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Cerebellum posted:I highly recommend The Prudent Homemaker. She cooks with whole foods so it should be easy to work around dietary restrictions, and she is the queen of cheap cooking. She somehow manages to cook for a family of 8 on less than $3 a day. That's $3 for ALL of them. That was a great suggestion; awesome website, and a ton of good info. Thanks dude!
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Nov 13, 2013 02:42
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GabrielAisling posted:How can I go about planning cheap meals for six while keeping dietary restrictions in mind? We have one diabetic and an onion allergy/intolerance, so it gets pretty tricky to make things everyone can eat. Have you tried making several dishes to be served at once? I'm not sure if it's an Asian thing or not, but my family usually serves 2-4 dishes per meal, so it's simple to keep at least one thing palatable for everyone. For example, I have done mapa dofu, steamed egg, steamed pork ribs, and a random veggie. 3 dishes for my grandmother who cannot take spice anymore, 2 for a family member that dislikes steamed egg and pork ribs, 3 for someone that doesn't like the black beans I will smear on the pork ribs, etc. The easiest thing for me is to make several dishes that can be made in advance and reheat, or make a ton of things that can be steamed at the same time in a steamer: egg, fish, dumplings, chicken, etc. You could also do something like build your own taco/burrito, roll up, etc.
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Nov 13, 2013 16:01
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Does anyone have any good, cheap indian recipes for dinner? I've never tried making indian food before, but the fiance is hell bent on buying samosas tonight and wants something to go with it. Any ideas?
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Dec 5, 2013 19:15
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neogeo0823 posted:Does anyone have any good, cheap indian recipes for dinner? I've never tried making indian food before, but the fiance is hell bent on buying samosas tonight and wants something to go with it. Any ideas? There's a bunch of stuff in dino.'s fantastic south indian thread, and auntie Manjula will never steer you wrong. Do you have a pressure cooker / any proteins available? I'd suggest a dal or curry, since they can be pretty forgiving. Technique and spices are important and potentially different to what you're used to!
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Dec 5, 2013 19:28
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neogeo0823 posted:Does anyone have any good, cheap indian recipes for dinner? I've never tried making indian food before, but the fiance is hell bent on buying samosas tonight and wants something to go with it. Any ideas? Everything from Aarti Sequeira. She's a delight to watch, if you can find episodes of her short lived show on Food Network. They don't like keeping good people around. I'm just a little bit infatuated with her.
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Dec 5, 2013 20:07
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neogeo0823 posted:Does anyone have any good, cheap indian recipes for dinner? I've never tried making indian food before, but the fiance is hell bent on buying samosas tonight and wants something to go with it. Any ideas? I'm late with this response, but for future reference chickpea daal is super, super cheap (for me a can of chickpeas is ~40p and does two servings) and easy if you have the spices. This is a basic recipe for it. It's great to scoop up with naan as well as eating with rice!
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Dec 6, 2013 11:51
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http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2010/02/chana-masala/ I really enjoyed this, and it's cheap
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Dec 6, 2013 16:33
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These are all good suggestions. Last night we just didn't have the time to make anything, so the fiance bought samosas and chicken tikka masala from Trader Joes, and we had that. This was good, because it was relatively cheap, decently tasty, and it worked for us, but bad in that now she wants more indian food. So this weekend, I'll be buying all the spices and such that we're missing to make this stuff. If anyone has any other ideas or reccomendations they want to make, by all means, post them.
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Dec 6, 2013 17:06
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Just an FYI: to do it yourself, you're probably gonna need a bunch of random spices you don't currently have in your cabinet. So the first time will be more pricey. Plus side is, now you can make Indian any time! I did this for my own tikka masala http://www.homemaderecipes.com.au/authentic-butter-chicken-murgh-makhani-recipe/ Omitted some stuff like tandori coloring (The color came out fine), subbed some other chili powder for that, didn't use nuts to not kill my roommate. Came out really good. Powdered cardanom subbed fine too. Just google how much you should use if you're not using pods so you have an estimate so you don't overdo it.
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Dec 6, 2013 17:21
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neogeo0823 posted:These are all good suggestions. Last night we just didn't have the time to make anything, so the fiance bought samosas and chicken tikka masala from Trader Joes, and we had that. This was good, because it was relatively cheap, decently tasty, and it worked for us, but bad in that now she wants more indian food. So this weekend, I'll be buying all the spices and such that we're missing to make this stuff. This might sound really dumb and obvious, but coconut milk. If you can find it cheap, coconut milk. It's delicious and absolutely essential for that authentic flavor. I kept cooking poo poo with regular milk like a loving idiot and it is not the same. I am so white it's not even funny-- I had no idea Indian food had coconut milk in it.
