Your very favorite as-cheap-as-possible recipe

[pegkerr]

I am starting to compile the grocery list for the week, and since we are retrenching, I am looking for rock-bottom price recipes. Nutritional main dish recipes that you actually like. Kid-friendly and easy a particular plus.

I remember one we ate pretty often when I was a kid, a fondue recipe we called "Blushing Bunny." I think I got it from Camp Fire Girls. Why the weird name? I think it is meant as a sort of sideways joke, a tip of the hat to the better known fondue "Welsh Rarebit," which a child might hear as "Welsh Rabbit."

Take a can of Campbell's tomato soup. Do not dilute it. Stir in one egg, well beaten and shredded cheddar cheese (I think we'd put in somewhere between a half cup to a cup or so). Heat gently until hot and thickened. Serve by pouring over toast and eat immediately. I think this serves 2-3, depending on whether you are serving kids or adults.

Like I said, I remember loving this one as a kid, but when I mentioned this one to Delia, she wrinkled her nose in disgust when I made the mistake of telling her the ingredients list. I know that adding the egg to the soup sounds disgusting, but when it is stirred in and heated up, you really can't tell it's there at all. It just is there to add protein and thicken it, I guess. I might make it anyway and insist that they try it at least. It is certainly dead cheap.

Mom used to serve spam and rice pretty frequently, but I'm not quite tempted to revisit that old memory. Rob remembers dinners of fried boloney when he was growing up, but I don't think he's nostalgic for that one, either.

How about you? My kids are picky, but give me your best shot anyway.

Edited to add: All three hate onions, broccoli and mushrooms. The girls hate potatoes (yes, potatoes!), brown rice, and bell peppers. Delia hates cooked tomatoes, cooked apples and cooked oranges and is very unpredictable about meat. She has tried and rejected a number of meat substitutes--impossible to predict, but she doesn't seem to like tofu-based products very much. She is hit or miss on most other vegetables, but less likely to eat them if they are cooked.

Fiona would eat nothing but carbs (pasta) if I let her. White, of course. I prefer whole wheat pasta, but they are much more reluctant to eat it.

Beans are also unpredictable. Rob will eat lentils, pinto beans and kidney beans (reluctantly); girls will not. The girls adore baked beans, however. Go figure. Rob will eat green beans (even canned!), girls, there is no predicting.

Rob will eat kale reluctantly, girls will not.

Edited to add again: My personal favorite suggestion, among all these comments, is moony's suggestion that I teach the girls basic photosynthesis: "You're hungry? Go stand in the yard for an hour."

Comments

[machineplay.livejournal.com]

You're welcome. Here's a link to the chocolate muffins I'm making right now. http://machineplay.livejournal.com/1271033.html I can make several batches of these and freeze them, and they warm up in 20 seconds in the microwave. One of the things I always worried about was my daughter feeling deprived and a few of these are a fast way to make a kid feel very un-deprived. *g*

These Butterscotch Squares do use butter, which isn't cheap, I know, but I've never done them with margarine. They might well work okay. The thing about them is that they're just so easy to make and are a wonderful snack for kids:

2 cups oatmeal
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 tsp. baking powder
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup melted butter
1/2 tsp. vanilla

Mix oats, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Add sugar and mix. Add vanilla and melted butter. Mix well. Spread thinly in two 8" pans or 1 large pan. Bake at 300° for 20 minutes. Let stand 5 minutes. Cut in squares. Allow to cool before removing from pan. Makes 18 to 24.


I don't know how old your kids are, mine is 13, and I'm teaching her to make pasta - fresh egg pasta with cheese and veggies is a meal on its own - and bread. The bread is something really simple and filling and since you're short on side dishes with the kids not eating potatoes, it might be a good thing to try.

Soft whole wheat flour is really nice and you can get some decent nutrition into them. A kid who won't eat store-bought whole wheat will almost always plough through fresh whole wheat right out of the oven, covered in margarine and jam. My grandma on my dad's side was a home ec teacher who raised six kids on almost nothing (my dad and his brothers had fistfights over the last potato - that kind of poor) and she was a big believer in letting the kids cram themselves full of fresh bread, especially when they made it themselves.

We have been really broke before and a friend and I used to split huge bulk bags of whole wheat flour and store them in Rubbermaid bins. I used to rely on biscuits, yeast bread, or soda bread to fill out almost every bloody meal. I didn't make bread for over a year after we got out of being that broke. *laugh* Randomly, you might find a pasta crank on Freecycle. It's a metal beast with rollers and cutters and my daughter says "It's like playing Playdough, only with food!"

Finally, I know your kids are super-picky, but it might be worth letting them grow some stuff if you have room. My brother wouldn't eat chard at the table, but he'd eat it out of 'his' garden, and we used to grow our own carrots and beans and peas. Every neighbor had a garden when I was a kid and we'd share between houses, what we had too much of. A kid might not eat peas at the table but eating them right off Mr. Christie's back fence was something else. *g*

Good luck. :)

[machineplay.livejournal.com]

I second the freezing cooked meat idea. I stopped ordering out once I started storing cooked, frozen diced chicken and ground beef in the freezer. There was just no excuse when a bag of chicken, a tin of gravy, a few cups of frozen veggies, and a batch of biscuits was dinner in 20 minutes.

Your 'glop' sounds a lot like my 'instant chicken cacciatore'. *g*

[jenny-islander.livejournal.com]

Depending on how far back you have to retrench . . . it may be time to tell the kids to eat it or go hungry. Allergies are one thing. Food preferences are dispensible. OTOH, if your kids actually gag when they try to eat something, you just have to let it go unless it's that or starve.

That said, here are my favorite El Cheapo crockpot dishes.

1. Highly seasoned tomato sauce + cooked or drained rinsed canned chickpeas + 5 hours on Low = Chickpeas for Carnivores (because my husband, who thinks that meatless meals are an abomination, asked for it again). Meanwhile, cook some pasta (save the cooking water for soup). Pass the Parmesan if you have any; the pre-grated stuff often goes on sale super cheap and it's a good way to add flavor to a dish.

2. Dried pinto beans + plenty of cumin and chili powder + just enough water to keep the beans from scorching + 5-7 hours on Low = Bowl O'Pintos. If you can afford to run the oven, make cornbread to serve with these. (Be careful about the water. If you add too much, the beans won't be spicy.)

3. 1 ham hock (cheap, cheap, cheap!) + dried black-eyed peas + black pepper + water to cover + 5-7 hours on Low = Soul Food. Take the ham hock out, cool, chop the meat, and put it back into the cooker before serving. This would also taste good with cornbread.

For breakfast, instead of bacon or sausage (both expensive and fatty), consider buying beef heart. Get one that has already been cut into two or three hunks. Wash well, remove any veiny/valvy bits, fat, or clots, and cut into sticks about an inch thick. Season lightly with pepper, then brown in a pan with a bit of oil until cooked through or fry in butter next to the eggs. This is tender, delicious, lean meat. Don't tell your carnivorous family members what it is and they will gobble it up!