/ck/ - Food & Cooking

[Anonymous No.4884406]

So here's the deal /ck/.
I'm in a volunteer group, and one of their projects is to show how hard it is to live solely on food stamps.
I'm not too keen on that project, but they do a lot for blind people, and my father happens to be blind and they gave him a seeing eye dog for free, so I'm not complaining.
So their project is this. You're given 30 dollars and you need to eat for a week on that. You can't eat food that's in your house, and you can't bum food off of a friend.
I'm no wonder chef, so I'm coming to you guys in hopes that you can assist me and give me recipes for cheap meals.
I got breakfast mostly covered, I'm more looking for dinners.
Pic related is something I'll be making for sure.

[Anonymous No.4884422]

>wasting precious limited funds on bread

Have fun starving.

[Anonymous No.4884427]

>>4884422
That's why I'm asking for help, man.

[Anonymous No.4884433]

>>4884406
rice and beans

[Anonymous No.4884440]

>>4884406
This shit is ridiculously easy to do.
you have an aldi's near you?

[Anonymous No.4884442]

>>4884440
Yes, there's one a few miles out.

[Anonymous No.4884445]

>>4884406
go to mcdonalds like other poor people

[Anonymous No.4884451]

>>4884445
If you want to make it as easy as possible, do this.

If you want to cook at home I think canned vegetables are fairly cheap. Also look for deals/sales and go to Aldi's like the other guy said.

[Anonymous No.4884453]

bbq pulled pork sandwiches, keeps me fed for 3-4 days at the cost of around 10-12 dollars. a 3 1/2 pound pork shoulder costs me about 8 dollars at the market

[Anonymous No.4884460]

>>4884453
That sounds pretty nice, I'll see if I can get a decent price on them.

[Anonymous No.4884472]

>>4884406
Don't forget to record energy usage as well.
Some food is very cheap but the long cooking time can actually push the price up by a surprising amount.

[Anonymous No.4884473]

>>4884406
gallon container of mashed potato flakes from Sa's Club is like 5 bucks. So is a 10 lb bag of parboiled rice.

you could also buy a few bags of dried klushki noodles and cook them with water and chicken bullion cubes.

[Anonymous No.4884481]

Chicken breast
White Rice
Veggies

Cook the rice, bake or sautee the chicken in a sauce, steam the veggies

[Anonymous No.4884509]

Whole chicken/s (tastier, cheaper than breasts)
Brown Rice
Frozen broc/spinach/peas, onions
Eggs
Oats

Should be allowed to use spices/salt.

Easy as fuck.

[Anonymous No.4884528]

>>4884406

Toast.
Scrambled eggs on toast.
Beans on toast.
Baked potato and beans.
Vegetable curry and rice.
Sausages, mashed potato and gravy.
Vegetable egg fried rice.

Look for foods you can buy cheaply and use in several different meals.

>>4884422
>wasting precious limited funds on bread
>>4884422

Bread is incredibly cheap and be used in several meals.

>>4884451
>If you want to cook at home I think canned vegetables are fairly cheap.

Frozen vegetables are usually cheaper when you measure cost per pound.

>>4884473
>gallon container of mashed potato flakes from Sa's Club is like 5 bucks.

You can get a large bag of real potatoes almost as cheap. And you can cook those several ways.

[Anonymous No.4884561]

>>4884528
>>4884509
>>4884481
>>4884473
>>4884472
>>4884453
>>4884445

Thanks for all the help and ideas guys!

[Anonymous No.4884572]

>>4884442
okay For a week only?

5.25lb ground beef $12.50
broccoli 3lb $6.00
bananas $.44
chciken leg quarters 5lb $5
$23.95
get other stuff to fill you up with the rest

[Anonymous No.4884583]

>>4884572
Oh wow, nice!
Thanks so much!

[Anonymous No.4884613]

>>4884406
People that do this project always make me laugh. They usually have zero to little experience being poor and make horrible choices when shopping. So here is some advice from someone who grew up poor.

First off: Where to shop: My prefferred store is Kroger, Walmart beats them on some things, but not a lot. Walmart does do price matching though, so pick up the circulars from your local stores or from the paper. Bring that in and Walmart will match the price at the register. And always, always, always look for deals, if you are poor long term always stock up when things are on sale (example: Ekrich bologna is like $2 without a sale, on sale its a $1 a pack). Cheese, especially cheese slices are fucking expensive, so if they aren't on sale you are gonna have to make it a luxury buy or really make what you buy stretch.

If you want a deal on meat go to Kroger and talk to the meat cutters. Ask them when they put out the "manager's special" meat (the discounted meat they need to move). You will be hard pressed to beat that price anywhere.

Pasta is your best friend. You can get a box of pasta for around 50 to 60 cents for the store brand. A can of hunt's sphagetti sauce is a dollar. This is a couple meals easy. Skip buying garlic bread, its much make it yourself, take some bread, butter it, and sprinkle with garlic powder. Or if you want a dedicated loaf of garlic bread go to the store in the late night or early morning and get the day old bread they sell half price and use that to make a nice big loaf of garlic bread the same way.

A nice good meal is a Chicken and Noodles and mashed potatoes. Get you a bag of egg noodles (about $1), and a family size can of cream of chicken (around $2). Cook and strain the egg noodles, mix in the cream of chicken. Serve with a side of mashed potatoes. Thats enough to feed a family of 4. It will last you a couple meals.

[Op the fggt No.4884621]

>>4884406
Chicken and dumplings.
>Whole Chicken-5$-7$
>Flour-2$
>salt/pepper-0.10$
You'll be left a ton of let overs.
I grew up in a family of six (5 kids and a mother)
Food stamps don't cover much. Have fun.

[Anonymous No.4884633]

>>4884613
Sausage, saurkraut, and mashed potatoes. I didn't really mention it but stock up on mashed potatoes, you can use the shit out of them. This meal is a little more expensive because of the meat, but you can pick up a pack for $2 to $3 depending on brand and sales. Saurkraut you can get for about $1 to $2 depending on brand and size. Serve with mashed potatoes and you got a nice hearty meal that will give you at least 2 or 3 meals.

Mac and cheese and hot dogs. Get store brand instant mac and cheese if you really don't mind garbage, if you don't mind spending a little more for a little less garbage get kraft for like 2 boxes for $1. Chop up some store brand hot dogs (60 cents a pack) and you have a meal, not the best in the world but it will keep your stomach full.

Should have put this at the beginning, but a side note, i would deviate a little from "not using anything from your house". Spices and butter especially. A big tub of butter lasts us a month in a house of 6 people, and spices last years. Asking you to start completely fresh but only do it for a week is kind of crap.

Also more shopping advice, most stores will have a cost per ounce on the price sticker. ALWAYS check and compare this. There are times when it is cheaper to buy two half gallon milk jugs than one single gallon jug.

Frozen potatoes: You can get store brand frozen potato products like fries, tater tots, etc for about $1.50 to $2 for about 2 to 3 pounds of product. They are a good deal if you have something to eat them with.

I'll post up more foods/shopping advice if i think of any.

[Anonymous No.4884629]

>>4884451
Canned vegetables tend to be mushy and of poor quality. Tomatoes are the one exception. Frozen is almost always better. Beans are okay canned if you're pressed for time, but dried is cheaper.

[Anonymous No.4884688]

Allowing for tax, you could get around 25 McDoubles from WacArnolds.

[Anonymous No.4884700]

>>4884688
You can't spend food stamps on fast food.

[Anonymous No.4884702]

>>4884633
good fucking god, even the poor in Uhmerica are rich
mashed potatoes? mac and cheese? hotdogs? well fuck me sideways, you people don't know the first thing about being poor and hungry

OP, here's a protip: the more processed it is, the more it costs. the only processed things worth buying when you're really poor are dried veg. anything else is wastage

EGGS, BUTTER, OIL, FLOUR, BEANS, PEAS, VEGETABLES, SUGAR (yes, sugar), FRUIT, CHICKEN IF YOU HAVE MONEY FOR IT, MILK IF YOU HAVE KIDS
there. make your own everything, starting with bread and pasta
store what you don't eat
make old bread into crackers or soup bowls, keep the crumbs for schnitzel and such
dry out pasta you haven't used and store it in a jar
lrn2can
keep any food leftovers, they can go into tomorrow's stew or be eaten as such
waste not, want not

[Anonymous No.4884704]

>>4884472
you are an idiot

[Anonymous No.4884706]

If you're friendly with some of the local Asian grocers they might chuck you an onion or potato your way every now and then if you ask kindly. They sometimes have good prices for bags of the stuff but it varies.

[Anonymous No.4884725]

>>4884406
lentil soup
buttered pasta
eggs
rice
and maybe one of those cheap precooked chickens


that could easily last you a week

[Anonymous No.4884727]

>>4884406
>You can't eat food that's in your house, and you can't bum food off a friend.

I've found a loophole. Go to a hotel and steal their free continental breakfast. They'll be none the wiser.

Also there doesn't appear to be a rule against stealing food, so you should steal an item or two when you go shopping.

[Anonymous No.4884740]

>>4884406
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plumpy%27nut

Plumpy nut. They give it to kids who are starving in famines. A two-month regimen costs 60 dollars. You can't really buy it anywhere but here's the recipe, I'm sure that it's cheap to buy.

"Complete food for renourishing undernourished subjects

The following are poured into a kneading machine:

one 25 kg bag of skimmed milk powder,

one 25 kg bag of whey,

one 25 kg bag of maltodextrin,

then 12.5 kg of sucrose

and 1 kg of mineral and vitamin complement whose composition is given in Table 1 below.

The kneading hook is then switched on for 3 minutes at 55 rpm, followed by 3 minutes in the opposite direction and finally by 2 minutes at 85 rpm. "

[Anonymous No.4884744]

>>4884740
forgot the final step:
"40 kg of peanut paste and 40 kg of fat, whose composition is described in Table 2, are then poured into the kneader. The ingredients are agitated for 4 minutes at 55 rpm and then for 2 minutes at 85 rpm. "

you can look it up here: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s2=nutriset.ASNM.&OS=AN/nutriset&RS=AN/nutriset

[Anonymous No.4884916]

no breads. instead do middle-eastern/african style flatbreads. you just mix flour (the kind of flour matters; look it up) and water and then fry them up in butter. you'll get tasty hot flatbreads that cost five cents each, as opposed to bread slices which are less filling and more than double the price.

do thick stews of vegetables plus lentils, then scoop that shit up with flatbread. that's your lunch. make it nutrient-rich, like, add kale or spinach, etc. for dinner, roast some potatoes to have with more stew+bread. for breakfast, eggs plus leftover potatoes from the last night, and do up a big thing of builder's tea to take in a thermos and sip on all morning.

you might be able to afford a little bit of cheap meat, like pork shoulder or something. cook it low and slow and treasure it because you can't afford to have meat more than once a week.

[Anonymous No.4884947]

MAKE YOUR OWN BREAD OP.

A couple others said it but this is stupid important. You can get a jar of yeast for $5 that will last you a month and 5 lbs of flour is what now, less than $3? It's easy to make and incredibly calorically dense. Just make it a main part of every meal -- sandwiches, eggs in a basket like in your image, etc etc. You can feed yourself for fucking nothing if you make your own bread.

[Anonymous No.4885004]

>>4884702
Really you are absolutely correct. Being poor in America isn't poor at all. Growing up i saw that first hand, we spent food stamps on ice cream, frozen pizzas, candy, and the like.

[Anonymous No.4885047]

>>4884702
>here's a protip: the more processed it is, the more it costs.

That isn't true in western nations. Processed food is produced using industrial methods and is often cheaper than fresh food.

[Rico No.4885083]

>>4884406
Uncle Davis Brand Food Salad:
1 Bag of white rice
8 oz of vegetable's oil
3 oz of sugar
2 packets of spaghetti noodles
Mix it all up inside of a largest pot. Boil it up until it's cooked.

Seasonings:
1 oz. salt
1/2 oz pepper
5 onions
2 tomatoes
6 potatoes

slice that up and mix it all up and then add lettuce for crunch and taste. Uncle Davis used this on us kids for zero budget recipe cooking.

[Anonymous No.4885132]

>>4885083
Jesus.

[Anonymous No.4885188]

>>4885083

>Food Salad
>Boil it up until it's cooked

[Anonymous No.4885196]

>>4884613
>egg noodles and cream of chicken
Holy shit i'm doing that for supper tomorrow night

I wish there was like a.. poor peoples' cookbook or some shit with simple recipies like that in it

[Anonymous No.4885198]

>>4884406
a pack of balagna a pack of sliced cheese a loaf of bread and a bag of chips every other day or a two liter every day

[Anonymous No.4885201]

>>4885083
It sounds like something that someone with zero cooking talent or sense of taste would make. Why not save the spaghetti noodles for another meal?

[Anonymous No.4885213]

>$30 a week
I live on $40 a month. I don't even get foodstamps because the office says I 'make too much'. (Which is basically code for - you don't have kids, you're not a drug user, and you're not black. Fuck off)

Its not 'that' hard to live and feed yourself being poor, but as anons above me have stated, its all about making smart choices at the store and making your dollar stretch.

Buy in bulk. Lots of pasta and rice and flour.
Tea instead of coke. (You get more tea for your money than soda)
Chicken instead of beef. (Chicken has a magical property of going down in price the more you buy. Beef tends to stay the same or get more expensive)
Store brand shit instead of brand name.
Don't be ashamed of ramen or frozen dinners. They're good in a pinch if you don't feel like cooking.
Stay away from chips and snacks and candy shit. Its all empty calories and expensive as fuck for what little of it you get