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Dec 6, 2013 19:24
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Haymaker_Betty posted:This might sound really dumb and obvious, but coconut milk. If you can find it cheap, coconut milk. It's delicious and absolutely essential for that authentic flavor. I kept cooking poo poo with regular milk like a loving idiot and it is not the same. I am so white it's not even funny-- I had no idea Indian food had coconut milk in it. Oh yeah, I definitely know to use coconut milk. I love dishes with coconut in them, actually. My favorite home made one would be a Thai red curry shrimp dish I make whenever I'm feeling fancy. Coincidentally, I'm also working on improving the flavor of a Coquito recipe I tried the other day. For full disclosure, I bought lovely rum and added too much. Never buy lovely rum. The recipe is basically Puerto Rican egg nog, but with coconut and rum and, well, not much else. In that vein, I'm trying to improve the flavor by adding more coconut cream, mixed with coconut milk to cut the thickness a bit. I've also added a reduction of clove and cinnamon, and am going to add a simple syrup with vanilla bean and possibly nutmeg tonight. Anyone have any thoughts on how that might play out together?
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Dec 6, 2013 21:52
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neogeo0823 posted:Oh yeah, I definitely know to use coconut milk. I love dishes with coconut in them, actually. My favorite home made one would be a Thai red curry shrimp dish I make whenever I'm feeling fancy. I had a family friend make Coquito for us last christmas that was basically a couple cans of coconut milk, about 1L of Bacardi Silver, 8 egg yolks and nutmeg, cinnamon and vanilla extract added with maybe a little bit of brown sugar. Tasted good to me but of course anything does when you're bombed.
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Dec 7, 2013 01:01
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One thing I've been doing to eat poor is to look at how various cultures around the world eat, especially poor nations, and eat like them. On that note, I made about a gallon of chana masala roughly to the Daal Tarka recipe on the wiki, with added tomato (84oz total for a gallon total, and 1.5 lb of dried chickpeas). Total cost for the dish was under $10 and will easily feed me for a week, even after freezing most of it. I plan on serving it with a few other dishes - right now I am making naan and paneer, and tomorrow I'm making a paneer makhani (like butter chicken, with paneer instead) to serve with everything else. In short, eat like Indian or Chinese or Mexican people, not like rich Americans! Cut down on your meat consumption and instead bolster with things like legumes, chickpeas, lentils, and cheese.
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Dec 7, 2013 03:47
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Breaky posted:I had a family friend make Coquito for us last christmas that was basically a couple cans of coconut milk, about 1L of Bacardi Silver, 8 egg yolks and nutmeg, cinnamon and vanilla extract added with maybe a little bit of brown sugar. Tasted good to me but of course anything does when you're bombed. That does sound good. Incidentally, I figured out what to do with my batch. The original recipe called for one can each coconut cream and evaporated milk, and an equal amount of silver rum(so ~375-400mL each), and to finish it with ~1/4 cup of a clove and cinnamon reduction. What I ended up adding was another can each of coconut cream and coconut milk, roughly 2-3 times more clove/cinnamon reduction, and 1 cup simple syrup that I made with a vanilla bean and its scrapings. I made sure, after getting the syrup to boil, that I scraped all the gunk out of the bean and got it into the syrup. It ended up making just a tiny bit over 2 quarts, all said and done. What I ended up with is pure, creamy, sweet, slightly rummy bliss. It's perfect. Not too heavy, rich, or overpowering.
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Dec 7, 2013 03:56
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SymmetryrtemmyS posted:One thing I've been doing to eat poor is to look at how various cultures around the world eat, especially poor nations, and eat like them. On that note, I made about a gallon of chana masala roughly to the Daal Tarka recipe on the wiki, with added tomato (84oz total for a gallon total, and 1.5 lb of dried chickpeas). Total cost for the dish was under $10 and will easily feed me for a week, even after freezing most of it. I plan on serving it with a few other dishes - right now I am making naan and paneer, and tomorrow I'm making a paneer makhani (like butter chicken, with paneer instead) to serve with everything else. In short, eat like Indian or Chinese or Mexican people, not like rich Americans! Cut down on your meat consumption and instead bolster with things like legumes, chickpeas, lentils, and cheese. If you do make a lot of Indian food, like I do, be extra careful with Turmeric. That poo poo will stain everything, and I don't just mean clothing; I have pans that still show some yellow on the underside.
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Dec 7, 2013 06:45
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Bummey posted:If you do make a lot of Indian food, like I do, be extra careful with Turmeric. That poo poo will stain everything, and I don't just mean clothing; I have pans that still show some yellow on the underside. It stains floors, too. I've had a jar get knocked off onto the floor and it left a nice bright yellow stain on the kitchen floor. I couldn't really get it out.
