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My family sure wasnt weathly and really had to budget. Had taco salad, hamburger pie, soups stews and chili. Anything homemade that made larger portions for leftovers was used a lot.
You guys don't know poor... My mom would boil 2 hot dogs ( not beef, the kind with chicken lips and cow udders), my mom and dad would eat the hotdogs and us 3 kids would get "wienie water soup" with crackers. Sometimes I still crave "wienie water soup"
One good thing, we never worried about being overweight!
Location: Los Angeles>Little Rock>Houston>Little Rock
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Our poor days were pancakes, which to this day I can barely stomach, Tuna wiggle on toast, SOS, canned tomato soup and crackers, or homemade bean or split pea soup.
My family sure wasnt weathly and really had to budget. Had taco salad, hamburger pie, soups stews and chili. Anything homemade that made larger portions for leftovers was used a lot.
Amazing, you added stew to your list: I remember when, yes, it was a budget meal. Now, at the cost of stew meat and short ribs, niether is what I would consider a budget dish. My how times do change.
Amazing, you added stew to your list: I remember when, yes, it was a budget meal. Now, at the cost of stew meat and short ribs, niether is what I would consider a budget dish. My how times do change.
I am not the OP but our "stews" actually used leftover meat and veggies. Or I would use one small piece of meat to flavor the stew and shred the meat so there's a tiny bit of meat in some of the bites. But you are right that nowadays, a regular hearty beef stew full of meat is NOT a budget dish anymore.
Love ground beef with mashed potatoes. We called it creamed beef and it was a staple in our home and always my favorite dinner! I could eat it for days in a row, but now that I'm an adult - I can't burn it off as fast so I haven't made it in years.
We were pretty poor. Not starving but we did have to regularly use food boxes. Even though we were broke growing up, I never felt our meals were any less delicious. Our staples included chili (homemade), hamburger helper and spaghetti (both without hamburger), tatertot casserole, hot dogs if they were on sale, breakfast, and cereal.
There was only one meal I ever ate where I felt poor and it was when we had to eat lasanga noodles plain because there wasn't anything else. Yuck!
We used to have potatoes and meat in our home too. We called it hash. It was so delicious. Mom would burn the hamburger and caramelize the potatoes just right.
We also had hamburger helper and spaghetti, but I didn't feel poor eating that, it was such a treat.
The poor meal we had quite a lot was the canned sour kraut and Polish sausage. One time my mom made potato soup because we were in a bad place financially. I remember being hungry sometimes, but that just made the food taste better when I had my fill.
A lot of the low cost foods of my childhood are no longer cheap to make because of the way prices have gone up on ingredients.
We used to eat chuck steaks when they were on sale for 19 cents a pound. Beef stew was cheap. Short ribs were cheap. The last time I saw short ribs for sale they were over $8 a pound. Liver was cheap; not any more.
My mother would make macaroni and cheese with good cheddar, real butter, and good milk. That decent cheddar cheese now costs more than beef.
I think tuna casserole is still cheap to make, except you'd have to leave off the crushed potatoes chip topping. Potato chips are no longer cheap.
Spaghetti is still fairly inexpensive if you are carefull.
Potatoes and eggs is still a moderately priced a d delicious meal, except for the high cost of the cooking oil.
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Eggs and potatoes are supposed to be cooked in butter, nothing else. 
