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Hrm. Unless you're feeding a family of 4, $50/week is a /very/ generous grocery budget. My husband and I approximate like $30/week, and I have company over all the time, so it's a little higher than usual. Rather than telling you what not to buy, I'll tell you stuff *to* buy. 5 lbs of rice. This should run you (at most) $2.50 ($4 if it's brown rice), and last you a good long while. I don't mean rice in a box. I mean the stuff that comes in a bag, that costs really little. You can often get sales on 20-lb bags of rice, where you pay like $8 or even less, depending on where you are in the country, and how carefully you check the circulars for that sort of thing. Barring that, about $10 for 20-lb bag of rice is roughly standard. If you get reamed, and pay full retail, I'll assume that you dropped about $5 on this bag of rice. 5 lbs of various beans. I don't mean the kind that come in tins. I mean the dry beans that come either in bulk, or in bags from various companies, like Goya. A good start is pinto, black, white, lentils, and split peas. Grab a pound of each, and you're set. If you cannot find them in the bulk section of the store, and they're coming in 1-lb individually wrapped bags, the most you will pay is around $1.50. I'm assuming you'll end up paying this, because if you're spending any amount of money on *-a-roni, you're used to spending a loving fortune on crap. Might well buy real food, and give that a whirl. I'm assuming you'll get the worst price, so I'm assuming $2/bag. We're currently at $15. A 3-lb bag of onions. Should run you about $2, give or take. We're at $17. A head of garlic. $1. So far, we're at $19. Spices of various sorts. A good mix is cumin, coriander, black pepper, Kosher salt, Italian seasoning, garlic powder, dried basil, dried marjoram, dried oregano, dried thyme. I'm assuming you'll spend about $2 per container, give or take. $24. It seems like a lot of money, but the amounts you'll buy at a grocery store should last a month or so. So assume that this trip is a tiny bit more pricey than future trips, because I'm assuming you haven't got a stocked pantry. Currently, we're at $43. At this point, we're nearly maxed out, but stick with me, and the other trips will be much cheaper, because you won't be buying the most expensive things (herbs and spices) every single week. 1 gallon of vegetable oil of some sort. This should run you about $10. We're at $53 right now (and this is a VERY extreme estimate, assuming that you buy the most expensive of everything, and don't find a single thing on sale, AND you buy everything all at once, which may or may not be the case). Currently, you've got the bare bones of a reasonably stocked kitchen. Soak about 1 lb of beans overnight, and the next day, they'll cook up in 45 minutes - 1 hour on the stove, or 20 minutes in a pressure cooker, or 8 hours on low in a crock pot. The rice, if it's white, will cook in 20 minutes, If it's brown rice, soak it overnight like you do your beans, and it'll cook up in about 30 minutes on the stove, or 45 in the rice cooker. The onions, garlic, and oil form a base for spicing up any of the beans that you've bought. Add one or more of the spices to the cooking onions and garlic to add a bunch of flavour for not a lot of money. Throw the cooked onions, garlic, and spices into the cooked, drained beans, and stir to combine. Eat it with rice. Any leftover beans should go into individual portions (I use zip top sandwich bags) into the freezer. That way, you don't get sick of eating the same thing over and over again. The next week, the sky is the limit, because you've still got a boatload of rice and beans at your house, so now you can buy pretty drat near any vegetable you see in the store, bring it home, toss it in oil, salt, and spices, and roast it in the oven for 30 minutes at 350F or until they're tender. They make an excellent side to the beans and rice. From here on out, replenish your stock of rice and beans and spices as needed. Unless you're deep frying every day, the gallon of oil will likely last you a couple of months. Unless you're pouring the spices on like a weirdo, the spices will likely last you a couple of months as well. The 5 lbs of rice should easily last you about a month, but if you like a lot of rice (as I do), you'll go through it in two weeks. One pound of beans should make four servings. Again, that five pounds will easily last you a month. In other words, after spending a little more the first week, you'll spend FAR less the subsequent weeks, because you're just picking up accompaniments for the main food. Anything above and beyond the main cheapfood is a bonus. Essentially, this way, you'll cut back your grocery bill to about $70 for two - three weeks, rather than $200 in one month.  As you cook more, and discover bulk spices in Indian and Latino stores, your spice costs plummet, because that same $2 that you spent on a small jar of spices will buy you an entire /pound/ of spices, which will likely last you about six months rather than one - two months.
