than the amount I could save by storing bulk purchase of food.

Another option might be to seek our food service employment.  Most
restaurants offer their staff at least one meal a day when they are
working.  Do either of you have a job?  That might be the place to start
if you are both poor and hungry. 

Food does not need to be stored in a heated area - do you have a basement?
If there is a food coop in town they get deliveries from somewhere, and you
may be able to start your own buying club and buy from the same source.
Does your roommate work at a bakery?  If so, can you get day-old bread?
Three-day-old bread?  

We store our bulk food on the steps leading to the basement, in 4-gal jugs.
Grains, beans, flours, peanuts.  Cheap and filling.  Add carrots.

I have found that buying whole wheat pasta from the coop and putting 
powerdered garlic and olive oil on it makes for a pretty cheap meal. 
Cheese isnt too expensive either nor is canned marinara sauce. 

Homemade pizza is pretty cheap too. 

When I was working a min wage job, I found that I could eat pretty well 
as long as I didnt eat meat more than once or twice a week (it was too 
expensive). So, in that spirit, I would recommend a vegan diet as a 
good poor person's diet. During my poor years I ate a lot of pasta, a 
lot of beans and rice, a lot of oatmeal, etc.  

I'm pretty frugal...so these are staples in my diet.         

Bulk no-name brand cereal - if you have a Gordon food store check them out
Ramen noodles - $.20 at meijer 
Frozen Burritos - $.33 at meijer
dinner for two - (insert name of grocery store here) brand Mac & cheese.
no-name brand yougart - usually around $.50 to .75 a container.
Bananas - usually very cheap even when not on sale.            

I also always check the price-per-ounce listing on the signs when shopping.

Eprom sounds like the sort who does not like to cook ;)
We make our nwn noodles from durum flour, our cereal is oatmeal, I have made
corn tortillas from masa harina.

Meat is generaly cheaper than cheese - I think it's govt. subsidized.
If you want to save money on meat find a fish store or butcher and ask them
for the trimmings - fish bones from the fish filets are free here (pay for
the bag).  The parts left after making boneless chicken are also cheap.
Supermarkets often mark down somewhat old vegetables and fruit.

One thing to look into would be farm-style cooking, although I don't know if
there's any such cookbook.  Typically it involves trying to use as much of
the ingredients as possible, avoiding having to throw out things with
nutritional value.  

Example:  Cook meat in a skillet, and instead of throwing away the grease,
make gravy and use it on potatoes or as a sandwich spread.  Hard to say how
many such things are relatively doable in a modern kitchen with modern stuff,
but it's something to think about.  

Overall you can save some money with cooking, but really it's a drop in the
bucket compared to housing and transportation.  Being able to do basic car
maintenance and repairs is very useful; not only do you save on shop labor
but you also tend to notice things which need immediate attention and can
prevent more expensive repairs.  Maybe there's a local organization which
gives cheap/free car work classes.  Or maybe you could trade some guitar
lessons for car repair lessons and access to tools?

Speaking of things like guitar lessons... have you looked into making a little
money on the side that way?  A few years ago I noticed a really interesting
guitar in a new store which needed work, and ended up fixing it to see if I
wanted to buy it.  I didn't buy it, but I did end up occasionally doing other
repairs for the store.  Right now I'm trying to decide if I want to do that
kind of work on a half-time basis and spend some money on tools, since I'm
the best amp & electronics repair tech to have shown any interest.  And while
I was almost exclusively doing repairs on store items (it's a vintage
instrument store) it turned out there were regular service requests from
customers who were being turned away because there was no regular repair tech 
to make sure stuff got fixed in a timely fashion.  So check out the local 
music stores, and if they don't offer lessons ask why - maybe they were just 
waiting around for somebody who could actually teach (plenty of people can 
play, but not so many can be a good teacher) and was reliable enough to keep
a regular schedule.  And if there's demand, well, go with it.  You want to
teach professionally, right?  The business side might be a little scary at
first, but no worse than academia politics.

No-brand cereals are creeping up in price, but are still much less than 
their brand-name equivalents.  Rice krispies and corn flakes are really 
cheap.  I get the no-name Cheerios equivalent, which are usually about 
half the price of the name brand product.

What kind of stuff are you eating now?

Bulk food store oatmeal is cheaper than any no-name breakfast cereal.

Home-baked bread is *vastly* cheaper than fancy-bread-store bread.  
(That you had to buy, right?)  Can you split the savings with your
hosts ("paying cash for electricity for baking bread") to save some? 