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Dec 7, 2013 07:17
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Eeyo posted:It stains floors, too. I've had a jar get knocked off onto the floor and it left a nice bright yellow stain on the kitchen floor. I couldn't really get it out. Bleach works for nonporous surfaces.
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Dec 7, 2013 08:45
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Bummey posted:If you do make a lot of Indian food, like I do, be extra careful with Turmeric. That poo poo will stain everything, and I don't just mean clothing; I have pans that still show some yellow on the underside. Yeah, turmeric is a motherfucker. I wonder, does it stain more or less when fresh? If it tends to be a little juicy, like garlic, I can see that turning the world yellow.
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Dec 7, 2013 20:21
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SymmetryrtemmyS posted:Yeah, turmeric is a motherfucker. I wonder, does it stain more or less when fresh? If it tends to be a little juicy, like garlic, I can see that turning the world yellow. Yes, when you use fresh turmeric it stains your hands yellow. It would probably stain the cutting board, too.
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Dec 8, 2013 03:07
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This poo poo is great "S&B Golden Curry Sauce" (its in your local store probably, or amazon). Pretty cheap, gotta get the spiciest. I'm sure you can make similar yourself, but I'm busy and this stuff is super good and not terribly expensive.
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Dec 9, 2013 06:12
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a dozen swans posted:Bleach works for nonporous surfaces. Baking soda might get it out-- leave it on as a paste for a couple hours then scrub it off. Worked for my counter.
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Dec 9, 2013 17:38
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We were spending way too much money on prepared hummus because I could never get the texture right when I tried to make it myself, but those days are gone since I discovered Yotam Ottolenghi's hummus method. Results are perfect -- it's all about the baking-soda step -- and you can get an astonishing amount of hummus out of a pound bag of dried chickpeas. Tahini can be a little spendy but I find I don't need as much as that recipe calls for, maybe 3/4 c. You can also quick-soak the beans if you forgot to soak them overnight. Boil hard for 5 minutes, remove from heat, soak for an hour, drain, proceed.
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Dec 12, 2013 08:42
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spite house posted:We were spending way too much money on prepared hummus because I could never get the texture right when I tried to make it myself, but those days are gone since I discovered Yotam Ottolenghi's hummus method. Results are perfect -- it's all about the baking-soda step -- and you can get an astonishing amount of hummus out of a pound bag of dried chickpeas. Tahini can be a little spendy but I find I don't need as much as that recipe calls for, maybe 3/4 c. Tahini is much cheaper to make yourself, and if you have a food processor (which you do if you're making hummus), it's even easier. Just toast sesame seeds, then puree with a little olive oil. You can usually find huge bags of sesame seeds for dirt cheap at ethnic markets, and sometimes in bulk at warehouse stores.
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Dec 12, 2013 08:47
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I made a really excellent soup last night that was super cheap and super easy! Doesn't look like much, but:  I bought a two-pound bag of frozen corn and put 3/4 of the stuff in a large pot with some olive oil to defrost and saute. After about 15 minutes with some stirring, everything was defrosted and the water that had come out of the corn as a result of defrosting was evaporated; it sounded like a dry saute. If I had had onion, at this point I would have added onion. I added a lot of garlic (at least a quarter-cup of the crushed stuff from the jar, since it's noticably less potent than fresh), crushed red pepper, regular black pepper, a pinch of cocoa, a sprinkle of salt, oregano, crushed coriander--you get the idea, your basic southwest-y type seasonings. You could do pretty much anything with this, I bet, but that's the direction I went. Once the spices were toasted and fragran, I threw in a little less than 2 quarts of good quality homemade stock. (One was so jello that it took lots of time to melt. Yum.) Once everything was hot again, I used my stick blender to blitz the hell out of it until the whole thing was reasonably smooth. I added a bit of fish sauce and worcestershire sauce, and about a quarter-cup of nutritive yeast, and blitzed it a bit more one last time before dumping in the last of the frozen corn. Five more minutes on the heat to allow the last of the corn to thaw, made some salt-and-pepper croutons with stale leftover homemade bread, and boom. Dinner and lunch the next day for, like, $2. (Buying broth would make this a lot more expensive.) The nutritive yeast could also be expensive if you don't have a hippie co-op store with a bulk section nearby, but it's really worth it--it gives it such depth of flavor. You could also throw in a potato to stretch out the creaminess and content, throw in a can of beans to add more bulk and protein, or replace some of the stock with coconut milk if you wanted to go a Thai soup route. Still, it's pretty versatile and how it tastes depends entirely on your seasoning. I'm quite proud of how this came out.
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Dec 13, 2013 18:20
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Has anyone done a community supported agriculture thing? Basically you get a box of stuff from a farmer's market every week with a bunch of different fruits and veggies. The ones I'm looking at range from $20-30 a week, which seems kinda expensive, but I'm cheap as hell so my views might be skewed. Plus, I'm moving to a much more expensive area (from St Louis to Los Angeles), so for all I know that's a good deal on fresh produce.
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Dec 19, 2013 22:15
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PUGGERNAUT posted:Has anyone done a community supported agriculture thing? I do it and it has worked pretty well budget-wise. I get an email with a list of what will be in the box for the upcoming week and I can meal plan for the week. I tend to buy and freeze meat when it's on sale and stick to staples at the supermarket. It's saved me from many impulse purchases and not-on-sale items. Plus it's all local and organic so you can feel all warm and fuzzy about that.
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Dec 19, 2013 22:29
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We had a CSA thread for a while - it's archived now so I can't see it, but I think this is the link.
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Dec 19, 2013 22:38
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TychoCelchuuu posted:We had a CSA thread for a while - it's archived now so I can't see it, but I think this is the link. Thanks! I gotta get archives at some point...
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Dec 19, 2013 22:44
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PUGGERNAUT posted:Thanks! I gotta get archives at some point... If you give me an email address I'll send you a copy of the thread. Alternately, here's the thread OP on pastebin.
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Dec 20, 2013 05:37
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The thread OP actually should be more than enough, gonna send my husband a link to that Pastebin and see if he's on board too. Thanks!
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Dec 20, 2013 15:01
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I participate in a CSA in the LA area. It's $23/week which was one of the cheaper ones I found. I think if I went to supermarkets and only bought produce on sale I could get a cheaper deal, but this saves a ton of time and encourages me to try new things. Why, up until my CSA box had cauliflower in it, I was under the impression that cauliflower was gross. In actuality, cauliflower sautéed in oil and sprinkled with garam masala is pretty excellent and easy.
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Dec 20, 2013 16:21
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Every year I mean to sign up for one and then I miss it. I hear great things about the ones around here in Maryland.
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Dec 20, 2013 16:33
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Hawkgirl posted:I participate in a CSA in the LA area. It's $23/week which was one of the cheaper ones I found. I think if I went to supermarkets and only bought produce on sale I could get a cheaper deal, but this saves a ton of time and encourages me to try new things. Why, up until my CSA box had cauliflower in it, I was under the impression that cauliflower was gross. In actuality, cauliflower sautéed in oil and sprinkled with garam masala is pretty excellent and easy. Nice. Which one do you use?
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Dec 20, 2013 17:10
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My wife wanted roast goose for Christmas supper. Fifty bucks for a ten pound bird, gently caress no.  This ham was cheap, things can happen with it, fresh produce, and potatoes from my uncle's garden. Or splurge on sale lobster Christmas Eve 
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Dec 20, 2013 17:47
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Hawkgirl posted:Why, up until my CSA box had cauliflower in it, I was under the impression that cauliflower was gross. In actuality, cauliflower sautéed in oil and sprinkled with garam masala is pretty excellent and easy. Try roasting it in a hot oven too 
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Dec 20, 2013 22:28
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Ron Jeremy posted:Try roasting it in a hot oven too Just don't be turned off by the smell of wet, barnyard rear end drifting through your house. Properly roasted cauliflower is pretty great once it's on the table.
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Dec 20, 2013 23:20
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Cauliflower puree is also pretty good. Very tasty in baozi!
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Dec 21, 2013 05:44
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PUGGERNAUT posted:Nice. Which one do you use? Tanaka Farms, they have a lot of pickups around LA and Orange counties. I tried cauliflower roasted with garlic and parm too, don't get me wrong, it's great. But sauteeing is so easy and the garam masala really brings out the sweetness in the cauliflower. It should not be so delicious. I still have to try purée and aloo gobi though.
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Dec 22, 2013 00:04
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I am a child, tell me some incredibly unhealthy ways to eat vegetables that I won't hate. Bonus points if there's more cheese than vegetables, it's mixed with some sort of meat (and I don't mean like southern greens, where it's got one tiny ham chunk, that's bullshit), or it's grilled with something odd, like this green beans and peaches recipe I might try.
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Dec 22, 2013 18:43
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Dead Inside Darwin posted:Every year I mean to sign up for one and then I miss it. I hear great things about the ones around here in Maryland. A buddy of mine runs one out in Edgewater but I didnt sign up as i travel too much to consistently make the pickup. So now we just get the stuff he has too much of, last time this was a pickup truck bed full of basil. I think in total we made like 5 gallons of pesto.
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Dec 22, 2013 18:56
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