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Oct 9, 2011 20:32
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visionviper posted:Pretty much this. Just making things yourself like beans, pasta, rice, etc are a great way to save a bunch of money. Example: I used to buy cans of refried black beans for burritos and now for the price of 2 cans I make 2 lbs of beans. I completely forgot about pasta! If you wait for a sale, you can often find pasta for roughly 2lb/$1. Stock up and get a bunch of different shapes when that happens, and you're more or less set. When you do find such a cheap deal on pasta, you can splurge, and spend like $10 on a litre of decent extra virgin olive oil. Get some fresh herbs too, and you're good. A few fresh herbs, some garlic, some olive oil, and cooked pasta makes a lovely meal, especially when you have some roasted veg on the side. If you like wraps and sandwiches and the like, you can also find some really good, cheap sandwich material at any grocery store. Spinach, mushrooms, peppers, olives, and hummus are all relatively easy to find anywhere. If you have the patience and the food processor to make your own hummus, please do so, because it's excellent eating. However, if you don't, just buy whatever kind you like, and use it as a sandwich spread for wraps, stuff them with your favourite veggies, and eat like a king.  Best part of doing large batches of roasted veggies is that you can turn it into a soup the next day. Just fry off some onions and garlic and spices in oil, dump in your roasted veg, and add just enough water to cover the veg. Let it all come to a boil, and you're done! Old rice that you kept in the fridge overnight becomes excellent fodder for stir-fry the next day. Quickly sautee off some onions and garlic in a bit of oil, toss in your favourite veg (I like peppers, broccoli, and mushrooms), and toss around in the oil. Add the rice, and toss it all around with a bit of soy sauce. It's pretty quick to get together. This is also a great place to toss in your leftover roasted veg. The sky's the limit! dino. fucked around with this message at 20:58 on Oct 9, 2011 |
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Oct 9, 2011 20:54
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Hey-o. Never implied that you're veg. Just speaking from what I know. I've built in some wiggle room in case some of the stuff /is/ more expensive. With the spices, if you're low on cash, just buy one or two every week, and build /up/ the spice cabinet. That'll knock off a huge initial expense, and you'll quite happily be able to spend the rest on whatever else you'll need to round out your meals. I'm sure others can address the meatneeds. It's not my area of expertise, and I'd sooner not put my foot in it about stuff I know nothing of.
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Oct 9, 2011 21:00
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If your rice is coming out too bland, there's a couple of things you can do to bump up the flavour. 1) Add salt to the cooking liquid. Rice is a starch, and like all starches, seems to absorb salt best when it's salted while cooking. This is why people ask you to add stock. It's not that the stock is all that flavourful, but that it has a bit of salt. You can save your stock for making something where you'll actually notice that you have stock in, and just add a bit of salt to the rice, and end up ahead of the game. Rice cooked in stock versus rice cooked in salted water isn't that different to warrant using the stock up. 2) Lightly sautee the rice with garlic, herbs, spices of your liking (cumin is an especially good one), in a bit of fat before cooking. Stir it frequently, but gently, and keep going till the rice smells toasty, and goes from translucent to opaque white. Then add your (salted) water, and cook from there. The rice will be lovely. If, during your toasting, you add a few pinches of turmeric, you'll even have a cheap and easy yellow rice on your hands. Add some onions and tomato paste, and you've got a Spanish rice like dish. 3) Consider the South Indian mixed rice dishes: tomato rice, lemon rice, coconut rice, tamarind rice. They're a little pricey on the spices (if you've never bought the spices before), but make such a good addition to any repertoire. There have been days like when my dad got pickpocketed on the train on the way home, and we didn't have any money to by food for the rest of that month (he got paid monthly). Aside from the cheap leafy greens my mum would by for pennies on the pound (the neighbouring farmers would use it for cattle fodder, and would more or less give it away at the end of the day so they wouldn't have to throw it out), we'd frequently have mixed rice dishes to take up most of the meal. In India, one doesn't have Ramen, and by the time we got to the USA and needed quick cheap dishes, we weren't about to buy that poo poo because of what it cost to feed a family. When I was a teenager, I alone could clear off two of those fuckers in one sitting, and still be hungry in 30 minutes, because the meal had no substance. Rice, on the other hand, would keep me going for a lot longer, and mixed rice especially was a staple for when we had little or no money to live on. The fact that I can still enjoy it with gusto tells you how delicious it is. If you'd like, I can type out a step-by-step, or copy paste the recipes from my book, so you can wrangle your rice more easily.
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Oct 24, 2011 14:42
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bolo yeung posted:I'd like to hear more about these mixed rice recipes, please. Here are two of them. Another two commonly loved ones are lemon rice, biriyani, and tamarind rice. They're all big-time favourites in the south. :P
dino. fucked around with this message at 13:17 on Oct 27, 2011 |
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Oct 27, 2011 13:07
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gmc9987 posted:I made this last night and it's delicious. Thanks for introducing me to Manjula's Kitchen, dino. Her and Maangchi are my faves. But Manjula is so sweet and charming, and has such accessible, inexpensive recipes, that I'm forever suggesting her to people. xD
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Nov 4, 2011 04:20
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Beep Street posted:I used to turn my nose up at reduced sticker food but now I feel ripped off paying full price for meat. I also get plenty of reduced veg as well, I got a massive bag of carrots for 32p in Co-op yesterday and they should keep for a few weeks. @Rule 303: I do the same thing with (screw top) wine bottles, liquor bottles, soda bottles, and those large gallon-sized mustard bottles from work. The large mouths of the mustard bottles let me store things like pasta, which would be tricky to get into a narrow necked wine bottle! Mind you, I don't buy wine, liquor, or soda all that frequently. But when I do, I feel like, "I paid for this bottle, so I may as well get all the use out of it that I can!" dino. fucked around with this message at 16:52 on Jan 6, 2012 |
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Jan 6, 2012 16:50
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toanoradian posted:I do have something a bit more specific, though. I like broccoli but I don't know what to do with them besides soups or stir fry them alongside carrots with salt and oyster sauce. Any ideas?