Meat/fish/poultry is fairly cheap if you don't mind the least-wanted
stuff & don't expect to fill up on it.  (A nice $0.99/lbs. pork shoulder
roast is simmering as i type.  It seems to be the piece of the pig that
my favorite butcher can't get folks interested in buying.  Another local
store cuts whole salmon into salmon steaks - then sells the lots-of-meat-
but-no-cool-looks tails for $2.99/lbs. 

Eating cheap is 1 part penny-pinching attitude, 1 part on-the-cheap
cooking skills, and 1 part having the time. 

We receive foodstamps.  We are not really quite worried about budgeting 
that, as I bargain shop well.  We buy "no-brand" cereal, and we shop at 
a grocery store that keeps prices very low by staying less fancy as far 
as the store (think Safeway vs. some smaller-chain store) and they have 
you bag your own groceries. resp:9 yep, I always check the per/unit 
price, too.

Again, bulk is not a great option.  Our roomies insist on buying lots 
at a time, but space is a bit at a premium, as over 60% of our 
belongings are in their basement.

I may be making excuses as to the bread machine, but I have little time 
to do it.  Yes, the husband does work in the bakery of the grocery 
store where we shop at.  I doubt we could do day old bread because I'm 
sure the wife roomie wouldn't allow it.

Food service employment may not be the best idea right now.  I am 
really working on finding a living wage, and I have some good leads 
that might work.

resp:11 farm-style cooking.. well, I think the mention of "The Frugal 
Gourmet" might partially cover that.

I had a friend who helped me with car repair, but he moved out-of-state 
to go back to school.  Guitar lessons aren't really an option; I don't 
play well enough.  I'm just trying to figure out how to barter for 
lessons for myself.  If I had stayed with piano, I might be able to do 
that, but the honest fact is, I don't think I can compete.

I think I haven't been very specific.. I'm not really worried about 
budgeting and whatnot-- I need help with recipes and meal ideas.

(You don't have to be a super-whiz guitarist to give lessons - you have to
be OK [which I suspect you are], but mainly you have to have a great deal of
patience to teach 12 year-olds how to fret their very first chord.)

<sigh> Yep.

What sorts of things do you like to eat?  And how much time do you have to
cook?

I talked to Ann and she agreed to help me make bread in their machine.
Off the food subject, Julie is moving Sarah to cloth diapers part of the time.
On lessons, well, existing teachers tend to snap students up and I would be
teaching folk style-- hardly the popular choice of many young teens.

Julie and I are doing Lean Cuisine (and similar) type dinners right now to
make our new diet easier.  *sigh*  Eventually, I suppose I will be closer to
Sindi's suggestions; but I choose to make changes gradually.  A chunk of our
bankruptcy debt was eating out frequently when I was depressed (during my last
days of college, and shortly after, which were miserable). Cooking for 2-3
people is hard for me, and Ann is a picky eater; there are many veggies she
won't touch.

I think we may move out next month.. that will change things slightly.  More
things I can cook, but one less person-- I found cooking for 3 easier than
cooking for 2.

Maybe I'm being obstinate.

Cooking for two is much easier if you make enough to have a few days' worth
of leftovers.  And, uh, then you've got the added benefit of having a few
days' worth of leftovers. :)

I cook virtually all meals from scratch for just one (me).  What's the
problem?  If you count things like washing broccoli & chopping it into
an old plastic ice cream tub (free tupperware) and baking bread, most
of what i eat is leftovers.

resp:19 resp:20 that's part of the problem.. I don't always like to 
keep leftovers.

You might want to figure out what you could do to make leftovers more
appealing, if you're serious about saving money.  I don't mean change your
attitude, I mean look at which kinds of leftovers you like, and cook that
stuff more often.

Some things make much better leftovers than others.  Soups and stews reheat
well.  Rice reheats okay in the microwave oven.  Potatoes are okay if you make
them into some other dish (chop them up and fry them with onions).  Boiled
beans reheat just fine.  You can often take a leftover dish and incorporate
it in something else you are cooking to make it taste new.  I had some
leftover stir fried vegetables and I fried an onion, added tomato juice,
slivered cabbage, boiled until tender, and threw in the leftovers.

I used to like to make cassaroles out of leftovers. i.e. if I had chicken and
rice and broccoli for dinner, I would put the leftovers in a casarole dish
with cheese on top and then freeze it for a week. Then the "leftovers" never
really felt like leftovers. 

