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Old 01-10-2009, 06:17 PM
 
Location: Some place very cold
5,501 posts, read 22,400,765 times
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This is a great thread. How about cabbage soup? It's cheap and delicious!

Cabbage Soup

4 tablespoons butter
1 cabbage head shredded (purple or green cabbage)
2 onions chopped
2 tablespoons flour
4 cups water (or chicken broth)
2 cups stewed tomatoes
1 teaspoon caraway seeds
2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons lemon juice
½ teaspoon pepper
2 tablespoons sugar

Get your cabbage and onions shredded and chopped. Melt butter in a pot and add the cabbage and onions. Slowly cook for 15 minutes.

Sprinkle flour on top. Add water. Stir and bring to boil.

Add tomatoes, caraway seeds, salt, pepper, lemon juice and sugar.

Simmer for about an hour. If you use the purple cabbage, you’ll need to cook a lot longer. I like to cook most of the liquid off at the end. Adjust seasoning as needed.

Serve hot with sour cream or yogurt on top.
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Old 01-10-2009, 07:02 PM
 
Location: Austin
4,103 posts, read 7,004,529 times
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tacos
fried rice
fideo
migas
pancakes
peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
spaghetti
beans and cornbread
beans and rice
quesadillas
chicken quarters
ramen
veggie pasta
summer rolls
chickpea curry
homemade breads
muffins
soups
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Old 01-10-2009, 07:09 PM
 
Location: Where the sun likes to shine!!
20,549 posts, read 30,300,257 times
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What is fideo and migas?
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Old 01-10-2009, 07:14 PM
 
Location: Central Texas
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Gumbo. Jambalaya. Both made from leftovers (whatever you have lying around in the way of cooked meats), tomatoes (jambalaya), okra (gumbo), an onion, a bell pepper, maybe half a stick of celery (gumbo), a fair amount of cooked rice (jambalaya), or enough cooked rice to thicken the gumbo when serving. Delicious, sustaining, and cheap!
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Old 01-10-2009, 07:16 PM
 
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There was a "frugal recipes" thread, I think started by NicoleJ last summer, where I posted a lot of our favorites. I'll at least list them here:

Spaghetti Carbonara (at least the way we made it - I'm sure the "authentic" recipe costs more!)
Charo bean soup
Various lentil soup recipes - we have several that I posted in the earlier thread
Most other legume soups; you can either flavor them with a leftover hambone if you have one, or buy smoked ham hocks for not very much money at all, and there are dozens and dozens of flavoring and spicing variations.
Breakfast for supper - either a frittata or pancakes
Canned tuna stretched out with lots of noodles, frozen mixed vegetables and a can of cream of mushroom soup. You can make one can of tuna feed a whole family; we did.
Shepherd's pie, made with less meat and more vegetables. Try using cooked barley in it; it has the mouth-feel of ground beef.

The thing we always used to rely on was starches. With enough complex carbohydrates to fill you up, you really don't need a lot of protein; in fact, most adults in the US eat way more protein than they truly need. So we'd incorporate lots of potatoes, rice, pasta, breads, beans and so on in our meal planning, using meat as more of a flavoring agent than as an actual course in itself.

Of course, there is a trade-off in saving money this way. A lot of the ways we can eat more frugally require considerably more of our labor to prepare, as they rely far less on pre-packaged convenience foods. But then, if I read the economic news of late aright, our labor hours are suddenly worth much less than they used to be anyway, so perhaps it is not amiss that we invest more of them in making wholesome and inexpensive food for ourselves and our families.
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Old 01-10-2009, 07:22 PM
 
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Lisa, fideo is a very thin pasta that is used in Mexican cooking. Very good, and very inexpensive; I know there is a recipe for it in the "frugal recipes" thread. ETA: found it. //www.city-data.com/forum/4278831-post25.html

And migas is a wonderful, wonderful dish that is usually breakfast but could be supper just as easily. Take half a dozen or so corn tortillas and cut them into strips about 1" wide and 2" long. Heat oil in a large skillet, and slide the tortilla strips into the oil. Stir them about for a few minutes, until they're starting to crisp up a bit. Crack 3 or 4 eggs into the pan and stir them around with the tortilla strips until they're nicely scrambled up and done. That's the basic migas, but you can add all sorts of extras to it. If you have a little sausage, fry that up before you add the tortilla strips. If you like salsa, put a generous spoonful or two over your migas. Add a cut-up onion or bell pepper. Sprinkle cheese over the top. Add bacon bits. It's kind of like a frittata - the only limit is what's in your larder.
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Old 01-10-2009, 07:32 PM
 
Location: Declezville, CA
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Cheap, easy and filling meal that got me through many a lean spot, and believe me, I've had my lean spots:

Make a 3 qt pot of rice using half a stick of butter. Stir in a can of stewed tomatoes and a can of Ro-tel. Toss in any leftover meat that might be hanging around, or a can of tuna or chicken. Or no meat at all, it's fine without it.
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Old 01-10-2009, 07:39 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ultimate Cheapskate View Post
Not a recipe, but a thought:
If the $10,000 Viking gas range was the must-have appliance of the last decade, the good old fashioned crock-pot (~$30 new) is the must have kitchen appliance of this new economy. Costs pennies in electricity for 8 hours of cooking, and turns the toughest (cheapest!) meat into tender morsels. Plus, you can usually find lots of serviceable crock pots at the local thrift store.
I agree with that completely....and the electric ones are great for keeping heat out of the house if you need to run the AC. Even if you have to pay $75-$100 for one, they'll pay you back by letting you use cheaper cuts of meat and letting you cook dried beans without having to plan ahead.

My favorite inexpensive meal is probably bean soup.

Edit to add another idea:
Get the box of bacon ends and pieces that Wal-Mart sells. It costs a lot less than their other bacon, and if you use a pair of scissors to cut away the big fat chunks you can get big lean chunks of meat with all the bacon taste but without most of the fat.

Last edited by sterlinggirl; 01-10-2009 at 07:51 PM..
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Old 01-10-2009, 08:04 PM
 
Location: Central Texas
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I can't go the "complex carbs" route - as a hypoglycaemic, I'm one of the ones that needs meat on a regular basis. (Two or three times a week.) But there are ways to accommodate that. A roast, cooked for roast beef one night, then turned into stew from the cold roast another, and sandwiches for another meal, is very economical.

A chicken, roasted, makes one meal, then turned into an Italian garden soup for another meal, and jambalaya for another, is also very economical and still gets some meat into the diet for those of us for whom carbs, complex or otherwise, are not such a mainstay.
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Old 01-10-2009, 08:13 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TexasHorseLady View Post
I can't go the "complex carbs" route - as a hypoglycaemic, I'm one of the ones that needs meat on a regular basis. (Two or three times a week.) But there are ways to accommodate that. A roast, cooked for roast beef one night, then turned into stew from the cold roast another, and sandwiches for another meal, is very economical.

A chicken, roasted, makes one meal, then turned into an Italian garden soup for another meal, and jambalaya for another, is also very economical and still gets some meat into the diet for those of us for whom carbs, complex or otherwise, are not such a mainstay.
Very true, and an excellent point. In fact, as the spouse is now diabetic, we'd have to take a somewhat different approach ourselves at this point, were we to return to the days when we had to make $25 stretch to feed both of us for an entire week. He does well with legumes, at least, which provide good protein for not much money.
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