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Jan 19, 2012 15:23
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CzarChasm posted:Can you make decent falafel from canned chickpeas?
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Feb 3, 2012 21:48
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BastardAus posted:The cooking in hot fat method is one I don't come across very often but god drat it is good. People do falafel without hot fat? Howfuck else can they be done? Ugh, please don't tell me, I'll likely feel sick. Probably some baked abortion.
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Feb 8, 2012 01:37
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Faerunner posted:I am not above sucking up a little bit if it means free locally-grown food.
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Feb 23, 2012 05:54
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BingitsLola posted:I would really love some more thoughts on fairly simple veggie ideas as I'm sticking mostly to salad and steamed carrots. I did get some zucchini that I plan to try and roast in the oven with some lemon juice. But I'm not really sure where to go from there. If you're taking stupid easy simple, start with the microwave, if you're not paranoid about it. Get whatever veg you have (broccoli, zucchini, carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes, cabbage), chop them into about 1 inch pieces, and toss them in a mix of oil of your choice, herbs of your choice (for mushrooms I like thyme, for tomato I like basil or cilantro, and for anything else, oregano and marjoram do me right), salt, black pepper, red chile flakes, and either cumin, coriander, or paprika, and zap for five minutes (covered) in a microwave safe dish. If they're not cooked through, give it a couple more minutes. They're dead simple to make, and very quick when you're in a hurry. If you have a bit more time, do the universal South Indian technique for drat near every vegetable you can have, and dry roast them on the stove. 1 TB canola or peanut oil 1/2 tsp mustard seed (black or white; do not substitute powdered) 1/2 tsp cumin seed 1/4 tsp sesame seed (I add sesame seed, because I can't always find the Indian sesame oil that gives the authentic flavour; this seems to get the job done) 2 pinches turmeric 1 - 2 lbs of chopped vegetables of your choosing 1/4 cup water, reserved 1/4 tsp red chile flakes Salt, to taste In a wok or large skillet, heat the oil over highest heat. When the oil shimmers and moves around the pan easily, sprinkle in the mustard seed evenly across the surface of the oil, and STEP BACK. The mustard seeds will pop, and try to escape the pan. This is normal. To corral them in, slap on a splatter guard or the lid for the pot. Wait about 15 - 30 seconds for the popping noise to subside, and add the cumin seeds. Stir lightly for 15 seconds, and add the sesame seeds, the pinch or two of turmeric, and the chopped vegetables. Stir well. If you take too long to add your chopped vegetables, the sesame seeds will fly all over your kitchen, and the turmeric will burn, as will the rest of the spices. Be quick about it, and you're fine. Stir everything very well to combine the spices, fat, and turmeric. Drop the heat to medium low, and cover the lid. Stir every two minutes or so. When the vegetables are mostly tender, sprinkle in teh red chile flakes and salt. If the pan gets too dry, and you feel nervous about burning, splash in a tablespoon or two of water to loosen things up, and stir to combine. When the veggies are tender, check for salt, and adjust as needed. Once you've mastered the Indian stir-fry technique, which is mainly spices and veggies, you can add any number of variations. What I've walked you through with the fat and whole spices, is called a tarka, and can be used for drat near anything, from beans to veggies to grains. If you like onions, add them after the spices pop, let them get tender, then add the veggies/beans/grains. If you like garlic too, add the garlic along with the veggies. If you like grated ginger, add it along with the red chile flakes. If you want a more sweet spice blend (like for sweet potatoes, beans, etc), start with cumin seed, coriander seed, fennel seed, a couple of cloves, a couple of crushed cardamom pods, a bay leaf, and a stick of cinnamon (not cinnamon powder, as cinnamon powder gets slimy and gross when cooked), then proceed as normal. Again, as before, you can add any aromatics to your tarka that you enjoy: carrots, celery, bell peppers, chopped chile peppers, onions, ginger, garlic, whatever. The sky's the limit. And, depending on when you add said aromatic, you will have different degrees of taste coming from them. For example, if you add garlic first, and then onions and ginger together, you'll get a very subtle, sweet garlic taste. If you add garlic later on, you get a more pungent garlic taste. If you add the ginger first, the ginger bits will stick to the bottom of the pot, so you'd best be ready with some water to get things moving again, else it'll burn like hell, even at low heat. If you add no onions or garlic, and just use the spices, you've got a perfectly respectable flavour base for all kinds of food. Just experiment, and you'll find many lovely ways of cooking veg. These are just a couple. Oh. Also, bonus points for sprinkling a few toasted nuts over the finished dish. Or topping with fresh chopped herbs. Or, using a few squeezes of lime or lemon juice to finish.
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Mar 3, 2012 18:04
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Doh004 posted:Definitely looking into Amazon for spices as NYC is too expensive. And I just realised that although I was RIGHT THERE in Subzi Mandi yesterday, I forgot to buy cardamom. Again. Damnit all. I got a huge fuckoff big bag of pistachios for $15. If you don't mind the broken pieces, cashews go for $4.45 a pound. I can get a litre of coconut oil for $6. They carry chickpea flour for around $1/lb. Rice flour is like $0.75/lb. Beans are generally $1/lb - $1.25/lb. Fresh ginger was like 2 lbs/$1. Cilantro was three GIANT bunches for $1. Lijjat Papad (my favourite brand) was $1/pack. Japanese eggplant was $1/lb. It's ridiculous how cheap everything was. Go to Jackson Heights.
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Mar 5, 2012 21:27
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Doh004 posted:Queens scares me (is a big white nerd)  Jackson Heights is gentrified. The streets are clean, and people are genuinely friendly. When you're in said Indian store, if you don't know what something is (especially produce-wise), and you turn to someone and ask what it is, they'll not only tell you what it is, but also eagerly share their recipe for making it at home. The stores all take credit card, and the subway station is enormously spacious and bright. You'd have the same comfort level walking down a street in Murray Hill, where most of the spice houses are in Manhattan. Also, you're going to find stuff that you can't find elsewhere, like Nepali food, or Tibetan food, or Indian Chinese food. The shop workers are exceedingly friendly, and will help you find something if you can't locate it, because frankly those stores are freaking dizzying in their variety of stuff they stock. @Hutz: There's a scene in the film Coming to America, where the prince wonders aloud where he would find a suitable queen. He naturally chooses Queens. Hilarity ensues.
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Mar 6, 2012 01:50
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Doh004 posted:Don't mind my being scared. I'm more of a bitch who's getting more and more comfortable exploring the city. Maybe I'll make a trip out this weekend if the weather's nice. I love being able to jump on and off the trains and just pay that flat fee for unlimited rides. I'm up in Washington Heights, so it's a bit more of a schlep for me, but I still do make the trip once in a while, because it's just worth doing.
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Mar 6, 2012 18:36
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vonnegutt posted:"Good" fish sauce is not super available - you want Red Boat brand. Coconut milk is totally available everywhere.
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Mar 7, 2012 02:51
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BingitsLola posted:Thank you again for all the tips, it was your in depth post that inspired me to begin with! I still don't have a wok or a pan with a cover. I did try roasting some veg in the oven and it came out pretty well, but those spices do sound incredible. Do you recommend using the whole seeds over ground spices, or does it make much of a difference? I own this one: http://www.amazon.com/Presto-8-Quart-Aluminum-Pressure-Cooker/dp/B00006ISG4/ It cost less than $40, and I use it literally every single day, because I'm on a pretty tight schedule. On the nights that I get home early, I want to knock up dinner quickly, because I've got so much other poo poo to get done around the house, be it cleaning the dishes, shopping for food on the way home (where I sometimes get distracted, and spend about 45 minutes rather than 5), or hanging out with friends. On the nights I work late (so that means I get out of home late), I'm generally trying to knock up food quickly, because when I work late the night before, my rear end is sleeping late the next day. If I need to be out the door by 1 PM to get to work on time at 2 PM, I'm not waking up till almost 10 or 11 AM. Either way, because I stack things in there, the 8 quart is the perfect size for me and my husband. When I need to make larger amounts, I simply use the entire thing without stacking anything in there. And some nights, when I'm really behind schedule because I forgot to soak or cook rice before leaving home, I can pressure cook rice in 15 minutes in a bowl floating in the bit of daal I've got going that takes 13 minutes. Both get done in about 14 minutes if I pour hot water over the daal, and cold water over the rice. It's worth every penny, because it's so useful. It's also the most handy little thing to make things like potatoes for mashing, because I can boil off a whole batch in 3 - 5 minutes. That's pretty amazing. The difference between the whole and ground spices is like the difference between a ripe, juicy tomato, fresh picked from your garden, and one of those bits of cardboard that masquerade as a tomato in the middle of winter, that have been flown in from Florida. Yes, you'll get a similar ballpark of flavour, but the smell that you get from popping whole spices is heady, and intoxicating. There is literally no comparison to the smell of freshly popped cumin and coriander seeds, and putting in ground coriander. Mind you, I'd rather you use any spices at all than keep things bland. However, if you can get the whole spices and pop them, please do. If your pot doesn't have a lid, use a plate or some foil to get the same effect. It'll be fine.
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Mar 9, 2012 03:02
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LadySage posted:What's the general opinion on garlic presses? I grew up with one and every time I cook with garlic, I fervently wish I had one now. I got this one on August of 2011: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00004OCJX It's served me very well ever since the first day I've used it, and I use mine frequently. Nobody's ever complained about how the garlic in my food tastes.
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Mar 20, 2012 17:21
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TychoCelchuuu posted:If I peel a whole head of garlic like that, will the cloves keep just as well as if I hadn't peeled them? Right now I just peel each individually but if that skin isn't keeping them fresh or whatever then I might as well do the bowl thing.
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Mar 21, 2012 14:59
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Beans. For the love of all that's holy, beans. Get masses of chickpeas, some black beans, lentils, white beans, pinto beans, and any other kind of bean you can think of. They'll last a good long while, and they're filling. Throw down for a 20 lb bag of brown rice. Combine with beans, and you're talking about a fairly filling, inexpensive, delicious meal. A few tinned foods will help round out the corners when things are tough, and you can't afford fresh: 1) Tinned tomatoes. Find the ones without calcium chloride, as the stuff forces the tomato to stay together no matter how long you cook it. I used to hate tinned tomato until someone explained to me what to look for. 2) Tomato paste. Get the smaller ones. They're good for enriching pretty close to anything you can find, especially beans. 3) Coconut milk. It's endlessly useful in all sorts of foods, including gravies, soups, desserts, etc. 4) Corn. It's one of the few veg that I've found that tastes decent when it's been tinned. Peas taste like awful, green beans have a definite off taste, and beets taste horrific. 5) Pineapple. It's handy to have around to make chutneys, pineapple upside down cake, cocktails. Look for one that's packed in its own juice. There's a couple of frozen foods to splurge on too, to keep you going. 1) Berries. Excellent for smoothies. Toss some juice, berries, and ice into your blender, along with bananas, and you've got a fairly nice breakfast smoothie in very little time. You just need like 1/4 cup or so of the berries to really get the taste and colour to go all the way through. 2) Peas. I find that adding frozen peas to food kind of brightens up the taste. They really add a bit of a fresh texture to the whole thing. This likely won't be all your buying, but hopefully it gets you started.
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Apr 12, 2012 13:03
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The Lord Bude posted:Holy crap food is cheap where you live. Do you live on the moon or something? How the christ are mushrooms $12/kg? O_O @MuffinsShark: He /does/ have money to spare. XD Choice for him means tomatoes that were watered with virgin's tears, and grown in the clear moonlight, picked only by newborn babbies, because only their skin is soft enough not to mar the perfect tomatoes.
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Apr 14, 2012 16:36
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Moey posted:and just keep flipping them until they were dried out. That is one method google told me about.
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May 13, 2012 03:14
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@Walk Away: It took a bit of getting used to, but I started storing my lids and the boxes separately, so that everything stacks more neatly. I, too, have a tiny kitchen. It's why I don't have too many gizmos and junk, because I physically don't have space for it all. I'll generally go on a mass purge of crap rather frequently to avoid accumulating more crap if I can help it. I found myself disliking the pyrex storage options, because they're so much more heavy and bulky than the little tupperware type containers I have, and I'm forever nervous about breaking the glass. I owned a set, and gave it away, because I'd find myself never using them. @Moey: Seconding what everyone else said. Find a second hand store, and buy a crock pot there. It's not worth buying new. Most people buy a crock pot, use it once, and then get rid of it. Even if you post on Freecycle or search on Craigslist, I can more or less guarantee finding one in any town I'm in. I just searched for one on my local Craigslist, and found ones for as low as $7, that come with the box and everything else, without having to schlep out to Long Island or something.
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May 17, 2012 14:43
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Beans and rice really isn't complicated. Soak beans overnight. Drain. Add fresh water, and put atop the stove, over highest heat. When the water comes to a boil, let the beans boil fiercely for 10 minutes. Drop down the heat to medium low, and let the beans bubble away for however long it takes to cook them through. When the beans are mostly cooked, sautee rice in oil, garlic, onions, and turmeric powder, along with a bit of salt. Sautee until the rice turns completely opaque. Dump the sauteed rice into the cooking beans, and add more boiling water until you've got the level of water about 2 inches and change above the level of the beans & rice. Let the water come back to a full boil. Boil for 5 minutes. Drop down the heat to medium low again, slam on the lid, and let it simmer for like 20 minutes. Everything will be done to a turn. Beans take WAY longer to cook than rice, unless you're using split peas and brown rice (such as when making a dish called kicahdi or venn pongal). Cook them until they're done, but not quite tender (they'll still be a bit crunchy, but you'll see them cooked through), then add the rice, and you'll be fine.
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May 25, 2012 00:06
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Eggie posted:Speaking of leftovers, my favourite dish is re-fried perogis. I buy the store brands whenever they're on sale. I usually make far more perogis than I can eat in one sitting, so the next few meals I re-fry them with onions, garlic, and Worcestershire sauce. Roll out the dough onto a dusted counter top into one large sheet. Fill with your stuffing of choice (I use a leftover baked potato or two that I've mashed, a small chopped and sauteed onion, a bit of dill and chive, and some salt and pepper), and you're pretty much set. Buying them from the store will cost more than making your own, even when they're on sale. The amount of flour, potato, and onion you're using is chump change. You'll have enough for yourself and a friend to share, or for leftovers. And, since you control what goes in, you can use leftovers from earlier in the week to stuff 'em.
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Jun 1, 2012 00:15
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RE Asafoetida chat. In the South, the Tamil brahmins avoid garlic and onion too. However, in modern years, they don't care. But the food doesn't taste right without the asafoetida. So my mum would make a dish with mustard seed, asafoetida, cumin seed, urad daal (those are the tarka spices), then add onions and ginger, turmeric, chiles, curry leaves, etc. The people who complain about the smell are the ones keeping it in hermetically sealed jars and all kind of other faggotry. Just let the plastic bottle sit out on the shelf, and the smell will be gone within a day. If you try to contain the smell, it just intensifies, and knocks you out. It's like when someone smokes a cigarette in your house. You don't try to contain the smell by keeping all the windows shut. You open up the windows, let your apartment air out, and move on with life. Although it can be used as a garlic/onion substitute, it's really a spice in its own right, and South Indian food just doesn't taste right without it. You'll get close, but it'll never have that taste.
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Jun 23, 2012 16:26
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If you're tasting your fat that you're cooking with, you're not adding enough spices.  This doesn't apply for finishing fats, like extra virgin olive oil, smoked sesame oil, and things that you're meant to taste because you added them at the end. I'm referring to folk talking about the huge difference that ______ fat makes in the taste when they're using it to sautee their aromatics, et al. Make daal. Seriously. You can use any beans you like. If you can find only cumin seeds, use that, and forget the rest. It'll still be tasty. The point is to use whole spices, rather than ground, because whole spices stay fresh for a much longer time than ground, and when you bite into a little cumin seed, you get a big burst of flavour. Everything doesn't taste homogeneous. The smells are incredible. And, you can use the cheapest oil that you can find (preferably corn, canola, or something else that can stand up to high heat cooking). Butter or olive oil is actually /not good/ for daal, because you're going to end up with too much burning. Ghee is fine, but you don't actually end up tasting it at the end, which is why oil works so well. It's poor people food. I've talked about how to make it a billion times, so post stalk me if you can. If you can't, look online. Look for any recipe that includes whole spices. Here's a quick rundown: 1 lb beans of your liking, cooked; Reserve the cooking liquid 3 TB oil 1 tsp mustard seeds 1 tsp cumin seeds 1 1/2 tsp coriander seeds, crushed lightly 1 onion, chopped 3 - 5 tomatoes, chopped (fresh; if you use canned, make sure that you get a brand without calcium chloride, as the CaCl makes the tomatoes not break down, which you need to have happen) OPTIONAL: 1 bunch coriander, chopped In a large stock pot, combine the oil and mustard seeds. Crank up the heat to high, and let the seeds pop. You want a large pot, because the mustard seeds will try to get all over your kitchen otherwise. If you have a splatter guard, this is the time to use it. Else, use the lid of the pot. Else, let a few seeds escape, and move on with life. Add the cumin seeds, and coriander seeds. Allow them to pop as well. Add the onions, and sautee until just soft. Add the tomatoes, and cook until they break down into a sort of gravy. Add the cooked beans, and bring to a boil. Adjust the thickness of the stew with the cooking liquid, or plain water as you prefer. You don't need stock, because the flavour of the onions, tomatoes, and spices are strong enough to overpower any stock you add to it. You don't need fancy fats, because everything will be well flavoured without them, and you won't taste them anyway. You can add chopped garlic and ginger (NOT ginger garlic paste, please) along with the tomatoes to bump up the flavour if you wish. You can also add turmeric along with the onions to give everything a beautiful golden colour, and most appetising aroma. You can add a few fenugreek seeds along with the cumin and coriander to make the liquid get a more rounded texture. You can mix and match your beans, if you have leftovers of a few kinds. You can add chopped scallions instead of onions, if you prefer. If you don't like coriander (for whatever reason), feel free to use parsley instead. If you're feeling adventurous, and want to poke around with different herbs, feel free to add dried thyme and/or oregano along with the onions. It totally changes the taste. If you want a richer liquid, add tomato paste (a couple of tablespoons) along with the tomatoes. If you like, you can also augment it with your favourite leftover veg from the night before, be it collard greens, spinach, peas, corn, potatoes, yucca, plantains, whatever. Yes, you can use tinned beans, and they'll be fine.
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Aug 18, 2012 17:26
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Zuph posted:The USDA publishes food cost indices: http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/usdafoodplanscostoffood.htm http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/Publications/FoodPlans/MiscPubs/TFP2006Report.pdf That's their thrifty plan, which includes things like fruit juice (which costs a fortune, which is why I'd sooner just buy the fruit), enormous quantities of dairy (I don't think one person could ever consume that much dairy), canned condensed soup, dried soup, and frozen meals. Mind you, not huge amounts, but there they were. They also assumed like four or five pounds of meat per person per week. If that's the sort of stuff you're buying, your monthly bill is definitely bound to be high.
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Sep 4, 2012 14:38
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TannhauserGate posted:USDA meal plans are heavily adjusted for how money is distributed across food lobbies. Look toward places where people are healthy for your meal plans.
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Sep 5, 2012 01:58
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Authentic You posted:I've found that our local Asian market has by far the cheapest cilantro and ginger in all the land. Also their bulk rice is dirt loving cheap. This. Oh my god, this. Walking into Hong Kong Supermarket in Queens, NY was a revelation. They had an entire aisle of just noodles. AN ENTIRE AISLE. Made of all different things, like beans, rice, wheat, whatever. They were all amazingly cheap. I can generally score a 5 lb bag of those wheat broad noodles for like $3. Cilantro I can find 2/$1. Same with scallion. Ginger is anywhere between 3lb/$1 all the way up to 2lb/$1. It's crazy. Yes, it's a schelp and a half from Washington Heights, but who cares? You do it once in a while, get a bunch of dried goods, get a few fresh things (ginger, scallion, cilantro) and freeze the leftovers. One time, I scored a 5 lb bag of ginger in the manager's special bin for $1. I sliced it up and pickled that summbitch. So delicious.
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Oct 5, 2012 16:10
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Pester posted:Last time I bought beets, I noticed that they had a striking red and white pattern on the inside when sliced down straight, almost like a peppermint candy. So beets are dirt cheap, and it seems like that would be a good way to have an pretty and cheap side for Christmas dinner. If I wanted to slice them and lay them flat, then put in all the other stuff like you do for potato gratin, does anyone know if they keep the color? Can I just use a potato gratin recipe, or should things be adjusted to accommodate the earthier beet flavor? I would recommend against anything creamy with beets, as it'll turn this disgusting pepto bismol colour. Avoid. Instead, try it with an orange maple glaze. Combine fresh orange juice with a bit of maple syrup, some rosemary, white wine, and soy sauce or salt. Boil over heat until it reduces down by about half. Whisk in a bit of cornstarch that you've dissolved in either brandy or water. Once the sauce thickens completely, pour it over the beets. To cook the beets themselves, lightly toss in olive or peanut oil, and roast in 15 minute increments at 350, until they're done to your liking.
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Dec 22, 2012 21:59
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Appl posted:Pretty sure Dino was traumatized by some canned beets if I recall correctly.. just saying cook a lot of beets, they rule. Why must spinach come in a tinned version? What is even the point of that? And why would you boil that? The only vegetable I've ever had that survives that process is corn. Everything else can suck it.
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Jan 4, 2013 17:11
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GrAviTy84 posted:tinned tomatoes are better than fresh, like, 3/4 of the year depending on where you live. There are of course all of the cured/pickled things, olives, pickled veg, giardinera, etc. The very act of canning requires high heat and pressure. Any vegetable that will just be cooked a lot anyway will handle it well. Just like all ingredients though, there are such things as high and low quality tinned vegetables. Point, for sure. Tomatoes are nicer when tinned where I live, because the city doesn't really have gardens, much less home grown tomatoes (Brooklyn notwithstanding). Olives for sure. Not sure that I'd love pickles when tinned though. I find that my favourite types of pickles are those half sours. You know the type, right? Where it's still like mostly cucumbery, but still a bit sour, and not at all sweet? I'm rambling. Spinach though. Ugh, why? And beets? They're actually tolerable when fresh, but preserve them and they become painful (imo, your mileage may vary).
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Jan 4, 2013 19:10
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Kenning posted:I have never in my life soaked beans, and the fact that everyone is always recommending it continues to seem insane to me. My beans get to the right level of cooked within an hour and a half, and since I'm usually cooking them in a stew or soup I just start the beans, prep the rest of the stew, then add the almost cooked beans after like 45 minutes and then cook them for the remaining 45 in with the rest of the stew ingredients. Why do people soak beans. They get less gassy. You discard the soaking liquid and move forward, and you won't have the amount of gas. There are some folk for whom beans mean really uncomfortable, sharp, stabbing stomach pain, because of the amount of gas it produces.
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Feb 21, 2013 11:24
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Saint Darwin posted:Orange_Lazarus, $50 a week for you and another is going to be tough but probably doable. Personally I can't do under $100 a week for myself and another, but I also get pretty depressed if I can't make decent food and have a real problem with eating the same thing within a few days of each other. I grew up having vastly different food every day from all over the world, so I just can't do it. Let's do this. I just bought a 20 lb bag of rice for around $22. For me, that's extremely high, because I'm used to spending $14 on that same 20-lb bag. However, let's assume that everyone is doing that, because it's hard to hit up Chinatown, and you want to eat healthy. That $22 will last me about a month, because Puppy and I eat a /lot/ of rice. Most normal humans will have that bag last a couple of months. But let's assume a couple where both eat rice like mad. That's basically $5.50 per week. Oatmeal costs me about $1.50/lb. A pound will easily last me a week. We're at $7. I can generally buy bananas for 2lb/$1. For a week, I need about four pounds, because what we'll do is cook the oats, and throw it into a smoothie with banana and a bit of soy milk. My soy beans cost around $0.69/lb. When I soak soy beans for soy milk, I can generally get around 4 litres of soy milk from 1 lb of soy beans. This is more than enough for the two of us to drink in a week. Let's be generous, and say that my soy beans are $1. So we're at $9. So far, I've got breakfast sorted, as well as the base for my lunch and dinner. My expensive beans at the local supermarket cost about $1.25/lb. This includes chickpeas, black beans, pinto beans, roman beans, white beans, split peas, and lentils. Aside from those, I don't buy too terribly many beans. If I'm being generous, I'll go through about 4 lbs of beans in a week. Let's see, that's about $5. $14 so far, right? Onions are 2lb/$1. That'll last me a week. $15 total. Garlic I can get that sleeve of 5 for $1.50. That'll last me around a week. $15.50. We've covered my beans and rice, which accounts for the bulk of my meals, because I'm loving poor, and that's what I can afford. Every day, on my way home, I stop by at the grocery store. I see what's on offer from the Manager's Specials counter. They sell bags of veggies for $1 - $2. This will be around 2 lbs or more of vegetables. If I vary what I buy, I can keep things interesting. Suppose I buy 2 bags of these veggies every day (and this is assuming that we're eating four pounds of vegetables PER DAY, which is a gross exaggeration). That tacks on $14 a week. I don't use the entire amount at once. I use one or two of the veggies, and leave the rest for another day. We're at $29.50, and I'm eating a varied diet. Just because you fail at cooking, and can't imagine interesting ways to cook those things doesn't mean that the rest of us need to spend obscene amounts of money on food. I buy 1 gallon of oil at a time, which costs $10. If I don't deep fry frequently, and cook like a South Indian (which I do), where you use just a little bit of oil for your cooking, my gallon of oil can last easily two months. So add on $1.25. We're at $30.75. I buy all my spices for $1.50 - $3/lb. A pound of spices lasts me /months/. To the point where I don't need to go spice shopping but once every six months. My spice bill every six months comes to about $20. We're talking about $1 - $2 per week on spices. On really good whole spices, which Indian cooking calls for. We're at $33, give or take. Now at this point, I've got another $17 to spend on interesting fruit, pasta, corn tortillas (a pack of 24 costs me $1, and that'll easily last me a week, which means that a couple of nights that week, I can do a taco night to keep things interesting). Oh look at that. I'm at less than $50 a week, in Manhattan, unable to wait for sales (because neither I nor my husband has the time to hit up that many stores), unable to buy in bulk (because we don't have the space, or the manpower to drag those things up four flights of stairs, and after you've been on your feet for eight hours, this is not the time to go shopping for bulk anything), and cooking "international food", as you call it. Hopefully, you're not enjoying the smell of your own rear end in a top hat so much that you can't get your head out of there. Also, gently caress you.
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Mar 13, 2013 01:58
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Rice Milk I have a soy milk maker, which does cost initially, but with how much of the stuff my husband drinks, it's worth having. The soy milk around my neighbourhood costs $4.20 - 4.69 per carton (2 litres) which is why I avoid buying it.
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Mar 13, 2013 14:41
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Kafka Esq. posted:Maybe we can have less moral prescriptions about the virtues of eating tofu, beans and rice for lunch and dinner every day (except for taco night; Actually, when I do get the corn tortillas it'll be to stuff it with chayote (I cook it with a bit of garlic), some plantain (with cumin and red pepper flakes), pinto beans, a slice or two of avocado, and diced onion and tomato when tomato is in season. It's pretty nice with a bit of lime. Or if we're doing pasta that night, I'll generally make a batch of sautéed veg as a side dish and use up some raw veggies and beans for a salad. Yeah we go through a fair bit of rice but it's not a daily thing, else Puppy gets bored. I do, however, cook every night, and tend to make everything from scratch. It cuts way back on the food bill. quote:this is important to remember, it's there for variety [you put the rice into the taco shell]), and more ideas on how to make meat into more of a garnish than a main course. Some people eat meat. Some people cook for folks who can't even wrap their minds around vegetarian Indian, no matter how good your aloo mattar is.
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Mar 14, 2013 09:54
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Saint Darwin posted:Well, here's my supermarket's circular
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Mar 21, 2013 21:16
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o muerte posted:Ooh, that's a great idea! I use olive oil as my butter replacement in so many things I didn't even think of other sources for fat. I guess I should get some ice cube trays so I can divide a can of the stuff into smaller quantities. Thanks! 2 cups is adequate for 5 lbs of boiled potatoes.
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Apr 14, 2013 14:09
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Fame Throwa posted:I'm trying to get my grocery bill down. One thing I noticed is that I spend too much money on bread. My boyfriend and I are picky eaters and health nuts, so I have to get 100% whole grain bread with no HFCS. It's good for my fiber, but I'm always stuck blowing like 4 dollars per loaf. Is there an easy way to make healthy whole grain breads? Picky eater and health nut is an oxymoron. The easiest thing to do is to explore other starches that have the fibre count but don't cost so much for so few servings. Even the most basic wholemeal breads are going to need either white flour in some amount, or will substitute albino wheat (which is technically a whole grain, but is the same nutrition as white flour). There's a fair few who claim 100% whole grain who use the albino wheat. http://wholegrainscouncil.org/whole-grains-101/whole-white-wheat-faq Basically the 100% whole grain bread you're buying is all for poo poo. If you want health, avoid packaged goods, and stick to actual whole grains. Then eat them in whole form. And then stop spending all that money on health halo bread, and just get whatever bread, and sprinkle on some wheat germ on your sandwiches and the like.
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Sep 12, 2013 23:45
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