I paid the $4-5 at a Corningware outlet store for several 1 pint and 1 quart
Corningware pans.  They turn leftovers into planned overs.

You can either prepare normal 4 serving recipe, and cook it in two separate
pans, freezing one for later use.  Or you can prepare a dish, and line a
Corningware pan with foil, then freeze the contents.  In this case, you remove
the frozen package and store it without the pan.

In either case, the Corningware can stand the temperature differential of
being in a hot oven, or on a hot burner with frozen food inside it.  All the
convenience of 4 serving recipes, with two separate meals as the outcome. 
I keep 2 or 3 of these planned-over meals in my freezer.  They can pop right
into the microwave on those evenings I'm too tired to cook.  

So sort of like home-made TV dinners?  Nice.  I can definitely see how there
might be something off-putting about a big vat of leftover goop in the fridge.

I would like to learn more how to convert leftovers.

Hey, I was still hoping for a few recipes!

What sorts of leftovers do you generate?  Leftover bread is no problem, or
soup.

It hasn't been much of anything lately.  We've been eating Lean Cuisine 
and the like for dinner.  Husband roomie works grave and does not do 
dinner-- wife roomie eats at weird times, at best, one meal a day.  Not 
healthy at all.

Is there some reason you prefer not to cook your own dinner instead of buying
it prepared?  You could get better quality for less money.  Also these weight
watcher's things don't have much bulk and will probably leave you feeling
hungry.  When we took a visitor to Jim's relatives, his brother in law told
the visitor to be sure to eat two of them at a time as they were not filling.

Leftover conversion:  in my family, it's obvious this time of year.  The
loads of leftover turkey will become turkey sandwiches, turkey salads, & 
turkey & (also leftover) gravy over (reheated) mashed potatoes & stuffing.  
Lots of mashed potatoes left over means we'll see hash browns a bit later. 
Picking the turkey's remains clean indeed is an important job.  The least
desirable little scraps & bits become a seasonal little-extra-bonus-on-top
in the pet food bowl.  Leftover cookies & pies just come back as-is until 
finished off.  Rolls & breads come back once, then become bread crumbs for 
meatloaf.  The remains of fresh veggie snack trays (celery, cauliflower,
carrots, broccoli, mushrooms, etc. return in salads, then baked into a
quiche or casserole.  When there's lots of something that will freeze okay
(usually meat), some is frozen to come back mid-January or so. 

resp:30 au contraire, they work just fine.  One dieting tip says eat a 
King's breakfast, a Prince's lunch, and a pauper's dinner, so it's 
fine.  We are not vegetarians, so all of them have some kind of meat-- 
mostly chicken.

I have a hard time with preparation, Sindi.  I don't necessarily have 
tons of time and I just don't have the patience sometimes to cook for 
people that don't always wait or appreciate it much.  Or maybe I 
haven't gotten into a routine habit-- cooking is a big deal thing for 
me.. I really get into it once I do.  I like super quick, super 
simple.  Nuke it and eat it.  And I don't like cooking one night and 
eating the leftovers the following nights.  So I must be spoiled, I 
guess.

resp:31 I don't know why, but ugh.

The trick with leftovers is not visit them the next day.  But don't wait so
long they go bad, either.

You can also freeze them for a little later.

I just used the leftover mashed potatoes to make a vegetarian Shepards 
Pie.  YUM.

Jeanne is a very good cook. I KNOW!

   Cheater's Stew:

  1 to 1-1/2 # stew beef (the really cheap stuff)
  Seasoned flour (flour, salt, pepper, other spices to taste in a paper
bag)
   2 or 3 potatoes, cut in chunks
   2 or 3 onions, quartered
   Some carrots, cut in chunks
   Some celery stalks, cut in chunks
   Mushrooms (optional)
   Garlic to taste (optional)
   3-4 cans Franco-American Beef Gravy

   If it's not in pieces already, cut up the beef.  Put it in the bag
with the seasoned flour and shake it around.  Brown it and drain it.
Place the beef, vegetables, and gravy in a large pot and simmer, covered, 
at least until the potatoes are done.  The longer it simmers, the more
tender the beef will be.  

   It ain't fancy, but it's cheap and palatable.

I usually use beef bouillon for my stews.

Never heard of canned Franco-American beef gravy.

I should think that bouillon (just boil 1 cube per cup of water) would 
certainly be cheaper.  You can get giant containers ( I think 100 cubes 
or so ) for about $5.

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss